Golden: West Ham vs Leeds, 1st May 1999
West Ham fans, whose opinion of Harte was low enough after the first half, did not enjoy his somersault, or that he was spinning in front of a stand full of ecstatic Leeds fans, a cheerful pile of white and yellow replica shirts in the early summer sunshine.
The first half action at Upton Park was all happening off camera.
First, nobody could be sure who from Leeds' team clattered Eyal Berkovic straight from kick-off, although while he was lying down injured, everybody saw Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink taking the ball off Ian Wright and shooting low past Shaka Hislop to put Leeds ahead after 23 seconds. When Berkovic returned from treatment he had a quiet word with John Moncur, whose late tackle through Lee Bowyer earned him a booking and cleared up the identity of the mystery assailant.
Ian Wright got an early yellow card too, for elbowing Alfie Haaland, then another one after a fifty-fifty challenge with Ian Harte. The camera caught them coming together after the ball had gone; the next shot showed Harte lying on the floor in a daze, holding his head, then Wright being ordered off, and losing his head.
The camera missed what happened between Harte and Wright, and so did Hammers boss Harry Redknapp, although he had an opinion anyway. "I didn't see the incident but I'm disappointed," he said. Leeds manager David O'Leary took a different tack. "I know exactly what he did," he said, "but I can't tell you."
As for Wright's meltdown, TV showed Trevor Sinclair's attempts to restrain him, as he kept lunging at the referee Rob Harris; but there was only a glimpse of Nigel Martyn, Wright's old teammate from Crystal Palace, running fifty yards into the corner of the screen to get his old mate out of trouble. Lost out of shot was a West Ham supporter leaping from the Chicken Run stand and trying to kick the linesman, and debris being thrown at Harte while he lay on the ground.
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