Thursday, April 1st 1909.
SOUTHERN LEAGUE:
WEST HAM UNITED v EXETER CITY.

The Grecians went to Upton Park with a reputation calculated to strike fear into the hearts of the supporters of West Ham, the recent successful tour putting them up to third in the League table. However, the "Hammers" exploded the ambitions of the City, and at the same time considerably improved their own position, by winning in good style by four goals to one. Such a wide margin, however, hardly represented the respective merits of the teams. The Exonians, in fact, played football equally as clever as their opponents, but luck was all against them, and on the other hand everything came off for West Ham. Kitchen had a big hand in the victory of his side. When the City were pressing strongly in the first half he made some remarkable saves, two in particular from Watson being in the best manner of Robinson. From the kick off West Ham attacked, and Robinson saved at the expense of a corner, which, nicely placed by Blackburn into the mouth of the goal, was scrambled away. For fully ten minutes the Londoners maintained the upper hand, Blackburn being prominent on the left wing, repeatedly outwitting the endeavours of Ambler and Craig, and sending in a stream of telling centres. Millear, however, seldom got himself into the right position to take advantage of these opportunities, otherwise the City's goal would have fallen earlier. On settling down Exeter showed their superiority in the front rank, and Kitchen brought off two saves from McGuigan, on the second occasion fisting the ball behind off one of the uprights.

TWO QUICK GOALS
At the end of 25 minutes a clever movement on the Hammers' right wing resulted in Shea lifting the ball over to Blackburn, who headed into the net with Robinson badly out of position. Three minutes later Millear snapped up a centre from Ashton and put his side two up. Then at the other end Bell struck the crossbar with a full blooded drive, which even Kitchen could not have stopped, but McGuigan made amends shortly afterwards, when he took advantage of a mistake by Taylor and scored with a fast shot. Just before half time West Ham broke through again, and Blackburn put them further ahead, the ball cannoning into the net off one of the Exeter backs.

Half-time:
West Ham 3 goals, Exeter City 1.

Half an hour went by before the home team again succeeded in getting the ball past Robinson, who, in stopping a shot from Costello, put the ball directly in the path of Millear, who scored an easy goal. The City made strenuous efforts during the remainder of the match to reduce the margin, but to no avail, and the match ended:
West Ham United 4-1 Exeter City

Teams :
WEST HAM: Kitchen; Shreeve, Taylor; Allison, Piercy, Randall; Ashton, Shea, Millear, Costello, and Blackburn. EXETER CITY: Robinson; Craig, Crelley; Ambler, Tierney, Johnson; Parnell, Watson, McGuigan, Bell, and Copestake.

Referee: Mr J.Sykes, Stockport.