West Ham 3 Manchester U 5

West Ham Uni­ted 3 Man­chester Uni­ted 5, Boleyn Gro­und, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Mar­ch 16, 2002. Da­vid Beck­ham had a field day as Man­chester Uni­ted de­feated West Ham Uni­ted 5-3 at Up­ton Park. The Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al re­gistered a brace for Uni­ted, whi­le Nicky Butt, Paul Scho­les, and Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer all hit a goal each to con­trib­ute to the scoring.

Man­chester Uni­ted ma­naged to ex­tract re­venge from a sur­prise 1-0 de­feat to West Ham Uni­ted at Old Traf­ford earli­er in the 2001-02 sea­son as the gu­ests grabbed all three points at Boleyn Gro­und. Dur­ing a spec­tac­u­lar ga­me, Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s play­ers came from be­hind twice to ev­entually be­at West Ham by 5-3. The Ham­mers went in­to an early lead when Slov­akia in­ter­na­tion­al Vladi­mir Labant cros­sed for for­mer Man­chester City mid­fielder Ste­ve Lo­mas who head­ed the ball pa­st French net­mind­er Fa­bi­en Bar­thez and in­to the top left cor­ner of the goal af­ter sev­en min­utes of play. In the six­teenth min­ute of the tussle, Eng­land play­maker Da­vid Beck­ham equal­ised for the Old traf­ford si­de wi­th an el­eg­ant chip, on­ly for West Ham fron­trun­ner Fre­der­ic Kan­oute to put Glen Roeder´s men back in­to the lead wi­th a fierce shot just three min­utes la­ter in the con­test. But af­ter 21 min­utes, Man­chester Uni­ted drew level once ag­ain as a free-kick from Beck­ham fou­nd Nicky Butt who­se head­er flew pa­st ho­me cus­todi­an Da­vid Ja­mes and in­to the back of the net. And ten min­utes in­to the sec­ond pe­riod of the clash, Paul Scho­les notched up Man­chester Uniteds´s third goal of the af­ter­noon when the mid­field man net­ted from a few yards out af­ter re­ceiv­ing a pull back from Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer. The pro­vider turned goal scor­er eight min­utes la­ter as the al­ways op­por­tun­ist­ic for­ward in­creased the ad­vant­age for Man­chester Uni­ted wi­th a clo­se ran­ge fin­ish af­ter a scramble in the box. And even tho­ugh Nigel Win­ter­burn re­place­ment Jer­main De­foe re­duced the de­fi­cit for the East Lon­doners in the 78th min­ute of the high scor­ing mat­ch, the ebul­li­ent and ir­re­press­ible Da­vid Beck­ham re-es­tab­lished the two goal ad­vant­age shortly af­ter­wards when he con­ver­ted from the pen­alty spot wi­th on­ly a couple of min­utes re­maining on the mat­ch official´s clock.

Born and grow­ing up in Leyton­stone in East Lon­don, Da­vid Beck­ham joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted as a train­ee on the 8th of Ju­ly 1991, and sig­ned his fir­st pro­fes­sion­al con­tract wi­th The Reds on the 23rd of Jan­uary 1993. The richly gif­ted mid­field play­er emer­ged as an in­teg­ral part of the Man­chester Uni­ted te­am of the 1990´s, and was a vi­tal mem­ber of the now le­gendary si­de which col­lec­ted The Tre­ble of the Pre­mier Lea­gue, the FA Cup, and the Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue dur­ing the mem­or­able 1998-99 sea­son. Fol­low­ing a long and re­ward­ing ca­reer wi­th Man­chester Uni­ted, Pre­ston North End, Re­al Mad­rid, Los Angeles Galaxy, AC Mil­an, and Par­is Saint-Ger­main, he ex­pressed that he missed play­ing act­ive soc­cer, but he nev­er­the­less be­lieved that he re­tired at the right time, and al­though he had coach­ing role wi­th the Eng­land te­am dur­ing the 2010 So­uth Africa Wor­ld Cup, foot­ball man­agement was not some­thing he was pas­sion­ate about. West Ham Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid Ja­mes, Chris­ti­an Dailly, Vladi­mir Labant, To­mas Rep­ka, Se­basti­an Schem­mel, Nigel Win­ter­burn, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ste­ve Lo­mas, Joe Cole, Paolo Di Canio, Fre­der­ic Kan­oute. Sub­stitutes: Jer­main De­foe, John Mon­cur, Ian Pe­arce, Rich­ard Gar­cia, Shaka His­lop. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Fa­bi­en Bar­thez, Ga­ry Ne­ville, Ronny John­sen, Nicky Butt, Mi­kael Sil­vestre, Roy Ke­ane, Paul Scho­les, Lau­rent Blanc, Ruud van Nistel­rooy, Da­vid Beck­ham, Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer. Sub­stitutes: Diego For­lan, Quin­ton For­tune, De­nis Ir­win Phil Ne­ville, Roy Carroll.

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