At long last - a West Ham victory in the Premier League.

At long last - a West Ham victory in the Premier League.

Patience of course is a virtue. How long some of us have had to wait. But it was worth it in the end even if we were beginning to think it would never happen again. We twiddled our thumbs, tapped our fingers, buried our heads in despair and began to fear the worst. It was one of those momentous days when West Ham United finally discovered that winning habit and not before time. For a while the impossible became an improbable before finally bearing fruit in the autumnal harvest.

At long last West Ham supporters rid themselves of the dark cloak of melancholy, shook off their early season torpor and rustiness and then finally hit the ground running. After four straight defeats in the new season, those of a claret and blue persuasion could barely hide our delight. We cracked open the champagne of celebration, flew the flags, dug out the bunting, laid out the tables, prepared the food and then the street party could commence shamelessly.

And yet this was the perfect moment to congratulate a Chilean gentleman whose 65th birthday this was yesterday. For Manuel Pellegrini, West Ham's hitherto troubled boss, whose side who had been bottom of the Premier League, defeat at Everton would have left him in no mood whatsoever for presents and best wishes. Suddenly, Pellegrini's West Ham bucked up their ideas, looked each other in the face and ultimately proved too good for an Everton team who continue to blow hot and cold.

It is at times like this when you begin to question your sanity, asking yourself precisely why on earth you should put yourself through the purgatory of football support. Nine months are almost absurdly spent on that emotional investment and you remember the words of Nick Hornby in his classic book Fever Pitch.

Hornby faithfully followed Arsenal through thick and thin, the trials and tribulations of that connection with your football team, that sometimes fraught relationship with your team, shivering on freezing terraces, wrapping the club scarf around you rather like some comfort blanket and then rubbing your hands together because the game is destined to finish in a desperately boring 0-0 draw.

There was a part of Hornby that deeply regretted those wasted years, the relationships with girls that were irreparably sacrificed because he could never make his girlfriends understand why the game was so vitally important to him. There was the intriguing fan obsession, the long, meandering travels to Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester United when in his heart of hearts he must have known that those journeys would be bleak and fruitless. No point in traipsing all the way to St James' Park, Anfield and Old Trafford when you knew Arsenal would get a severe hammering. Not now as any Arsenal fan would rightly tell you but at the time it must have felt that way.

Yet the analogy may be correct. For some of us the pill has been too bitter to swallow and although West Ham finally notched up their first win of the season against an admittedly poor and lack lustre Everton at Goodison Park, the suspicion may well be that it is only West Ham's first victory and the mountainside is still terrifyingly challenging. It could be that West Ham will need a decent set of crampons because this journey could be littered with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Time will tell of course.

Still, yesterday was full of ironies, coincidences  and conundrums. How for instance could a West Ham team struggling so desperately for any kind of victory, finally win their first game of the season at a ground where they have been notoriously unsuccessful in recent years? Three seasons ago a Dimitri Payet influenced West Ham beat Everton at Goodison while last season they were soundly thrashed by Everton with another one of those amazing Wayne Rooney goals from the half way line.

But now for the strange coincidence. West Ham's last victory in 2018 came against Everton in the Hammers final game of the last season at the London Stadium. Guess what? West Ham, rather like yesterday's result, ran out 3-1 winners on that occasion. A case of what goes around comes around although there are few West Ham loyalists who will be unduly worried about how matches are won as long as they are won.

In a small corner of Goodison you could almost hear that definitive Bubbles anthem, muffled at times but nonetheless audible. These will be testing times for West Ham supporters because if the worst comes to the worst in next weekend's game against a high flying, unbeaten and rampant Chelsea at the London Stadium then those self same fans are likely to turn on their team in much the way that they did last season.

When all said and done though West Ham yesterday looked like a team who had fully taken on all of those shrewd tactical instructions conveyed to them by their patient manager. Their passes were crisper, sharper and quicker than at any time since their opening day 4-0 defeat against Liverpool at Anfield. There was a much more polished patina about West Ham's football, more substance, easy on the eye co-ordination, a flow and fluency that hadn't been in evidence against either Liverpool, Bournemouth, Arsenal or Wolves.

Two goals from the increasingly popular Marko Arnautovic and a stunner from new Ukraine winger Andriy Yarmolenko lifted West Ham from rock bottom of the Premier League and into the sunny uplands of 16th. There was a healthier glow about West Ham's game, a willingness to take risks, an established game plan and very little in the way of the sluggishness that had characterised their opening games.

At the back Fabricio Bulbuena, Issa Diop, Pablo Zabaleta and the permanently adventurous Arthur Masuaku provided West Ham with much of the balance, ballast and underlying strength. But it was the performance of young Declan Rice that held the attention for those West Ham fans who cherish good, ball playing players who will pause for breath, consider their options and are always prepared to play from the back. This is in preference to neglecting the whole expanse of the pitch with the dull, clanking, long, high ball.

Rice it was who delivered a composed, almost dignified display of natural footballing intelligence, awareness of his colleagues around him and all of those qualities that sort the men from the boys. He covered and cherished possession of the ball, nipping in front of encroaching Everton blue with clever and easy distribution of the ball. Rice it was who performed with a calmness and maturity that may yet see him in an England shirt. The decision is his.

Beside Rice was the ever reliable and inexhaustible Mark Noble who, returning from injury, captained by example, biting into tackles and whipping the ball away from opponents as if terribly offended that somebody had dared to beat him for the ball. Noble it was whose intervention from some sloppy defending by a hesitant Everton, eventually moved the ball forward to the feet of Yarmolenko whose fabulous curling shot past Everton keeper Jordan Pickford reduced most of Goodison to a worrying silence.

With the other new recruit Felipe Anderson, another potential West Ham idol running directly at the home side with the ball and searching out huge acres of the pitch to open up Everton at every opportunity, West Ham were in front foot mode, attacking from a whole variety of angles, pushing forward, prompting and inventing, flinging open the flimsy doors of an often fragile and soft Everton defensive underbelly.

After Everton had pulled a goal back from Sigurdsson's bullet of a header, West Ham, who thought their two goal cushion had made them completely secure, momentarily panicked. In the second half though West Ham came to life again. A swarming claret and blue formation made life for the home side extremely uncomfortable.

And then West Ham clinched their much deserved victory on the day with the kind of goal that West Ham fans may have thought they were entitled to score in every match. The sweetest of passing movements on the edge of the Everton penalty area resulted in the loveliest of one twos between Pedro Obiang and Arnautovic. Arnautovic smartly latched onto a wonderfully intelligent give and go and slid the ball into the net for West Ham's conclusive third and winning goal.

So it was that the travelling hordes of West Ham fans filed out of Goodison Park wondering whether Sunday afternoons on Merseyside could ever be such fun again. They blew their bubbles and buoyantly danced out of a now very subdued Goodison. It is only now that you can begin to understand  what Nick Hornby was talking about.

The contrasting moods which football can so easily engender may have a much more profound effect on a football supporter's whole persona. Of course football is not a case of life and death although Bill Shankly may have regarded it as much more important than that. But for a team who hadn't won a single match since the second week in May this was sheer nectar. Oh to follow the team from East London and play at the London Stadium. Some of us deserve a medal.