24 February 2004 - I Can Do One Of Those In 140 Seconds (It's Not The Hat-Trick)

On 24 February 2004, Bournemouth substitute forward James Hayter set a Football League record when he scored a hat-trick in just 2 minutes and 20 seconds. And it wasn't even his biggest event of the week.

Hayter had been with the Cherries since 1996 and had already tied a club record when he scored four against Bury in October 2000. But that was a relativiely minor accomplishment when compared to his performance against Wrexham in February 2004.

Bournemouth were already up 3-0 when Hayter came on in the 84th minute, but scored twice in the 86th minute then once more in the 88th minute. With all three goals coming in the span on 140 seconds, it was the fastest hat-trick in English league history, beating the previous record of 130 seconds set by Gillingham's Jimmy Scarth in 1952. Unfortunately for Hayter, his parents did not see his record accomplishment, having left early when they thought he wasn't going to play.

Despite the record hat-trick, the most memorable event of Hayter's week actually occurred three days earlier with the birth of his son.