54 years of hurt.

54 years of hurt.

The years are passing too quickly for anybody's liking. In fact they're flying past us at the most incredible speed. The pain and hurt are still there, the ever-present sense of underachievement always on our minds and the humiliation is such that none of us know quite where to hide our faces such is the length of time since the England football team last won the World Cup for the only time in its chequered history. There can be no explanation except to say that by the law of averages England will eventually win the World Cup again but no date has been set, year arranged or time frame given. Your guess is as good as mine.

Now we know it may not be the end of the world and there are far more important things to worry about than a nation's pathological inability to win again the one cup or trophy that seems to have eluded it for 54 years. But here we are twiddling our fingers, scratching our heads in utter bewilderment and still England are searching for at least one more World Cup- at least for the time being. We surely can't be asking for too much and besides it would give us something to cheer about.

But oh no. That gap is widening to a chasm, millions of babies have been born, a whole host of Prime Ministers have been elected and even Wembley Stadium must be getting fed up. Generation after generation have now been deprived of that precious moment of joy, that one day of national and patriotic rejoicing. England will though win the World Cup one day only not this one or any for the foreseeable future.

Still, on a day of watery sunshine and an old Wembley Stadium pitch still scarred by bumps, divots and one or two bobbly patches of mud, England won the World Cup on this day in 1966. That will remain an undeniable fact for as long as football is played. It is of course a misty, sepia tinted memory, barely noticeable but etched into the country's cultural heritage. Every four years we keep cursing and swearing under our breath, struggling to find any kind of pathetic excuse.

And yet every four years England keep fluffing their lines, suffering from stage fright, crippled with nerves, asking themselves questions, suppressing oaths and profanities, looking for maybe a psychological flaw in the team's make up. Admittedly we did get it right in 1966 but that may have been because it was in our own back yard, London, England when Sir Alf Ramsey was the right manager and Bobby Moore was undoubtedly the best captain.

Admittedly, the 1990 World Cup, the 1996 European Championship in England and the World Cup in Russia two years ago, were the nearly years for England. They were the years of dreadful anti-climax, mounting frustration and those now iconic years when it might have happened but then was snatched away from us when we were on the verge of greatness only to discover that the fickle finger of fate was wagging at us teasingly.

Even now we clutch our heads in despair, hide behind the sofa and generally feel pretty rotten about those lingering disappointments. We drown our sorrows in reflective alcohol and always blame the manager because we know for a fact that our choice of England manager could do an infinitely better job than that man the FA always seem to lumber us with. So the backstory drags on interminably and we must place our unwavering faith in Gareth Southgate, a bright and competent coach with vast reserves of knowledge at every level of the game.

So where were we 54 years ago on that magical day of what must have felt like a footballing fantasy? Were we washing our cars in the morning and then mowing our grass in our garden? Did we pop into the local betting shop for the most fleeting of flutters. Or did we, on this most special of all Saturdays, simply guess that Bobby Moore would respectfully wipe his hands on that purple cloth before lifting the World Cup from Her Majesty the Queen. If so hats off to you for remarkable foresight because nobody else could possibly have imagined this to be the case. Still, well done everybody. Bobby did and you were right.

But seriously jokes aside this was the day when a beautifully composed script was written on a day that defied description. Who would have believed that the West Germans would take the lead since they were not supposed to score first? That was England's prerogative because we deserved it and we had every right to do so. It was all in the stars, divine intervention, being in the right place at the right time and besides we'd never won anything at all of any significance since Fred Perry became the men's tennis singles winner at Wimbledon and that had been ages ago.

The sequence and narrative told their own stories. The West Germans took the lead and then time was frozen for the next twenty or twenty-five minutes or so. A couple of minutes before half time, Bobby Moore was in possession just inside his own half when, suddenly, there was a bolt from the blue. Moore, perhaps cleverly inviting the tackle, was recklessly brought down. The Moore free-kick resembled the most classic of oil paintings. Stopping the ball with his hand, Moore looked up immediately at the unfolding events in the West German penalty area. The ball was floated into the West Germans penalty area rather like a dark orange balloon and the now Sir Geoff Hurst jumped unmarked to meet the Moore free-kick, nodding a downward header firmly into the net for the equaliser.

Hurst, in that most televised of all sporting images, leapt into the air with both knees raised and the exuberance of youth on his side. England were on level terms and the second half would reveal a half of the most dramatic intensity with a delicious twist and climax. After Hurst's cultured West Ham team-mate Martin Peters had drilled the ball home for England's second goal, a vast majority must have thought that was that. The Germans had been poleaxed and flattened, they were a spent force, a travesty of their former selves particularly after a narrow 2-1 defeat of Russia in the semi-final.

Then as if the game had been deliberately slowed down, a low free-kick into the England penalty area was arrowed towards England goalkeeper Gordon Banks with minutes to go of the 1966 World Cup Final, the ball seemed to bounce off a whole posse of German bodies before creeping across England's suddenly exposed goal line. A last gasp equaliser was scrambled scruffily into the net to leave poor Gordon Banks, that most reliable of England goalkeepers, stranded. Heartbreak but maybe not.

In extra time, the repressed and wretchedly misunderstood Sir Alf Ramsey wandered around his deflated England players rather like a school headmaster chastising his students for just being careless. So, with that now inspired rallying cry, Ramsey ordered his players to win the game again. It was almost a moment of re-invention that would culminate in the ultimate resurrection.

Now there would arrive one of those remarkable incidents that would transform the whole dynamic of that injury time period. Alan Ball, a 21-year old Blackpool midfield player, full of tireless running and ferocious commitment, ran into space on the edge of the West German penalty area, manoeuvred himself into position before crossing sharply and diagonally towards Geoff Hurst and the West Ham man gave himself just enough room to turn smartly and, in the same movement, swivelled his body and cracked the ball powerfully towards the West German net. What happened next is completely open to interpretation.

Hurst's snap shot hit the crossbar, dropped down onto the German goal line and to this day none of us will ever know whether it was a goal. The legitimacy of the goal has been questioned endlessly in a million pubs and clubs across England but the goal was thrillingly given in England's favour. Such are the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. An end to end, fluctuating World Cup Final which will surely go down in history had come down to this. The West Germans were out on their feet, exhausted beyond exhaustion and wondering when the next plane back to Munich would land for them.

When the impeccable Bobby Moore once again picked up the ball in his own penalty area the whole country and Jack Charlton, standing yards away from Moore, told the captain where to despatch the ball. Most of us were in unanimous agreement. Moore, with all the perception of a night owl on early evening duty at Wembley, sent a legendary through ball over the top of a by now disintegrating West German defence and that man Geoff Hurst, shepherding the ball, ran forward with not a single white West German shirt anywhere near him. Hurst, summoning a strength even he thought must have been beyond him, dragged his legs for one final spurt on goal. Puffing out his cheeks, Hurst strode forward and whacked the ball thunderously but accurately into the net when perhaps he thought the ball would end up at Wembley Park train platform. Cue the greatest goal celebration in the world.

The fans, who knew that Hurst would score, almost felt a genuinely smug vindication. What did they tell you? They raced onto the pitch with not a single policeman in sight, wildly flinging their arms into the air, correctly anticipating that final whistle. England had won the World Cup for the first time and there could be no argument. Jack Charlton slumped to his knees, Nobby Stiles jumped and skipped around the old Wembley Stadium with that trademark toothy grin as if somebody had told him that he'd come up on the Pools rather than Viv Nicholson had only a couple of years before.

Alan Ball, England's most electrifying influence in midfield, its most explosive spark plug, kept covering his face with his hands, smiling like a teenager who'd just won first prize in a talent contest. Then Bobby Charlton, the graceful Bobby, almost fell into the arms of his brother Jack theatrically, tears flowing like a bathroom tap that somebody had forgotten to turn off. Jack and Bobby Charlton, brothers in arms, were now united in England's almost Olympian sporting victory, wrapping their arms around each other with a sentimental hug. If only England could win the World Cup all the time.

In the cold light of day an England World Cup-winning performance now seems just a sad irrelevance given the fact that only briefly have they hinted at an addition in the Wembley trophy cabinet. The redemptive optimism of the 1960s after the bleak austerity of the 1950s may have come to England's emotional rescue when nothing seemed possible. But here we are 54 years later and still the horizon is a wasteland, a trail of broken dreams and far fetched hopes. We look around us and the rest of the world and of course we are grateful for good health because that's all that matters. There can be no harm in hoping though that the elusive Coup Du Monde trophy may take up residence on England's famous shores once again. We have to believe that it could just happen.

How we miss tennis.

How we miss tennis?

Those summertime sporting festivals are just a distant memory. It is hard to believe now but the tennis at Wimbledon- or not- is now merely a vague dot on the horizon. When the lockdown stopped all of us in our tracks in March, the yearly tennis jamboree was the first to fall victim to the coronavirus disease. Tennis, rather like a vast majority of spectator sports if not all, found itself with no alternative but to cancel since the mass crowds who would normally flood into Centre Court, Court Number One and the surrounding courts wouldn't be allowed to take their place in the current climate.

So what do you do when your hands are tied and you know that one of Britain's favourite sporting tournaments has to pack away its tightly strung rackets, dispense with the ball boys and girls, tell the umpires that they won't be needed this year and the line judges should straighten their backs because that awkward posture never really looked comfortable? Those bent over backs in readiness for players rocket serves from the baseline may have been studies in concentration but you always wondered why.

Sadly though Wimbledon will not resound to that evocative thwack and crack of the yellow ball game as it fizzed across the net with mesmerising frequency. How we loved to listen to those painfully plaintive cries, yells and grunts that would punctuate the silence of a glorious summer evening at tennis headquarters.

Year after year we would descend on those delightful, ivy-clad walls at SW19 where a packed throng would shuffle and wander thoughtfully along that busy concourse and then flock to Henman Hill, a pilgrimage for all of those shrewd tennis observers who once pleaded with Tim Henman to clinch the men's singles trophy. Then we discovered that they were fighting a losing battle because Henman always seemed to fall short and agonisingly missed out on the big trophy.

Yesterday at Roehampton in London we re-connected with tennis if not quite in the way we thought we would. It was the Battle of the Brits, a distinctly non-competitive friendly tournament between the very best in British tennis. There were the traditional men and women singles on show followed closely by the men and women's doubles and last but not least the mixed doubles. This was not tennis as the players might have chosen it to be but the latest generation of British tennis players were finally on court doing the thing they've always loved doing which can be no bad thing.

There was Andy Murray, twice winner of Wimbledon, looking fitter than ever before but inwardly terrified that any kind of injury would leave him crocked and out of action for ages. Murray is one of the most exceptional of tennis players, brave-hearted, courageous, persistent, adamant that his way is the best way, aggressive, driven, never satisfied with himself, always demanding more and pumping his fists almost incessantly when the big points are thrown away.

In his epic collisions with Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal Murray would work himself up into a lather just wearing down his opponent with a merciless barrage of gloriously whipped returns of serve which would develop into memorable winners. The Murray forehand and backhand were like some deadly execution, punching his shots with perfectly weighted accuracy. Lengthy injuries have obviously hampered and cramped Murray for some time but the hallmark of quality is still there.

Both Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund are beginning to emerge from Murray's shadow but yesterday you felt even when Murray does decide to retire and call it a day we may have to wait for the new kids on the block. Dan Evans looks as though he could challenge for a Wimbledon title at some point in the future and Kyle Edmund likewise. Now of course they'll have to wait until next year before somebody gives the thumbs up for meaningful tennis. The names of Liam Broady and Maima Lumsen maybe unrecognisable but you feel sure that come summer 2021 the Wimbledon faithful will be taking their places.

For the women of course the years of striving for equality with the men may well gather pace for as long as tennis is played. In recent years Johanna Konta has been battling purposefully on the court for national attention and the right to compete on the same terms as the men. In a now-controversial Press interview Konta attacked her inquisitor with an angry outburst about some of the patronising remarks that were lobbed at her from the back of the court. How dare they question Konta's commitment and she'd had enough? She then stormed indignantly back to her dressing room no doubt, nostrils flaring, eyes bulging with fury and then tucking into a punnet of strawberries and cream with a sigh of relief.

So there you have it folks. Tennis has still carved a niche in our lives although the crowds and fans are still waiting confirmation of a possible return in the not too distant future. The National Tennis Centre in Roehampton seemed as good a place as anywhere to launch a tentative comeback.  This is not the way tennis would have planned it but how good it'll be to hear those excited and hysterical yelps of encouragement that could almost be heard in Manchester.

Never mind. Patience will have to be a virtue because time is a great healer indeed when you know that things can hardly get any worse than they already are. So sit back until next June and we can only hope that the patrons of Wimbledon, our summertime sporting cheerleaders will holler out with good-humoured conviction the names of the great, good and the sublime. Even now we can hardly wait.

Shall we or shall we not go on holiday?

Shall we or shall we not go on holiday?

To go on holiday or not to go on holiday that is the question why? Whether it be nobler in the mind to suffer the pangs of sorrow if we decide not to go or do we simply go with our instincts and take a chance? These are the moral questions of the day and we have yet to resolve them. At the outbreak of the coronavirus lockdown we were rightly told that we couldn't go anywhere let alone the Iberian peninsula where the relentless heat of the Mediterranean would warm our souls and relax our minds if only for a week or two. But life is perfect so who cares.

Now we discover that a holiday to Spain may have dire consequences and it could be touch and go if you do decide to climb aboard a plane with your natty sombrero. For these are the warnings. Should you make up your minds to fly off to the Costa Brava, Blanca, Benidorm or Torremolinos you could be taking a calculated risk yet again. Beware the quarantine sentence when you troop bronzed and tanned through customs and the baggage carousel area. Yes quarantine. Sounds a bit harsh and draconian you might think but you've got to err on the side of caution.

So here we are four months into the partially lifted lockdown and still the conflicting messages buzz around our heads. It is rather like a complicated game of Pontoon where you have to shuffle the pack of cards and either twist or stick. You follow the news agenda and still there remains a sense of bafflement and indecipherable doublespeak. We may just as well be talking at cross purposes because the language is patently back to front and completely lacking in any kind of context.

Now the chances are that you've probably lost interest in any kind of holiday since we are now in July and the merry, merry months of May and jolly June passed long ago and the momentum of the year may well have gone. The fluid rhythms of the calendar year have been totally disrupted by the global pandemic and besides none of us really felt like doing anything or going anywhere when the lockdown reached its most disturbing level of severity and concern.

But within a month, holidays in Spain have dominated the news headlines even if most of us would probably be blissfully content with a bed and breakfast break in Scarborough. All of those hours spent in the baking heat of a Majorcan day seemed to have been and gone. And yet there are those of us who may think that the latter end of summer is the more appealing of options. The kids are off school on their summer holidays and what could be better than a long, cool soak in some far off swimming pool where the castanets click to their hearts content and the bullfighters still tease those poor animals.

Still, some of us have more or less thrown in the towel and surrendered to whatever the year may hold in store. Besides. this morning's news-driven photos of our undaunted Brits standing on Spanish beaches wearing those now essential masks remind you of that classic Carry on comedy film where Sid James and company giggle their heads off on a clearly amateurish set where a couple of buckets of sand have been hilariously spread across the floor to recreate a Spanish beach.

However there are those of us who can't quite get their heads around the topical reference to quarantine. Surely the very act of quarantining of anything or anybody should only be applied to cattle or the farming community when cows or sheep are confined due to illness. And yet here is the human race at its most susceptible and vulnerable, hundreds and thousands of lives dramatically taken because of a lethal virus and disease that perhaps should have been dealt with much sooner than it was.

Still, this is the way it has to be. For just a week or so Britain has been ordered to wear its surgical masks on its transport system and a nation still deeply worried about the immediate future stares uncomprehendingly at the wider world and wishes that we could wind the clock forward to a time when everything runs like clockwork rather than a rusty timepiece that refuses to work. Then we think about the possibility of going back to Spain, the country where it all started for huge swathes of Britain at the beginning of the 1970s, where evening meals bore no resemblance to anything you'd ever eaten at home and dessert consisted of some wobbly brown caramel that had just been slopped onto a plate.

This time though we have been told that even if we plump for the Costa Del Sol we have to conform to the rules and regulations of the modern age. This time a Spanish holiday comes with a number of important caveats. You won't have to worry about the excessive consumption of sangria and nobody has told you not to eat the perfectly edible paella. What should be exercising minds is the underlying fear that once you're back on Blighty soil again you've got to stay at home for another fortnight or so we're led to believe.

So it is that we shall book our late summer flights to the land of bullfighting toreadors with just a hint of nervous trepidation because this may not be our year for flying anywhere let alone Spain. You remember fondly a family holiday from many decades ago where you found yourself amusingly stuck in a lift in a Barcelona store, plunged into darkness as a result of a  power cut that seemed to last too long for your liking.

Now though is not the time for nostalgic excursions because we all need a holiday from time to time and whether it's Spain or Great Yarmouth in the pouring rain, the Brits have preferred to escape to warmer summertime territories. We've been lockdowned for far too long and what we'd give for a good, old fashioned donkey, a bottle of red from Seville and a stirring rendition of Y Viva Espana. Oh to be England in the summer. 

It's National Cheese and Wine Day folks.

It's National Cheese and Wine Day folks.

Guess what folks. It's National Cheese and Wine Day. Across Britain the fashion for holding cheese and wine parties used to be the province of the middle and even upper classes. It meant that you had money, surrounded by all the fixtures and fittings of having a couple of million bob in the bank. When those who were so inclined at the time felt like inviting our neighbours in for a quiet night of sophisticated living you had to throw a cheese and wine party.

In the luxuriously upholstered dining rooms and literary saloons of Kensington and Chelsea, Mayfair and Notting Hill in London's affluent ghetto land, it was cheese and wine as the aperitif followed by heated discussion about the Common Market and Edward Heath. This was, after all, the 1970s. Cheese and wine were rather like the background mood music of our lives, impressively displayed snacks, full of flavour and piquancy. They represented snobbery, pretension, poshness and a reminder to your neighbours that you could show off as well.

Because cheese and wine parties quintessentially belonged to the 1970s, a time for flaunting your art nouveau furniture, your shameless opulence, your very expensive accessories, your ornate souvenirs from those exhausting holidays in the Caribbean and that art gallery of family photos, Picasso masterpieces, Habitat chairs and those oval-shaped glass-topped tables that seemed to be all the rage during the 1970s.

At the moment though none of us may be up for any party since parties should only be organised when there's something to celebrate and rejoice in. But who cares life is wonderful. National Cheese and Wine Day still has a slightly snooty significance, the kind of event that used to take place after work. If a successful day of financial transactions had been achieved and the boss was in a particularly good mood then out would come those little sticks on which would be fixed tiny cubes of the finest Cheddar, the sweetest bottle of Chateau Blanc wine from Marks and Spencer and a small glass of the popular Prosecco.

So ladies and gentlemen let us a raise a toast to all of the accounts departments, all of those IT engineers, the secretaries, the marketing team, the advertising section and a whole variety of office workers who have done so much to maintain the future of the company. Quite how cheese and wine came to be recognised as so important when things were going well at the office is a mystery. Maybe it was the simplicity of it all, the straightforward presentation of a much-loved snack.

It was quite clear that no great effort would be required to partake of cheese and wine since there were no knives and forks to cut and wrestle with and the whole process would take you a couple of seconds at the very least. But let us celebrate cheese and wine because some of us just love cheese, that wonderful combination of whey, milk and eminently moreish into the bargain. There's the crumbly cheese that melts in the mouth, Wensleydale, Cheddar, Stilton, Red Leicester and our French friends Brie and Camembert. How could you possibly go wrong?

But this is where you find yourself at a complete loss. Why do the hosts of cheese and wine parties insist on wrapping the cheese with silver foil? Of course, the said cheese and wine are perfect starters to the main meal and there has to be something of a guilty pleasure in that first sip of wine. Now it is that you engage your colleague or friend with conversations about the latest developments in the world of City banking or compare notes on that arts programme you saw on Sky Arts the night before.

It's normally the case that if you've been invited to a cheese and wine party you're under obligation to bring your own bottle of plonk. Besides, you're not there to take advantage of your company's generosity and largesse. So you sidle up to your boss, tell him or her that they're the best thing since sliced bread and then talk about French vineyards where your particular brand of booze has originated.

In a matter of seconds the said small chunks of cheese and those fragrant odours of rich red grape are now consumed in no time at all. There is indeed a rich symbolism in cheese and wine, a social status, a statement of class, a noteworthy cachet, the ultimate recognition of your worth and merit within the company. You've finally clinched the deal so take as many nibbles of cheese as you want and that wine has a richly satisfying bouquet to it. So go on tuck in and enjoy.

Hold on though what happened to those other snacks such as the mushroom vol au vents, the fish croutons and those adorable little cheese sandwiches which also make your mouth water? Over the years cheese and wine has been served up to a nation of those with discerning palates. They're eaten within in no time, they make no demands on your time and they cost nothing to plonk on a plate. The waiters and waitresses are almost surplus to requirements since you can quite literally help yourself.

So there you are everybody. It's National Cheese and Wine Day. In the grand scheme of things you may not care much for these humble culinary delicacies. However, if you're invited round to family and friends tonight be sure to remember that there are some traditions that may never die.  Those cheese nibbles look deliciously edible and inviting while that wine smells like a luxuriant garden of red roses. Time to mingle with the managing director or tell your friends about that barrel of grapes you crushed on a late summer break en vacances en France. Oh for the glorious wine of life and don't forget the cheese.   

The end of another football season but that doesn't sound right.

The end of another football season but that doesn't sound right.

How strange that the football season ending in 2020 should more or less coincide with that legendary moment in our lives. For it'll be exactly a week today since Sir Alf Ramsey's prancing cavaliers ran around the old Wembley Stadium, as England lifted the World Cup 54 years ago. It was a legendary day, a day of revelations, feverish excitement and, ultimately, triumph with a liberal helping of celebration. Then they splashed elatedly in the Trafalgar Square fountains during London's swinging 1960s London and all was well with the world.

For those who pin their colours faithfully to the claret and blue mast, the end of this Premier League club season couldn't have come quickly enough. West Ham's yearly relegation struggle was as painstaking as it usually is and there came a point when you simply didn't care whether the club you'd always supported would either stay in the Premier League or just drop helplessly into the Championship.

But here we are in July and this Sunday marks the most improbable end to a season that has eventually panned out in such a fashion that, in retrospect, it should never perhaps have been allowed to happen in the first place. But it had to be completed because, in its stuffily conservative way, the Premier League had to finish with a logical conclusion to a standard nine-month season. Now all we can do is sit back, take stock once again and mutter our disbelief  because, by whatever means the Premier League season which kicked off last August has meandered its way towards the finishing line this Sunday afternoon. And believe it or not July is rapidly approaching its end.

So before you take the dog for a walk in the park, clean the car and devour your Sunday roast you'd be well advised to strap yourselves in for one last fairground ride of the Premier League season. There is something though ludicrously misshapen about the end of the football season being eked out until well after Midsummers Day. Still, it's been a laugh and you've got to laugh.

Surely we've missed something though. Now you realise that although it was never meant this way, football still had to do the honourable thing. Everything that was completely lacking in resolution had to be decided quite comprehensively with all of the remaining Premier League matches sewn up. Liverpool had to finish their matches and last night were rightly declared the most striking of Premier League title winners. The journey to that title almost led them off onto the wrong road but confirmation of that trophy title was there for all to see, as a fireworks party outside Anfield lit up the Merseyside sky last night.

At the other end of the Premier League season those perennial relegation residents West Ham did just enough to scrape together the morsels in another season of yet more traumatic under-achievement that almost led to one of those comical falls down the relegation trapdoor. Quite how or why a football season is punctuated with such desperation and blood curdling ups and downs is beyond our understanding. This season was no different.

By the time West Ham play their last game of the Premier League season against their fellow claret and blues Aston Villa at the London Stadium on Sunday, some of us will be puffing out our cheeks, grimacing with embarrassment and grateful that football will take its welcome break until the middle of September or any date the FA deem suitable for its resumption. Of course the season went all haywire and haphazard when the global pandemic gripped hold of the game and almost strangled it.

For West Ham this has been a familiar story. The 5-0 hammering administered by now former Premier League champions Manchester City at the London Stadium on the season's opening day now seems like medieval history. But by Christmas West Ham, led by the almost permanently bloodshot eyed, haggard Manuel Pellegrini, were struggling, stumbling, tripping before collapsing into the bottom half of the table. Crucial defeats at home to Spurs and Arsenal led to more belly flopping and then gasping for air while all around them were top of the table occupants swanning off into the sunset with an arrogant strut.

Come January and the Hammers boss David Moyes was appointed with the specific remit to calm nerves, reduce our blood pressure and stabilise the rocking boat. The Scotsman, who had been with the club in another incarnation, quickly got down to work and before you knew it, had his feet firmly under the table. It was only now that we were given a strong indication of what we would have to expect from Moyes.

Moyes, a no nonsense, unfussy, direct and hugely conscientious coach who had once taken Everton to previously unexpected heights when he was boss at Goodison, now rolled up his sleeves again. The 4-0 thumping of Bournemouth who now sadly look destined to be relegated on Sunday, almost felt like the most incredible achievement given what had happened before Moyes had arrived.

But things went off kilter for the rigidly businesslike Moyes, a fierce advocate of the kind of football that remains rooted in a secure defensive base accompanied by a lethal strike force. Moyes had an excellent crop of players at Everton who just wanted to do their boss proud. The likes of Tim Cahill, Leon Osman and Steven Pienaar were hugely influential and catalytic figures who gave Everton much of the stability Moyes had been looking for.

More recently a wretched January followed by an equally as rotten February didn't help to give West Ham any sense of direction or positive trajectory. Then they would travel up to Premier League title winners elect Liverpool and came away with a creditable 3-2 defeat when it looked as though Liverpool might have lost their bottle.

In their next away game at Arsenal, West Ham, now revitalised, were ready to go again, their equilibrium now restored. They may have lost 1-0 at the Emirates Stadium but the feeling had not gone, the desire and inclination still intact after more bruising defeats during the depths of winter. And then there followed a global pandemic, an illness and disease so destructive and wide ranging that football just seemed to crawl into a corner and hibernate.

The coronavirus from nowhere or, quite possibly a Chinese cruise vessel, had now sunk its teeth into an unsuspecting world, bitten hard on its mental and physical resources and left it bleeding. West Ham, rather like the whole of every football team in the land, would now be grounded for the next four months. After the Arsenal defeat, West Ham were still languishing near the foot of the Premier League but still showing signs of distinct improvement.

When football returned with Project Restart at the end of June, the cynics were still scoffing at West Ham's chances of survival in the top flight. It seemed that failure had been hard-wired into their system so few gave them any chance whatsoever. Their opening defeat at home to Wolves was somehow unavoidable given the kind of devastating form Wolves had shown before the breakdown. Then there was a meek 2-0 defeat and submission to West Ham's neighbours Spurs although some believed that the good times were just around the corner.

After a weak and insipid defeat at home to Burnley, West Ham finally saw the light of the day. In an engrossing London derby at home to Chelsea, West Ham showed all the character and convincing attacking football that used to be a hallmark of their football when everything was going their way. After they'd given away a needless penalty just before half time, West Ham immediately sent in the cavalry and after Thomas Soucek had headed in the Hammers equaliser, West Ham began to spread their expansive and free flowing football all across the green Stratford acres.

 Declan Rice, now at the heart of some of West Ham's most intuitive moments, found Michal Antonio who, falling in the penalty box, leapt up swiftly again. Jarrod Bowen, all directness and positive running, cut the ball back and Antonio slipped the ball firmly into the net for West Ham's second equaliser. Rice scored a peach of a goal from way outside the Chelsea penalty area with an explosive shot that arrowed its way past the Chelsea goalkeeper and into the roof of the net.

A victory over Chelsea gave West Ham's football a sharp injection of confidence. When the East London club demolished an already relegated Norwich City 4-0 at Carrow Road, it was widely believed that West Ham had staved off the impending threat of relegation. The worst was over for the team in claret and blue. The highly impressive and accomplished 3-1 victory over Watford was enough to get rid of Watford's manager Nigel Pearson.

So ladies and gentlemen. Your football team have once again survived the shark infested waters of the Premier League. For well over 40 years now your brave commentator on life has observed the fortunes of his team through heads buried in hands, eyes closed and a growing realisation that things can hardly get any worse or better. You reach the conclusion that there is no middle ground with West Ham, an acceptance of the status quo quite certainly and just look on with a wry amusement.

There is of course an ever present gallows humour evident whenever West Ham reach the point where they simply can't cope anymore. So you giggle under your breath, share the good times as well as the rough and smooth in equal measure. After yet another season of helter- skelter turbulence the season will end on Sunday and some of us just want to celebrate survival in the Premier League. Hey ho! Football is indeed wonderful and we wouldn't want it any other way.

Arsenal meet Chelsea in another repeat FA Cup Final.

Arsenal meet Chelsea in another repeat FA Cup Final.

Wembley Stadium has never looked stranger or more soul destroyingly emptier. Never has it looked so haggard or withdrawn. There was a grave air of sterility and loneliness about the national stadium that had to be seen to be believed. Wembley had nobody to turn to in its moment of greatest need and you can only feel that one day, when football supporters are finally allowed to flood back through that iconic arch that once again it'll feel very much wanted and loved by those who have regularly passed through its celebrated entrances.

For the time being there was an FA Cup semi-final to be completed and once again this season's FA Cup Final will be a repeat of a previous Cup Final. At times the FA Cup begins to look very predictable and perhaps it would have been nice, in this season of seasons to wrap things up with a novel variation on a theme just to break the monotony of it all. And yet the 2020 FA Cup Final will have yet another London derby between Arsenal and Chelsea so we may have to accept the inevitable because that's the way it is.

Amid all the craziness and wackiness of Project Restart some things never really change though. The FA Cup semi-final almost had to be played by default more than anything else. It was pencilled into football's calendar regardless of the disruption that has now cut into the season with a pair of the sharpest of scissors. But Chelsea almost swatted Manchester United aside contemptuously as if they were never on the same pitch at any time during the game. United's recent run of good Premier League end of season form, after the season's resumption, had now been rudely stalled by a blue juggernaut.

Of course the traditionalists among us still lament the passing of Villa Park or Hillsborough as the once-popular venue for the FA Cup semi final. Now the dreadful Hillsborough tragedy of 1989 when 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives before the start of the Liverpool- Nottingham Forest semi final placed football in its most sober and chastened perspective. The fact remains though that nobody would ever have thought the day would come when football would have to deal with an equally as serious chapter in its history.

Still, here we were 31 years later gnashing our teeth at quite the most extraordinary spectacle most of us have ever seen. The game's oldest and still highly respected football competition had been reduced to a brass farthing. Here were twenty two footballers slugging it out for the right to appear in an FA Cup Final surrounded by nothing. What we had here was a concrete bowl with haunting echoes, a stadium that once rightly prided itself on those glorious 100,000 attendances on Cup Final day, now just a silent movie made at the height of Chaplin's heyday.

For Chelsea this seemed the perfect culmination to a long and punishing season where the critics who thought new manager Frank Lampard was just a one trick pony were made to eat their words. In his first managerial job at Championship club Derby Lampard had to make do with old rags and loose threads. Now at the end of his first season at the club he graced for so many years an FA Cup Final almost feels like the perfect end to a fairy tale. A victory against Arsenal would probably mean the world to Lampard whose very modest but feisty demeanour has endeared itself to Chelsea fans.

By the end of the first half Chelsea were crowding out and closing down United from every conceivable angle. a tribute to their well drilled defensive unit. They were moving the ball efficiently and stylishly across all areas of the pitch and winning back possession swiftly when they were without it. There was a gentleness and delicacy to some of Chelsea's passing that occasionally took you back to those twilight years of Dave Sexton when Charlie Cooke, Ray Wilkins and Peter Osgood were in charge of proceedings at Stamford Bridge.

Now though Cesar Azpilicueta rampaging down the flank from a very deep position at the heart of Chelsea's defence began to effect the game quite influentially. Kurt Zouma was sturdy and progressive moving forward while Antonio Rudiger who scored Chelsea's final goal, was a persistent menace whenever he had the ball in dangerous areas.

Chelsea were a delight to the eye, a forest of blue shirts tricking and flicking their way through the United defence with a careless rapture. The young backbone of their midfield was very much the template of a side moulded by Dave Sexton but here Reece James was quick witted, lively and mercurial while the Brazilians Jorginho and William are just a gorgeous adornment to any side. With Mason Mount once again promising to bloom into a very watchable English player and Mateo Kovacic providing balance and ballast, Chelsea were neat, clever and, at times almost unplayable.

Chelsea took the lead before United had had time to find their bearings. Willian broke forward down one side of the United defence before dinking the ball lightly back to Azpilicueta whose sharp cut back to the near post found Olivier Giroud who nipped smartly beyond his defender to clip the ball past David De Gea, now wishing that a hole would swallow him up. Chelsea now had a lead they would never relinquish and by the hour mark United were staring into an abyss.

In the second half there were no visible signs of improvement from United and their Norwegian manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer looked so beaten and crestfallen that he must have thought he'd lost a bet rather than a FA Cup semi final. The normally secure Victor Lindelof kept losing the ball rather like a man who keeps dropping a bar of soap in the shower or a bath. Eric Bailly, Nemanja Matic and the youngsters Brandon Williams alongside Daniel James were also culpable and frequently prone to sloppiness. Bruno Fernandes is certain to be one of the finest signings United have made in recent years with his cultured style and playmaking instincts but this was not his most notable hour.

Chelsea extended their lead shortly into the second half when the abundantly skilful Mason Mount capitalised on some Manchester United daydreaming at the back. A loose ball from United's Brandon Williams found Mount who surged forward to blast the ball towards goal. The shot itself should have been dealt with far more adroitly by United keeper De Gea but the Spaniard had an attack of butter fingers and the ball slipped under him. Chelsea could now see the bigger prize.

United were now the wounded animal that doesn't quite know how to fight back because the lions are still surrounding them and there's nowhere for them to go. When Paul Pogba came on as a sub during the second half, United's attack finally showed signs of life but the damage had been done. United were well and truly a busted flush and there could have been no disguising their defensive deficiencies on the day.

When Mason Mount, always the inventive figure in Chelsea's coltish midfield tickled the ball forward and then pulled the ball back to the onrushing Antonio Rudiger you could literally hear a pin drop. Rudiger darted into space to meet the Mount delivery with a goal typical of the quality Chelsea had brought to the table. A third goal had now ensured outright victory for Chelsea and you wondered how the Stretford End reacted had they been forced to witness this uncharacteristically lacklustre United performance.

And so we are now confronted with another Arsenal - Chelsea FA Cup Final which is rather like having the same breakfast cereal every morning from the same bowl. Familiarity could breed admiration by the end of these derby contests between the same sides. Arsenal, under Michel Arteta, surprisingly outclassed Manchester City and could provide us with an FA Cup Final to savour for many a season.

But the undeniable fact that this year's Cup Final will be totally unlike any of the preceding 130 and the rest. In the old Wembley's first ever Final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United, a couple of galloping horses and a farcical crowd of roughly 200,000 fans would single it out for attention as almost unique. Even Billy the Horse couldn't prevent the 1923 FA Cup Final from disappearing into some ludicrous obscurity.

On August 1, Arsenal and Chelsea will walk out of the Wembley tunnel and into a vast mausoleum where the only sound you'll probably hear all afternoon will be that of the referee's whistle and several crows hovering around the Wembley arch curious to know why an English FA Cup Final will also be the quietest of all time.

We will of course close our eyes and pretend that the days of hugely atmospheric and emotional FA Cup Finals can still be felt and heard. We'll try to imagine that the waving banners, the joky placards and the humorous chants can never be erased from our minds because that's the way perhaps things should be but aren't. Wembley Stadium, for the first time in its history, will have to reminisce on happier days and look forward to a future that can only be healthier and better. We must believe that it will.

Something like normality by November or possibly December.

Something like normality by November or possibly December.

So let's see. Where are we?  We are dipping our waters into the deepest of pools and although the water is lukewarm and inviting you wouldn't trust your instincts if the temperature dropped like a stone.  We are on the verge of  a major turning point in the progress of the coronavirus lockdown and it looks, for all the world, as if we could be approaching the end of the road, a fork in the road perhaps but then a clear motorway where the sun shines constantly and the world smiles almost permanently. It could be a lovely Nirvana where the people of the world link arms with a stirring rendition of 'Auld Lang Syne'

This could be the time for the most lavish party of all time and can we now safely celebrate what should be called Liberation Day in a matter of weeks or days? It's hard one to call suffice to say that the party poppers are ready to be released,  whistles prepared and the balloons look suitably ready for a rip roaring knees up with the champagne on ice.

Across the streets, roads, towns and cities of both Britain and the rest of the world there is something in the air and it just feels very good and auspicious. Perhaps we should feel like this more often since the moon could be in the right position, the omens are encouraging and the blond one from Uxbridge is looking far happier and chipper than he has been for months.

When Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister was struck low by the very disease he'd done his utmost to warn people about, the nation sighed and scowled, fretted and feared if only because none of us could believe that any Prime Minister of any time could possibly become very ill in office and leave most of us wondering whether the worst case scenario might materialise in front of our very eyes. But dear Boris roared back into life and denied there was anything seriously wrong with him although he did admit that it was touch and go and the nurses had worked miracles to keep him alive.

And today the man with the most distinctive blond locks gave us the news we'd all been waiting for. At long last  the hair looked as if it had obeyed his orders at breakfast time. Johnson was smart, respectable looking and standing to attention. For the best part of four months, Britain has experienced one of the ropiest periods in its long and illustrious history. For a while now it didn't look as though we'd conquered the odds and while Boris and his people have gnashed our collective teeth, March is now July and we're still improvising, adapting, making it up as we go along, just mixing and matching.

Today's momentous announcement sounded almost too good to be true. In fact some of us thought we were heading for the knackers yard but now, or so it would seem, we've definitely turned a corner. The Prime Minister has settled us all down by the fireside, confiding with us quite honestly and telling us clearly that, by November, the good people of Great Britain can swing open its doors and abandon ourselves to a world that we used to know without any feeling of guilt or compunction.

This could be a brave new world, a brand new start, the perfect resurrection, a decisive way forward into a future that had once looked so bleak that some of us were the opinion that there was no way back and the end of the world had indeed parked itself next to us. But the world's strength of character, once so severely tested, has come through its darkest months like a stately galleon sailing magnificently through tempestuous seas.

November does seem like an age away at the moment but you wait and see. We can work through this dreadful, medical fiasco, this truly abhorrent worldwide virus that has taken the life of so many lives. We've done it once before and we'll do it again. We know that the millions have died throughout these long, wearisome months but by November and almost certainly Christmas we'll all be getting swamped by festive tinsel, the shops will be ding dong merrily on high flush with wealth and the kids will sit excitedly around the Christmas trees with the latest gadgets and toys. Who would ever have thought it possible but it could be one of the finest Yuletides of all time if all goes the way we'd like it to.

By November all of those commercial operations will be up and running, the cinemas will be packed to capacity with people who just thrive on their normal diet of horror, romance and science fiction and office parties will be planned like a military manoeuvre. There can be no room for confident, long range forecasts but at this rate we could all be doing the Lambeth Walk by the late autumn. We've stacked up on the bottles of wine and beer, spilling huge packets of crisps and nuts onto plates full of goodies. The band will strike up triumphantly and the Dame Vera Lynn prophecy will never seem so fitting.

Still, there are one or two things missing that may have upset the apple cart. The multifarious eateries and restaurants may well be seething with rushing waiters and waitresses anxious to please their customers with their efficiency and grace under pressure. But the West End theatres, at times the lifeblood of Central London, have been shut for some time and it may be some time before they can break open the bubbly.

As Britain and the rest of the world does its best to catch up and make the best with what's it got, this time may be as good as any to think ahead although perhaps we should think of the here and now. When November comes we could be looking at a very different kind of world, a world now fragmented, divided up into small bite size pieces, afraid of a dramatic relapse, looking nervously over its shoulders, keeping a respectful distance and not daring to go anywhere near each other.

In November the temperature will have dropped markedly, thick fur collars on our coats will be pulled up quite significantly while commuters and people coming home from work may just sprint home for fear of spreading something or catching something. This is a world with a completely different mentality, a world that is now on its guard, vigilant, watching, suspicious naturally and maybe for a while at least a pale imitation of its former self.

It is hard to imagine large groups of office workers shivering on a railway platform on a cold November evening and standing next to another bunch of high tech wizards. And then there's that crucial moment when the train doors shut conclusively, the late arrivals hop and skip into a carriage and then a hundred people, cramped once again into a confined space, start coughing and spluttering, sneezing and then squeezing up close to each other rather like those proverbial sardines.

Then they'll get very irritable, tetchy, grumpy and quarrelsome. Suddenly a forest of arms, elbows and shoulders will push and barge their way impatiently into a space that has already been taken. Tempers will fray, red mists will fall and there could be the biggest slanging match since at least yesterday. Bags and briefcases will be lifted almost despairingly over each other, evening newspapers discarded like oily cloths at a mechanics yard and it'll all get just a bit unseemly and unwatchable.

However this is not the time for painting ugly pictures of what might happen come the end of the year because quite frankly who can look any further than the next day? By the reckoning of some and in retrospect 2020 has now flown past and the world is still in a state of shock. When everything stopped quite suddenly in March it might have felt that one incident in China would simply disappear into a small hiding place in history never to surface again. Of course it didn't and we underestimated everything at our peril.

And yet today felt moderately inspiring if a day could be described as such. The coronavirus related deaths have declined to one of their lowest points and as if by magic, everything looks as if it could be going our way. Boris Johnson is now advising us to push ourselves into the bigger world and much further than we'd have thought possible in, say, April and May. This is manageable and we can almost reach out for a rosy complexioned future where every day is your birthday and the morning birdsong sounds like another version of the National Anthem.

Ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure that you can dig out those Union Jack embroidered waistcoats, spin your umbrellas over and over again and everything in the world is healthy. We can never be sure when the coronavirus will end because although a vast majority of the world is open for financial transaction, the trumpet of jubilation has yet to be sounded and people are still wearing masks. The queues are still stretching into postal districts miles away from us and a full recovery is still half baked. The worst is though way behind us and optimism is still the song on our lips. Onwards and upwards everybody. Better times lie ahead. Mark my words.

Doctor Rashford and memories of school dinners.

Doctor Rashford and memories of school dinners.

Sometimes football makes the right decisions at the right time. There are times when football gets it absolutely right. Today football rightly rewarded a young man whose best years still lie far into the future and may one day win the game's most glittering trophies. He is 22, fitter than he's ever been before, vastly talented and a paragon of virtue. He is a  man with a social conscience, an awareness of the game's morals and a valuable insight into how football ticks.

His name is Marcus Rashford and he plays for Manchester United. He also happens to play for England which makes today's ultimate honour all the more worthy. Rashford was accorded the ultimate honour, an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester. Now in the ordinary scheme of things such an award would never have attracted the publicity it so richly deserved because his act of charity and warm hearted benevolence should have been expected from a man of such vast wealth and status.

But Rashford did something that those of a thoughtful disposition might have overlooked in their day to day living. He bandied about the idea of giving school children free school meal vouchers because he knew exactly what they must have been going through at the moment, the struggles to keep a roof over the head of poverty-stricken families on decrepit inner-city housing estates. Poverty is the watchword and Rashford can strongly identify with their often despairing plight where the children of today have no idea when their next meal will arrive on the dining room table.

Today though Rashford will step up onto the stage of the University of Manchester, a honoured citizen and exemplary ambassador at a time when football needs some kind of boost to its battered morale. There are of course no fans at our football stadiums and we do acknowledge the reasons why. But Rashford took the time out to perform an unsung act while the rest of the footballing community were more obsessed with wage deferrals to their players, holding out for hugely lucrative contracts and then wishing the days, weeks and months away in the hope that someday the Premier League would finish off the tattered remnants of a broken and decimated season.

So step forward Dr. Rashford. Your doctor is an immense credit to his surgery because he's offered society the chance to make good of itself, of eating a healthy and well-balanced diet, feasting on nutritious food and three good meals a day. The caring and altruistic in Rashford stopped for a while, conducted his TV interviews and confirmed something we may have known anyway. Marcus Rashford is a warm, compassionate footballer, a striker of intelligence and street-wise know-how.

Mention of school lunchtime dinners brings back a whole photographic album of memories of school dinners from many moons ago. In the mind's eye you can still see the somewhat ancient hut that housed our youthful school lunches. When you cast your mind back now it almost feels as if it belongs to an entirely different age when diets were non -existent, nobody worried about the beneficial or damaging properties of every calorie you were adding to your waistline nor were you acutely concerned about something that would become known as junk food.

Still, this was cholesterol heaven for many a teenager from the 1970s generation. And so it was that we would all scramble into this Nissan hut that quite literally looked as if it had accommodated  prisoners of war rather than prepubescent children with high spirits and voracious appetites. We ran frantically towards the table that always seemed to be the first to be called. We pushed and shoved, jostled and lunged towards that top table like ravenous kids who hadn't eaten since nursery school let alone secondary school.

Our dinner lady had brunette hair and looked like one of those matronly nurses you tend to find in hospitals with an anglepoise lamplight at night and a pile of notes on her desk. The aforesaid dinner lady would wait patiently near the serving hatches, fingers gently clenched and ready to bellow out a loud command to highly energetic and restless young boys. Then the first table would be called out quite emphatically and some of us had to be content with one of the last tables. So close but so far but we tried.

This became a very structured ritual, the steam pouring from hot potatoes and vegetables, thick gravy turning your lunchtime meal into a work of art on your plate. Then we would make our cautious way to those huge metal tureens groaning with mashed potatoes that would be carelessly lumped onto your plate. The first hatch provided you with whatever meat happened to be the choice of the day. The potatoes, which at first sight probably came directly from the Irish famine from many decades ago, were promptly scooped out with what looked like a spatula rather than a spoon.

That whole lunchtime period still sends a cold shiver down your spine. At no point had you ever eaten so excessively at lunchtime since you were always content with the egg mayonnaise sandwiches your mum had made for you at primary school. But we ploughed through these heavy troughs of desperately unhealthy food, grateful in a sense because it was rich and well cooked.

However, after five years of constant carbohydrates and mountains of stomach bursting calories we knew that we'd leave our secondary school at least twenty stones heavier than we were before entering the hallowed school gates. By the evening we were reluctant to commit ourselves to our parents main dinner although it was warmly received. We were full up, bloated now and had no more room for anything else of substance but thanks for asking.

But we shall always treasure the honey cake with apple strudel, wince at the horrendous semolina that always came with that disgustingly stodgy skin that should have been dumped in a bin immediately rather than given to impressionable young lads. Then there were the never ending bowls of rice pudding that increasingly took on the appearance of wallpaper paste rather than something mouth wateringly edible.

And so we return to Dr Marcus Rashford, a genuine crusader for all seasons, a powerful campaigner on behalf of children who may not have been given the ideal start in life. Rashford is still one of the Premier League's most potent of strikers, a pacy, lightning fast athlete with a perfect eye for goal. His England career has already been well established and an FA Cup Final appearance beckons. Sadly Rashford, if United do reach the Final, may have to pretend that the United supporters are there but then you can't have everything. Dr Rashford. It has a ring to it. 

Life in partial recovery.

Life in partial recovery.

There is a feeling here that we may be on the way back. Rumours have abounded that the whole world is out of the intensive care unit and could be taken to a hospital ward where the patient will now be allowed to recover properly until further notice. Now we've no idea when the patient will be released and left to go home but there is a nagging suspicion that a complete convalescence may be required until we can tell with a reasonable degree of certainty that the operations have been entirely successful.

We are now almost four months into the coronavirus lockdown and all of the illogicalities have yet to be figured out, the scientific data continues to leave us mystified and the medical cognoscenti are still telling us that sooner or later this four-month, global stagnation, this now lengthening period of suspended animation and economic apocalypse shows no sign of blowing over- at least for a while.

So this is where we are now. In the last couple of days, tattoo parlours, nail bars, beauty treatment and, most recently, swimming pools are open for paying customers. Here we are confronted with yet more random guesswork and calculated gambling. We are not quite into Russian Roulette territory but all of the aforesaid services still hold the element of the unknown about them. In theory they all sound as though they should be given an overwhelming thumbs up, a clean bill of health. But is everything safe? Are all activities at the mercy of human infection somewhere along the line?

 The underlying fears of course are still hovering around in the background and we'll never know just how safe it may be for the ladies to have their regular sessions of nail varnishing, bodily decoration on most of their bodies and all of that pampering that normally accompanies a trip to the local shop. At the moment tattoo parlours are very much the latest fashion statement, a vanity project for some while for others just a hobby or something to do on a rainy Tuesday afternoon when the basket weaving is beginning to get on your nerves and macrame isn't really the fulfilling experience you thought it would be.

Anyway, there was one moment over the weekend that did tickle your funny bone which almost seems totally inappropriate at the moment but this one announcement almost had you falling off your chair with laughter. So here's the latest directive from Her Majesty's government. It beggars belief and it almost belongs in some indefinable category of absurdity. You may or may not have heard about it in which case you can just dismiss it as crazy balderdash, the idea of somebody who perhaps should get out more, foolhardiness on a scale barely imaginable.

Here we go folks. If you go to your local swimming pool you are expressly forbidden to do the back stroke. No, it's true. How could you possibly make up something like that? It has to be advisable because, in theory, this is a totally plausible suggestion since we all know about the perils of bumping into somebody else while powering down a swimming lane with all the consummate ease of a Duncan Goodhew or Sharon Davies.

Now how on earth did we come to the earth shattering conclusion that performing the back stroke could be so dangerous to your health? We're all aware of these now- familiar social distancing laws now reduced to one and a bit so we're now absolutely clear on what and what not to do. But since when did the backstroke constitute a health hazard? Still, these are the stipulations everybody so we'll just have to listen to them and the warnings are perhaps understandable.

For those who can swim without reaching Olympic standards, the prospect of being told not to do the backstroke ever again, quite possibly, doesn't exactly fill any of us with hope. Most of us have mastered both the front crawl and breaststroke but to outlaw the backstroke almost seems like some very totalitarian act, an order to stop what you're doing immediately otherwise you'll be heavily fined.

Some of us learnt the rudiments of swimming at school and do like the occasional dip from time to time but this smacks of paranoia and scaremongering for whatever reason. It isn't often that you find yourself compelled to launch into a thousand laps of the backstroke because you simply want to show off to everybody. But if it is your forte and it's the one stroke you know you have a proficiency for then why on earth should you be denied the pleasure of doing so?

But why is the backstroke now considered taboo? We've spent a greater part of this coronavirus lockdown gritting our teeth, stepping gingerly when we do go out, queuing up outside supermarkets for hour upon hour and then covering our faces with masks which may well become compulsory shortly even if we have to nip into the local corner shop for a tin of peas. So we couldn't travel that far and exercise had to be taken a stage further. Surely the backstroke has to feature prominently in our swimming routine.

For the last three and half months we've been wandering around in darkness even when it was quite clearly daylight. We ventured over to parks, communicated via Zoom, taken part in cyber quizzes, hooked up with family and friends on tiny computer screen squares and then done it all again, day after day. And yet how much walking can you possibly do and how much talking can you do without any real physical interaction? Work and school were banned, nobody was allowed to go anywhere without the consent of 10 Downing Street. Surely though this is showing signs of fizzling out.

So we suddenly became aware of the leisure centres and swimming pools which were now gathering dust. Soon they would be shut abruptly but, as events would prove, sensibly. But now the swimming pools are now echoing to the sound of multi splashing, humans doing their bit for their heart with vigorous exercise, good for the arms, shoulders and leaving you completely revitalised. And yet now we can't do the backstroke which is rather like telling a cricketer that he can't use a bat in case the varnish on the bat is infected with goodness knows what.

It almost feels a lifetime ago when the process of learning how to swim became a vital necessity because you were told repeatedly that you had to learn all the basic swimming strokes. Now it was that we won our deserved certificates for swimming a width of the pool, the length of the pool and then, if you were so motivated, the lifeguard certificate which was somehow beyond some of us. In retrospect it all seemed pretty daft at the time but when your teacher tells you to climb into a pair of pyjamas, dive into the pool and retrieve a plastic brick at the bottom of the pool, you did as you were told.

But there you are everybody. Beware the swimming police, watch out for that big, bad wolf prowling and growling around your local lido or swimming pool. The jobsworths are on the warpath and be sure not to fling your arms in a back stroke motion because the consequences could be legal resulting in an appearance in court, a severe looking judge with the law quite firmly on their side and the back stroke could mean the loss of several thousands of pounds. Isn't everything going swimmingly? Woops, you'll have to excuse that excruciatingly painful pun. They do get better. Honestly.

Another 1966 World Cup winner passes. Jack Charlton dies.

Another 1966 World Cup winner passes. Jack Charlton dies.

Another giant oak tree has fallen. Jack Charlton, who today died at the age of 85, was a towering colossus of a footballing centre half, a man never to be messed with by any opponent in his playing days and woe betide the player who fell out with him as the highly regarded manager of the Republic of Ireland.

Charlton, the most loyal, one-club men of them all, performed with an almost royal distinction at Leeds United for his entire playing career and would never look back regretfully at any totally unwarranted criticism of his playing style. Charlton was as hard as they come, powerful in the air, ruthless, uncompromising and, by his own admission, he simply stopped onrushing attackers, reserving most of the bouquets of praise for his kid brother Bobby who for many years would never talk to him and then patched up his differences with him because life was too short for unnecessary arguments.

But Jack Charlton belonged quite unequivocally to the old school of footballing hard men, one of football's so called cloggers who, once he'd committed himself to a tackle, would never hold back. Many a seasoned old First Division player would admit on more than one occasion to a sense of fear and trepidation as big Jack would rumble forward for a corner or free- kick.

Tall as a beanpole and leggy as the giraffe as he would affectionately become nicknamed as, Charlton was a domineering, statesmanlike and unyielding figure at the back for Leeds. Charlton was never renowned for his skill on the ball or some creative bohemian who would bring nothing but flair to that much talked about Leeds side under Don Revie. However, he was fair but firm, strong and fiercely dedicated to the cause, unflinching in those collisions with big, bustling forwards such as Peter Osgood at Chelsea or Jimmy Greaves at Spurs.

After deciding not to enter the mining collieries of his native North East on a full time basis, Charlton  was recruited by deeply focused and shamelessly aspirational Don Revie, the manager who brought the very best out of Charlton. Rather than joining his native Newcastle or Sunderland, his inspirational mother Cissie would join in with her sons garden kickabouts with an almost whimsical air about her. Charlton though turned his back on both Newcastle and Sunderland and Leeds came a calling.

For Charlton though international recognition would come inexplicably late on in his career. This is not to suggest that he was a late developer but at the age of 30 Sir Alf Ramsey, the England manager, would call him up to his eventually triumphant World Cup- winning team. Against a very tough and stubborn West German side, Charlton was imperious, immaculate and totally in control of everything at the heart of England's immovable defence. He was a studious reader of the game, a player of footballing erudition, vocal, blunt and absolutely no- nonsense into the bargain.

The story went that when Bobby Moore was in possession of the ball with only seconds of extra time left and the World Cup in their hands, Charlton would plead vociferously with Moore to get rid of the ball with a couple of Anglo Saxon expletives. So Moore promptly obliged, Geoff Hurst raced away and thrashed the ball into the back of the net for England's cherry on the cake fourth and decisive goal.

Then Charlton, in one of the many iconic moments during the 1966 World Cup Final, slumped to his knees at the old Wembley, gazed at the heavens and wished the day would never end for him. He held his hands up in a brief display of celestial gratitude. Charlton knew what had just happened but couldn't quite take in the magnitude of this remarkable achievement. It was a day when time, quite literally seemed to stop still and then become frozen since the England national football team would never experience such a day again. Maybe one day, maybe some day.

Charlton was innumerably capped for England and then emerge as a successful winner of major trophies. He won the old First Division championship with Leeds in 1969, the FA Cup with Leeds in 1972, a League Cup in 1968 and the UEFA Cup twice. Charlton always loved the cut and thrust of the big occasion, never happier than when his brother Bobby sent over a corner for our |Jack to head in at the near post for England. A perfect sibling footballing partnership.

It may have one of the many urban myths and one of those apochryphal stories that may have lost something in the translation but you'd be inclined to believe that it did happen. Worse for drink after the greatest football day of his life, Jack Charlton boarded a Central Line tube train heading for any Essex suburb that took his eye. We are now led to believe that Charlton got off the train at Leytonstone, knocked on the door of the first house he could find and, allegedly, sat in the garden of the resident's home, no doubt telling that same World Cup winning story over and over again.

Above all Charlton loved winning, loved to hog the limelight. He was booked and sent off on countless occasions, injured frequently and, notoriously hung on goal lines like a lighthouse winking its light. In 1973 Middlesborough came calling with his first managerial job. Middlesborough were promoted from the old Second Division to the First under Charlton and a messiah was born. He'd caught the managerial bug and became addicted to the taste of victory.

In the swansong of his career, Charlton was bestowed with the ultimate accolade. When the Republic of Ireland summoned him Charlton had no hesitation. In 1990 Charlton took Eire to their very first World Cup in Italy and then four years later in the USA. In the roasting heat of an American summer's day, Charlton, in a hissy fit of pique and red mist anger, lost his temper understandably with a poor, unsuspecting linesman and official and in a flurry of animated fingers, told the FIFA judiciary exactly what he thought of them.

Retirement beckoned for Charlton after that now celebrated World Cup venture and his lifelong passion for fishing by the most tranquil of river banks took him completely away from the hot furnaces of club and international football. In recent years Jack Charlton took a back seat from the game because he'd adorned football with his humorous and authoritative presence. Our Jack was a legend and our Bobby will weep a river of tears for his kid brother. Football will, quite naturally, miss him. Thanks for the memories Jack.

Today my dad would have been 93.

Today my dad would have been 93.

Today my wonderful dad would have been 93. There are times when I feel sure that he's with us somewhere in spirit, still full of cheerful banter, breezy bonhomie and full of the joys of every season. Sadly though he passed the day after my birthday in 2005 and the sense of loss will always be numbing. But for all his mental health problems and a devastating illness through my teenage years, my dad was the best, the greatest, the most gentlemanly and the most loving. He was the kind of man who would think nothing of walking across a road to chat to a perfect stranger.

In an age, particularly recently, when human relationships and families have come under the most extreme scrutiny it may be good to know that in all of these disease-ridden moments in our lives, we can still remember our loved ones, our devoted ones, the ones who have always been constants in all moments of trouble, hardship, stress and unbearable pressure.

My dad was the warmest, loveliest and most compassionate father any son could ever have. Frustratingly, we had nothing in common with each other but throughout my early childhood, I adored and idolised him. He was the man who sacrificed his mental health because family meant the world to him. He was the one who always thought of others, his doting family, always put his family first and never spoke ill of those who were less fortunate or disadvantaged.

But for reasons which became patently obvious, I could never share any of his interests and maybe with a pang of regret, this was the only obstacle that prevented us from forming a deep, lasting and emotional attachment, a friendship and father and son relationship that should have been there from day one and yet never was. I'll always love him though because he was my dad.

How often would I rush out immediately when I knew he was about to turn the corner of our road and emerge elegantly dressed in his usual jacketed, smart shirted attire, cigarette tenderly fixed between his index finger and then reluctant ash falling to the ground in an act that came as naturally as breathing. Since he was a young teenager my dad would smoke, smoking quite heavily and although the smell was personally repulsive I would never have dreamt of stopping him from lighting up. It was at that moment that my dad had come from the hellhole that was his work.

Isn't it amazing how complicated relationships and family alliances can become and then we begin to wonder why without ever really touching the surface of this eternal conundrum? And yet we do count our lucky stars since we know without any doubt whatsoever that we will always love those who continue to mean so much to us.

We all look at that ever so crazy and dysfunctional family known in reality TV terms as the Kardashians that even the most extraordinary wealth and luxury still has the capacity to damage and hurt us.  Sometimes you find yourself utterly grateful for a life that remains grounded, sensible, well ordered, logical and practical. There comes a point when money although welcome, can still be more of a hindrance particularly when the bank balance reaches a million.

And this was very much my dad's take on life. He was never judgmental, never snooty, never condescending and always treated everybody as his equal. He was never greedy, never consumed with jealousy at the apparent affluence others might have had, delightfully contented with his life and his family. He would never resort to violence when peace and reconciliation were the obvious alternatives. Above all he was excessively kind and understanding, tolerant and free with his generosity. A humble, unassuming, proudly working class man with working class values.

I found myself reaching out for the good times I had with my dad because that represented redemption for me, a way of exorcising the demons that haunted him for much of his life. There was that aforementioned time at roughly 6 in the evening when he would walk towards me while waiting anxiously for his arrival. The days of workaday toil were at an end and there I would be ready to greet him rather like a Second World War child who couldn't wait to see their demobbed dad. 

At mealtimes there were the inevitable conversations about football and sport. But suddenly the kitchen would fall into a solemn hush, as my dad tried desperately to distance himself valiantly from any reference or discussion about football or any sport. How often he would grow ashen faced and outraged at the mere mention of the Beautiful Game. Why couldn't we turn the discourse to Harold Wilson, the white heat of technology, Vietnam, Richard Nixon or the imminent troubles in Northern Ireland when the IRA threatened to send the whole of England into a state of indefinite bedlam?

My dad would turn his attention to his only true hobby. Cars became his major pre-occupation and eventually the cause of his mental breakdown. There were dreadful times when my family feared that this self -destructive obsession would destroy him. He suffered from what is now referred to as bipolar disease, a mentally crippling disease that led to wild mood swings and a frightening inability to communicate with anybody.

I find myself writing this piece with the heaviest of hearts because this is not the way either my dad or I would ever have thought something like manic depression would ever drag him into a fiery pit of despair. We experienced what, as a family, we came to know as his highs and lows since this is how manic depression would manifest itself. There were those horrendous slumps into my dad's personal world of hell, the highs consisting of delusions of grandeur when he clearly convinced himself that he was in complete control and nobody could tell him what to do and the lows that you would rather not go into any chapter and verse about.

There was the time when my dad found a job as chauffeur in the West End of London. On one glorious Sunday lunchtime my dad was assigned to look after and act as a tour guide to an obscenely wealthy Saudia Arabian family. Guided to the family's palatial penthouse suite in Park Lane, the heart of London's brightly illuminated West End, our family was wined and dined in the kind of lavish splendour that none of us could ever have ever anticipated.

Then there was my dad's platonic relationship with the touristy West End of London, a highly illuminated, dazzling beacon of light in what seemed to be those darkest recesses of his life where everything looked hopeless and inconsolable. How my dad loved to take his sleek, grey Ford Cortina out for a run to those garish but astonishing colours that would flicker, flirt, flash and then fulminate in an explosion of Coca Cola red.

Piccadilly Circus had everything my dad was looking for when Sunday afternoons during the 1970s were reduced to lengthy power cuts. There were the hospitable cafes, the gregarious restaurants where families and friends would eat out under the red lights of the Aberdeen Steak House, the statue of Eros, full of love and affection and Wrigley's Spearmint chewing gum which would be comfortably juxtaposed with, strangely, Timex watches. My dad was not only deeply in love with my mum but the heart of the jumping, jiving, swinging West End of London.

There was a deep seated longing on my dad's part to feel special and important, a sense that he simply wanted to make sure that the pleasure he was deriving from his Sunday afternoon would be instantly transferred to us. We would spend endless hours on those very Sunday afternoons casually strolling and window shopping our way along Regent Street before retiring for tea at that famous Jewish rendezous the Lyons Corner House in Marble Arch. The 1960s now seem like eons ago but for my dad there was an intimate connection and rapport with a world that never failed to disappoint him.

There were the hilarious holidays to Spain in the primary school half term break in June, the navy jackets, Fred Perry shirts and ties donned for days of baking heat on Sundays by the seaside. For my dad formality and courtesy were almost essential regardless of the occasion but then there were those evenings when uproarious laughter would leave both my grandparents and family in a memorable state of elation.

Half way through a Jewish Passover( Pesach service), my grandpa would stand to recite the traditional prayers without ever imagining that the events that would follow were destined to leave my dad on the floor in a paroxysm of giggling. Suddenly my dear grandpa pa would slowly lose his trouser belt and then his trousers. The trousers would gently fall to the ground, slowly descending into an oblivion of ankles and socks.

But for my dad family meant everything. Even through my most traumatic teenage years when autism had yet to be diagnosed, my dad was always there for me. When my parents would just leave me to my lonely devices for a  Tuesday night out club with friends, he was deeply supportive, bewildered at times as to why my personal friendships had yet to be established and fantastically sympathetic even though he couldn't really understand what I was going through. 

Then there was my dad's enduring relationship with the West End, a place of fun, life, vitality, tireless activity, a world of epic escapism, his natural destination after the most turbulent period of his life. The West End was a glittering revelation where he came alive, eyes twinkling, smile permanently etched on his face during the grimmest  Sunday winter's night.

And finally there were the days at home, listening with rapture in his heart to Frank Sinatra's Double album of instantly recognisable standards 'Portrait of Sinatra. Now firmly ensconced within the bosom of his adoring family he would sit in the family garden, sun glasses glued to his eyes, bronze, sun tanned chest exposed to a British summer heatwave which may have been a rarity but still a treat to those who worshipped it in the way both of my parents used to long for it. There was Glen Miller, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Count Basie and a festival of jazz to caress my dad's ears.

Above all my dad never liked any fuss, any commotion or bother. He was a man with simple tastes in a world that would often become incomprehensible from time to time. He enjoyed straightforward food. ordinary food, food with little in the way of pretentious colours, tastes or smells. He drank little or no alcohol although he would indulge on holiday excursions. He smoked because he'd always smoked but there were none of those vices that the rest of the 1960s had embraced so willingly. Of course he didn't take drugs and looked on with horror at those who did.

Sons and daughters always look up to their father for those formative signs of encouragement and support. When they receive those first trophies for best actor or actress in the school play, win that precious award or certficate for having mastered the violin or recorder, dad is the one at the back who keeps pointing at their offspring and singling them out when the spotlight falls.

When my dad finally blows out the 93rd candle on his birthday cake I feel sure that he'll be insisting that he wants nothing in the way of approval or recognition. After asking him what he wanted for his birthday for the umpteeenth time he would re-assure me that all he really wanted was a packet of Polo mints and a cup of tea. Any of my enterprises or life projects would be followed by the inevitable good luck son statement. For this was my lovely, wonderful dad. Happy 93rd birthday dad. You'll always be in my heart.

Cricket- first test, England against West Indies.

Cricket - the first test, England against West Indies

Barring monsoons or snow on a prodigious scale, the first test between England and West Indies will go ahead and the chances are that cricket will have survived the coronavirus although as we have been reminded quite a few times now the match will be known as the biosecure Test which sounds as though it should be played in a laboratory surrounded by test tubes or bunsen burners.

Back in March cricket fell into that unusual category of one of those sports that had to be re-evaluated quite thoroughly because it is a spectator sport although not in the same numbers as football. Cricket, regrettably, is not nearly as high profile as it would like it to be although England's Test matches against the leading cricket nations of the world has never been in doubt.

Today, at the Ageas Bowl, Southampton England meet one of the most charismatic, happy-go-lucky, effervescent, extrovert cricketing sides in the world. When the West Indies come to any town or city in England it normally means that the cricket will be stunningly crafted, breathtakingly breezy, classically flawless and quite the most brilliant spectacle. It will be a delight to all the senses, great fun to watch and terribly therapeutic if you're feeling down in the dumps.

During the 1970s some of us could hardly believe what we were watching. It almost felt as if the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team had dropped into Lords and sprinkled some stardust all over the outfield and that well-trodden batting strip. The West Indies were a magnificent force of nature, enormously gifted, vastly resourceful, oozing technical virtuosity, full of mighty, formidable batting strength in depth and immeasurably superior to anything England could offer. This time though we won't allow anything to get us down so we'll watch with bated breath and remember who England are playing.

This year though it'll be a whole new ball game or a red ball game. Cricket, rather like football, will be taking its lead from football when it treads on the well-manicured, burnished green grass. It'll be played against a backdrop of no fans and the behind closed doors charade that has now come to characterise the winter game of football. There is a belief here that cricket will cope in adversity since, by its very nature, the hundreds and thousands who populate the seats and terraces at the Etihad Stadium, Anfield, the Emirates, Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford may not be conspicuous by their presence.

Cricket was the game that first emerged into the light of the day many centuries ago when the village greens of England would contentedly resound to the bat and bowl while the sheep in another peaceful field would graze contemplatively, only occasionally looking up at the aristocrats and gentry in all their athletic, white-shirted glory. Then cricket was a much slower game although to some extent it still is. The pace perfectly suited the leisured classes who would then take their drink breaks whenever the mood took them.

But today in the high tech, social media driven, electronic age of whizzy graphics, instant statistics, TV, radio, Smartphone and Tablet, cricket is still flourishing when we probably thought the sheer pace of change would leave it well behind the rest of sport. Cricket is bang up to date, full of helmets, umpires with earpieces, coloured clothing and, more recently, numbers on the back of their shirts. You'd be forgiven for thinking that cricket was just copying football but the summer game of cricket is, quite literally, in a class of its own.

After winning last year's World Cup in their own backyard and then tumbling to humbling defeat to the Aussies in the Ashes, England are back again on home soil. For months we didn't think it would ever happen but cricket is back again. The County Championship, along with the biff and bash slogfest of those limited-overs, day and night-time matches, has yet to come out of the winter hibernation so that one is on the back burner for the minute.

England's opponents the West Indies of course, demand our respect regardless of generation and time frame. The old days of absolute mastery, astonishingly executed cricket, beautiful cricket with equally as spectacular performances are perhaps now long gone but the beauty and the panache with which they decorate all of their displays can never be discounted. We all know how impossible to beat the West Indies used to be and there were times during the 1970s when even the neutrals just wanted them to put on their purple finery, a team of almost regal status rather than a mundane bore.

In the mind's eye you can still see the West Indian fans filling the Oval with their joyous steel drums pounding away almost ceaselessly, sending out their wonderfully rhythmic melodies across the suburban shires of Surrey. It was a day of endless music, calypso carnival and record breaking cricket as the wickets tumbled, the noise became progressively louder and the singing much more melodious than perhaps we were expecting.

This was all because the West Indies had arrived. It meant that the pantherine and graceful Clive Lloyd was on captaincy duty, a long legged, powerful fielder and prolific batsman who chalked up big scores and colossal centuries. Then we move on to Sir Viv Richards, a Somerset batsman of majestic, magisterial, lordly and princely stature. In that distinctive maroon cap, Richards would doff that cap just before the first ball of the day had been delivered and then launch into some of the most destructive, punishing, heartless, callous, forthright batting the world had ever seen.

When the mood was right and the sun in the right position, Richards was unstoppable, irrepressible, a batsman of almost barbaric ferocity. He would settle in his crease against the likes of Ian Botham, Bob Willis, the cunning spin of Derek Underwood and many a trembling Englishman. He would dig his bat gently maybe once even twice before thrashing his cover drives, hooking with fearsome intent and then strategically nicking the outside edge for innumerable fours that left the English fielders gasping for another drinks break. Then there were the carousel of sixes that soared high into the air, over a thousand church steeples, office blocks and deep into the unspoilt meadows of Somerset.

Richards also had the highly respected likes of Gordon Greenidge equally as lethal and supple with his batting wrists, pulling the ball away to the inevitable boundary then pushing the West Indies total along with almost indecent haste. Greenidge was equally as brutal with the short ball, clumping the ball viciously with bloodthirsty aggression and totally without remorse. Greenidge, like Richards, had impeccable timing, an ever present sense of adventure and natural discipline, a cricketer for all occasions and its purest exponent.

Then there was Rohan Kanhai, a batsman with patience as a virtue, a charmer, a versatile all rounder, clipping, prodding and then blasting the ball in all manner of directions. There was Alvin Kalicharran, compact and clever, sound of technique, always watchful and frequently dangerous. The West Indies class of the 1970s always knew how to express themselves because they knew exactly when to hit the accelerator and when to parade the full range of cavalier strokes, ultra confident shots that flowed from their hands like a mountain stream in full spate.

When the likes of Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall and Michael Holding came running into their batsmen in full flight it was rather watching a family of swans gliding onto a small and placid river. But these swans had much more than the grace and majesty you might have expected of cricketers. They bowled with razor sharp accuracy, a deliberately hyped up hostility and under orders to create havoc, destruction, carnage and a clattering splinter of broken stumps.

Today though England, captained by the heroic and triumphant Ben Stokes will find himself in tandem with the rapidly maturing Rory Burns, the blossoming Dom Sibley, Joe Denly, the brand new or seemingly so Zak Crawley, the permanently enthusiastic Ollie Pope, the marvellously agile and quick witted Jos Buttler, the eager beaver Dom Bess, the excellent Mark Wood, the wily and experienced Stuart Broad while never leaving out the fiercely committed James Anderson.

For the West Indies the names may be unfamiliar but the traditions are undeniable. The likes of John Campbell, Kraigg Brathwaite, Shai Hope, Jermaine Blackwood, Royston Chase, captain Jason Holder, Kemar Roach, Shannon Gabriel and Alzarri Joseph are unknowns for some of us. But you can be sure that when they all come together with those natty maroon caps and pride in their hearts, the instincts will be as sharp as ever, the hunger for victory still there for all to see and England will certainly know they've been in a game.

With the global pandemic around them though these will not be conventional cricketing encounters. Cricket will have to contend with its shields, hand sanitisers and masks in much the way that most of us will have to grow accustomed. Cricket in the world of coronavirus will surely be the most novel of sights and it maybe hard to imagine if, rather like football, cricket will, one day, be able to safely accommodate its fervent supporters and fans. But then you think of the memories left behind of Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd and they all come flooding back warmly. Cricket at its very best.

Saints go marching in - Southampton beat Manchester City with uncharacteristic ease.

Saints go marching in- Southampton beat Manchester City with uncharacteristic ease.

So the Saints did indeed go marching in and by the end of another early July evening some of us were so disoriented that in a sense Southampton may just have assumed that they were heading in the right direction. There were no signposts or reference points but this was, without any shadow of a doubt, an end of season, inconsequential Premier League matc with nothing to aim for or cling onto. Somehow the satnav is far preferable to the old road map although the A to Z still has its merits if you're stuck on a hard shoulder or some remote lay by.

Yesterday Southampton, who must have thought it was curtains towards the end of last year, have quite literally pulled themselves together. In a rainstorm at St Mary's last winter, Southampton were steamrollered by ambitious Leicester City with a humiliating 9-0 defeat. They often tell us that the writing on the wall may have been there for all to see but Southampton rolled up their sleeves, knuckled down to the task in hand and now find themselves in comfortable mid table terrain.

But nobody could have seen this one coming. This was yet another midsummer exhibition at a time of the year when most footballers would much rather be listening to the soothing, sonorous waves of a Mediterranean sea than the industrial thud of boot against midriff or thigh. However, this is Project Restart, football's version of the summer fiesta where the chirruping of the late night crickets compete against the swish of the matador's cape for attention in a world where nothing is real and the way it should be.

Frequently this fourth round of matches that have been tightly crammed into a bizarre schedule of Premier League matches, is now beginning to look like a roller coaster that shouldn't really be hurtling towards its destination at such a hectic speed. Still, for most football fans, this quite definitely beats watching paint dry and besides the Premier League season had to end because if it had been declared null and void there would have been an uproar and certainly an outright revolt.

Grown men would have been storming the barricades, breaking down the turnstiles quite angrily and football would have lost its soul, its true value and that comforting sense of identity. And so it was that at the end of June and now into the first week of July the Premier League is doing a wonderfully convincing impersonation of men who may be enjoying themselves in their chosen sport but not really knowing why.

Amusingly, the whole of this game was played out to a chorus of noisy seagulls who were doing their utmost to serenade an empty St Mary's stadium with a classic Solent sea shanty. Here we were at a football stadium in July desperately stifling laughter and holding back our belly aching derision. In the normal scheme of things the South Coast would have been welcoming their traditional intake of daytrippers, ice cream licking children, parents, families, mums and dads strolling along the prom with not a care in the world.

But this was a strange footballing intrusion, not so much an imposition, more of an unexpected phenomena where players and managers join forces with small knots of men- the coaching staff- leaning forward in their seats and wearing those medicinally protective masks. Occasionally it reminded you of a low budget film about a group of footballers gathered together at a summer boot camp where actors and actresses pretend to be keepy uppy exponents or stepover and drag back experts. There were though no film cameras in sight nor the obligatory directors with a loud tannoy.

Then the referee blew his whistle for kick off at St Mary's  and you'd have been forgiven for thinking that you were stranded on a windswept beach during the winter. Suddenly, there was a cavernous echo about St Mary's that almost felt supernatural. All around the players were waves of subdued fan noises that sounded like another set of gentle tidal crashes onto the shore. Every so often players and managers would take it in turn to holler and yell, barking blasts of sound that were ever so spooky at times.

Poor Pep Guardiola, who probably felt he'd won the Lottery when Manchester City won the Premier League last season, looked ever so slightly defeated and downcast. Last Thursday City rolled back the seasons with a thumping 4-0 victory over the new Premier League champions Liverpool but in front of yet more cardboard art City looked leg weary, downtrodden and worn out. Against Southampton, whose act of defensive gallantry deserved much more than a medal, City were out on their feet, aching for warmer climes to rest tired limbs and not quite up to their rarefied standards.

For Southampton manager Ralph Hasehuttl this had to be one of his most satisfying 90 minutes in English football. There hasn't been a great deal to cheer about for Hasenhuttl who not only got a soaking in Southampton's 9-0 embarrassment at home to Leicester but probably thought his world had come to an end. But football's bearded Austrian handed out some stern instructions to his players, read that familiar riot act and after Manchester City sorrily trooped away from the South Coast, we acknowledged that every underdog has its day in the July sun.

When the sprightly and frequently energetic Kyle Walker Peters, Jack Stephens, Jan Bednarek and the ever reliable England man Ryan Bertrand pushed forward with harmonious intent, Southampton dropped anchor and sailed effortlessly away from the harbour. While the probing, prompting and scheming Stuart Armstrong linked up imaginatively with the purposeful Oriel Romeu, the irresistible Nathan Redmond and the always inventive James Ward Prowse, Southampton, certainly for much of the first half, were neat, tidy, economical in their passing and impressive moving forward.

Manchester City, to their eternal credit came out for the second half revived, refreshed and revitalised. Hurt and chastened by Southampton's attacking masterclass during the first half, City were back firing on all cylinders and for almost the entire second period, showed all the flamboyant flounces and elaborate passing patterns that would have blown Southampton into the Solent last season and the one before.

The underlying worry for City is that they could be kicked out of next season's Champions League on Financial Fair Play grounds so this rare setback must still rankle with them privately. Their football is still a joy to behold, rather like some joyous shangri-la. The passes are made of the silkiest texture, their movement on and off the ball a classical music concerto where everything happens spontaneously and perfectly. When the piano hits the right chord and the cymbal crashes dramatically you almost feel as if you've just witnessed footballing poetry.

Last night City were still knitting and sewing their passing together, recycling the ball over and over again, gathering their team around and then engaging in close, one touch football that could now be heard quite clearly at St Mary's. For the entire second half City opened up and sliced apart Southampton, dissecting and examining the Saints for further forensic inspection. Then they camped inside the home team's half, surrounding Southampton and then outnumbering them at times.

But Southampton had already scored the opening goal of the match with a truly stunning goal. For the first quarter of an hour City were not at their sharpest unlike the old City who would have gone at Southampton with tooth and claw. This was not the way it was meant to be and the goal shook the former Premier League champions to the core of their being.

A terrible goal kick from City keeper Ederson ended up at a red and white striped Saints shirt before the ball landed at the feet of Che Adams. Now this was the moment when every goalkeeper must dread. You mess up your clearance carelessly and you're punished for your sloppiness and negligence. It does happen from time to time but not to City surely. Sadly it did. There was a temporary sigh of despair and Ederson just wanted a holiday sun lounger.

So here we were in the realms of the fantasy. Che Adams, wonderfully perceptive, splendidly observant and very streetwise, noticed a goalkeeper stumbling back into his goal. Adams promptly sent an astonishingly deliciously curling lob high over Edison from almost the half way line. It was a goal made in heaven, a goal of vintage magnificence, a goal to show your children and grandchildren over and over again. And so it would prove the Southampton winner.

You were taken on a brief dance down memory lane. You would have imagined the reaction of one Lawrie Mcnemeny, a Southampton manager, Guardsman and magician supreme. When Southampton played at the old Dell ground, Mcnemeny would grin from ear to ear when the likes of Mick Channon would follow a goal celebration with a windmilling arm, drooling at Kevin Keegan re-capturing his grander Liverpool days and then smiling widely when that firework of a midfielder Alan Ball would release his all action dynamism into an old First Division match.

Southampton though are safe from relegation and have been for some time. Their team still looks slightly ragged and nervous at times and next season should tell us much more about the motivational powers of Hasenhutll. As long as they can wipe from their minds the 9-0 catastrophic defeat to Leicester then things will indeed run smoothly. For now the Saints will keep marching on as long as they don't drop anything.