It was one of the most remarkable feats in English football history, but the parents of the man who achieved it didn’t see it.
With their son James still on Bournemouth’s bench in the closing minutes of a match against Wrexham in February 2004, Mary and Richard Hayter decided to leave Dean Court in order to catch an earlier ferry back home to the Isle of Wight.
They then had to listen to their son score three goals on the car radio, breaking a 61-year-old English league football record set by Blackpool’s Ephraim Dodds (Liverpool’s Robbie Fowler still has the top-flight record, set in four minutes 33 seconds against Arsenal in 1994) and completing a stunning week for Hayter, who had become the father to a son just days before.
