Back to 1963, then, and Ron Greenwood’s Hammers had finished the 1962/63 First Division season in a respectable 12th place, helped by the goalscoring of forwards Johnny Byrne, Geoff Hurst and Tony Scott and wingers Malcolm Musgrove, Peter Brabrook and Alan Sealey, the leadership of captain Bobby Moore and the emergence of a teenager named Martin Peters.
Hurst, Sealey, Brabrook and Ronnie Boyce all found the net in a final-day 6-1 win over Manchester City at the Boleyn Ground that sent Greenwood and his squad across the Atlantic Ocean in high spirits.
Created in 1960 by former Philadelphia Phillies baseball club owner Bill Cox, the International Soccer League (ISL) was intended to enthuse American fans and first-generation immigrant communities in US cities including New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Los Angeles by importing teams from overseas to play in a summer tournament. The first ISL was won by Bangu of Brazil, the 1961 event was won by Dukla Prague of Czechoslovakia, and the 1962 title by America (RJ) of Brazil.
The fourth edition in 1963 featured 14 teams from Europe, Central and South America split into two groups of seven - West Ham, Kilmarnock, AC Mantova (Italy), Sport Recife (Brazil), Preussen Munster (West Germany), Club Deportivo Oro (Mexico) and Valenciennes (France) in Section I, which was played in May and June, then Górnik Zabrze (Poland), Dinamo Zagreb (Yugoslavia), Wiener AC (Austria), Újpesti Dózsa (Hungary), Belenenses (Portugal), Real Valladolid (Spain) and Helsingborgs (Sweden) in Section II, which was played in July.