Three o'clock in the old First Division.

Three o'clock in the old First Division

There was a time when football kicked off at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, trams and trolley buses would normally run on time, BBC Radio 2 would announce the classified football results with James Alexander Gordon on a crackling turquoise transistor radio, teams still played at Highbury, White Hart Lane, Upton Park, Filbert Street, Roker Park and the Baseball Ground while at home mum would be busy whipping up a mouth watering plate of egg and chips.

At lunchtime some of us would be running furiously towards Upton Park with all the fervent enthusiasm of a much younger child thumping the ball vehemently against a garden wall and then cracking the ball with the loudest thud against a battered fence in the hope that some talent scout from the Boleyn Ground would notice my very youthful skills and endeavours.

But then the ball would rather unfortunately plunge into my parents prickly thorns and blossoming roses before flopping forlornly into a state of plaintive despair. The match was over for this carefree blithe spirit, a four or five year old frustratingly thwarted when he must have thought that the devious body swerve, the inch perfect crossfield pass and the thunderous shot from the half way line would never ever be acknowledged.

However, years later you soon realised that football was full of wonderful surprises, comforting certainties, amusing rituals and, above all, three o'clock kick offs. You could put our watch on it quite literally and you knew you would never be disappointed. You would dash away from the bus before embarking on one of the clumsiest runs ever seen by this teenage football devotee. You would rush frantically past the hustling, bustling shopping throng in East Ham High Street before tearing around the corner and then making a comical sprint down the Barking Road.

With breathless anticipation, we imagined and hoped that the TV cameras would be ready and waiting for our regular pilgrimage to Upton Park. You could never explain why you wanted the cameras to be there but you thought that at some point during the game your faces would be clearly exposed to a captive TV audience and at school the following Monday morning our mates would plead persistently for our autograph.

So you trudged optimistically past the always commercially prosperous bakeries, jam packed department stores and those glittering emporiums that would provide the very latest in bargains, special offers and shops with tempting offers. And then you would arrive at your destination, the footballing Academy, the club who once converted a single Saturday afternoon on one of the last days of July 1966 into one of the greatest days of our footballing lives.

The club is West Ham United and when the team in claret and blue kick off this afternoon at three o'clock you would think back to that routine time frame which invariably meant that the referee would blow the whistle for kick off at the appointed time. Our nerves were irreparably frayed, our finger nails bitten to the quick and the woman carrying those enormous bags of monkey nuts would glamorously purvey the pre match snack around the perimeter of the pitch, happily chucking them into the deliriously excited Chicken Run terrace named after chicken wire from many decades before.

You would now walk up the steps of the South Bank end with that devotional tread of some religious worshipper hoping against hope that their visit would prove a beneficial one. You would look towards the centre of the pitch, savouring, relishing and salivating, waiting patiently for a cascade of Bubbles to float towards the battleship grey skies of a wintry afternoon in East London before finding your spot. You would gaze in some incredulity at the brass band assembled near the players tunnel and convince yourself that it simply couldn't get any better.

Suddenly, loudly and quite musically, the Upton Park tannoy system would blare out quite magnificently the opening bars of Whistling Jack Smith, a quaint 1960s pop group from that electrifying decade and you knew what to expect. The DJ request show was an integral part of the pre-match entertainment and for the next two hours you would be regaled by the whole of the pop music spectrum including those you hadn't heard for years and years.

Then you would flick idly through the match programme with footballing lore and literature that was somehow unequalled. Unlike most of the fans around me, a pen would be missing so when the teams were announced you were unable to change the names of players who had been injured before the game. But you were safe and secure, establishing an instant rapport, common ground, a kinship, a vital connection to the drama and spectacle that was about to unfold before us.  I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles would release its first stunning chorus and verse.

The West Ham fans of course were just a joy to behold, masses of claret and blue scarves wrapped around their necks, some wearing those distinctive rosettes, thick coats and bobble hats reinforcing their identity and then there were the refreshments. Now this was the point when some of us could only chuckle under our breath. Lunchtime had well and truly arrived at Upton Park.

For some time whole batches of West Ham supporters would cling on desperately to thick rolls or baps oozing with giant sized hot dogs, hamburgers the size of maisonettes and tomato ketchup that seemed to be dripping down their mouths like torrential rain from the top of a roof. The pangs of hunger had to be satisfied so this was normal behaviour. Before we knew it polystyrene cups of tea, coffee or the traditional Bovril would be gulped down gratefully, thirsts slaked and ready for the football.

And so the brass band would continue to strike up that very pleasing cacophony of old musical hall classics, famous film soundtracks and a whole host of 1960s classics. The trombones would slide up and down in unison and the fans, by now well and truly replete with alcohol, would belt out their weekly repertoire of gallows humour and some of the saltiest of industrial language. Every so often the good natured abuse and the stream of Anglo Saxon expletives would drift gently towards the South Bank end of West Ham's Upton Park.

There was a very appealing and eye catching theatricality about the whole experience. At half time, whatever the score, particularly in the chilliest reaches of November and December, the floodlights would flicker on nervously in case one of the bulbs had gone and you had to watch the second half in semi darkness. Then there was the North Bank light show, hundreds of cigarettes lighting up in a blue haze of nicotine Nirvana

By now the fans, either fed up or disgruntled, would simply resign themselves to the fate of their team. If West Ham were losing heavily or winning convincingly the fans would take out all their pent up frustration with their very literary grievances. If the claret and blue fans were unhappy with the visitors they would tell them in no uncertain terms. You can probably fill in the blanks. The sentences were, to say the very least, aggressively threatening in their tone and for a while you privately wished that the referee would blow his whistle sooner rather than later.

Still, this afternoon the current West Ham team will step out of the London Stadium against Everton at three o'clock this afternoon which is perhaps the way it should always be but can never be possible in today's game. You never know whether to feel fear or foreboding, delight or relief  when the team in claret and blue step across the white line. Some of us though will look at our watches and just smile at tradition.