Bristol Rovers 1 West Ham 2

The game didn't start well for West Ham. The pre-match talk of Dean Ashton being given his first start of the season was soon dispelled as Ashton pulled out of the squad and then in the opening minutes of the match Kieron Dyer was stretchered off with a suspected broken leg.

However Craig Bellamy managed to cheer up the visiting West Ham fans by first opening his account for the club and then banging in a second. His first came in the 31st minute with a 20 yard shot into the bottom-left of the goal after being set up by Mullins. The second came when he won a chase onto a long ball pumped up from the back by Neill and shot first time with his left foot from 12 yards into the bottom right of the net.

The second half was fairly comfortable for West Ham except for Ferdinand being turned inside out by Walker in the 72nd minute on the edge of the penalty area. Walker consequently found himself one on one with Wright and slotted the ball past the keeper from about ten yards.

This gave Rovers some hope and towards the end of the game they applied a little pressure on the West Ham goal without ever looking like claiming the equaliser.