West Ham led favourites Liverpool 2-1 after a blistering first half of the 125th FA Cup final at the Millennium Stadium this afternoon.
After an uneventful opening period when neither team seriously tested the goalkeepers West Ham split the Liverpool defence and took the lead in the 21st minute.
Yossi Benayoun, the first Israeli to play in the final, found Dean Ashton who wrong-footed the Liverpool defence with a cute pass that found Lionel Scaloni wide on the right.
The Italian defender's low hard drive into the centre of the goal was deflected into his own net by Jamie Carragher after a mix-up with goalkeeper Jose Reina.
Eight minutes later West Ham doubled their lead when Reina spilled a shot from Matthew Etherington straight to Dean Ashton who swept it home, just inside the post from close range.
But Liverpool came storming back and although Peter Crouch had a goal disallowed for offside after half-an-hour, they scored one that counted two minutes later.
Djibril Cisse timed his run perfectly to meet a long Steven Gerrard ball first time and volley a low shot past goalkeeper Shaka Hislop to make it 2-1 and throw the game wide open again.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)