West Ham 2-2 Leeds United (P): What is this feeling?

With fifteen minutes left of extra time I looked around the away end and consigned myself to doom. Some Leeds fans were sitting down with their heads in their hands. Others were haunched over. Plenty were propping themselves up against the safe standing barriers in exhaustion. All shared the same thousand yard stare, united in the disbelief that of all the ways Leeds could lose in the cup in London, we’d somehow managed to pick the most physically and emotionally bruising.

I was too far away from the pitch to tell, but I can only assume the players looked the same too. This was an Easter unravelling to rival Wigan (H), 2019. At the end of normal time, a lad on the row in front of me started sobbing uncontrollably, burying his face in his jumper, prompting some uncomfortable glances and raised eyebrows between everyone around him. It was all a bit much.

From 2-0 up and cruising to 2-2 in the space of four minutes of stoppage time. Two key players injured. A penalty shootout. In London. In the cup.

Obviously, we… won?

Hang on a minute, let me check that again…

WE WON!

Fuck me, Leeds. Honestly. How very fucking hell. Even for a club that has spent over a century finding ever exasperating ways of defying expectations both good and bad, that was utterly mindbending. And now a first FA Cup quarter-final for almost a quarter of a century has become a first semi-final in four decades. Make it make sense.

I’m afraid I can’t. Do not expect any sensible analysis here. The longest day requires the shortest match report, if only for the sake of my own sanity.

From my vantage point somewhere in a different postcode to the pitch I could tell you only a few things: the build up to Ao Tanaka’s opener was a thing of beauty; from the triple substitution that preceded Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s penalty it felt like Leeds could go on to score three or four; that sensation soon felt extremely misguided; West Ham striker Taty Castellanos is the Premier League’s newest odious prick; I was convinced Leeds had absolutely no chance in the penalty shootout; I need to sit in a dark room on my own for a month.

Once trains had been quickly rearranged in a panic, the scramble back to King’s Cross became an exercise in laughing at West Ham fans — at least the ones who hadn’t cried off at 2-0 down — promising to relegate us on the final day of the season. All the best with that, lads. If not, you can always stand outside watching it on your phones again.

Having left the stadium before extra time, a group of West Ham United fans watched the FA Cup penalty shootout against Leeds United outside the stadium on FaceTime from a fellow supporter.

🎥 @Dan_Sheldon_ pic.twitter.com/imj76YjaLI

— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) April 5, 2026

Just before midnight, the train finally pulled into Leeds station. One by one, as fans stepped onto the platform, they all burst into the same song that carried on through the concourse and past bewildered stragglers ready for their own journeys home to sleep off the excess of a Bank Holiday.

‘WE’RE THE FAMOUS LEEDS UNITED AND WE’RE OFF TO WEMBERLEY!’ ⬢