Saturday 29th February 2020
If you were asked just how many games West Ham have played on February 29th since their inception in 1900, you would soon realise that it couldn’t be that many. Today would be the thirtieth such potential fixture since that time, but then prior to the advent of the Premier League in 1992, games were generally only played on Saturdays, with cup replays and the odd postponed fixtures in midweek, so a scheduled game on that day is always going to be a rare event. Thames Ironworks did manage one such fixture on Saturday February 29th 1896, when the Irons were beaten 4-2 away at Reading.
FA Cup Quarter Final Saturday February 29th 1964
West Ham 3 Burnley 2
This is the fixture that remains to date West Ham’s only victory on Leap Year Day, and it was one to remember for the club. 36, 651 fans crammed into Upton Park for their second successive FA Cup Quarter Final, the previous season’s effort heralding elimination at the sixth round stage 1-0 at Anfield by Liverpool. A home tie raised more hope this time round, and Ron Greenwood fielded the same eleven players who would feature in every tie throughout the club’s successful FA Cup run that year: Standen, Bond, Burkett, Bovington, Brown, Moore, Brabrook, Boyce, Byrne, Hurst and Sissons.
Burnley were in their heyday, having won the league in 1960, finishing fourth, second and third in the three years following, so would be offering sterner opposition than Charlton, Leyton Orient and Swindon Town had posed in the previous three rounds. Burnley’s John Connelly gave his side the lead in the thirteenth minute with a brilliant run, evading three tackles as he sped through on goal, firing into the corner past Jim Standen. West Ham struggled throughout the first half, and were flattered by the score at half-time. The second half was a different matter however, and John Sissons, a pre-match guest at our last home game v Brighton, sent over a long dipping cross in the 57th minute that beat Blacklaw, leaving just Elder defending on the line who could only help it into the net. The equaliser fired the Hammers into an all out assault, and just three minutes later Johnny Byrne finished off a superb four man move that he had begun, involving Moore, Hurst and Brabrook, finishing with a powerful volley from the edge of the area to give Hammers the lead for the first time in the tie. Byrne scored his second and West Ham’s third eight minutes later, rounding the keeper with a controversial finish after an alleged earlier foul on Miller. Burnley pulled one back ten minutes from time, but it was only a consolation as Hammers stormed into their first FA Cup semi-final for 31 years.
The other four fixtures West Ham have played on Leap Year Day were not as successful, the club failing to score in any of them. Only one of those four games was at home, in 1992, against Everton, for whom Tony Cottee played that day. As the team take the field today to face Southampton, they can take some hope from the fact that this is their first ever Leap Year Day Premier League fixture, and all records are made and set to be broken.
Previous Leap Year Day League Clashes
Saturday February 29th 1908 Brentford 4 West Ham United 0
Saturday February 29th 1936 Burnley 1 West Ham United 0
Tuesday February 29th 1972 Sheffield United 3 West Ham United 0
Saturday February 29th 1992 West Ham United 0 Everton 2
Saturday February 29th 2020 West Ham United v Southampton
So no goals on this day, no points, no success. This season West Ham play Southampton at home on Saturday February 29th, but they have only played three other games on this leap year day in the last seventy years, all of them as a top flight club, but none as a Premier League team.
West Ham are eighteenth in the Premier League, in the relegation zone, and needing urgently to win especially as they only have recorded one success at home in 2020 which was the 4-0 New Year Day’s victory over Bournemouth. Curiously, just like their last home game on February 29th in 1992, there are protests against the Board outside the ground before kick off, but although a few thousand congregate, it is a protest that for the moment seems consigned to outside. These affairs seem to last as long as it takes the side to score a decent comfortable victory. The 1991-92 side were eventually relegated from the last ever First Division. Maybe today’s Premier League fixture will be one with a different ending.
Jarrod Bowen, West Ham’s £18m striker, makes his first start, and after just twelve minutes, Bowen starts to make the money look well spent with a powerful shot which James Ward-Prowse does well to block for a corner. Two minutes later Pablo Fornals pounces on a poor clearance and slides Bowen through for a deliciously expert finish to put the Hammers ahead on his debut.
Southampton who haven’t really been in the game at all up to this point, snatch an equaliser on the half hour from Michael Obafemi, who expertly chips Ward-Prowse’s cross over Fabianski for an intelligent finish.
West Ham take the lead again with an odd goal, perfect for a game played on February 29th. Sébastien Haller plays a neat pass to Antonio who hits in a looping cross for which Haller and McCarthy challenge. You’ve seen these a hunded times. It always ends with the goalkeeper punching the ball cleanly away. Except this time McCarthy decides he’s going to catch it, and his flailing hands are no match for Haller’s jump, and he heads the ball clear of the keeper and lithely connects with it at the far post – his own assist – to restore West Ham’s lead.
The second half is a little less frenetic, and West Ham add to their lead ten minutes after the restart when a neat back header from Haller allows Fornals the chance to play Antonio through, and he finishes with a powerful right foot shot past McCarthy. 3-1. On the hour Antonio has the chance to score a second after a cheeky rabona from Haller, but this time McCarthy manages to get something on it to divert it inches wide. Hammers ended the week with their first league goals and league points ever recorded on a February 29th. The next one that falls on a Saturday is in 2048. Put it in your diary now.
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