The final game of the Premier League season

 The final game of the Premier League season.

This Sunday afternoon marks the conclusion of this year's Premier League football season. It also sees the final, exciting end to a season that, for once, has literally gone to the wire, two teams battling it out for the right to lift the Premier League trophy and there's nothing between either Manchester City or Arsenal. What might have seemed a formality over a month ago has now become a thrilling race to the line. The season could be defined by one singular incident, a fatal lapse in concentration, that last minute distraction where either City or Arsenal take their eye off the ball.

For the last three seasons of course Manchester City have monopolised the Premier League in a way that their Scottish counterparts Celtic have walked away with the Scottish Premier League on numerous occasions. Sadly any comparison with Celtic may be totally irrelevant since City play in one of the most competitive Leagues in Europe and sadly only Rangers can provide Celtic with anything like the credible opposition that renders the argument pointless.

But on Sunday the curtain goes down on another Premier League season of wildly fluctuating fortunes at times. Then there is a sudden realisation that the outcome was so predictable that you could have thrown a blanket over both the Premier League winners and those who have been relegated and still come up with the same permutations.

This is not to imply that any Premier League season could ever be described as somehow inevitable but when Manchester City walk out on Sunday to face West Ham we could be in deja vu territory. There are no certainties in football and we have been here before. Remember City's last game of the season under Manuel Pelligrini when City had to beat Queens Park Rangers at the Etihad when everybody thought the home side had blown it. City's charismatic striker Sergio Aguero was in the right place and time to score the decisive goal that secured City their first trophy for decades. The Premier League was theirs.

Of course the familiar finger nails will be bitten anxiously and nervously, radios may not be quite in evidence to the same degree as they used to be since now we find our football results on different devices these days. But vast crowds will gather at the Etihad because they always do and always have done so. Some of their more devoted, lifelong supporters will recall that now distant and far off day when City beat Gillingham in a third tier play off at Wembley just to prove the club still existed. Football basements can get pretty dark and dank when the game just forgets who you once were.

The sad reality was that Manchester City were once a basket case, a fallen giant slumbering in the lower Leagues of football's daunting pyramid. And yet fast forward a couple of decades or so and now City find themselves in the remarkably wealthy environment of Arab billionaires who just love to throw their pots of cash about, both freely and brazenly. It hardly seems possible now but City are living the dream, a side so well equipped for the future that world domination may not be that far away.

Gone are the days when City were led by the dynamic duo of Malcolm Allison and Joe Mercer. One was a fedora hatted, cigar smoking extrovert while the other was a lovable, avuncular figure who smiled for the cameras and then just retreated into the background. Malcolm Allison always gave you the impression that he'd be much more comfortable in a nightclub or late night bar surrounded by alcohol and excess.  Mercer was the complete opposite, a private, quietly spoken figure who just wanted to escape from all the noise, commotion and rumpus with a pint of bitter in the corner of a pub.

Allison was a jolly, gregarious opportunist who took enormous pleasure in flaunting the latest fashions and disregarding convention. Mercer just rushed home from City's old Maine Road like one of those men who can't wait to get home to see their family and settle down with a bottle of stout and a plate of egg and chips. Sadly in later years City would experience some of the darkest seasons they'd ever experienced. During the late 1990s, their fall from grace was so shocking that even their most hardened fans simply gave up on them. Crowds of 30,000 though would still follow them loyally down in the lower divisions and all was not quite lost.

This Sunday though City sit on the verge of history and greatness, a unique achievement so stupendous that even now we could be witnessing one of the most sensational of all spectacles. No team has ever won the Premier League or the old First Division over four consecutive seasons. City's fourth successive Premier League title may be a couple of days away but Arsenal still keep hounding and pestering them with exemplary persistence.

For much of the season  Arsenal looked as if they were racing away with the Premier League and simply in a class of their own. Their football has been immaculate, beautifully executed, precise, hugely intelligent, symmetrical and poetic at times. Their passing has been reminiscent of the the Brazilians at the height of their 1970s powers. Some purists cite the example of France, Germany and Spain in their pomp but then we are talking about different generations. Arsenal though have been accused of over elaboration at times during the season but then that has to be forgivable since football has always been a collective team effort rather than a game played in mid air.

For Arsenal though it does look as if they might miss out agonisingly on the Premier League title again and just fall short. Miracles do happen and if their London neighbours West Ham have anything to do with it, Arsenal may well acclaim West Ham as the ultimate in benevolent humanitarians. Football is often decided by the thickness of a post or crossbar. Fate though could still deal Arsenal a generous hand and West Ham have now been drawn into another enthralling battle royale.

In 1992 West Ham met Manchester United at their old Upton Park ground and probably wished they hadn't in retrospect. The sight of Sir Alex Ferguson furiously chewing on his fifteenth packet of chewing gum will live long in the memory. At times Ferguson looked like a volcano ready to erupt with molten lava. United were about to win their first domestic Premier League trophy since those halcyon days of the First Division championship when a bar of a chocolate would set you back a princely sum of shillings. So the fans settled down the managers sat on the edge of their respective dug outs. United could only manage a draw when a win had to be the only requirement of the day. Blackburn Rovers lifted the Premier League trophy and Kenny Dalglish could barely control his joy.

And so we come to the present day and Arsenal are back in the land of 1989. With one game left and all to play for, Arsenal will be re-creating that famous night at Anfield. George Graham's Arsenal only needed two clear goals to clinch their first League Championship in the old First Division for over 25 years. Some of the Highbury patrons must have thought the whole moment of that Shangri La parade had been snatched from the grasp from the team who had hitherto been so outstandingly dominant with almost 20 titles to their credit. But Liverpool were to be denied quite dramatically with minutes to go.

Alan Smith had opened the scoring for Arsenal with a typical poacher's goal, heading home when the Kop thought they must have been imagining things. Then as if destiny had suddenly called, David Seaman, Arsenal and England's superb goalkeeper, threw the ball out to the flanks where Nigel Winterburn and Lee Dixon continued the pincer movement. The ball was eventually floated into Liverpool's penalty box and ultimately threaded into the path of Michael Thomas, who, trapping the ball adroitly and smartly, latched onto the through ball and then dabbed the ball with his foot, chipping it over Bruce Grobelaar, the helpless Liverpool goalkeeper. Arsenal had won the League or the old League Championship again but how late had they left it.

These are the crucial facts and figures. If Arsenal beat Everton which they did on the last day of another season in recent times and Manchester City are beaten or draw with West Ham, Arsenal will be Premier League champions and the whole of North London will be festooned with white and red while an open top bus parade meanders through the back streets of the old Highbury site and City will quietly leave the building with their tails between their legs.

It is too close to call and only a betting man could tell you the result with any kind of accuracy. The pundits and former professionals will insist that City will rack up a sack of goals against West Ham and therefore win the Premier League title with something to spare. But emotional Arsenal fans will be hoping that their East London neighbours have got something special tucked up their sleeve. This could well prove to be a Super Sunday that lives up to its name. But don't tell Rupert Murdoch because he'll probably delay it to Magical Monday live on Sky Sports. There's no way of telling.   

Independence Day in Israel. Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut.

 Independence Day in Israel. Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut.

Today in 1948, Israel celebrated their Independence, the symbolic date in the yearly calendar when Jews and Israelis from around the world could finally breathe again, freed finally from the shackles of history and Biblical pain, discomfort. captivity and suffering. On this day 76 years ago to the day, Israel declared its autonomy, its fervent belief that one nation could make its way purposefully in the world without being hounded and restrained from neighbouring countries who just wanted Israel to be denied any modicum of existence, freedom, livelihood, normality and happiness.

Today is Yom Ha'atazmaut aka Independence Day marks a day of national celebrations, a rejoicing in the precious and beautiful gifts of life, extolling the virtues of community, religious tolerance, positive inclusivity and, above all, enduring love for our fellow man, woman and child. For these were the qualities Israel have always held dear, the natural quest and striving for peace, reconciliation and just being at one with each other. We know we have the capacity to reach out and extend the hand of friendship and understanding, to look out for our families, to cherish them with all our heart and just get on with each other.

From the empty wastelands of 1948, there emerged one of the most astonishing countries most of us had ever seen. In the beginning there was nothing, just small clusters of primitive buildings and untapped potential, golden nuggets of promise and an architectural magnificence that would take the breath away. Where before there was nothing now there would be something tangible, a stunning example of the possible which had grown from the depths of the impossible.

In Israel this is well and truly Independence Day where the children of the world run around Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Petah Tikva and Eilat as if released from the devastating burdens of war, death, destruction and agonising alienation. We live in a world that cares passionately about Israel but has no idea how to solve this calamitous, ongoing crisis. We cry and weep over death and countless examples of broken families and hearts, the gruesome and bloodthirsty sight of fallen soldiers and despair of Hamas, a vile terrorist network who continue to inflict the most barbaric brutality on the loveliest country of Israel. 

Decades of hatred, vilification, persecution, purgatory and grief have settled on the Middle East for seemingly ages but Israel continues to be seen as the evil villains of the piece. But for how much longer? This should be a day for dancing in the streets, ecstatic parties and street festivals, gathering together to acknowledge a day that should be treasured. Instead, Israel finds itself horribly and psychologically scarred, traumatised and tortured with doubt and fear, longing to just going about their everyday lives without being subjected to the unbearable sound of thumping bombs and explosions, deadly rockets falling unforgivably on the sweet land of honey, Eretz Israel.

We love Israel and always have done so. We simply want the children of the world to be granted the opportunity to just cast aside their inhibitions, playing simply with their inflatable toys and games, running into seas with gleeful relish, playing happily on thick sandy beaches, enjoying those moments of togetherness and harmony and planning for their future positively. You can still see Tel Aviv beach from many years ago overflowing with people from all over the world, sunbathing on comforting towels and tanning their faces for hour upon hour. 

Then there were what now seem those traditional games of beach tennis. Here we had swarthy bodies flinging themselves joyfully at a small black ball and the smallest wooden bat. Throughout another sun kissed summer day, kids and adults would bat the ball to each other just for the sheer fun of it all.  The distinctive crack of ball and bat would be so engaging that you could quite easily have spent all day just listening to this magical sound. It would be the permanent soundtrack of Israel. 

But then you and your family would step onto a sand that was so hot that it just felt too good to be true. And directly outside the back of the hotel there were those monkey bars which would be extensively used by everybody. On every morning without fail you would find yourself stunned by an elderly Israeli gentleman who must have been well into his 80s. Bare chested and nut brown, he would cling onto the bars and proceed to exercise almost constantly for the best part of an hour. He would lift up his whole body, pulling himself up vigorously before going through what looked like the most arduous routine.

Later on in the morning the number of bodies would multiply in their thousands, huge crowds of lively youngsters, teenagers and families soaking up the delights of Independence Day. You would hear Israeli music in the market squares, bustling shopping centres full of life and vitality. Where before there was anguish and uncertainty now there are gleaming smiles and unrestrained enjoyment. Today Israel will do its utmost to blot out the events around them, the people who now remain firmly convinced that Israel are the perpetrators of the crime, the ones who have inflicted so much irreparable damage.

But then there are those who remember the savage atrocities of last October 7th when over a thousand innocent Israelis were ruthlessly murdered, beheaded, condemned to the cruellest deaths and persecuted heartlessly just because they were Jewish. We though looked on at the torturing and raping of babies and the disgraceful killing of Israelis who were killed on Simchat Torah with no explanations or remorse. They went to a music festival and never came back. Israel will make a recovery and it will find justice and they will do so with a steely resilience that has now characterised the nation's DNA. Never underestimate Israel since Independence Day today is just the start of something much better, stronger, fitter and healthier. Our thoughts will of course be with Israel. We Stand By Israel, We Love Israel and We Will Always Believe in Israel. Happy Yom Ha'atzmaut everybody.   

National Limerick Day

 National Limerick Day.

It is a day devoted to thinking of quirky rhyming couplets, whimsical poetry and the kind of simple, flowing prose that once dominated the school syllabus of many a classroom. Edward Lear, for he it was who once penned the Owl and the Pussycat, was a pleasant example of the way in which language can be utilised effectively and lyrically. We tend to forget those halcyon days when school libraries and municipal libraries always had a full and extensive variety of both Lear's masterpieces and limericks. For today is National Limerick Day. And you'll still be able to discover at least a whole shelf of Lear in your local library.

Ladies and Gentlemen. There you've said it now.  It's National Limerick Day. You're not going to withdraw the remark because limericks are essentially endearing, thought provoking, winningly descriptive and full of light hearted imagery. Most of us think of limericks as corny, cheesy plays on words that are never really remembered for any longer than they need to be. Lear's Runcible Spoon is almost a by word for limericks, runcible being a made up word to enhance the structure of the piece of verse. You either like or dislike it and it may just be an acquired taste for some.

It doesn't have to rhyme because poetry doesn't really require any kind of literary embellishment. You read it from your book of limericks and it's something you'd normally hear in some country pub or folk club when a few of the regulars just think the place could go with a good, old fashioned outburst of hearty laughter. The truth is of course that an evening of limerick telling is no longer as relevant or accessible as it should be particularly since the arrival of fruit machines, one armed bandits, dartboards and of course the snooker table. Limerick is now regarded as some arcane art form that used to be fashionable but only appeals to those lovers of poetry who think their mates will be suitably impressed with your knowledge of limericks. 

And that's very much the case with most poetry, be it classical or modern. It's misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who maintain that any kind of poetry does nothing for them and besides what's the point of limericks, fairy tales, or word pictures on a page that evoke nothing but magic? We may have uttered limericks without so much as a moment of  self awareness. We may have stumbled over some familiar sounding limerick that brought a wry smile to our face and never known why. So that was the reason Edward Lear thought of the Owl and Pussycat. He wanted to do something completely original with the English language and did so both successfully and impressively.

In an age when the written word on an A4 piece of paper has become more or less obsolete, limericks have always remained firmly ensconced on our minds. And yet there are times when the conversation naturally turns away from the subject of limericks because dinner table discourse finds something far more entertaining and important to relate to. Edward Lear was the pioneer of limericks with expressions of simplicity, honesty and infectious humour. 

So if you've got a spare moment or two in your busy schedule on a Sunday afternoon you may want to consult your notebook and jot down a word or two, even several verses of prose that remind you perhaps of your cherishable childhood. We may have casually referred to the Owl and the Pussycat and other literary gems that made you giggle and guffaw under your breath. At times limericks may be metaphors, something precious in our lives such as life itself or something we may have overheard at some festival of literature. Poetic description may have been the ultimate answer to an apparently insurmountable question that may or may not have needed to be solved. But Happy National Limerick Day to you all. Oh yes, the Owl and the Pussycat did go to the sea in a pea green boat.

Eurovision Song Contest

 Eurovision Song Contest.

Now admit it you're all looking forward to the yearly Eurovision Song Contest this Saturday evening with both breathless anticipation and the feverish enthusiasm we normally associate with Eurovision. This may sound like the most facetious comment you're ever likely to hear because here in Britain our expectations have become almost as realistic as they always have been in recent years. The fact of the matter is that the UK will probably never win the Eurovision Song Contest again if only because political differences of opinion are now so extreme that, if the nation registers a single point or two, we may be shocked.

For those of us who grew up with the Eurovision Song Contest that resignation to our fate and the obvious sense of gloomy foreboding that normally accompanies the whole farcical show, has now become firmly engrained in British culture for much longer than we thought it would. And yet we watched Eurovision with a weird kind of voyeurism in case we actually won the contest. Sadly, there has been nothing for well over a decade since Katrina and the Waves lit up European stages with a much acclaimed victory and a song called Love Shine A Light.

Since then of course humiliation would follow humiliation over and over again. In 1997 some of us had become a proud father for the second time and of course this took priority to any other consideration. Our delightful daughter Rachel was roughly a couple of weeks old when Katrina and the Waves dominated the Eurovision music scene. So in between cradling our beautiful girl in our arms we glanced over the cot and discovered that the UK were hitting the ball all over the park and producing the winning song on the evening.

Even now in retrospect it still seems as though that the rest of Europe was simply giving us the benefit of the doubt or maybe they must have felt desperately sorry for us. The fact was - and there never seemed a plausible explanation- the UK's Eurovision entries were either boring and disappointing or just, to put it simply, rubbish. Europe was never likely to admit as much but every year the UK were just tuneless and unmelodic, worthy and well intentioned but just below par, mediocre and just plain mundane. There was no getting away from it. Britain were just wasting their time and the documentary evidence is there for all to see.

The Eurovision Song Contest, in any context, was always some spectacular light show with the kind of pop music groups, singers, songs and musicianship that beggared belief at times. We must have known that it was a ridiculous charade of a show, an insult to our eyes and ears and, to some, perhaps, gloriously entertaining dross. But we know where we stand with Eurovision. It's just harmless frivolity that does no harm to anybody. Never should it be taken seriously by any aficionado of Euro music because we love to be amused, enlightened and just bewildered.

Any singing contest where all of the countries of Europe suddenly converge on a concert hall just to be heard in a vast auditorium of flags and noisy cheers must have something going for it. Here we gather at roughly this time of the year, as excited fans, wildly animated parties of Eurovision worshippers and just curious observers of the sublime and eccentric go crazy, jumping up and down with untrammelled jubilation. But nobody can give us the right answer. The fact is that the Eurovision Song Contest is light hearted entertainment on a colossal scale. It's frothy candy floss pop that transcends all musical boundaries and never disappoints. We adore it because it's the epitome of fun and we could all do with as much of that as we can possibly get.  

But who were we kidding? The UK could never hold a note let alone anything that could be remotely described as something that was pleasing on the ear, memorable or just very catchy. Eurovision was never designed for the professionals who just spend the rest of their year travelling the world, doing worldwide tours, eating, drinking and sleeping in hotels or constantly on the road. Eurovision was simply aimed at those aspiring band of singers and instrumentalists with stars in their eyes.

When Sandy Shaw, the bare footed singer from Dagenham in Essex, floated across a Eurovision Song Contest set, most of the UK were just flabbergasted and speechless. Do put some shoes on Sandy. It's common courtesy and decorum. You had to be impeccably dressed, properly respectful of Eurovision traditions and besides, that floor must have been extremely cold. But when did that matter? Sandy Shaw was representing the United Kingdom in the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest and that was a good enough reason to smile.

And believe it or not Sandy Shaw promptly won the Eurovision Song Contest for the UK. Beat that France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Sweden and Finland. Yes we'd finally announced ourselves as a major superpower in Europe. Finally, Europe had seen sense and passed the most shrewd judgment on a competition that everybody loved to mock and ridicule. This was because the UK were somehow regarded as no hopers. But Sandy Shaw's Puppet on A String won quite impressively and there it was on our honours board.

In the ensuing period Lulu, the lively Scottish chanteuse, offered us Boom Bang a Bang which conformed to every Eurovision stereotype and won for the UK. Most of Britain had convinced itself that it would be a long time before the UK would ever trouble the scoring juries in any Eurovision Song Contest. How wrong we were since the unmistakable voice and presence of one Cliff Richard arrived on the Euro stage with a song called Congratulations and you can probably guess the rest. But no because this time Cliff's uplifting party song finished as runners up and we were robbed.

It took almost a decade for the UK to re-discover its bearings and assert its authority amongst the high society of Eurovision winners. In 1976 the whole of Britain found itself bathing in the most magnificent  heatwave that started at the beginning of the May of that year and eventually ended on an August Bank Holiday when thunder and lightning preceded the heaviest rainfall Britain had ever seen. There were hose pipe bans galore, gardens and parks that looked like concrete bowls and a public who could hardly believe what they were witnessing. But then the rains restored the grass and we could now mow the lawn again.

Earlier on in 1976 a two boys and girls group who called themselves The Brotherhood of Mann trotted onto a Eurovision stage with modest hopes perhaps but privately hoping that there was something about their offering Save All Your Kisses For Me that would light a bulb in European juries minds. In hindsight Save All Your Kisses For Me was just what the UK had been longing to hear for ages. Both boys and girls wore those cute white jackets and berets that just blew everybody away. It was a performance so perfectly choreographed and produced that it just seemed too good to be true. We can all remember the dancing routine because most of Europe had seen it and they were just entranced.

Then of course there were the empty years for the UK, the years where tumbleweed flew across British rooftops and chimney stacks and Eurovision became a by word for resounding failure. Five years after Save All Your Kisses For Me, there appeared another  two girls and boys ensemble. Suddenly it occurred to us that a precedent and pattern had now been set. If you take two men and two women and merge them into a Eurovision Song Contest, miracles could indeed happen and you never know. And so it proved.

A lovely boy and girl combination called Bucks Fizz performed Making Your Mind Up, illuminating Eurovision for reasons that became patently obvious. Half way through their routine Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston whipped off their skirts and there was a sharp intake of breath. For the sake of decency nothing else was revealed and thank goodness for that. You could only have imagined the reaction of one pure and puritanical Mary Whitehouse because disgusted from Didcot would have been penning letters of complaint for the rest of the year. But Making Your Mind Up was a clear, richly deserved Eurovision winner and the UK was back in business.

And yet it would take a further 16 years for the UK to send convulsions throughout Europe again. In 1997 Katrina and the Waves, a hitherto successful band who had already charted with Walking on Sunshine, gave Europe a sharp reminder of  the UK's singing prowess. But now Katrina and the Waves gave us Shine a Light which was somehow life affirming, upbeat, feelgood, optimistic and resonated with a Europe who would become very sceptical in years to come. Shine a Light had everybody up on their feet and prancing the night away regardless of the cynics. It won the Eurovision Song Contest by a continent rather than a mile.

Throughout the Eurovision Song Contest  the distribution of points between neighbouring countries has often been a source of amusement and giggly incredulity. There were the 12 points delivered between Norway and Finland or Sweden which may have suggested that the whole thing had been rigged anyway. We never did discover whether there was any real animosity between either of these Nordic rivals and whether one or more just hated and tolerated each other. There was the imbroglio between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus. To this day, you could never understand the favouritism or petty silliness which saw any of these Mediterranean giants of world music awarding either no points or a grudging one just to keep the peace for a while.

Finally just when we thought we'd cracked this Eurovision malarkey, we were denied a last gasp winner because the country who won it on the night were at war at the time. Poor Ukraine had just clinched a major triumph in the Eurovision Song Contest. But then the horrific realisation dawned on us. The country of Ukraine was being bombed and destroyed by a grizzly bear called Russia. To be more precise Vladimir Putin, their despicable and egregious President, had invaded the Ukraine and all of its surrounding cities, towns, villages, roads and streets. It was Eurovision's darkest moment.

So one Sam Ryder of the UK, bearded and permanently smiling, pushed Ukraine all the way valiantly for the UK but failed by a whisker. Spaceman finished as gallant runners up for the UK but then there was a cultural body blow. The winners from Ukraine won all of the sentimental votes for their country but it was decided that Britain was the only country who could safely hold the Eurovision Song Contest. Tragically there was nothing left standing in Ukraine so good old Britain came to the rescue.

But this Saturday, Eurovision returns to Sweden in Malmo. Sweden was the one country that had left an indelible impression on the Eurovision Song Contest 50 years ago. In Brighton, that sunny English seaside resort, a Swedish boy and girl group again took Europe by storm. Abba had been beaten the previous year at Eurovision in 1973 but persevered undaunted. They knew they had it in them to give us another a pleasant surprise. It would become a self fulfilling prophecy because Abba knew they would win.

Onto the stage leapt the boys Benny and Bjorn and the girls Agnetha and Anni Frid. Soon they would change the landscape of Eurovision for ever more. After winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo, Abba became a pop phenomenon, global superstars and a band immediately recognisable wherever they went in the world. Their singles and albums went gold and platinum almost immediately and soon their songs were on everybody's lips. Dancing Queen, Mama Mia, Fernando, Knowing Me Knowing You and of course Waterloo were massive hits and just lodged in our subconscious. Abba is now an immersive experience in the West End of London and their legacy is one that may never ever be forgotten.

So Ladies and Gentlemen prepare yourself for the Eurovision Song Contest. Strap yourself in for this emotional roller coaster and just watch it all with tongue in cheek if you want to have a quiet chuckle. We know Eurovision is all very politically suspicious and, some would say, amateurishly inept. But some of us are just enchanted by those hilarious commentators and the sense of absurdity that has to be admired. We love the Eurovision Song Contest because everybody loves to sing in the shower and besides it is TV at its most amusing, insightful and revealing. Is that 12 points for the UK or was it a figment of our imagination? Step forward Olly Alexander. This could be your evening. Let the show begin.   

Cesar Luis Menotti dies

 Cesar Luis Menotti - former Argentina manager dies

Shortly after his Argentine national side had lifted the 1978 World Cup for the first time, Cesar Luis Menotti must have retreated into the kind of private world that must have haunted Sir Alf Ramsey when Ramsey just sat on the bench at the old Wembley Stadium, repressed and emotionless while always acutely aware that something joyous had taken place. He would never admit it of course but deep within his psyche there must have been some hidden vault of happiness and barely controlled joy that nobody could take away from him.

Yesterday Cesar Luis Menotti died at the age of 84 and the whole of Argentina will deeply mourn the death of a man who looked so tormented with guilt and major misgivings that none of us could adequately explain why. The man with a face that betrayed so many obvious emotions died peacefully yesterday and the memories he'd left behind would never be erased properly. To say that Menotti looked a troubled man with the weight of the world on his shoulders would be a gross understatement. He'd just won the World Cup with his Argentina and rejoicing should have been his trademark emotion but the look of grave concern always seemed to leave us with the impression that he wanted something more.

It hardly seems like 46 years ago but the fact remains Menotti was the centre of attention on that unforgettable July day when Argentina forgot about its military junta, the warlike mutterings of Peron and a country riven with the struggles and threats of a nation totally ill at ease with itself. But then a man named Menotti took out his packet of cigarettes and spent the whole of that 1978 World Cup incessantly chain smoking, body hunched forward in his managerial dug out surrounded by blue and white tendrils of smoke that almost reduced him to some ghostly figure who was there but never clearly visible.

But it was one day at the beginning of July 1978 when the man who looked such a tortured soul and so consumed by his own demanding standards, suddenly abandoned himself to the wild celebrations that would ensue right across Argentina and let down his mask of despondency. Now the self critical and self effacing  Menotti could join in with the rest of his country uninhibitedly. Suddenly Menotti's world had been transformed and all of the exuberant confetti and ticker tape rained down from the huge terraces of a capital city in Buenos Aires still incensed with the bitter disappointment of losing the first ever World Cup Final in 1930 against their fellow South American rivals Uruguay.

Menotti must have felt a slight inferiority complex when facing his Brazilian counterpart, the inspirational Mario Zagalo, the man who gave Brazilian football its essence, soul, vital identity and those vivid flashes of improvisation that have now been hard wired into Brazil. He must have recalled the days of Tele Santana from even further back in time. For Menotti though this must have represented the ultimate challenge since Argentina had always flattered to deceive. Now Argentina had the Latin temperament but were now volatile and petulant into the bargain as well.

Soon Argentina would discover their inner Bossa Nova, their innovative Tango and the Latino. Menotti would introduce us to two of the most charming midfield players the world had ever seen. Osvaldo Ardilles and Ricky Villa were fundamental components in an Argentinian side who flourished beautifully with all the flamboyance and panache that the Brazilians once thought they must have had a monopoly on. Ardilles and Villa would shortly leave their hometown for North London's Spurs. Menotti could hardly believe it but this was happening in front of him. These were heady times for Argentina.

In the 1978 World Cup, Argentina met a Netherlands side who were rightly trumpeted as the next best thing since sliced bread. The Dutch were a fascinating fusion of stylish and intuitive football but without Johan Cruyff, an unparalleled genius who could make a ball sing and talk, manipulating it for all it was worth with the distinctive drag back and step over. But Ruud Krol was in Argentina, all balance and sophisticated technique, Robby Rensenbrink, domineering and controlling throughout the midfield and Johan Neeskens always available for the ball and just making the Dutch tick smoothly with of course Johnny Rep dictating the tempo of the game with delicate touches and a refined skill.

Argentina though had other things up their sleeve, perhaps calling their bluff of the Dutch. They had Leopoldo Luque and Mario Kempes up front and although the Dutch closed down all of Argentina's attacking options for a while the home nation were destined to please their own supporters in Buenos Aires most theatrical environment. Menotti, for his part, kept a low profile throughout the tournament, rarely showing anything that could be construed as surprising. 

Everything that Menotti had presented to the World Cup thus far had almost been expected. There were the glowering features, the misery guts appearance, the morose and lugubrious face that never really hinted at anything. If Menotti had felt anything by now it could hardly be seen. Maybe he was being deliberately understated and humble or just refusing to engage with every tackle, pass and shot that Argentina were producing before him.

Then the final whistle went and Argentina exploded with delirious delight while the Dutch slumped to the ground as if they had just lost their proud inheritance. Was this not the day when Total Football would come to fruition? This was their legacy to the world but this was just a recurring nightmare for the Netherlands since four years earlier West Germany had beaten them in the 1974 World Cup Final in West Germany.

Yesterday though Argentina had lost its most iconic leader, their chairman of the board, the motivational guru par excellence. Cesar Luis Menotti was just there at the right time and place for a country that could have torn itself apart and left to rot and decay. Menotti was the intelligent tactician, the quiet and pensive one, the cold, calculating strategist, the detached analyst who could never express his innermost feelings in case the opposition just happened to be listening into his discreet conversations with his players. But then his immaculate captain Daniel Passarella lifted the World Cup for his Argentina and Menotti must have allowed himself a brief moment of self congratulation. Argentinian football will deeply miss him.

General Election imminent but not yet

 General Election imminent but not yet.

At some point in the immediate future the UK government may find itself staring bleakly down the bottom of a barrel. It could be that they're simply delaying the inevitable and yet it's never over until the impossible becomes highly unlikely. Sadly, the days of alleged Tory mismanagement may be numbered. Besides, the Conservative party have been in charge of the the UK for 14 years and it's all beginning to look a bit jaded and faded. The popular opinion is that the Tories have now outstayed their welcome and passed their sell by date. Cliches can never adequately explain the reasons for the patently obvious.

There is something tired, haggard, withdrawn and forlorn about the Tory government that they almost looks pathetically dated. It's rather like looking at an old chest of drawers in your living room that have been there for so long that you almost feel desperately sorry for them. They've got to be chucked in the local rubbish depot because they're no longer fit for purpose and besides it's just worn looking, antiquated and old fashioned. You look at the scratches on the edges and the generally grubby appearance of the said piece of furniture and it's got to go on the tip.

And this looks increasingly the case with the Conservatives. Even the late and sometimes overpowering Margaret Thatcher didn't know how to accept defeat gracefully and graciously. She simply sat tight, remained stubbornly adamant that she knew best, digging in her heels determinedly and refusing to believe that she was just a self righteous and pompous woman who had to be taken seriously. So after 11 years as Prime Minister she was simply driven out of 10 Downing Street like a female scorned. She wept for a while, tears streaming down her face as the Cabinet colleagues she thought were on her side turned on her and ordered her out of the front door and told her that enough was enough. So she went grudgingly.

Last night there was a furore by the British seaside. No, there were no controversial confrontations between modern day Mods and Rockers gangs. This was not Brighton on a dramatic August Bank Holiday Monday in the mid 1960s. There were no roaring motorbikes and people wearing leather jackets. Instead this was Blackpool and Blackpool South to be more geographically precise. The location was not one suited for an aggressive bust up between two biking rivals but rather an important political by election that could be an encouraging omen for the Labour party.

In fact Labour's convincing victory in a local election that could be the perfect prelude to overall victory in the General Election couldn't have come at a better time for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. There is a widespread conviction that the Labour party have now been revitalised, refreshed and plucked from the dank depths of obscurity and the land of wilderness. This time 14 years ago Labour were struggling embarrassingly, treading water and on the verge of dissolution, vanishing without trace and never to be seen again. Gordon Brown had left by the exit door with his doting wife Sarah and closely knit family. Labour were now in distress, attacked by all and sundry and just a busted flush. 

But here we are in General Election year and the mood of the nation is both toxic, inflammatory and, potentially explosive given the frequency of riots and demonstrations in the West End of London. The people are restless, disillusioned, highly critical and not very supportive at all. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sits in his Downing Street bunker with sandbags and metaphorical barbed wire around him. He can sense that his fate has now been sealed but will just keep going in case the public change their minds and back him because of some misleading rumour that something has gone right for the Tories.

Yesterday marked the arrival of the local elections when all the councillors of their respective parties start pacing around leisure and community centres like lost and wandering souls looking for somebody to talk to because nobody really wants to have a chat with them. So they kicked their heels last night deep into the small hours of the morning, hoping and wishing that their political party will win quite emphatically eventually.

It has now become fairly evident that the Tories are like battered and bruised heavyweight boxers whose eyes are black and blue, swollen beyond recognition and spattered with blood on their shorts. It used to be the case that the Tories could bluff their way out of this dire predicament like those shifty and cunning criminals who are accused of robbing the most famous bank in the world but then simply get away with it. The results of yesterday's elections have yet to filter through but something tells you that this is going to be very grisly and gruesome for the Conservatives. They may have overstepped the mark too many times.

For Sir Keir Starmer, those distant recollections of Tony Blair being declared Prime Minister in 1997 seem like some yellowing parchment from another century. Blair was Britain's last Labour Prime Minister and Starmer must be feeling that this could be his golden age. He remains a highly respected human rights lawyer and makes all the correct noises for an incoming Prime Minister. The words and phrases are perfectly pitched but without any of the legal references that you might have thought he'd resort to but then decided not to.

At the moment the Labour party have clinched over 150 of all the key strategic seats in the local council election while the Tories can only look in some desperation. If this scenario were to be reproduced at the General Election then the Conservatives may have to wave the white flag of surrender now. Of course they won't be pushed but the writing is on the proverbial wall and even Sunak must have resigned himself to a crushing defeat in the General Election- whenever that may be.

Further proof of what may seem a formality is the almost certain re-election of Sadiq Khan as the Mayor of London. Khan of course pins his colours to the Labour party but is so vilified by those who think he may have achieved little of any note that you begin to think that all is not exactly wine and roses for either Khan or the Labour party. 

Ever since the bad, old days of both Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone the role of Mayor of London has almost been diminished and undermined by those who bad mouthed both Johnson and Livingstone. But Khan will resume his seemingly stressful duties as soon as possible and some of us will wonder why. Johnson, as we all know, went from one outrageous publicity fiasco to the other while Livingstone just opened his mouth with a barrage of antisemitism that saw him shamed, stigmatised and blasted into orbit. Goodbye Ken.

Today the local election results will trickle in gradually before being completed at some point shortly. There is no such thing as a sure thing. Politics is about to head into a dark tunnel of damaging, slanderous comments, accusations and counter accusations, snide remarks, name calling and vicious vitriol. Already Sunak, Starmer and jolly Ed Davy of the Lib Dems have travelled up and down the country, promising ambitiously, then arriving at hastily costed programmes and projects that can only benefit the country. The financial bean counters have been produced and as usual, we're better than you are and you've ruined the country.

So there you are Ladies and Gentlemen. At the moment the Labour party, for the first time in 14 years will now begin to pinch itself for the comfortable position it finds itself in. Not since the heady days of Tony Blair and, quite possibly, the early, salad days of Harold Wilson have Labour had it so good. And yet that slogan was once coined by another Tory Prime Minister and Harold Macmillan always thought he knew best. General elections are always prone to unpredictability and some just easy to call. But we'll be there on some unspecified Thursday night, disentangling the knotty issues and witnessing yet another political turning point. Your guess is as good as mine but it does seem that Labour are on the verge of something pretty special and not before time as some might add.

Horror hits Hainault

 Horror hits Hainault

You awoke this morning to the news which both shocked and horrified you within a matter of seconds. This morning a mad and deranged man took it upon himself to terrorise a neighbourhood literally half an hour from the idyllic East London suburb you grew up in 60 years ago. For a minute you were dumbfounded and slightly disbelieving for violence and murder are not normally words you'd associate with Hainault in East London in the sunny uplands of Essex.

But there it was right before your eyes, a manic and mentally disturbed individual who turned up in a quiet backwater of East London and just created panic, fear and a palpable sense of anxiety that must have left most of the people who live in Hainault's sleepy terraced houses trembling and just terrified. For those who have seen it all before then this was something they may have been expecting because the police are never there when you need them and besides the whole of Britain is losing its moral compass anyway. And yet what else could have the police done under such extenuating circumstances.

It could have happened in any other part of Britain because, on a fairly frequent and possibly daily basis or so it would seem, firearm related atrocities, knife crime and increasing instances of stabbing, have darkened the back streets of both London, the inner cities and right across Britain, running rampant and getting worse by the day. So you expressed your private revulsion and disgust and just threw up your hands in another display of helpless exasperation. The trouble is that these appalling acts of mindless bloodshed and barbarity show no sign of stopping if only because this has become the accepted norm. 

Suddenly at the crack of dawn, some pathetic psychopath who must have been released from a psychiatric ward, burst into a quiet East London community and wreaked havoc. Soon, a man with a yellow top and shabby trousers was seen wildly wielding a sword with a clear intent to kill, maim and harm. Without any provocation, the man was seen climbing onto roofs, threatening to injure and then murder anybody who came anywhere near him. He then jumped down back onto the pavements before scurrying around in an almost catatonic state, crouching on his haunches and then trying to hide himself from view.

For a while it began to resemble the kind of incident you would normally have associated with the local tenements and homes of New York, Harlem perhaps, Chicago quite possibly and then you realised that this was Hainault in East London and it could have been anywhere in Britain. Then the police arrived quickly and intelligently because this was the incident they'd been trained to deal with so diligently and thoroughly. What they probably hadn't bargained for was a bloke with what might have been some samurai sword who was just taking out all his pent up frustrations on an unsuspecting public.

So our evil criminal had by now senselessly killed a 14 year old boy, leaving two policeman severely injured and several others who had suffered superficial injuries but had to be taken to a local hospital by way of a precautionary measure. Eventually the crazy and possessed swordsman was cornered at the back of garages and gardens before being sprayed with pepper and then tasered by the police. It was an outrage that most of us have witnessed before on the evening news without fully absorbing the sheer severity and magnitude of such a crime.

Eventually the man was arrested by the police and normal life was restored to Hainault. Some of us took an inward gulp of breath and tried to pretend that we hadn't been woken from our nightmare. For Hainault is literally a couple of miles from your childhood home in Ilford where, to the best of your knowledge, nothing like this morning's incident was ever known to happen. Ilford was always calm, civilised, respectable, polite and proper to the local constabulary and never in trouble with the boys or girls in blue.

Of course we were subjected to the alarming sound of wailing police sirens and ambulances from time to time but as they always say, you could always leave your back doors open and your neighbours were lovely. In Ilford's bustling town centre there were several nightclubs and pubs who might have carried something of a reputation but none that you'd ever heard about. There was the Room at the Top and Ilford Palais, two social gathering places where the kids of the 1960s, 70s and 80s would hang out with a certain amount of intoxication in their bloodstream. And maybe some of the pubs did get quite rowdy but nothing on the monumental scale of the Queen Vic where the Mitchell brothers drunk in TV's East Enders while both the landlords and landladies were always quarrelling. 

And so you watched today's events unfold quite dramatically and couldn't really believe the evidence of your eyes. The industrial estate in Hainault which employs work for most of the factory workers and warehouse staff is, as far as you know, still there, a prosperous business area that today was cordoned off by fleets of police cars and ambulances. The local residents, of course were scratching their heads in bewilderment. This was off the scale, unheard of and certainly there was never any precedent for this shock horror moment.

For some of us are still trying to take it all in. At some point we will discover the reasons for this random attack, this unforgivable violation in a very private suburb. Terrorism was ruled out almost immediately and you can only imagine the feelings which must have been experienced at the time by those who just wanted to go to work, school, college or university,  going about their lives in a dignified fashion.

Most of us are probably immune to bad news since the world  might have lost the ability to control its temper decades ago. But we're the decent and well mannered ones, the cultured ones. We just want to live in a society where the inhabitants in all populations just get along with each other without fearing swords, knives or guns that shatter the peace. The citizens of Hainault will, of course, settle down for the evening, enjoy some precious family time and switch on the TV only to be reminded of what happened today. But there is of course an inner resilience and strength of character about the people of Hainault that will support them all the way. We must hope that they never have to go through such a traumatic ordeal ever again.

National Clean Comedy Day

 National Clean Comedy Day

You must remember the good, old fashioned days of comedy which were clean and unblemished by rude words. Then there were the offensive stand up comedians who would shock and appal their audiences with a barrage of blue language and foul mouthed, four letter word expletives that needed neither translation nor explanation. But nobody was ever physically hurt so we didn't bat an eyelid and just laughed. You knew where these chuckle and laugh out loud masters of their trade were going with their crude, satirical, irreverent, demeaning and racially controversial material. They were pushing buttons, unnecessary boundaries, fighting against the Establishment because they were beacons of purity, well mannered and respectable.

Some of us can still hear the dulcet tones of Mary Whitehouse, the clean it up campaigner who tried so desperately to get rid of filth on the TV, radio and any other media outlet who so much as murmured an obscenity. There she was reeling with paroxysms of anger if somebody mentioned something that was even faintly suggestive, crass or insulting. Whitehouse was the one who once stood up at a Women's Institute conference during the 1960s and believed her family had never heard so many vile vulgarities as was the case on the previous evening's TV viewing. What she'd heard, or so we were led to believe, were the groanings and grievances of Scottish soap opera characters. How unforgivable.

And yet still the moral parameters must exist in some corners of British society. For instance the 1960s sitcom Till Death Us Do Part almost wallowed in racist references, the mutterings of a disgruntled man by the name of Alf Garnett(aka Warren Mitchell) who did nothing but complain and whinge. Then there were the political rantings which were hardly worthy of a life sentence in prison but they did antagonise and divide. This of course is where clean comedy finds itself in the public domain today if only as a corrective and antidote to all those sceptics, cynics and trouble makers who keep stirring the pot. But do they? It's an interesting topic for discussion.

Back in the days of seaside innuendo and dark humour the 1960s gave us TV's That Was The Week Was, a weekly reflection on the week's latest news in predominantly politics and then the leading Cabinet figures who almost seemed to invite saucy derision with their every word. That Was The Week Was poked fun at the Establishment almost savagely, making sure that every joke was seasoned with an extra spice jar of bitter, biting and acerbic humour that was deliberately humiliating. 

Now TW3, as it was known at the time, was never considered to be dirty and appallingly nasty on the ear or eye but in its way was almost measured and cruel to be kind. The scripts were beautifully written, the attacks on Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister at the time, almost relentless and the Labour party in government were cast into the world of fun and caricature that some felt they so richly deserved at the time. Then it was the Profumo scandal which must have felt like all the scriptwriters birthdays had come at once.

So where do we go for a subjective interpretation of clean comedy? We could be biased and bring before us for consideration, firstly Morecambe and Wise and at the same time, the Two Ronnies. Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, two natural comedians who had honed their craft in the music halls of Post War British theatre.  Everybody adored Eric and Ernie because not only they were clean they were also just hilarious, memorably compatible, not gag tellers by any stretch of the imagination but a team who just worked brilliantly on head to head conversations, smiling at each other's appearance, laughing at each other and giggling uncontrollably at the ridiculous absurdities that the world kept stumbling on.

There were the masterful comedy skits, TV celebrities and that unforgettable sketch where Eric and Ern dance around the breakfast table to the music of the Stripper. There was the late Glenda Jackson, a distinguished film actress, Angela Rippon, stylish BBC newsreader and those lovable figures in showbusiness who willingly volunteered their services because they knew what they'd get with Morecambe and Wise. Eric and Ern were so consistently funny and original that it seemed at the time that clean comedy would be here to stay for ever. 

Then there were those other clean as a whistle comedians who were almost pillars of originality and the most straightforward delivery. The Four Candles - Fork Handles sketch set in a haberdashers will now go down into history as an increasingly exasperated Ronnie Corbett threatens to blow up in the face of Ronnie Barker. To this day the Two Ronnies remains etched indelibly in the hearts of the British public and only they can tell us how they managed to keep a straight face. Then there were the plays on words written by Ronnie Barker, who choreographed all of those marvellously grammatical works of art as if it were something that came naturally.

Who will ever forget the famous Mastermind sketch where Ronnie Corbett answers a whole series of questions where the previous answer would be completely out of synch with Ronnie Barker's questions? Or the lesser known funny moment set in an ice cream parlour. Ronnie Corbett would wander into the said ice cream parlour asking for a simple ice cream cone with vanilla and flake - known as a 99- at which point Ronnie Barker would reel off a bizarre list of improbably flavours such as fish and chip crisps, steak and kidney pie crisps or, quite possibly, spaghetti crisps.

Today's bill of clean comedy still has a relevant edge to them. There was the excellent the Good Life with Richard Briers and Felicity Kendall, a clean comedy about a husband and wife who became totally pre-occupied with self sufficiency and home grown vegetables so there is a redemptive feel to clean comedy.  The superbly polished Peter Kay just leaves most of us crying with laughter while some of us just delight in the kind of observational comedy that can never be matched. Your favourite remains Jasper Carrott, a comedian from Birmingham, whose whole act consists of exquisite stories and ingenious observations about life, friends, families and the world around him.

So whatever you do on National Clean Comedy day this is the day for just remembering those side splittingly amusing TV comedies from yesteryear without resorting to a strongly lettered e-mail or letter to the Times or Daily Telegraph. Comedy of any description, remains a fashionable excuse for debate but whatever you do try not to follow in the footsteps of one Mary Whitehouse who got all hot and bothered over nothing in particular. Mind you one look at the current Government at the moment and keeping it clean would be the last thing on anybody's agenda. Still folks, keep laughing, smiling and giggling. It's good for the soul.

The final stages of the football season

 The final stages of the football season

We are now heading towards the final stages of the football season and there are pressing issues that need to be addressed. Relegation and promotion imponderables have yet to be figured out and there is a sense here that we may have been this way a thousand times without quite grasping the inner meaning and mechanics of the Premier League. Now though, in complete contrast to the last three seasons, three teams are battling it out for the Premier League winners trophy and, it has to be said, this is just enthralling.

Last night Manchester City, who seemed to have won everything in sight over the last couple of seasons, once again posted their ominous intentions. After their comprehensive 4-0 demolition of Brighton at the Amex Stadium, City reminded you of rich Victorian industrialists about to broker another immensely profitable deal in the City of London. Sometimes it just seems too easy and effortless and as a neutral, you wish Manchester City would just stumble briefly at the final hurdle, thoroughbreds who just run out of steam and then graciously concede defeat as runners up for a change.

But City now have vital games in hand over their closest contenders Liverpool and Arsenal. Arsenal now hold an important one point advantage over City which means very little in the bigger picture. This chase to the finishing post is so fascinating and intriguing that even Manchester City may have been taken by complete surprise. Psychologically, Liverpool were dealt a heavy blow to their title's hopes with a 2-0 defeat to Everton at Goodison Park but this may not be the end of the story. Liverpool go to West Ham tomorrow still clinging onto dear life and perhaps another resurgence could be within their capabilities. 

West Ham, for their part, have now resigned themselves to dull mediocrity in the safe harbour of the Premier League mid table. Their season of course has been littered with triumphant highs and demoralising lows where potential suddenly became extinct overnight. Their 5-2 capitulation to Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park last Sunday, the feeble surrender to Fulham at the London Stadium and innumerable other collapses have turned a moderately successful season into one of lengthy inquests and worrying questions about their style of play.

For the top three though the final skirmishes have changed all the dynamics. Arsenal have now scored a record breaking number of goals throughout the course of the season and another five goal victory over Chelsea earlier on this week at the Emirates Stadium merely confirmed what we already knew. Arsenal released their attacking handbrake from the opening day of this season and have never looked back. Their football, under Mikel Arteta has been so stunningly ravishing that there were times when it looked as if Arsenal were just playing with their opponents like children with their first set of toys. Then you wondered whether Arsenal were just going through the motions, just assuming that all they had to do was turn up on match day and expecting to win quite comfortably.

So when Arsenal temporarily lost their focus in the shock 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa at the Emirates, some of us detected cracks, blemishes, tiny scar wounds, a side exposed and ever so slightly vulnerable. This though was just a fleeting setback and even Manchester United at Sir Alex Ferguson's best had a brittle chin and there were creaking defensive noises. Even Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley's breath taking Liverpool sides were caught out from time to time. And now Manchester City can see history in their headlights and may find them too dazzling on the final day of the season. The plot thickens.

As usual Manchester City just gave the impression of swaggering strollers along the seaside promenade and Brighton were just appropriate opponents. In one staggering period of utter dominance, City just kept the ball in their possession as if it were solely their divine right to do so. There were roughly ten minutes left of the game and City were challenging Brighton to retrieve the ball, taunting Brighton, passing the ball amongst themselves and refusing to give the Seagulls even the remotest sniff of the ball. City were four up and just managing the game admirably as if it were simply a training ground routine.

On Sunday Arsenal travel to their noisy North London neighbours for what could prove to be the most thrilling local derby of all time. Some of the Arsenal traditionalists still harbour fond memories of the Double season when Arsenal went to White Hart Lane in the final match of the season after the Gunners had just beaten Liverpool in the 1971 FA Cup Final. Ray Kennedy's winning goal for Arsenal handed them the old First Division trophy but the late and sadly missed Kennedy would, in years to come, feature prominently in a Liverpool side who were just unbeatable and seemingly invincible.  

Manchester City, for their part, have vital games in hand over Arsenal. For City this is familiar territory, something they've become accustomed to after wrapping up the Treble last season. Arsenal of course were left panting and puffing in City's wake after playing some of the sweetest football their fans had hitherto seen since the victorious days of Arsene Wenger. 

Football has a funny habit of catching you unawares when least expected. For most of last season Arsenal were racing away with the Premier League title until a light blue juggernaut came roaring past them at the rate of knots and just overtook them as if they weren't there. Manchester City would win the Premier League as if it was something that was preordained to happen. Then City swotted aside Manchester United in the FA Cup Final after the quickest goal to be scored from the start and then AC Milan were handsomely disposed of in the Champions League Final.

So it's either Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp for the ultimate honour of Premier League winners, indisputably top of the League. It seems reasonable to assume that Klopp's Liverpool will have to settle for a third place finish and Klopp will wave farewell to Liverpool with a Champions League place definitely ensured whatever happens. Arteta will be bitterly disappointed if Arsenal miss out again but you have a hunch that this time the streets of North London will be ablaze with red and white scarves twirling jubilantly at their first Premier League title for 20 years. City's Guardiola though must be hoping that a record fourth consecutive Premier League has to be theirs for the taking. We will see. May the best team win.

St George's Day

 St George's Day

Today was meant to be a day that was somehow quintessentially and properly, a celebration of Englishness, an unashamed homage to patriotism, expressing everything that is stereotypically English and perhaps a good enough reason to highlight all the good qualities and values that make being British or English so important to those who live in the United Kingdom.

And yet on the very day we should be high fiving the literary exploits of William Shakespeare whose birthday it is today as well, nothing of any real cultural significance happened anywhere. Instead, this afternoon in London, the capital city became altogether too controversial, heated, inflammatory and impassioned. Not for the first time in its illustrious history, London became the centre of political demonstrations, powerful voices, vocal discord and pointless protests. There was also trouble so there was no change on that front.

It was supposed to be St George's Day, a day reserved for good, old fashioned English qualities such as reserve, restraint, dignity, modesty and reticence since England somehow refuses to get excited about the kind of things it has always excelled at. England loves its pomp and ceremony, its royal family, red pillar post boxes, vicars on bicycles, church services on a Sunday, jumble sales, large marrows at village fetes, strawberries and beetroots at the height of summer and its general jollity when somebody mentions tea and cake with just a biscuit or two.

But this afternoon Tommy Robinson, an alleged troublemaker and passionate campaigner on behalf of anything that defies the Establishment, got all busy and started shouting the odds. Soon his supporters were in confrontation mode with the police, loud mouthed and aggressive, posturing and threatening the peace before pushing, shoving, provoking, finger jabbing and then, to quote the popular vernacular, getting stuck in. Soon fists were flying, provocative banners were being held proudly and suddenly all hell seemed to be breaking loose.

And so it was that St George's Day, which should have been a day for dancing around maypoles and rolling cheeses down British hillsides, became a scene of ugly crime. It was no longer a day of peace and tranquillity, for flying the Union Jack and singing all the way down to Piccadilly Circus and gathering at Eros for another convivial knees up. It was now a day of sinister nationalism, vaguely racist overtones and something much more uncomfortable and disagreeable. 

So rather than extolling the virtues of British identity and everything we've come to cherish about Britain, its lovable eccentricity at times perhaps we should also wax lyrical about its expertise, its competence, the renowned skills it has never been afraid to boast about. Of course Britain loves its beer, alcohol, its arts and crafts, the artisans who make their vases, cups and bowls, the pottery that almost comes naturally to this fair island. Britain doffs its cap to village blacksmiths, its silk weavers and a manufacturing heritage that perhaps it should be doing much more to acknowledge but almost takes for granted.

Regrettably though the harsh reality is that St George's Day has now passed off without any event or incident, not so much as a whimper, murmur or commotion. What we had in its place was some pathetic individual with a Tannoy speaker, barking out political mumbo jumbo that sounded vaguely nonsensical. Robinson kept referring to the mainstream political parties as useless entities who simply weren't serving Britain effectively.

And so today St George's Day just lingers in isolation as one of those days that is just considered as another working day with no sense of  self congratulation and no recognition of its historic achievements. We will of course remember the great poet and playwright who radically changed the landscape of medieval theatre for ever with Macbeth, the Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Othello, Romeo and Juliet and innumerable masterpieces that broke so many boundaries for centuries to follow.

So to William Shakespeare it's another happy birthday and anniversary and St George's Day. It may not feel like it but one day Britain may wake up and realise that it can remember what day it really is. It is April 23rd and we can still make a fuss about St George's Day so if the rest of the world can treat their days as those of rejoicing and celebration then so can we.    

Happy Pesach and Passover to the world and chag semach Pesach to everybody.

Happy Pesach and Passover to the world and chag semach Pesach to everybody.

At this point of the year the global Jewish community frantically sets about the business of spring cleaning, cleaning of Chametz, the traditional ceremony of burning and temporarily disposing of anything in the Jewish household of bread or unleavened bread. This is the important point since for just over a week, Jews across the world celebrate the festival of Pesach or Passover. It is the springtime gathering of kindred spirits, Jewish families with a common bond, singing from the same Haggadah, the book with moving passages from the story of Pesach, the blessings and prayers and the exodus of Jews from Egypt.

We have done this for thousands and thousands of years and do so with considerable pleasure because this is our time to share our favourite stories from the Haggadah, to reminisce on cups of wine from Elijah, the symbolic bitter herbs( the charosets) Maror, the salt water representing tears on the seder table and everything allegorical about Pesach. This is the time when Jewish families gather around our table and are just be grateful, blessed and healthy. Our kids love it and the adults are pretty impressed and euphoric. So we smile at each other and chuckle openly at the Afikomen as the children and grandchildren are kindly told to search for the elusive Afikomen, spreading good cheer and bonhomie.

But Pesach has always united us in both loss, grief and adversity because of the deeply set historical divisions that may have been left to just fester because we just assume that the rest of the Jewish calendar year will be filled with harmonious months, days and weeks of our lives. And yet how to explain the ten plagues of  boils and lice accompanied by all manner of diseases and abominations? So we wander through the pages of Haggadah with a well entrenched fascination, that sense of sheer astonishment at how dark and shocking some of those Biblical events must have been. 

And yet Pesach is all about families and children, the foundation stone of any society, the models of reliability that they've always provided for us, the stability they give us when things go horribly wrong, the balance that keeps us fully functional and the comfort they bring us in loss. Whatever the year may have brought thus far, will now be reinforced with essential love and guidance. You can now eat matza to your hearts content, that moreish and addictive Pesach food that can be eaten at any time throughout Passover without any feeling of guilt and shame. Matzas can be devoured with lashings of butter and anything savoury or sweet that takes your fancy.

So we place our kippot(skull cap) on our heads and listen to the richly detailed story of Pesach, the comprehensive explanations, answers to the apparently insoluble problems and the reasons why. This is the moment when the genuine puzzles and unfathomable become abundantly clear. Why indeed do we lean to one side when for the rest of the year you can lean wherever you like? We chant and sing the appropriate prayers because that's something that came almost naturally to us. We asked the same questions and then answered in the same breath. Pesach grounds us fully, roots us to the ground and maintains the easy flow of life. 

Now you find yourself drawn to Pesach celebrations when your wonderfully loving grandma and grandpa, mum and dad, sat eagerly and happily in glorious anticipation of the seder service. As a child you gazed up in wide eyed wonderment at your grandpa Jack, the most learned of Hebrew scholars because he was indeed the font of all human knowledge and wisdom. He was the one who absorbed everything there was to know about Judaism, the marvellous emphasis on certain Hebrew words that completely defied your understanding as a child.

Then the seder service and would be over in lightning speed. In a matter of quarter of an hour, the prayers were uttered reverentially, wine spilt over Haggadahs, matza crumbs liberally sprinkled across the seder table and that was that for another year. For a moment you were just stunned into silence, barely believing that something so precious and cherished should be regarded as a brief homage to Judaism. Surely Pesach should have been considered, measured, savoured and just listened to for much longer than you were led to believe.

But my lovely grandpa, in his smart grey suit, grey hair neatly cut and combed as was his wont because he had been one of the most accomplished barbers in the East End of London, knew everything. He spoke every word in a hectic rush that at times just sounded incomprehensible. In fact he muttered and mumbled Hebrew grammar with a complete recognition of every paragraph and sentence, every page. He would smile tenderly at me and repeatedly tell me that everything was absolutely right and how correct he was. There was never any cause for argument because grandpa knew best. Of course he was right.

Then my delightful grandma, lavishing tenderness and affection on their grandchildren Mark and Joe, would run in and out of the kitchen, industrious, beautifully affectionate and caring deeply for her grandchildren. And then there was the cup of wine which had of course been drunk by Elijah. Both mum and dad, grandma and grandma joked about the alleged arrival of Elijah since as a kid you were very impressionable and just agreed with them. You were told to look at the ripple of wind on the top of the cup of wine and the slight movement of the wine meant Elijah had undoubtedly visited their home for just a sip. 

It would be the most satisfying and joyful of evenings for both my mum and dad and grandparents. Springtime had well and truly arrived although that egg on the seder table looked completely unpalatable. The shell was burnt and was just inedible, while the matzas were readily available to my grandma and grandpa at any time of the year. Everything was both spiritual and communal.  In my grandparents home in Gants Hill, Essex matzas would dominate their big summer house at the back of their home, lined up in perfectly symmetrical fashion around the room.

In a sense Pesach is just as uplifting and heart warming as any other Jewish festival of the year. It is the beginning of spring, the blossoming of flora and fauna, those first buds on trees bulging with brightness and colour. It is the renewal of the seasons, that magnificent transition to spring from winter, the handing over of the baton to summer. 

Pesach has always meant different things to all of us. It reminds us of how appetising matzas are because they just happen to be there, rather like  jars of sweets or the bars of chocolate we couldn't possibly resist. We know that Pesach is very much a social gathering of the familiar and the traditional, the good and positive of our lives, happiness and laughter. How good is that, hey? Pesach is simply brilliant. Chag semach Pesach to all of my Jewish friends and family. You're all the best.  

Derek Underwood dies

 Derek Underwood dies

At the start of what promises to be yet another busy and eventful season, cricket today mourned the loss of one of its treasured legends. When Derek Underwood skipped jauntily down the pavilion steps at either Lords, Headingley, Trent Bridge, Old Trafford or the Oval you knew you were in the presence of greatness and artistry, cunning and duplicity, nimble fingered dexterity and enormous charm. Derek Underwood represented Englishness, reassurance and an innate ability to remain calm in a crisis and just committed to the cause whether it be a losing or winning one. 

Derek Underwood belongs to a period when men opened doors to ladies, when courtesy and politeness were somehow the only characteristics of the game that were essential to cricket's welfare, standing and livelihood. Underwood was a model of consistency, almost unobtrusively dependable and fiercely conscientious throughout a long and gruelling Test or county match. Underwood never let anybody down because you knew where you stood with him. He was honest as the day was light, quietly thoughtful at times with a cricketing brain that always seemed to be working overtime and never disappointing.

Whenever Australia or the West Indies were in England, Derek Underwood was always prepared, anticipating the big occasion, sensing the atmosphere, alert and responsive, rolling up his distinctive white shirt sleeves with vigour, purpose and a concentration focused solely on spinning a ball, achieving both flight and turn with all the precision of an engineer drilling holes into sheets of metal. But it was that bowling action that took the eye almost immediately, like a watercolour painter using just the right amount of red, blue and green.

Derek Underwood started his club career at Kent and remained there loyally and faithfully, shirt billowing in the wind like a yacht sail, tugging up the said shirt right up to the shoulder before going through the familiar routine of rubbing earnestly on already red trousers and then twirling, tweaking the ball covertly and secretively like a magician who never reveals his hand. Then he embarked on those ritualistic party pieces: the spitting, polishing, the clever trickery up his sleeve, the sneakily mischievous and teasingly clandestine. 

But you remember with much affection Underwood's extraordinary England career that stood out most to English cricket fans who were transfixed by his whippy leg spin and spin that veered sharply in all manner of directions before cutting back into the batsman's pads with deadly accuracy. He would invariably let the ball seam, allowing the ball to simply move and wobble all over the place before shattering the wicket and bails. The batsman would hang his head shamefully and dejectedly. Derek Underwood had struck again.

You suspected that one of Underwood's central influences was Ray Illingworth, captain supreme of England from another era and the man responsible for bringing the Ashes back to England on English soil in 1969 for the first time in ages. Illingworth was another toiler and industrious grafter, always wearing immaculately white trousers red as a tomato, picking up the ball for an over of a ball that once it had become new, would behave like a naughty child who simply refuses to go to bed when their parents tell them to do so.

Like Illingworth, Underwood would step back very deliberately and contemplatively, hips moving in perfect unison with the rest of his body. Both were poised and controlled, scheming and manipulative, trundling past respected umpires including David Shepherd and Dickie Bird. Then the red ball would fly out of the index fingers deceitfully, fluttering beautifully into the air before floating fiendishly towards a terrified batsman.

And yet Underwood played alongside the very best that English cricket could offer. His contemporaries included  the incomparable Geoff Boycott for whom cricket was a work of art to be crafted and designed no matter how long it took him. So what if half centuries and centuries were likes works of pottery and clay, building projects where labourers would spend months and years on the same house or flat? Boycott was patient, careful, sensible and judicious and Underwood was made of the same cloth.

There was Alan Knott, one of English cricket's finest wicketkeepers, always with handkerchief sticking out of his trousers pocket, constantly stretching, flexing his back, hat jauntily placed on his head, pretending to scoop up a red ball and then flinging it theatrically to nobody in particular. Then down on his haunches, he would engage his fellow Kentish man with the loveliest grin on his face. Underwood and Knott were in perfect synchronicity, reading from exactly the same book.

There were the rock solid opening batsmen who provided the strongest cement and backbone of an England innings. Dennis Amiss and John Edrich were wise and commanding batsman whose natural inclination was to just grow into their innings. Then they would start pulling on and off drives with majestic power, shots rippling across the ground poetically, through the covers and then square cutting with a flowing swish and flourish of the bat. Then they would secure themselves at the crease with neat forward prods, singles here, twos there, then clubbing mighty sixes and fours with increasing frequency and intensity, hooking purposefully, despatching the short ball with both cruelty and then ferocity.

But today we lament the passing of one of England's most celebrated of cricketers. Derek Underwood just got on with the business of his trade, white shirt pristine clean, before rolling his arms and unleashing an over of mesmeric magic. Today the Garden of England county known as Kent will quietly raise a glass for its native gentleman. He will be remembered wherever and whenever cricket is played because Derek Underwood was just the master of his craft and that's quite an achievement. We salute you sir.

The Grand National.

 The Grand National.

Tomorrow bookmakers throughout the land will be ready and waiting for those intrepid punters who feel that this year could be the one to land them the princely sum of money for their Grand National choice. It is now a perennial event almost as old as time itself although not quite in the same category. Every springtime, horses of impeccable breeding and character will line up at Aintree race course for that yearly cavalry charge across the invariably good to soft conditions with a lively turn of pace and hooves that pound across the turf almost hypnotically as if they'd been trained to do so from the day they were foals.

Britain loves the Grand National because it reminds them of who they are, their lifelong passion for horse racing and the reason they shell out their hard earned coppers on the world's greatest steeplechase by several country miles. For a brief period of time Aintree will abandon itself to the dramas, the melodramas, men and women in striking silks and permanently cheerful jockeys who make the ultimate sacrifice of near starvation just to line up at the starting tape for this year's Grand National at Aintree.

Aintree will once again be alive with the traditional sights and sounds that rightly elevate Grand National Day to its highest point  in the sporting consciousness. Today is Ladies Day which means feminine elegance and style while the men, trainers and whole generations of horse racing families will be assembled again for this stunning equine spectacle. Tomorrow though will mark that very specific point in the calendar year when the public will suddenly descend on their bookies convinced that this year will be theirs to claim their winnings on this most lucrative of days.

And yet the Grand National has been with us for so long now that it's hard to remember a time when it wasn't there. It began in the 19th century in 1829 and has never been away for as long as any of us can remember. Every year some of the most charismatic horses in the world will trot gingerly towards the starting tape at Aintree, blowing, puffing, neighing, shaking their tails from time to time and then weighing up the odds. They will nod and glance over to the crowd almost respectfully, heads sharply turning at times towards the winning enclosure or so they must hope.

Horse racing is sport at its most thrilling and authentic, sport at its earthy roots, something that leaves its devoted enthusiastic followers gripped and transfixed because, in a vast majority of cases if not all, there is the element of the unexpected, the sense that sport is connecting us to the heroic moments of our lives, a time when we may have defied the odds by achieving something that nobody else had thought possible. For a while the relationship between horse and humanity reaches its peak since this was the day when mutual appreciation becomes patently clear.

Tonight some of the most graceful animals in the world will settle down for the night in their well equipped stables and paddocks with their bags of carrots and hay, a suitable feast for some of the fittest horses in the land before just resting for the night. Privately you believe that they must know that something in the air is special, it's in their body language, their languid demeanour, those beautifully muscled bodies and legs that must have galloped across so many beaches and fields that you feel sure that somebody has already told them that this is their year to win the biggest prize of them all.

History of course will always warm the nostalgic hearts of Grand National aficionados and the unforgettable finishes will stay with us for a lifetime. We remember the 1973 Grand National when a horse called Crisp was so far out in front and destined to win that you'd have required a very good telescope to find the rest of the horses strung out across the field. But that day jockey Richard Pitman invited fate into his life and then discovered that what looked like a convincing victory on Crisp would be tragically snatched away from him at the final fences of the National.

Heading towards the final fences at the Grand National, Crisp was miles ahead of Red Rum, the horse that would become a national treasure in the years following that epic conclusion to the race. Crisp, now gradually slowing down quite alarmingly, simply ran out of steam, almost staggering and stumbling towards the finishing post. Meanwhile, behind Crisp there was Red Rum, a horse so assured and poised that it would only be a matter of time before Red Rum would charge forward before powering past Crisp and winning the Grand National.

Then there was the famous year of 1956 when Devon Loch, one of the finest horses of them all, comfortably negotiated Beechers Brook and the Chair after those gruelling circuits of Aintree race course. And then the race of that year entered its final hundred yards or so from completion and Devon Loch, now perhaps too presumptuous, stretched towards the winners line and then it all went wrong. The horse lost its footing, failed to make up on lost ground and was denied victory. And we all know what happened to rider Dick Francis who would go on to become a best selling and prolific author?

And so we reach the present day. Tomorrow some of the most lyrical names will all converge on this most auspicious day for steeplechase's most noble of horses. Favourite Corach Rambler will be joined by Meeting of the Waters, Mr Incredible, Mahler Mission, Coko Beach, the splendidly titled Chemical Energy, the poetic Noble Yeats and I am Maximus who will probably need no introduction. They will all casually make their way around Aintree as if it were just another day at the office.

Then the flag will go up once again and the Grand National which was once delayed because IRA terrorists had threatened to create havoc, will be back up and running. Some of us will spare a thought for those poor horses who may be risking life and limb. They will demand our sympathy because their courage is unquestioned, their bravery quite astonishing. And then on a late April afternoon, the winner of the Grand National will be acclaimed richly by the punters who backed their mount so faithfully.

The horse will be soaked by several buckets of water to wash off the sweat from their uplifting endeavours. Then they'll be patted and congratulated almost incessantly, trainers faces wreathed in smiles. This is sport at its most dramatic and traditional, sport at its most financially rewarding. It'll be sport sharing its stage with the gambling industry. Of course horse racing will forever be associated with its thriving betting industry but who could possibly deny us just a harmless flutter on just the Grand National. The good people of Liverpool will be cheering from the rafters and throwing their caps and hats into the air should their gamble pay off. This is sport at its best. 

General Election Year and new Mayor of London imminent

 General Election Year and new Mayor of London imminent.

Already we can hear the decisive foot stamping of politicians, the pavements of Britain about to be pounded quite seriously by the great and good of the House of Commons. We've yet to be told the precise date of this year's General Election but it can't be that far away now. Then there's the small matter of the election of a new Mayor for London who, barring a miracle or so it seems, will almost certainly be Sadiq Khan who is now poised to retain his position against a huge tidal wave of disapproval and hostile comments.

But this is General Election year and if you were to believe some media and social media outlets, the Labour party will simply casually wander into 10 Downing Street without so much as batting an eyelid. This has to be the most calamitous Tory government in recent political history and you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Tories have just been walking around with their eyes closed, totally oblivious to events around them and convinced that come General Election day, the keys to power will be handed to them almost automatically. And yet a vast majority will wake up on Election day and simply give the Conservative party the bloodiest of noses. Of  that there can be no doubt. But public opinion may be misleading.

For the last 14 years though Britain has been subjected to the most feckless, deceitful, shifty, conniving, scheming, pretentious and downright patronising Tory government in recent times. These, it would seem are just the Tories good qualities. We've always known about the Tories overriding obsession with capitalism, feathering their own nest, hoarding millions of pounds away in private accounts and just treading on the downtrodden and working class as if they simply weren't there. We knew what we were going to get with the Tories and it almost became a self fulfilling prophecy.

The questions are innumerable and the inquests after the event have been deeply probing and embarrassing at times. The Conservatives were supposed to represent financial prudence, safe housekeeping, complete investment in the young and injecting vast sums into ambitious projects that would not only benefit school leavers and university academics but the next generation and future generations. Margaret Thatcher, for she was the one, once guaranteed potential homeowners their own property and then boasted about this notable achievement when council homes were confirmed.

Fast forward four decades on and  Boris Johnson committed one of the most horrendous cock ups that would ever befall any political party worth its salt. When Johnson became Prime Minister at the end of 2019, he must have thought it would be the proverbial piece of cake with plenty of chocolate and cream. Sadly, the global virus known as Covid 19 would destroy Johnson's brief moment of euphoria. For the next two years, Johnson would fabricate, prevaricate, totally mislead, lie quite naturally, make it up on the spot and then bamboozle even himself with the kind of language or lack of coherent language that you simply couldn't have made up.

Then Johnson eventually fall on his own sword, driven out of Downing Street with a barrage of criticism and facing the kind of humiliation that used to be reserved for deposed queens and kings during medieval times. Johnson was replaced with Theresa May, only the second female Prime Minister, who braved the elements honourably but then discovered that nobody was on her side when it came to delivering action on Brexit.

So, with an emotional croak in her throat and a hint of tears, May fell by the wayside before Liz Truss took over and the third female Prime Minister was in office for roughly the same length of time as the legendary Brian Clough at Leeds United. It may have been slightly more than 44 days but Truss committed the cardinal sin of making a complete mess of the economy with one financial statement that rebounded on her fatally. Now we were in the land of gross incompetence and ineptitude. The voters of Britain didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It hardly seemed to make any difference.

Now though Britain faces what look like the dying embers of a Conservative government. Rishi Sunak has now been entrusted with the job of papering over cracks, disguising himself as Superman and remaining steadfastly delusional against all the odds. He may be Prime Minister but the vast majority of the nation may already have made up their minds. Sunak reminds you of one of those cartoon figures who tries to climb over a wall only to find electrical barbed wire barring his way. This may not be the way he thought things would pan out for his Conservative party but no amount of bluffing will seemingly save his job at 10, Downing Street.

At some point the date of the General Election and the great British public will be requested to stroll down to their local village hall, community centre or school and cast their vote. In the old days they used to be confronted with that now distinctive black metal box that was so scratched and rusty looking that you half suspected that we were supposed to be voting for either Gladstone or Disraeli. During the evenings every TV and radio station will extend saturation coverage to the General Election results in over 650 constituencies and in the small hours of Friday evening the new Prime Minister will take up residence in 10 Downing Street. It's a long, drawn out and laborious process but somebody's got to do it.

Meanwhile in London the new Mayor will also be occupying the hot seat in the early days of May. For those who regard this whole process as something of an amusing charade, it may be a waste of a lovely day. First there was Ken Livingstone, the former leader of the GLC, a man so vile and obnoxious in the eyes of those who knew what they were talking about that perhaps they simply imagined it. Livingstone became Mayor of London but, after a brief honeymoon period, became reviled and despised for his rabid anti Semitic outbursts.

Then of course there was Boris Johnson, who memorably presided over London's Olympic bid in 2005 and took great pride in admitting that he was the one who made it possible. After a  cheap but clever piece of patriotic chest bumping, Johnston accepted the Olympic flame and the rest as they say is history. Boris was our Mayor of London, our saviour, the Old Etonian comedy act who left most of his audience distinctly underwhelmed. We all know what happened next.

So there we are Ladies and Gentlemen. It's General Election year but then we may be bored silly with that same old jingle in our heads over the coming months and weeks. Whatever you do don't forget to smile warmly when somebody knocks on your door and promises to lead you into the land of Shangri La with roses around your cottage, substantial sums of money in your bank account and lots of exciting opportunities for self improvement. Babies will be kissed inevitably and soap boxes employed almost repeatedly for momentous announcements about either the Conservative or Labour party turning our lives upside down. The soundbites and pathetic platitudes will just begin to grate on us because we'll all have heard the same message over and over and over again. But hey, it'll be fun.

Pep Guardiola

 Pep Guardiola.

For much of the 90 minutes at Selhurst Park, Pep Guardiola seemed to be going through the whole gamut of emotions. Within roughly quarter of an hour against Crystal Palace, Manchester City's unashamedly demonstrative manager had told us everything we already knew about him. Guardiola was fuming, passionate, emotionally overcome at one point and staring at the sky in both anger and seething exasperation. Had something disastrous happened to him behind the scenes? Surely not.

Manchester City had gone a goal down to Crystal Palace and you'd have thought somebody had committed a heinous crime. For all the world Guardiola looked as though he'd lost everything on the horses or somebody had stolen his designer watch. But this was never the case so what was the matter? You see the point is that Pep Guardiola demands perfection from his teams and refuses to settle for below par, sub standard, inferior and certainly not the concession of early goals when clearly the opposition shouldn't have been that demanding. But this was a moment of temporary shock to Guardiola so this was hardly the most surprising reaction.

When Jean Phillipe Mateta opened the scoring for Palace with the match in its infancy, Guardiola thought his whole world had collapsed around him. He threw his hands into the air as if he'd been mortally offended by a personal joke about him, then fell forward on his seat almost resigned to his fate. The eyes were wild and staring, mortified, devastated, hurt, injured and utterly crestfallen. If somebody had given him a bottle of water at that point he'd have probably thrown it into the Sainsbury's supermarket next to Selhurst Park.

The fact of the matter is that Guardiola hates losing, despises the feeling you get when your team are either comprehensively beaten or narrowly defeated. He takes out his frustration on TV cameras or just grabs hold of one of his players and blames them quite openly. Comparisons with Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United are fairly obvious since Fergie resented everybody just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, simply within earshot of him. Then he would look at his watch and if the referee hadn't added on at least three years for injury time and United could still win a game, then you'd have been well advised to keep out of his way.

For the early part of City's 4-2 victory over a competent and well equipped Crystal Palace side, Guardiola was privately wrestling with his innermost feelings, tormented by minor anxieties and then going bananas when Palace threatened to take a firm foothold on the Premier League game. He turned to his assistant, embarked on an animated conversation with him and probably felt that City may have got out of bed on the wrong side. City looked heavy footed, ponderous in their build up play and not entirely sure of their bearings. Palace were stealing their thunder, possession of the ball and unsettling City.

When John Stones started dilly dallying with the ball for City in one of the visitors first attacks, Palace snatched the ball on the half way line, shuffled the ball forward quickly and Mateta latched onto a precise through ball. Sprinting forward on his own, Mateta just kept running before wrapping his foot around the ball and steering home a firmly driven shot past the City keeper which hit the post and rolled over the line for Palace's opening goal.

Years ago Brian Clough, one of football's greatest and most iconoclastic managers, would always hold a major inquest into either a Derby County or Nottingham Forest defeat. He would dart out of his manager's dug out with bunched fists, ferociously accusing fingers and threatening to fine his players if they didn't meet up to Clough's always exacting standards. Clough wanted blood, sweat and tears, never content with being runners up or gallant losers, striving desperately to win every conceivable football trophy available to his teams.

And now the bug has bitten Pep Guardiola. Yesterday Guardiola, to quote another cliche, was climbing the wall with outrage, disgust and outright dissatisfaction. Of course the Spaniard reminds you of a dashing matador in a feverish bull ring. The cape is flourished almost repeatedly and the bull just responds in a way that comes naturally. In the technical area allotted to him at the Etihad, Guardiola takes advantage of  acting out his full repertoire of amateur dramatics. He throws any object onto the ground when City fall behind, rolling his eyes with evident displeasure before snarling and gesturing disapprovingly as if football is just terribly unfair and City should never lose.

The greying stubble on his face is symptomatic of what Premier League title chases can do to a man. His chin was bristling with grave miscarriages of injustice as if pleading with the jury protestations of innocence. He jumps up quite suddenly when the referee consults with VAR at the very thought that a stonewall penalty had been denied to City. Then the arms and fingers look tortured with pain as he rages, gesticulates, at times taking the law into his hands. City have now won three consecutive Premier League titles but now the scenario is markedly different. Suddenly Liverpool and Arsenal have encroached on his precious territory and nobody should ever do that to Pep and his City. 

After yesterday's top three Premier League battles, City eventually cantered home to victory against Palace while at the Amex Stadium, Brighton were almost brushed away dismissively by another rampant Arsenal victory with only three goals but goals that could prove crucial come the end of the season. This time City have very real challenges to their supremacy and Mikel Arteta is another Spaniard in bullish mood. It may be that this one Premier League end of season run in has got something entirely unexpected up its sleeve. It's time to loosen those collars and be prepared for a breathless last day of the season.

But Pep Guardiola is still a fascinating study in human behaviour. When Kevin De Bruyne, his immensely gifted midfield attacking machine, let fly with a sensational rocket shot which levelled the game, Guardiola was seen to be blowing kisses at the Belgian virtuoso. Then De Bruyne left his indelible imprint on yesterday's proceedings, controlling the ball comfortably, passing the ball accurately and judiciously, waltzing past defenders with a fox trot gait about him and then cutting back onto his feet with attractive changes of pace or neat lay offs that left defenders dumbfounded. Guardiola knows exactly how to treat his golden treasures and yesterday was no exception to the rule.

For a while Erling Haaland, his Norwegian striker and wonderfully shrewd acquisition, looked to be struggling to assert himself and missed a whole host of excellent goal scoring chances. But even Haaland emerged from his recent goal drought with another goal to add to his remarkable collection. Now Guardiola had shaken off those moody outbursts and just accepted the status quo. At the end of the game Guardiola had recovered his poise and just felt so much better about football.

Meanwhile Mikel Arteta, Guardiola's former coach at Manchester City, was knuckling down to the task of maintaining Arsenal's Premier League title charge. Arteta just runs up and down touchlines when Arsenal score and just high fives his loyal and hardcore supporters in the crowd or appearing to do so. We are now into the hard last yards of the Premier League season when managers almost certainly earn their corn. They invariably complain when things don't go according to plan, blaming the goldfish for their team's downfall or just being deprived of goals of the obvious. Oh to be a Jurgen Klopp of Liverpool, Mikel Arteta and of course Pep Guardiola. To quote the always articulate Sir Alex Ferguson, football hey!