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.
Wednesday, 29 July 2020
Monday, 27 July 2020
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.
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.
Saturday, 25 July 2020
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.
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.
Thursday, 23 July 2020
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.
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.
Monday, 20 July 2020
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.
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.
Friday, 17 July 2020
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.
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.
Wednesday, 15 July 2020
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.
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.
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