The magic of the FA Cup.
They keep telling us about the magic and romance of the FA Cup, one of football's oldest and still much loved competitions. They insist that although the Cup may have lost some of its sheen, animal magnetism and mystical allure in recent years it still has the capacity to surprise us, making us go all weak at the knees and letting out the most remarkable whooping noise because none of us saw that one coming and besides the concept of giant killing is still stitched into the game's fabric.
But hang on a minute. The romance of the FA Cup? What on earth are they talking about? The FA Cup, it may confidently be asserted, has absolutely nothing to do with either Barbara Cartland or Mills and Boon classic books. Certainly, football has no connection with flowers and chocolates because if it did many of us would begin to suspect that something wasn't quite right.
For those of us who still cherish football's Saturday night Cup heroes with mud on their shirt and a broad smile on their faces nobody can deny that there is still a sadistic satisfaction to be derived in seeing a team at the bottom of the National League North dumping Manchester City out of the FA Cup. Of course this will never come to pass in any form or guise of the competition in any season or any year. The fantasists and idealists will still argue to the contrary but even this season's last non League survivors AFC Fylde couldn't overcome Premier League newcomers Sheffield United.
Still, there is much more of the egalitarian spirit about the FA Cup than used to be the case. Only the likes of non League Leatherhead, who once knocked out Brighton during the 1970s, the then non League Yeovil overcoming high flying old First Division Sunderland in 1949 and Sutton frightening the life out of then top flight Coventry in the late 1980s with a famous victory over the Midlanders, have upset football's status quo. And yet how close Plymouth Argyle came to beating Watford in the 1984 FA Cup semi final and Chesterfield found themselves 90 minutes from an FA Cup Final.
Essentially though football will always find its level and the cabinet makers and engineers, the supermarket shelf stackers and the lorry drivers will never really be able to realistically challenge the established order. Years ago sleepy market towns would readily busy themselves making rosettes and banners while proudly proclaiming local and lifelong, even emotional attachments to their club. Watching those supporters climbing their coaches to travel the length and breadth of the country to support their team always did leave you giggling at the sheer love of the game that football can still command.
Yesterday football was up to its old tricks again. When Liverpool and Everton were drawn together in the third round of the FA Cup we somehow knew that this was no joke. In 1986 and 1989 these fierce Merseyside rivals battled it out for bragging rights in their city in the FA Cup Final and there have been countless occasions in the same competition when both have collided like old school friends at a re-union.
And yet here they were again in this year's third round of the FA Cup. Liverpool, seemingly running away with this season's Premier League, were up against an Everton side now managed by the unsmiling, lugubrious and grumpy Carlo Ancelotti who once worked wonders with Chelsea but now finds himself lumbered with the demanding and never entirely happy Everton. One of these days Everton will actually discover a manager capable of reviving them to their dizzy heights and will then get up fed up with moaning and groaning about their team's perilous plight. This may be wishful thinking.
For the best part of the first half Everton had the inspirational Theo Walcott running at his defenders with that ferocious burst of pace that used to distinguish his football at Arsenal. There was Morgan Schneiderlin, still crafting and grafting ceaselessly at the heart of Everton's midfield, Gylfi Sigurdsson forever picking locks alongide Schneiderlin. Everton also had Lucas Digne probing and pestering Liverpool with nuggety persistence. Everton had innumerable opportunties with shots brilliantly blocked by Liverpool keeper Adrian. Frustratingly this was not to be Everton's day.
When Mason Holgate, another Goodison Park whizzkid, powered his header straight at Adrian, Everton must have known that once again Anfield would once again be their bogey ground as Holgate failed to find the target. Everton simply ran out of collective steam and reverted to type rather like kids at a fairground who just can't hit the coconut. For a moment or two you were reminded of Gordon Lee and Harry Catterick, former managers, just snarling helplessly into the middle distance as Everton laboured and toiled.
In the second half though the youngsters and whipper snappers of Liverpool demonstrated the kind of bright eyed vim and vitality that Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley would never have stopped gloating about. From Neco Williams. Nathaniel Phillips and Joe Gomez bringing a precocious maturity to their defensive roles to James Milner now the elder statesman, Liverpool, although outplayed by Everton in the first half, somehow found a second wind in the second half.
With the ever impressive Adam Lallana still re-producing the kind of form that should have brought him further England recognition, Liverpool began to crank up their cultured passing game to the highest level. Pedro Chrivella, another youthful kid on the block, moved through the gears easily and with Harvey Elliott chasing and dashing after every lost cause, Liverpool re-discovered their season long authority on the game.
But if this was Liverpool's collection of wonderkids on display then it may be safe to assume that manager Jurgen Klopp has got the most outstanding crop of talent ever seen since Sir Alex Ferguson once delivered the golden generation of David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs for their Premier League bow at Manchester United over 20 years ago.
Liverpool were purring, humming and carving out their neatly precise attacking movements with their familiar and almost genetically short, quickfire passes to feet. After building up a head of steam in the second half, Liverpool were now firmly in control. It seemed only a matter of time before Liverpool would break their deadlock and what a goal it would prove to be. You thought back to Kevin Keegan's debut goal for Liverpool when just a spring chicken against Nottingham Forest.
With Divock Origi at his trickiest and devious, the ball fell to Origi who instantaneously nicked the ball square to the very young Curtis Jones, barely out of football's nappies. Jones, eyes eager and darting all over the Anfield pitch steadied himself, cut inside his defender and then sent the most glorious, curling shot that flew high over Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and into the net. Oh for the exuberance of youth. What a precious asset.
So it was that Livepool have progressed into the fourth round of the FA Cup and a bright eyed and bushy tailed Liverpool young man named Curtis Jones must have thought that all his birthdays had indeed come at once. The FA Cup has produced its most bejewelled moment, when the diamonds glitter and the world seems a much better place to be because of it. If Curtis Jones does reach an FA Cup Final with Liverpool he may care to think back to that one moment of brilliance when the side from the other side of Stanley Park were given their marching orders out of the FA Cup. The FA Cup is still here and it's still shining.
Monday, 6 January 2020
Thursday, 2 January 2020
Another decade, another year.
Another decade, another year.
So here we are at the beginning of a new decade and the New Year is but two days old. This is another chapter of our lives, the next page in our lives, the first words of this brand new book or novel and another decade stretches in front of us rather like that long journey into the unknown, uncharted territory perhaps but nonetheless intriguing. This is the time to put everything into some kind of sober perspective and just face the challenges that may test us to the limit with a philosophical shrug and just get on with it.
Now let's see. Where are we? It's back to work, school or university and you're still shrugging off the effects of too much alcohol, over consumption, prodigious amounts of food and drink, relatives who may still be cracking Christmas crackers and then finally, when all the festivities are over, you begin to re-discover your bearings, a re-orientation with the real world because the real world seemed to be put on temporary hold for the whole duration of Christmas.
Here we are at the start of 2020, which does sound like the working title of an Arthur C. Clarke science fiction novel that can confidently predict the future with an uncanny accuracy. American soul singer George Benson once penned the lyrics of a song called 2020. If we are to believe those who takes these things lightly 2020 should be the year when all of us should have far sighted and peripheral vision.
But it's January and we all know what that means. This is the longest month of the calendar year and for some of us January seems to go on indefinitely. Still, we can do the kind of things that we normally do at this time of the year. We can once again trot down to our local gyms, forking out substantial amounts of money in order to get fit and healthy. Our intentions are worthy but by the start of February when the appetite for hard work has gone and desire is wilting, we stop going to the gym because the incentive has vanished without trace and besides who are we kidding?
Over the years the routine has been a familiar one. We eat ravenously over the whole of Christmas and by the end of Boxing Day our trousers, once so reliable, are no longer fit, the shirt buttons are popping like balloons and the midriff is on the point of exploding. Our stomachs, which may have served us so faithfully, are now rebelling and crying out for help. We feel unreasonably bloated, ridiculously overweight and never quite sure why we allowed ourselves to get into this state in the first place.
The pounds and stones are piled on, we wish we hadn't eaten too many of those mouth watering mince pies, polished off too many boxes of Celebrations and Quality Street chocolates and those delicious biscuits that had to be devoured because, quite frankly who can resist a biscuit? Then by New Year's Eve we look at ourselves in a mirror and for some of us this is rather like laughing at ourselves in one of those distorted fairground mirrors.
Oh for those calories, the cholesterol, the vast quantities of the kind of refreshments that would have been considered as both forbidden or just unnecessary at either lunch or tea time at any other time of the year. It is the time of the year when we begin that punishing quest for bodily perfection, muscular flawlessness, the body beautiful, the six pack from paradise, the gorgeously defined pectorals, the handsome tan and that unmistakable resemblance to an Adonis.
We hurl ourselves committedly onto the running machine, pedal like crazy on the bikes, pulling, stretching, sweating until we're red in the face and then gasping for breath. It is full blooded exertion and exercise on a quite monumental scale and all of us are convinced that if we keep going like this for at least the next three weeks Arnold Schwarzenegger, when even his stomach was as flat as an ironing board and muscles were bursting out of every part of his body, would be deeply envious if he could see us now.
In theory it seemed like the most advisable of all ideas but in theory it really does seem like some deluded pipe-dream. We pay our yearly subscriptions for the gyms in January and then discover that the rest of the year is a long time and we'll never reach the required standard and ambition. So we resign ourselves to defeat or perhaps a moral victory in as much that we have got this far. Suddenly those sweatbands, now the fashion statements that never go out of fashion, are now consigned to the attic or the back of a cupboard, the trainers are thrown into a local re-cycling plant and your morale has now reached rock bottom.
And so we move onto that famous yearly set of New Year's resolutions. Now these are the classic old chestnuts as old as time itself. We promise at the beginning of a New Year that we're going to be very good to ourselves, paragons of virtue, models of self restraint, giving up both smoking, drinking immediately, doing anything that remotely resembles unhealthy living and vowing that we'll never do anything that will either harm us permanently or endanger our lifespan with disgustingly debauched behaviour.
So we set up these rigorously strict dietary regimes such as sticking to the vegan lifestyle where meat has now been abolished from meal times, chips are now history, ice-cream is a swear word, pizzas have been abandoned from tea times for ever and booze is perfectly outrageous. Oh for the sacrifices we make, the rationing of all the tea time treats we used to look forward to with great anticipation and the simple pleasures of the palate we used to take for granted. Oh yes and don't forget to ban those moreish chocolates, the prettily wrapped sweets that surrounded our childhood.
Of course it's the beginning of a New Year and we're all entitled to be delusional or naturally optimistic. Of course we seek self improvement, betterment, a cleaner bill of health and a dedication to the cause of looking like Mr or Mrs Universe. Realistically though it may be time to get on with the job of booking that dream summer holiday, climbing Mount Everest, swimming the Atlantic, bungee jumping from the highest bridge in the world, completing 100 marathons by June and then travelling the world in double quick time.
But why oh why do we make these grandiose plans in the depths of a wintry January when it would be much simpler to take one step at a time. The department stores are still holding their winter sales, you probably need those practical pullovers, warm as toast thick coats while not forgetting a cabinet of medical potions and tablets to keep colds and coughs at bay. Besides, the weather forecasters will shortly be delivering those gloomy prognoses of freezing winds, buckets of snow, interminable periods of cold and rain, icy pavements, unwelcome slush on the ground and more ice on the car windscreen wipers. The New Year hey! What a winter wonderland! There can be nothing to match it.
So here we are at the beginning of a new decade and the New Year is but two days old. This is another chapter of our lives, the next page in our lives, the first words of this brand new book or novel and another decade stretches in front of us rather like that long journey into the unknown, uncharted territory perhaps but nonetheless intriguing. This is the time to put everything into some kind of sober perspective and just face the challenges that may test us to the limit with a philosophical shrug and just get on with it.
Now let's see. Where are we? It's back to work, school or university and you're still shrugging off the effects of too much alcohol, over consumption, prodigious amounts of food and drink, relatives who may still be cracking Christmas crackers and then finally, when all the festivities are over, you begin to re-discover your bearings, a re-orientation with the real world because the real world seemed to be put on temporary hold for the whole duration of Christmas.
Here we are at the start of 2020, which does sound like the working title of an Arthur C. Clarke science fiction novel that can confidently predict the future with an uncanny accuracy. American soul singer George Benson once penned the lyrics of a song called 2020. If we are to believe those who takes these things lightly 2020 should be the year when all of us should have far sighted and peripheral vision.
But it's January and we all know what that means. This is the longest month of the calendar year and for some of us January seems to go on indefinitely. Still, we can do the kind of things that we normally do at this time of the year. We can once again trot down to our local gyms, forking out substantial amounts of money in order to get fit and healthy. Our intentions are worthy but by the start of February when the appetite for hard work has gone and desire is wilting, we stop going to the gym because the incentive has vanished without trace and besides who are we kidding?
Over the years the routine has been a familiar one. We eat ravenously over the whole of Christmas and by the end of Boxing Day our trousers, once so reliable, are no longer fit, the shirt buttons are popping like balloons and the midriff is on the point of exploding. Our stomachs, which may have served us so faithfully, are now rebelling and crying out for help. We feel unreasonably bloated, ridiculously overweight and never quite sure why we allowed ourselves to get into this state in the first place.
The pounds and stones are piled on, we wish we hadn't eaten too many of those mouth watering mince pies, polished off too many boxes of Celebrations and Quality Street chocolates and those delicious biscuits that had to be devoured because, quite frankly who can resist a biscuit? Then by New Year's Eve we look at ourselves in a mirror and for some of us this is rather like laughing at ourselves in one of those distorted fairground mirrors.
Oh for those calories, the cholesterol, the vast quantities of the kind of refreshments that would have been considered as both forbidden or just unnecessary at either lunch or tea time at any other time of the year. It is the time of the year when we begin that punishing quest for bodily perfection, muscular flawlessness, the body beautiful, the six pack from paradise, the gorgeously defined pectorals, the handsome tan and that unmistakable resemblance to an Adonis.
We hurl ourselves committedly onto the running machine, pedal like crazy on the bikes, pulling, stretching, sweating until we're red in the face and then gasping for breath. It is full blooded exertion and exercise on a quite monumental scale and all of us are convinced that if we keep going like this for at least the next three weeks Arnold Schwarzenegger, when even his stomach was as flat as an ironing board and muscles were bursting out of every part of his body, would be deeply envious if he could see us now.
In theory it seemed like the most advisable of all ideas but in theory it really does seem like some deluded pipe-dream. We pay our yearly subscriptions for the gyms in January and then discover that the rest of the year is a long time and we'll never reach the required standard and ambition. So we resign ourselves to defeat or perhaps a moral victory in as much that we have got this far. Suddenly those sweatbands, now the fashion statements that never go out of fashion, are now consigned to the attic or the back of a cupboard, the trainers are thrown into a local re-cycling plant and your morale has now reached rock bottom.
And so we move onto that famous yearly set of New Year's resolutions. Now these are the classic old chestnuts as old as time itself. We promise at the beginning of a New Year that we're going to be very good to ourselves, paragons of virtue, models of self restraint, giving up both smoking, drinking immediately, doing anything that remotely resembles unhealthy living and vowing that we'll never do anything that will either harm us permanently or endanger our lifespan with disgustingly debauched behaviour.
So we set up these rigorously strict dietary regimes such as sticking to the vegan lifestyle where meat has now been abolished from meal times, chips are now history, ice-cream is a swear word, pizzas have been abandoned from tea times for ever and booze is perfectly outrageous. Oh for the sacrifices we make, the rationing of all the tea time treats we used to look forward to with great anticipation and the simple pleasures of the palate we used to take for granted. Oh yes and don't forget to ban those moreish chocolates, the prettily wrapped sweets that surrounded our childhood.
Of course it's the beginning of a New Year and we're all entitled to be delusional or naturally optimistic. Of course we seek self improvement, betterment, a cleaner bill of health and a dedication to the cause of looking like Mr or Mrs Universe. Realistically though it may be time to get on with the job of booking that dream summer holiday, climbing Mount Everest, swimming the Atlantic, bungee jumping from the highest bridge in the world, completing 100 marathons by June and then travelling the world in double quick time.
But why oh why do we make these grandiose plans in the depths of a wintry January when it would be much simpler to take one step at a time. The department stores are still holding their winter sales, you probably need those practical pullovers, warm as toast thick coats while not forgetting a cabinet of medical potions and tablets to keep colds and coughs at bay. Besides, the weather forecasters will shortly be delivering those gloomy prognoses of freezing winds, buckets of snow, interminable periods of cold and rain, icy pavements, unwelcome slush on the ground and more ice on the car windscreen wipers. The New Year hey! What a winter wonderland! There can be nothing to match it.
Tuesday, 31 December 2019
Happy New Year and David Moyes.
Happy New Year and David Moyes.
So here we are on the threshold of another decade and it hardly seems possible that ten years have passed since the last one. New Year's Eve is often a time for being both reflective and analytical, for dipping into the past and counting our blessings for both the present and whatever the future may hold for us. But reminiscence and nostalgia may not be all that they're cracked up to be. Besides, none of us know exactly what lies in front of us and on the last day of the year and the final hours before the beginning of a new decade many of us will be hoping that the last three years of this year aren't the worse of all omens. Oh for Brexit!
Tonight families across Britain and the world will be gathering in their living rooms still heavily laden down with the remains of leftover turkey, staring forlornly at the sad remnants of the booze scattered around your home and then desperately trying to summon up support for some more improvised family karaoke sessions. Then somebody will pluck up the courage to dance unashamedly on their own, failing miserably in their bid to find the rhythm and co-ordination to complete such an audacious manoeuvre.
Across the world we will don party hats, clink bottles and glasses in a blissful, alcoholic stupor before trudging off to the kitchen in the hope of finding somebody sufficiently sober to stand up with properly on the night. But tonight is the night of all nights, a time for family unity and harmony, giggling and laughing at the sheer uniqueness of the one night of the year that doesn't care if you wake up the following morning feeling as though you'd rather not engage with anybody until the first week in February.
Years and years ago we used to converge on Trafalgar Square to see in the New Year. Now health and safety issues take on almost urgent priority since none of us wants to see each other get hurt. In the old days- and still evident in a couple of cases- vast hordes of people would take their lives in their hands by jumping around engagingly in the fountains and then manfully trying to climb onto to those distinctive lions who have both been there for as long as anybody can remember.
We then retire to London's Embankment in the shivering cold and drizzly rain just to feast our eyes on the traditional fireworks party that now frames the equally as spectacular London Eye. Still, the New Year's Eve light show continues to hold a perennial fascination for those of us who just want to re-capture our childhood. We head for the best vantage point and then discover huge masses of people all huddling together, all seeking selfies to capture the moment for posterity and then letting out those traditional gasps of astonishment when they discover that their children are just as dazzled as their parents.
It is now that the London throng slowly disperses into the blustery wilderness, twisting and turning adroitly around only to find that their neighbours maybe not going anywhere very quickly. Around them the night buses are gradually switching on their engines for perhaps the busiest night of the year. This could be one of the longest nights any of them have ever experienced although the nightclub fraternity may think otherwise.
Meanwhile back at home we find ourselves in the world of yesteryear. Hands up those who still remember British TV on New Year's Eve. There was the enchanting Moira Anderson, a Scottish chanteuse with a voice of an angel and a woman who quite clearly sounded as though she'd drunk too many whiskies for her own good although not that many because it was all very good humoured. Meanwhile at the White Heather Club Andy Stewart, complete in tartan and a beautifully crafted set of bagpipes, blew heartily and then started jigging around swords as if his life depended on it.
Now of course we are almost completely spoilt for choice when TV comes a calling. There are 5,261 channels plus another 700 million channels all showing a thousand Christmas shows that have only been repeated over the years at least 72 million times. By now our wonderful cousins are snoring loudly on the sofa, the carpet is smothered in crushed tins of lager and mouldy cheese sandwiches are now a sea of crumbs. There remains a wholesome display of broken whistles and old Christmas crackers that are now scattered all over the once pristine mahogany tables. What happened last night?
By tomorrow they will be required to clear up the carnage on the floor. They will wake up with that feeling that perhaps can only be re-produced accurately on a Saturday morning after drinking the entire contents of a pub the previous night. They will unwind their exhausted shoulders, fling their arms high into the air and then focus on the world outside with bleary eyes and an awkward groan.
The New Year's Eve party, which hours before had been a scene of high spirited intoxication and fun, now sounds like an empty cathedral, silence reigning for what seems like a good two hours. We had a great time last night but the problem is that some of them have no recollection of the party. So we slink away wearily into the fresh New Year's morning only to be told that London is holding that New Year's parade so it's time to do some more richly projected cheering into the wintry air.
Meanwhile back at the London Stadium, the football team who wear claret and blue are bracing themselves for another period of change. Not for the first time recently West Ham have now announced the re-appointment of their old manager David Moyes. Of course West Ham find themselves clinging onto dear life one point above the relegation zone. This is customary territory for the East London outfit and when Manuel Pellegrini finally walked out of the exit door, some of us didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Throughout the ages West Ham chairmen ranging from Len Cearns to the Pratt family have loyally backed their managers through thick and thin. When Ted Fenton was replaced by Ron Greenwood in the early 1960s, West Ham proceeded uncomfortably to spend the next 20 years in the old First Division. When Greenwood left West Ham in 1977 for the England job, John Lyall, who had spent his whole life at the club, took over as boss officially.
In the early 1990s club legend Billy Bonds, a rugged, no nonsense and uncompromising defender, became a new manager before another club favourite Harry Redknapp, full of Eastern promise and a cheeky turn of phrase, pulled on the tracksuit as manager of the club. There had been brief periods in between where Lou Macari and Glen Roeder became the most improbable of managers.
So here we are folks. It's time to get ready to party, to put on our gladrags, whistle a merry tune and try to avoid complete embarrassment in front of our friends. And yet who cares because it is New Year's Eve and our behaviour is in no danger of any severe examination. We can do whatever we like within reason and that sore hangover will just be a distant memory. Happy and Healthy New Year to everybody.
So here we are on the threshold of another decade and it hardly seems possible that ten years have passed since the last one. New Year's Eve is often a time for being both reflective and analytical, for dipping into the past and counting our blessings for both the present and whatever the future may hold for us. But reminiscence and nostalgia may not be all that they're cracked up to be. Besides, none of us know exactly what lies in front of us and on the last day of the year and the final hours before the beginning of a new decade many of us will be hoping that the last three years of this year aren't the worse of all omens. Oh for Brexit!
Tonight families across Britain and the world will be gathering in their living rooms still heavily laden down with the remains of leftover turkey, staring forlornly at the sad remnants of the booze scattered around your home and then desperately trying to summon up support for some more improvised family karaoke sessions. Then somebody will pluck up the courage to dance unashamedly on their own, failing miserably in their bid to find the rhythm and co-ordination to complete such an audacious manoeuvre.
Across the world we will don party hats, clink bottles and glasses in a blissful, alcoholic stupor before trudging off to the kitchen in the hope of finding somebody sufficiently sober to stand up with properly on the night. But tonight is the night of all nights, a time for family unity and harmony, giggling and laughing at the sheer uniqueness of the one night of the year that doesn't care if you wake up the following morning feeling as though you'd rather not engage with anybody until the first week in February.
Years and years ago we used to converge on Trafalgar Square to see in the New Year. Now health and safety issues take on almost urgent priority since none of us wants to see each other get hurt. In the old days- and still evident in a couple of cases- vast hordes of people would take their lives in their hands by jumping around engagingly in the fountains and then manfully trying to climb onto to those distinctive lions who have both been there for as long as anybody can remember.
We then retire to London's Embankment in the shivering cold and drizzly rain just to feast our eyes on the traditional fireworks party that now frames the equally as spectacular London Eye. Still, the New Year's Eve light show continues to hold a perennial fascination for those of us who just want to re-capture our childhood. We head for the best vantage point and then discover huge masses of people all huddling together, all seeking selfies to capture the moment for posterity and then letting out those traditional gasps of astonishment when they discover that their children are just as dazzled as their parents.
It is now that the London throng slowly disperses into the blustery wilderness, twisting and turning adroitly around only to find that their neighbours maybe not going anywhere very quickly. Around them the night buses are gradually switching on their engines for perhaps the busiest night of the year. This could be one of the longest nights any of them have ever experienced although the nightclub fraternity may think otherwise.
Meanwhile back at home we find ourselves in the world of yesteryear. Hands up those who still remember British TV on New Year's Eve. There was the enchanting Moira Anderson, a Scottish chanteuse with a voice of an angel and a woman who quite clearly sounded as though she'd drunk too many whiskies for her own good although not that many because it was all very good humoured. Meanwhile at the White Heather Club Andy Stewart, complete in tartan and a beautifully crafted set of bagpipes, blew heartily and then started jigging around swords as if his life depended on it.
Now of course we are almost completely spoilt for choice when TV comes a calling. There are 5,261 channels plus another 700 million channels all showing a thousand Christmas shows that have only been repeated over the years at least 72 million times. By now our wonderful cousins are snoring loudly on the sofa, the carpet is smothered in crushed tins of lager and mouldy cheese sandwiches are now a sea of crumbs. There remains a wholesome display of broken whistles and old Christmas crackers that are now scattered all over the once pristine mahogany tables. What happened last night?
By tomorrow they will be required to clear up the carnage on the floor. They will wake up with that feeling that perhaps can only be re-produced accurately on a Saturday morning after drinking the entire contents of a pub the previous night. They will unwind their exhausted shoulders, fling their arms high into the air and then focus on the world outside with bleary eyes and an awkward groan.
The New Year's Eve party, which hours before had been a scene of high spirited intoxication and fun, now sounds like an empty cathedral, silence reigning for what seems like a good two hours. We had a great time last night but the problem is that some of them have no recollection of the party. So we slink away wearily into the fresh New Year's morning only to be told that London is holding that New Year's parade so it's time to do some more richly projected cheering into the wintry air.
Meanwhile back at the London Stadium, the football team who wear claret and blue are bracing themselves for another period of change. Not for the first time recently West Ham have now announced the re-appointment of their old manager David Moyes. Of course West Ham find themselves clinging onto dear life one point above the relegation zone. This is customary territory for the East London outfit and when Manuel Pellegrini finally walked out of the exit door, some of us didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Throughout the ages West Ham chairmen ranging from Len Cearns to the Pratt family have loyally backed their managers through thick and thin. When Ted Fenton was replaced by Ron Greenwood in the early 1960s, West Ham proceeded uncomfortably to spend the next 20 years in the old First Division. When Greenwood left West Ham in 1977 for the England job, John Lyall, who had spent his whole life at the club, took over as boss officially.
In the early 1990s club legend Billy Bonds, a rugged, no nonsense and uncompromising defender, became a new manager before another club favourite Harry Redknapp, full of Eastern promise and a cheeky turn of phrase, pulled on the tracksuit as manager of the club. There had been brief periods in between where Lou Macari and Glen Roeder became the most improbable of managers.
So here we are folks. It's time to get ready to party, to put on our gladrags, whistle a merry tune and try to avoid complete embarrassment in front of our friends. And yet who cares because it is New Year's Eve and our behaviour is in no danger of any severe examination. We can do whatever we like within reason and that sore hangover will just be a distant memory. Happy and Healthy New Year to everybody.
Wednesday, 25 December 2019
It's Christmas Day and all is quiet.
It's Christmas Day and all is quiet.
The streets and roads are as quiet as a library. There is not a soul to be seen or heard. There is silence, peace and stillness. Cars and buses have fallen into a temporary hibernation and even the traffic lights at the top of our road seem to have taken the day off. This can only mean one thing and one thing only. It's Christmas Day and families around the world will carefully tread their way into the living room, smile pleasingly at the Christmas tree in the corner, wish they hadn't quaffed too many brandies, sherries and lagers the previous day and then slump back on their sofas with a hearty guffaw and belly laugh.
We all know that today is the one day completely devoted to rest, relaxation and detailed analysis of what the TV may have to offer us before just resigning ourselves us to the fact that Christmases of yesteryear were so different and those who miss the past will just have to get used to the present and the future. Of course Christmas will never be the same as it used to be because evolution always makes its presence felt and change is difficult.
During the 1950s everything shut for the day on Christmas Day. The shops and big department stores closed for the day, offices put up the shutters, factories declared a day of complete inactivity, street markets withdrew their services and even those quaint corner shops fixed the padlock on. The newsagents, which had been a hotbed of money and affluence, were now reduced to a whispering breeze that nobody can now hear.
For Christmas Day is that unique day of the year when nobody does anything at all and wishes that Christmas could just go away and never come back. Isn't it amazing that on the one day of the year we should look forward to, we all cross our arms in a fit of pique and frustration, pleading with the kids to keep the noise down? It's supposed to be a day of religious contemplation, looking back over the year at the tempestuous events that have shaped our lives and quite possibly annoyed us beyond reason.
Amid all the festive tinsel and frivolous frippery, mums, dads, grandparents, aunties, cousins and uncles tiptoe gingerly over the chaotic tangle of ribbons, paper and toys as if it were some customary ritual that has to be negotiated every year whether they like it or not. Then mums run back into the kitchen frantically checking the parlous state of a simmering turkey in the oven. This may be the time to stop and take it easy. If we count to ten then nothing untoward will happen.
She opens the oven, cries in pain at the horrendous condition of a charred ruin in the oven and wishes it could all be over. She waves at the oven with a submissive wave of a tea towel and then races back to the potato peeler. Here the roast potatoes are prepared with a loving attention to detail, vegetables are thrown onto another tray and none of us can understand the sheer magnitude of the day. We drink and eat to the point of bursting, let out a huge, regretful sigh at the end of the day and then reluctantly play either charades, Monopoly or Scrabble by way of compensation.
Then the children run up and down the stairs almost constantly, the dog keeps looking longingly at their owners for a three hour run in the local park or recreation ground and you try to keep your feelings to yourself. Meanwhile your nearest and dearest just help themselves to nibbles, savouries and egg nog refreshments because there's not a great deal to do. All is panic and pandemonium and it's probably best to leave them to it.
This afternoon Her Majesty the Queen will deliver her regal pearls of wisdom to the nation. It will be a pre-recorded speech which will be laced with immense gratitude, relief that although she may have thought the year as bumpy, she'll still be able to make Christmas cakes with her great great grandchildren and her husband Prince Philip, although hospitalised recently, looks in remarkably good shape for a 98 year old.
The rest of the afternoon will all be about choices and making the right decisions. Do we finally pander to the whims of our golden Labrador and head to those forests or parklands? Or alternatively we could listen to the magical strains of Chris Rea's Driving Home For Christmas or Jona Lewie's wonderful anti war song Stop the Cavalry. We could settle down and listen to the comforting Pipes of Peace by the one and only Paul McCartney followed by his warm homage to the festive period The Christmas song.
But no matter how much we complain and moan at the sheer, unnecessary expense and commercialism of it all, there can be no denying that in a strange kind of way, most of us do genuinely feel there is a point and purpose to Christmas after all. Besides, it gives us the opportunity to open up channels of communication that would have been barred during the rest of the year because those in political power had nothing else to talk about but Brexit and its bleak ramifications.
On reflection though there can be no escaping the soft and cosy sentimentality of Christmas, the innumerable repeats of films we've seen a thousand times in the past and the relentless barrage of TV cookery programmes with those endless recipes for the perfect Christmas cake. And so it goes on. The celebrities will dress up in those frankly ludicrous red and white coats while on the other channels they'll be doing their utmost to ladle on the froth, glitter and good natured silliness.
Besides, there can only be so many times that you can show A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim or White Christmas without asking questions why? And yet why ever not? It is after all Christmas and let the good times roll. Repetition can quite be uplifting. This year there has been no sighting of the classic It's a Wonderful Life starring the incomparable James Stewart. It's a Wonderful Life remains a film. of light, shade and blissful redemption, happy ever after.
In recent years we've all played along to the all action, hair raising, heroic and chivalric James Bond, the man who somehow manages to escape death when all around him are either being blown up or shot. Bond has become an almost traditional Christmas staple, as familiar as Santa Claus himself, a man dedicated to the safety and security of the free world.
By the end of this afternoon millions of children will gaze out of snow ringed windows, pointing at equally as snow caked gardens and tall, stately trees. And yet hold on there can be snow because none has been predicted on Christmas Day for some time, a disappointment for the younger ones and those who still believe that snow is somehow imperative for a proper Christmas. Why can't they be allowed to venture out onto thick white carpets with their toboggans or hastily built sleighs, sliding, thrilling, hurtling down challenging hills while adoring parents look on with a just a hint of anxiety?
Whatever you may be doing today this is an opportune moment to say once again that Christmas is essentially a day for the simple enjoyments of life, of being together as a family and singing those jolly old festive tunes. Outside a thousand roast chestnuts are crackling away soothingly by countless braziers. Oh and of course there are no buses or trains which you know about anyway.
Well over 50 years ago the London tube and overground railway system ran to full capacity on Christmas Day and none of us would have batted an eyelid. There was also a full old First Division football fixture list as well with some of the most bizarre results ever seen. Now though football and trains have taken a back seat on this day of days and now football plays its games on Boxing Day.
So here we are on Christmas Day ladies and gentlemen. The Holly and the Ivy are tinkling away quite aptly in the background, mum and dad are wearing the silliest paper hats you've ever seen and cousin Graham is wrestling with the latest incarnation of the X Box series or some brilliantly retro Hornby train set and rails.
It has to be said that we've all had one or two many snowballs or vodka and tonics for our own good, there have been one too many kisses under the mistletoe for anybody's liking and when they all come to the table to devour the turkey and sprouts they'll be thinking back to those Christmases when the trains once ran on Christmas Day. It was a time when football was played with one of those heavyweight medicine balls, pitches resembled unsightly mud heaps and England football manager Gareth Southgate had yet to make his arrival. Still wherever you are on this sacred and deeply religious day Merry Christmas everybody and will somebody pass me the cranberry sauce please? Thankyou, it's much appreciated.
The streets and roads are as quiet as a library. There is not a soul to be seen or heard. There is silence, peace and stillness. Cars and buses have fallen into a temporary hibernation and even the traffic lights at the top of our road seem to have taken the day off. This can only mean one thing and one thing only. It's Christmas Day and families around the world will carefully tread their way into the living room, smile pleasingly at the Christmas tree in the corner, wish they hadn't quaffed too many brandies, sherries and lagers the previous day and then slump back on their sofas with a hearty guffaw and belly laugh.
We all know that today is the one day completely devoted to rest, relaxation and detailed analysis of what the TV may have to offer us before just resigning ourselves us to the fact that Christmases of yesteryear were so different and those who miss the past will just have to get used to the present and the future. Of course Christmas will never be the same as it used to be because evolution always makes its presence felt and change is difficult.
During the 1950s everything shut for the day on Christmas Day. The shops and big department stores closed for the day, offices put up the shutters, factories declared a day of complete inactivity, street markets withdrew their services and even those quaint corner shops fixed the padlock on. The newsagents, which had been a hotbed of money and affluence, were now reduced to a whispering breeze that nobody can now hear.
For Christmas Day is that unique day of the year when nobody does anything at all and wishes that Christmas could just go away and never come back. Isn't it amazing that on the one day of the year we should look forward to, we all cross our arms in a fit of pique and frustration, pleading with the kids to keep the noise down? It's supposed to be a day of religious contemplation, looking back over the year at the tempestuous events that have shaped our lives and quite possibly annoyed us beyond reason.
Amid all the festive tinsel and frivolous frippery, mums, dads, grandparents, aunties, cousins and uncles tiptoe gingerly over the chaotic tangle of ribbons, paper and toys as if it were some customary ritual that has to be negotiated every year whether they like it or not. Then mums run back into the kitchen frantically checking the parlous state of a simmering turkey in the oven. This may be the time to stop and take it easy. If we count to ten then nothing untoward will happen.
She opens the oven, cries in pain at the horrendous condition of a charred ruin in the oven and wishes it could all be over. She waves at the oven with a submissive wave of a tea towel and then races back to the potato peeler. Here the roast potatoes are prepared with a loving attention to detail, vegetables are thrown onto another tray and none of us can understand the sheer magnitude of the day. We drink and eat to the point of bursting, let out a huge, regretful sigh at the end of the day and then reluctantly play either charades, Monopoly or Scrabble by way of compensation.
Then the children run up and down the stairs almost constantly, the dog keeps looking longingly at their owners for a three hour run in the local park or recreation ground and you try to keep your feelings to yourself. Meanwhile your nearest and dearest just help themselves to nibbles, savouries and egg nog refreshments because there's not a great deal to do. All is panic and pandemonium and it's probably best to leave them to it.
This afternoon Her Majesty the Queen will deliver her regal pearls of wisdom to the nation. It will be a pre-recorded speech which will be laced with immense gratitude, relief that although she may have thought the year as bumpy, she'll still be able to make Christmas cakes with her great great grandchildren and her husband Prince Philip, although hospitalised recently, looks in remarkably good shape for a 98 year old.
The rest of the afternoon will all be about choices and making the right decisions. Do we finally pander to the whims of our golden Labrador and head to those forests or parklands? Or alternatively we could listen to the magical strains of Chris Rea's Driving Home For Christmas or Jona Lewie's wonderful anti war song Stop the Cavalry. We could settle down and listen to the comforting Pipes of Peace by the one and only Paul McCartney followed by his warm homage to the festive period The Christmas song.
But no matter how much we complain and moan at the sheer, unnecessary expense and commercialism of it all, there can be no denying that in a strange kind of way, most of us do genuinely feel there is a point and purpose to Christmas after all. Besides, it gives us the opportunity to open up channels of communication that would have been barred during the rest of the year because those in political power had nothing else to talk about but Brexit and its bleak ramifications.
On reflection though there can be no escaping the soft and cosy sentimentality of Christmas, the innumerable repeats of films we've seen a thousand times in the past and the relentless barrage of TV cookery programmes with those endless recipes for the perfect Christmas cake. And so it goes on. The celebrities will dress up in those frankly ludicrous red and white coats while on the other channels they'll be doing their utmost to ladle on the froth, glitter and good natured silliness.
Besides, there can only be so many times that you can show A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim or White Christmas without asking questions why? And yet why ever not? It is after all Christmas and let the good times roll. Repetition can quite be uplifting. This year there has been no sighting of the classic It's a Wonderful Life starring the incomparable James Stewart. It's a Wonderful Life remains a film. of light, shade and blissful redemption, happy ever after.
In recent years we've all played along to the all action, hair raising, heroic and chivalric James Bond, the man who somehow manages to escape death when all around him are either being blown up or shot. Bond has become an almost traditional Christmas staple, as familiar as Santa Claus himself, a man dedicated to the safety and security of the free world.
By the end of this afternoon millions of children will gaze out of snow ringed windows, pointing at equally as snow caked gardens and tall, stately trees. And yet hold on there can be snow because none has been predicted on Christmas Day for some time, a disappointment for the younger ones and those who still believe that snow is somehow imperative for a proper Christmas. Why can't they be allowed to venture out onto thick white carpets with their toboggans or hastily built sleighs, sliding, thrilling, hurtling down challenging hills while adoring parents look on with a just a hint of anxiety?
Whatever you may be doing today this is an opportune moment to say once again that Christmas is essentially a day for the simple enjoyments of life, of being together as a family and singing those jolly old festive tunes. Outside a thousand roast chestnuts are crackling away soothingly by countless braziers. Oh and of course there are no buses or trains which you know about anyway.
Well over 50 years ago the London tube and overground railway system ran to full capacity on Christmas Day and none of us would have batted an eyelid. There was also a full old First Division football fixture list as well with some of the most bizarre results ever seen. Now though football and trains have taken a back seat on this day of days and now football plays its games on Boxing Day.
So here we are on Christmas Day ladies and gentlemen. The Holly and the Ivy are tinkling away quite aptly in the background, mum and dad are wearing the silliest paper hats you've ever seen and cousin Graham is wrestling with the latest incarnation of the X Box series or some brilliantly retro Hornby train set and rails.
It has to be said that we've all had one or two many snowballs or vodka and tonics for our own good, there have been one too many kisses under the mistletoe for anybody's liking and when they all come to the table to devour the turkey and sprouts they'll be thinking back to those Christmases when the trains once ran on Christmas Day. It was a time when football was played with one of those heavyweight medicine balls, pitches resembled unsightly mud heaps and England football manager Gareth Southgate had yet to make his arrival. Still wherever you are on this sacred and deeply religious day Merry Christmas everybody and will somebody pass me the cranberry sauce please? Thankyou, it's much appreciated.
Sunday, 22 December 2019
Martin Peters dies - one of West Ham's own.
Martin Peters dies- one of West Ham's own.
Yesterday football lost one of its most distinguished servants, one of the major contributors to English football's finest hour and half plus extra time. He was the one figure who, amid all of the hallabaloo and knees up revelry of that late July afternoon, kept the coolest of heads and that quiet low profile that would come characterise his football throughout his career.
Martin Peters, who died yesterday at the age of 76, was, of course part of the England team who beat West Germany in the 1966 World Cup Final and, as if it were fated to happen, scored one of the goals that left the Germans on their knees and looking for a hole in the ground.
The Germans were still incensed at the injustice of it all. When Peters West Ham team mate Geoff Hurst turned on a six pence inside the Germans penalty area and thundered his shot into the back of the net, a posse of white German shirts surrounded the referee, convinced that the ball had hit the bar, come down on the goal line and not crossed that line. But the goal stood and the rest is controversial history.
Martin Peters though remained calm, detached, utterly imperturbable and slightly bewildered by events swirling around him. While Hurst was flinging his arms into the air and casting an equally as baffled look around him, Peters was almost completely unaffected by all the fuss and confusion. Fresh faced and boyish, hair neatly cut and the epitome of composure, Peters was honoured to be associated with the one day in English football history where time seemed to freeze for just a while.
Born in Plaistow, East London, Peters joined the fabled West Ham academy of football where an entire generation of East End gems would be nurtured, encouraged, coaxed, inspired and made to feel as if they genuinely belonged. He was 15, wet behind the ears but willing to listen to everything that West Ham manager Ron Greenwood was about to teach him. The mind was both responsive and receptive, an absorbent sponge if you like.
Then the claret and blue teenager matured like the sweetest of wines, joining forces with the blond haired boy from Barking who would become Sir Alf Ramsey's greatest standard bearer and captain. Bobby Moore was both immaculate of dress and footballing temperament, a player who never hurried or scurried but always read and anticipated. Then there was Peters other loyal and whole hearted colleague Sir Geoff Hurst who followed Peters and Moore all the way to those wild party celebrations at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington later that evening.
As a player, Martin Peters was mild mannered, modest, a man of humility, graciousness personified, kindness and one of football's keenest students. Peters always seemed to have time on the ball and when the tackles were flying in from all directions, Peters chose the safe option and didn't get involved. When Ron Greenwood, the Hammers boss, insisted that Peters was 10 years ahead of every player in the old First Division, he may have been endorsing the sentiments of the whole of Britain.
Peters did win trophies with West Ham but there was a school of thought that believed that had he been more ambitious he could have won more with bigger clubs and loftier ideas. Although Peters was left out of the West Ham team who won that cliff hanger of an FA Cup Final in 1964, West Ham still went on to win the game, Ronnie Boyce swooping in with a last gasp header that floated wide of the Preston North End keeper and into the net.
In 1965, Peters once again emerged as one of the key figures and protagonists in West Ham's unforgettable European Cup Winners Cup Final victory against TSV Munich 1860 at the old Wembley Stadium. Peters was a strolling, swaggering artist, almost picking his passes as a water colourist would choose their paints. Peters would never be flustered or bothered, never agitated by things that were beyond his control.
Then in 1966 Martin Peters lined up with his World Cup Final best buddies and nervous acquaintances in the tunnel. You could see him at the very moment when the players were about to emerge into that theatrical shaft of watery sunlight that seemed to flood Wembley on that historic day. Peters, walking straight and unflinching was tall and upright as a guardsman, a man in search of a unique destiny.
Early in the second half, with both West Germany and England locked in battle and the scores level, it suddenly happened. A weak shot from just outside the German penalty area bobbled intriguingly around and the ball fell almost conveniently to Peters in acres of space. The ball rebounded off a German leg and almost in slow motion the West Ham midfielder joyfully cracked the ball into the West German net for England's second.
Throwing his hands into the air and jumping for joy, Peters had just carved his name into English football's hitherto chequered history. And so it was that Sir Geoff Hurst, one of Peters best friends off the pitch, rattled the crossbar and then found that, much to the relief of everybody, the third England goal was legitimate. Oh how grateful we were that VAR wasn't around to spoil things.
Four years later in Mexico, England came back to defend the World Cup that had rightfully been theirs in 1966. Peters was still there and working effectively for Sir Alf Ramsey in the sweltering mid day heat. He also scored again against West Germany but this time the chunky thighs of Gerd Muller, the lethal West German striker would wrap themselves around the ball thrashing the ball powerfully past Peter Bonetti the goalkeeper who was deputising for Gordon Banks, the victim of a thankfully brief bout of food poisoning.
After returning home from the World Cup in Mexico, Peters had time to take stock of his career up until that point. He'd picked up one or two trophies thus far but it was now time for some serious reappraisal. West Ham, or so he must have thought, were a club going nowhere and Peters felt a change was as good as a rest. In a move that took Jimmy Greaves to West Ham for one last swansong, Peters ended up at Spurs under another managerial visionary in Bill Nicholson.
Peters would win two League Cup medals for Spurs against |Norwich and Aston Villa. With a treasure trove of England caps still building up around him, Peters was determined to end his career on a high note. Then in the twilight of his career, Peters joined Norwich which became the last staging post for him, a player of gold plated distinction and respectability.
When Peters hung up his boots, Sheffield United came a calling, looking for a full time coach and manager to lead the Blades to a promised land that never materialised. Peters was a magician on the pitch but only capable of so much off it. Sheffield United would blunder and bumble, stutter and stumble rather painfully at times and it's only this season that they would be restored to the top flight under the very realistic Chris Wilder.
Martin Peters was never a nightclub socialite or indeed outrageous hell raiser with a penchant for late night punch ups or alcoholic misdemeanours. There was never anything false or superficial about Peters, certainly no airs or graces, just an easy going man with a straightfoward approach to life. He was renowned for ghosting into positions from set pieces and heading goals where no markers had ever seen him. Peters had an unobtrusive charm that endeared him to everybody in the game, a man of solid working class values and a lovingly supportive family.
And so it is that the East End of London bids a final farewell to one of their own. Martin Peters undoubtedly had claret and blue running through his veins. Along the Barking Road and Green Street they'll be paying their respects, doffing their caps and hats. Martin Peters never courted publicity, never really wanted to be famous but yesterday we remembered the very best that Peters had to offer. Oh and never forget that glorious day at the very end of July 1966 when Peters scored one of England's World Cup winning goals. A world champion par excellence.
Yesterday football lost one of its most distinguished servants, one of the major contributors to English football's finest hour and half plus extra time. He was the one figure who, amid all of the hallabaloo and knees up revelry of that late July afternoon, kept the coolest of heads and that quiet low profile that would come characterise his football throughout his career.
Martin Peters, who died yesterday at the age of 76, was, of course part of the England team who beat West Germany in the 1966 World Cup Final and, as if it were fated to happen, scored one of the goals that left the Germans on their knees and looking for a hole in the ground.
The Germans were still incensed at the injustice of it all. When Peters West Ham team mate Geoff Hurst turned on a six pence inside the Germans penalty area and thundered his shot into the back of the net, a posse of white German shirts surrounded the referee, convinced that the ball had hit the bar, come down on the goal line and not crossed that line. But the goal stood and the rest is controversial history.
Martin Peters though remained calm, detached, utterly imperturbable and slightly bewildered by events swirling around him. While Hurst was flinging his arms into the air and casting an equally as baffled look around him, Peters was almost completely unaffected by all the fuss and confusion. Fresh faced and boyish, hair neatly cut and the epitome of composure, Peters was honoured to be associated with the one day in English football history where time seemed to freeze for just a while.
Born in Plaistow, East London, Peters joined the fabled West Ham academy of football where an entire generation of East End gems would be nurtured, encouraged, coaxed, inspired and made to feel as if they genuinely belonged. He was 15, wet behind the ears but willing to listen to everything that West Ham manager Ron Greenwood was about to teach him. The mind was both responsive and receptive, an absorbent sponge if you like.
Then the claret and blue teenager matured like the sweetest of wines, joining forces with the blond haired boy from Barking who would become Sir Alf Ramsey's greatest standard bearer and captain. Bobby Moore was both immaculate of dress and footballing temperament, a player who never hurried or scurried but always read and anticipated. Then there was Peters other loyal and whole hearted colleague Sir Geoff Hurst who followed Peters and Moore all the way to those wild party celebrations at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington later that evening.
As a player, Martin Peters was mild mannered, modest, a man of humility, graciousness personified, kindness and one of football's keenest students. Peters always seemed to have time on the ball and when the tackles were flying in from all directions, Peters chose the safe option and didn't get involved. When Ron Greenwood, the Hammers boss, insisted that Peters was 10 years ahead of every player in the old First Division, he may have been endorsing the sentiments of the whole of Britain.
Peters did win trophies with West Ham but there was a school of thought that believed that had he been more ambitious he could have won more with bigger clubs and loftier ideas. Although Peters was left out of the West Ham team who won that cliff hanger of an FA Cup Final in 1964, West Ham still went on to win the game, Ronnie Boyce swooping in with a last gasp header that floated wide of the Preston North End keeper and into the net.
In 1965, Peters once again emerged as one of the key figures and protagonists in West Ham's unforgettable European Cup Winners Cup Final victory against TSV Munich 1860 at the old Wembley Stadium. Peters was a strolling, swaggering artist, almost picking his passes as a water colourist would choose their paints. Peters would never be flustered or bothered, never agitated by things that were beyond his control.
Then in 1966 Martin Peters lined up with his World Cup Final best buddies and nervous acquaintances in the tunnel. You could see him at the very moment when the players were about to emerge into that theatrical shaft of watery sunlight that seemed to flood Wembley on that historic day. Peters, walking straight and unflinching was tall and upright as a guardsman, a man in search of a unique destiny.
Early in the second half, with both West Germany and England locked in battle and the scores level, it suddenly happened. A weak shot from just outside the German penalty area bobbled intriguingly around and the ball fell almost conveniently to Peters in acres of space. The ball rebounded off a German leg and almost in slow motion the West Ham midfielder joyfully cracked the ball into the West German net for England's second.
Throwing his hands into the air and jumping for joy, Peters had just carved his name into English football's hitherto chequered history. And so it was that Sir Geoff Hurst, one of Peters best friends off the pitch, rattled the crossbar and then found that, much to the relief of everybody, the third England goal was legitimate. Oh how grateful we were that VAR wasn't around to spoil things.
Four years later in Mexico, England came back to defend the World Cup that had rightfully been theirs in 1966. Peters was still there and working effectively for Sir Alf Ramsey in the sweltering mid day heat. He also scored again against West Germany but this time the chunky thighs of Gerd Muller, the lethal West German striker would wrap themselves around the ball thrashing the ball powerfully past Peter Bonetti the goalkeeper who was deputising for Gordon Banks, the victim of a thankfully brief bout of food poisoning.
After returning home from the World Cup in Mexico, Peters had time to take stock of his career up until that point. He'd picked up one or two trophies thus far but it was now time for some serious reappraisal. West Ham, or so he must have thought, were a club going nowhere and Peters felt a change was as good as a rest. In a move that took Jimmy Greaves to West Ham for one last swansong, Peters ended up at Spurs under another managerial visionary in Bill Nicholson.
Peters would win two League Cup medals for Spurs against |Norwich and Aston Villa. With a treasure trove of England caps still building up around him, Peters was determined to end his career on a high note. Then in the twilight of his career, Peters joined Norwich which became the last staging post for him, a player of gold plated distinction and respectability.
When Peters hung up his boots, Sheffield United came a calling, looking for a full time coach and manager to lead the Blades to a promised land that never materialised. Peters was a magician on the pitch but only capable of so much off it. Sheffield United would blunder and bumble, stutter and stumble rather painfully at times and it's only this season that they would be restored to the top flight under the very realistic Chris Wilder.
Martin Peters was never a nightclub socialite or indeed outrageous hell raiser with a penchant for late night punch ups or alcoholic misdemeanours. There was never anything false or superficial about Peters, certainly no airs or graces, just an easy going man with a straightfoward approach to life. He was renowned for ghosting into positions from set pieces and heading goals where no markers had ever seen him. Peters had an unobtrusive charm that endeared him to everybody in the game, a man of solid working class values and a lovingly supportive family.
And so it is that the East End of London bids a final farewell to one of their own. Martin Peters undoubtedly had claret and blue running through his veins. Along the Barking Road and Green Street they'll be paying their respects, doffing their caps and hats. Martin Peters never courted publicity, never really wanted to be famous but yesterday we remembered the very best that Peters had to offer. Oh and never forget that glorious day at the very end of July 1966 when Peters scored one of England's World Cup winning goals. A world champion par excellence.
Friday, 20 December 2019
My You Tube video for my second book, my life story No Joe Bloggs
My You Tube video for my second book, my life story No Joe Bloggs.
Before you wrap up one of your latest Christmas parents for those nearest and dearest, you might want to have a look at my You Tube video for my second book and life story No Joe Bloggs, available at Amazon, Waterstones online, Foyles online and Barnes and Noble online.
No Joe Bloggs is my funny, feelgood, moving, lyrical and nostalgic life story, a journey down memory lane and my childhood growing up in the Essex suburb of Ilford. You'll read about my early years growing up in Ilford, my parents, grandparents and mum as Holocaust survivors, my favourite kind of music, bands and singers, loads of pop culture from the late 1960s and 1970s, vividly lyrical descriptions of London, the West End, the East End, a fictitious but I think deeply affectionate tribute to my wonderful and late dad, his trip to Las Vegas where he rubbed shoulders with the Rat Pack, aka Sammy Davis Junior, Frank Sinatra and company, playing American pool with all three. There's an amusing set of pen portraits on football teams from the 1970s such as Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Spurs, Everton, Aston Villa, Wolves, Ipswich Town and Wolves.
There are also references to famous TV celebrities and programmes from the the 1970s, programmes from that era, iconic news events from that period, politicians and newscasters and a whole variety of other subjects.
So check out my You Tube video for No Joe Bloggs. If you type in Joe Morris and No Joe Bloggs you'll hear my moving account of the book and the first chapter of my book.
Thanks everybody.
Before you wrap up one of your latest Christmas parents for those nearest and dearest, you might want to have a look at my You Tube video for my second book and life story No Joe Bloggs, available at Amazon, Waterstones online, Foyles online and Barnes and Noble online.
No Joe Bloggs is my funny, feelgood, moving, lyrical and nostalgic life story, a journey down memory lane and my childhood growing up in the Essex suburb of Ilford. You'll read about my early years growing up in Ilford, my parents, grandparents and mum as Holocaust survivors, my favourite kind of music, bands and singers, loads of pop culture from the late 1960s and 1970s, vividly lyrical descriptions of London, the West End, the East End, a fictitious but I think deeply affectionate tribute to my wonderful and late dad, his trip to Las Vegas where he rubbed shoulders with the Rat Pack, aka Sammy Davis Junior, Frank Sinatra and company, playing American pool with all three. There's an amusing set of pen portraits on football teams from the 1970s such as Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Spurs, Everton, Aston Villa, Wolves, Ipswich Town and Wolves.
There are also references to famous TV celebrities and programmes from the the 1970s, programmes from that era, iconic news events from that period, politicians and newscasters and a whole variety of other subjects.
So check out my You Tube video for No Joe Bloggs. If you type in Joe Morris and No Joe Bloggs you'll hear my moving account of the book and the first chapter of my book.
Thanks everybody.
My first children's book Ollie and His Friends and childhood.
My first children's book Ollie and His Friends and childhood.
We all remember our childhood. It was that period of idyllic contentment where everything seemed possible, where nothing seemed impossible, where the secrets and mysteries of life would confront us rather like those unwelcome strangers our parents always warned us against meeting. Yet we would build our tree houses in our gardens, run across parks and fields as if oblivious to time itself before eventually playing football and hopscotch until darkness fell.
Throughout our childhood time seemed to conveniently stand still, when back doors of homes were always flung wide open because crime and skulduggery were somehow alien to us. We threw ourselves wholeheartedly into our young lives confident in the knowledge that none would ever attack, harm us, maim or injure. We were the footloose and fancy free ones, allowed to engage, participate and freely indulge in the games and youthful frivolities that we would take to almost naturally and improvise on.
Of course these were exciting and adventurous times, racing around our local back roads on our bikes, throwing stones and pebbles onto the pavement, jumping around energetically for the best part of a day until mum and dad would invariably implore us to come in now and get ready for supper followed by bed. Then at another predictable point during the afternoon the ice-cream van would turn into our road, melodious tune ringing out its charming refrain.
And so it is that I'd like to remind you of my first childhood book called Ollie and His Friends. Ollie and His Friends is now available at Lulu.com and Barnes and Noble online. There's Ollie the Oboe, Harry the Harp, Glenda the Guitar, Vince the Violin, Penny the Piano, Ricky the Recorder, Donald the Drum, and all of Ollie's musical instrument friends.
Yes, Ollie the Oboe is an Oboe. Now Ollie the Oboe, his family and young children Peter and Julie live in the country and love to get out and about. Ollie and His Friends is all about Ollie the Oboe who, along with his musical instrument friends, one day set out for a day to their local country village fete where they would all get up to all kinds of fun and mischief.
Let me tell you first of all that Ollie and His Friends love eating jam sandwiches and why ever not because you do tend to get peckish when you're hungry and it's almost lunchtime. Ollie and His Friends walk past the marrow competition where marrows are weighed up to determine who's got the biggest and heaviest marrow. They also get the chance to taste all of the jams and then play silly games with each other, laughing, joking and having a brilliant time with their family.
So there you are everybody. It's Christmas and Santa Claus is about to throw on that cumbersome looking red cloak before steering his reindeers onto some snow encrusted landscape. Eventually he'll reach some very accessible chimney, drop into some very festive living room and then go Ho Ho Ho!.
The fact is that it must be hoped that Santa will have my first children's book Ollie and His Friends in his sack. So if your children want a good, hearty chuckle and giggle, laugh and smile then Ollie and his musical instrument friends is a must for them. Ollie and His Friends is the perfect Christmas present for your children of that I have no doubt at all. They'll love Ollie the Oboe and his musical instrument friends.
We all remember our childhood. It was that period of idyllic contentment where everything seemed possible, where nothing seemed impossible, where the secrets and mysteries of life would confront us rather like those unwelcome strangers our parents always warned us against meeting. Yet we would build our tree houses in our gardens, run across parks and fields as if oblivious to time itself before eventually playing football and hopscotch until darkness fell.
Throughout our childhood time seemed to conveniently stand still, when back doors of homes were always flung wide open because crime and skulduggery were somehow alien to us. We threw ourselves wholeheartedly into our young lives confident in the knowledge that none would ever attack, harm us, maim or injure. We were the footloose and fancy free ones, allowed to engage, participate and freely indulge in the games and youthful frivolities that we would take to almost naturally and improvise on.
Of course these were exciting and adventurous times, racing around our local back roads on our bikes, throwing stones and pebbles onto the pavement, jumping around energetically for the best part of a day until mum and dad would invariably implore us to come in now and get ready for supper followed by bed. Then at another predictable point during the afternoon the ice-cream van would turn into our road, melodious tune ringing out its charming refrain.
And so it is that I'd like to remind you of my first childhood book called Ollie and His Friends. Ollie and His Friends is now available at Lulu.com and Barnes and Noble online. There's Ollie the Oboe, Harry the Harp, Glenda the Guitar, Vince the Violin, Penny the Piano, Ricky the Recorder, Donald the Drum, and all of Ollie's musical instrument friends.
Yes, Ollie the Oboe is an Oboe. Now Ollie the Oboe, his family and young children Peter and Julie live in the country and love to get out and about. Ollie and His Friends is all about Ollie the Oboe who, along with his musical instrument friends, one day set out for a day to their local country village fete where they would all get up to all kinds of fun and mischief.
Let me tell you first of all that Ollie and His Friends love eating jam sandwiches and why ever not because you do tend to get peckish when you're hungry and it's almost lunchtime. Ollie and His Friends walk past the marrow competition where marrows are weighed up to determine who's got the biggest and heaviest marrow. They also get the chance to taste all of the jams and then play silly games with each other, laughing, joking and having a brilliant time with their family.
So there you are everybody. It's Christmas and Santa Claus is about to throw on that cumbersome looking red cloak before steering his reindeers onto some snow encrusted landscape. Eventually he'll reach some very accessible chimney, drop into some very festive living room and then go Ho Ho Ho!.
The fact is that it must be hoped that Santa will have my first children's book Ollie and His Friends in his sack. So if your children want a good, hearty chuckle and giggle, laugh and smile then Ollie and his musical instrument friends is a must for them. Ollie and His Friends is the perfect Christmas present for your children of that I have no doubt at all. They'll love Ollie the Oboe and his musical instrument friends.
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