The season began early for West Ham last summer.

There were no long breaks for the squad or for the new manager. The Hammers had just pipped Everton on fair play points and found themselves in Europe for the first time in nine years. The east end outfit were one of 104 clubs in the first qualifying round, which began on 2 July last year and had to win through four rounds to reach the group stage.

Joint-chairmen David Sullivan and David Gold said at the time: “Starting in early July will bring its challenges.”

And it did. With a new manager, Slaven Bilic, at the helm the club were made to work quickly to assess the squad and the youngsters. Some of the team trained here while some went to Ireland so when the matches descended upon West Ham, the squad was a real mixture of first team players, some emerging talent and fringe players – all looking to catch the eye.

The competition didn’t last long for the Hammers, as they were knocked out by the Romanian side Astra Giurgiu in the third qualifying round after playing an understrength team. Bilic gambled last year and it didn’t pay off, but many saw the European adventure as being a season too early and whilst it would have been great to have continental nights during the final farewell to the old ground, it never seemed as though the club’s heart was in it.

This season, had everything fallen into place for West Ham, the club would have qualified for Champions League football, but with only the Stoke game to win to qualify for the Europa League instead, they fluffed their lines and were granted access on the back of Manchester United’s FA Cup victory.

So, this time, the fans will be looking for more commitment, more passion, more determination and ambition now that European football comes to the Olympic Stadium. The club will enter the tournament on July 28th at the third qualifying round and, according to the co-chairman, David Gold, things will be different this time around. “We should take this competition seriously and we are good enough to win it.”

“It will also be another great opportunity for our young players to get European experience and a number of them showed their quality when we played in the early rounds last summer.”

The Hammers could progress to the group stages and beyond, should the team perform a notch above their abilities last season and if the club can recruit the right quality.

With the winners of the Europa League then being placed in the Champions League, West Ham may yet have a team and a stadium that lives up to the standards set by the biggest competition in club football. It won’t be easy though, as a number of quality teams enter the competition after failing in the competition’s bigger brother.

Bilic certainly seems to think that the team should be in Europe next term: “We really deserve to be in Europe the way we played this season,” he said. “All season you are there, you are around. Are we desperate for Europe? To be desperate you have to be there every year and then when you are not there you are desperate. But we really wanted it.”

West Ham will take the competition more seriously and not just because of the revenue it will generate.

It’s about being a part of the European game, testing yourself, it’s about ambition and letting everyone take note of a developing and emerging British team – it’s kudos.

Many fans will recall happy memories of the nights under the floodlights at the Boleyn. Now they have the same chance, but in the state of the art stadium that is ready for such spectacles.

The stadium is there, the team is being carefully crafted and with the backing of the board, this makes it a good time to be a Hammers fan.

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