Boxing Day- the day after that day.

Boxing Day- the day after that day.

Boxing Day is normally the day of recovery, repercussions, re-appraisal, for looking back on that previous day when huge family networks slump on their respective sofas in collective states of exhaustion and sozzled intoxication. There may be an underlying sense that it may have been worth it all if only our friendly cousin hadn't been quite so obsessed with the Fosters lager or that third bottle of Jack Daniels.

So what to do when the Christmas Day family films have run their course, when all you can do is indulge in that yearly session of heavy snoring, wearing silly paper hats still tilting over to one side of the head at some weird mathematical angle and tinsel delightfully sprinkled over the comfortable slippers that your auntie brought last Christmas. All around the family there is a giggly mayhem and carnage that none of them can quite explain.

Grandfathers are still smoking their tenth Havana cigar, uncles proudly displaying that almost cliched Christmas pullover with the familiar snowman. In a small corner of the sofa the TV remote channel is beginning to look very sorry for itself, subjected as it has been to that yearly ritual of being thrown heartlessly across the living room. This is quite definitely cruel and merciless, the kind of punishment most of us would never think of repeating throughout the year. And yet how we love it.

The fact remains though that Boxing Day leaves us all anti climactic, wondering what on earth possessed us to spend all of that hard earned money on some crazy food and drink spending spree. The family have generally had a terrific time, eating and drinking extravagantly, playing board games they haven't seen for at least a year and then ripping open more wrapping paper because it seems the best thing you can ever do on the day after Christmas Day.

But generally most of us are in an advanced state of grogginess, sluggishness, heavy with the scent of rich booze on our lips. We know we've had the most unforgettable day of the year but if only we'd remembered why we'd drunk like fish and eaten as if it were going out of fashion then perhaps we could rationalise with everything we've done to our digestive system.

Now though is the time for sober reflection and focusing on that long, gruelling walk through the park, sauntering over sturdy bridges, strolling happily by ponds and lakes of utter serenity, hills that challenge not only the muscles and joints but our infinite capacity to climb steep hills, stamina sapping treks through muddy, slippery forests. We then turn to our loyal and trustworthy dogs who always love a thrillingly invigorating run in the park, barking and yapping, relieved and just overjoyed to be out in the fresh air and chasing branches.

And then we consider the Boxing Day pantomime but only briefly when we suddenly recognise that our children are no longer children and pantomimes are designed for today's generation of  children. It always felt good to be a parent when our children just laughed themselves shamelessly over the exploits of Jack and the Beanstalk and the nasty baddies deserved nothing more than hatred and revulsion. But they've now grown up and are consenting adults who are rightly allowed to vote and drink. Still, it  may be possible to re-capture our childhoods who ever we are because that's our prerogative whether we be a man or woman.

For some of us this is still the day when our football team, now 55 years ago, were battered, crushed and left out in the cold to lick our painful wounds. West Ham, bless their cotton socks, were roundly thumped on this day in 1963. On a day when the goals rained down on the old First Division in almost biblical fashion, West Ham entertained Blackburn on a thick, muddy Upton Park gluepot. It still seems like some terrible calamity that never happened but it did. Blackburn came away from East London with an 8-2 victory that was only redressed two days later with a 3-1 win for the Hammers at Ewood Park.

And so Boxing Day now draws to another close and the nation begins to fixate on those perennial winter department shop sales where we all jostle and push each other out of the way in the relentless pursuit of the cheapest bargain. It all seems so hilariously predictable because we're all somehow conditioned to behave this way at this time of the year. Some of us are now off to demolish the remnants of yesterday's feast and launch another search party for the TV remote channel. Keep celebrating everybody! 

Twas the night before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas

Last night a heavy darkness fell over North London like a languid curtain during a hot summer. It was only 5pm in the afternoon but even the birds were turning over for the night for a spot of shut eye. There is an air of brooding introspection in the winter night outside that just seems to be grim, dreary and all pervasive. It seems to drop like a blanket, swallowing up any mere chinks of fading December light before taking up permanent residence during the winter months and not budging for a second.

The bed and breakfast hotels in Manor House were still preparing for the big day, bright specks of silver and white Christmas trees glistening and glimmering in the full expectation that the guests will just party away for the whole duration of the festive period. The Best Western Hotel, which used to be commonly associated with America, is still doing a roaring trade in the Seven Sisters Road in North London.

Everywhere the world continues to spin relentlessly. The doctors and those vital emergency services will always be available in times of need, stress, infirmity and medical necessity. The little huddle of newsagents and sweet shops next to us will be a hive of activity with their varied selection of Lottery tickets, chocolates, bottles of alcohol, cigarettes, brooms and mops temptingly arranged outside the shop, loaves of bread, frozen vegetables, milk and cheese in abundance while not forgetting the cat food.

The commercial fairground that is Christmas just seems to go around faster and faster. This year the vast array of boxes of chocolates and biscuits seemed to arrive in June. As for all of those big and bustling supermarkets the TV advertising campaigns seem to get more elaborate and cheesier by the year. All around us is a huge collision of cultures, a festival of symbolic reds and greens blending, mixing and matching with the timeless decor. It could only be Christmas and the blatant festive references are quite obviously all around us.

All around the shops a wall of joyous humanity shifts nervously from one giant aisle to the next, crowds of people pottering around slowly but surely, pausing for what seems like an entirety and then shuffling. Yes folks, this is the season for shuffling, tentative shuffling, leisurely shuffling, smiling fulsomely over heaving supermarket trolleys full to the brim with excessive merchandise. Then they seem to lean their arms on the said trolley, glancing up at the starry ceiling with all the enthusiasm of the young children they used to be.

Then very young babies wearing thick coats and hoods are plonked onto the trolley, squeezed tightly into a very confined space while mum and dad spend the best part of an hour or two deciding what exactly to get and then possibly regretting it on the day after Boxing Day.  Then the older kids jump out of the trolley, go on what seems like a frantic half marathon around the sweets for the 20th time and then just demand that mum and dad empty those sweet shelves immediately before we kick up a fuss. Oh for the festive season. Isn't this fun?

But this happens ever year doesn't it?  There are no variations on a theme, the queues still stretch as far as Belgium and that's on a good day. The tills are ringing almost constantly, the patient and kindly cashiers try desperately to put on a facade of happiness and joy to all and that melodious muzak which plays Slade's classic Christmas number at least 300 times a day, just seems to have got trapped in a repetitious loop that keeps pumping out the same old tunes hour after hour. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it.

And yet we really wouldn't have it any other day. We love to be spend money, barrow loads of money on presents, shopping and shopping until we drop, getting completely exhausted mentally and emotionally, shoving our way fearlessly past another mass of urgency and emergency. This feels like the most pointless stampede. How to explain the one time of the year when we all fall over each other, grasping and grabbing acquisitively, earnestly pleading for the manager for the one thing the supermarket has just run out of?

Then we blame the supervisors, the staff and managers for being so absent mindedly out of stock. Suddenly, panicky brows filled with sweat will be wiped while mum and dad sigh impatiently at the abruptness of the supermarket customer services. They just seem to fob us all off with excuse after excuse and when are they going to get their act together and how dare they be so bolshy and unhelpful?

So here we are again on the verge of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, followed by Boxing Day which then gives away to yet more turkey leftover consumption, fridges loaded with more booze than an old fashioned pirate ship, mince pies that the dogs and cats are determined to nab and more gastronomic goodies that we can still salivate on until, quite probably, next Christmas.

Many decades ago the trains used to run on Christmas Day, a full football fixture list would encompass the whole of the Christmas period and Boxing Day could only be reserved for the traditional family pantomime. Then aunties, uncles and cousins would very grudgingly go home on the day after the Boxing Day, the carpet will still be liberally sprinkled with a mosaic of tattered, snapped crackers, carrots and brussel sprouts sadly and forlornly scattered around the floor.

Then the youngerkids  will leave a piles of toys have unashamedly under the Christmas tree only to run out of batteries seconds later. It is at this point that sobbing cries freely emerge from the mouths of heartbroken children who will now become inconsolable. This is all too much for some, a vast majority of whom have been stuck in front of the TV since, seemingly, the 15th century.

Anyway folks, it's time to dust the shelves, now groaning with cards, arrange the chairs and tables, grapple with those final light bulbs on the trees, adjust the star on the tree, wrap some more papier mache lanterns next to the log fire and then count the innumerable Christmas cards which seem to multiply by the hour. Oh go on then spoil yourself. It is Christmas after all. Ding Dong Merrily On High everybody. Have that cracking Christmas, folks- the one you'd always promised yourself. Ho Ho Ho!

The pantomime season has arrived.

The pantomime season has arrived.

The pantomime season has well and truly arrived at the House of Comedy. Oh yes it has! Oh no it hasn't! At a very specific point during yesterday's blistering, boiling and overheating row in Westminster Towers we reached the lowest common denominator when one of the scruffy kids in the school corridor told their teacher that they were saying naughty things about something they were alleged to have said.

 Then the headmaster or headmistress came into the room and told everybody that if they didn't sit down and behave themselves they'd all have to come back after school and just sit there for an hour or so and just cool off. Maybe if you'll just simmer down, stop fighting and listen to the voices of commonsense then perhaps we'll think about giving you the benefit of the doubt. But if you can't behave yourself then we'll have to re-consider that trip to the British Museum in the New Year.

Yesterday though Theresa May, the British Prime Minister and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn squared up to each other like feuding neighbours over the garden fence. They eyeballed each other fiercely and ferociously, barely holding back for any longer than was necessary. There was the most pungent smell of blood and explosive cordite in the air, passions raging, shirt buttons bursting with hatred, shirt collars oozing poisonous bile and vitriol. It was rather like watching the most ludicrous wrestling match in a political ring.

With the Christmas break just a day away now, May and Corbyn were shouting at each other, hollering, heckling and haranguing, needling and provoking each other as if determined to humiliate one another without quite knowing why. The whole Brexit debate has now become such a nonsensical charade that none of us can quite believe what we're witnessing.

On the last few days before the festive feasting, the eminent and not so eminent politicians of the so called British parliament will kick off their shoes for the tinsel and glitter of the Christmas holiday and try to relax. But what we saw yesterday can only reinforce the growing conviction that some of our cabinet ministers and shadow cabinet flowery orators may have lost the plot. In fact, some of them, you feel sure, should be condemned to a dark room and only let out when we tell you to come out.

The accusation was- and this seemed to be the central bone of contention- that Jeremy Corbyn made an openly sexist comment about Theresa May and was deeply unapologetic about it all. Corbyn apparently mumbled something outrageously insulting about women. It was horribly offensive and definitely derogatory so take that Prime Minister. Corbyn thought that May was just a stupid woman who hadn't a clue what she was talking about. You've never heard anything quite so preposterous.

Then May got out her own verbal toy gun, poked out her playful tongue at Corbyn and memorably dismissed him as some sham figure of fun, a loose cannon, a no good for nothing maverick, that wicked character in the Christmas pantomime who the children boo and hiss incessantly. May ordered Corbyn to look behind him suggesting all the while that the man with the appropriate white beard should just take himself off to some remote island in the middle of nowhere where nobody can see or hear him.

By now the House of Comedy had descended into thigh slapping territory where Dick Whittington meets Window Twankey and, quite literally, bumps into those sinister, narrow eyed villains who are just obnoxious and scandalously silly. Theresa May leaned forward urgently, glaring and glowering at her opponent, eyes now blazing, nostrils flaring, incensed with that typical man who only believes that a woman's place is in the home, cooking, cleaning, preparing meals for the family and scrubbing the floor vigorously.

But May hadn't finished yet because she knew with some certainty that lines had been crossed, disciplinary measures should be imposed immediately and Corbyn should just leave the building pronto, packing up his belongings and just keeping his misogynistic feelings to himself. Around her, hundreds of Tories roundly bellowed their approval of the Prime Minister, otherwise slightly sceptical backbenchers cheering like the Tories at a triumphant party political conference. This almost felt like some gospel gathering where a vast majority of the congregation gets slightly carried away.

At the heart of it all was what at first could have been rightly described as an innocent argument over the cheese and pineapple sticks which eventually turned into a muddled and desperately complicated disagreement over who pays the bill in a restaurant. Suddenly, it seems to be getting very personal and before you know it, somebody will simply storm out into the late night cold with none of us the wiser as to why it had to happen like this in the first place.

Still, as yesterday's last Westminster dust up drew closer to the end, May and Corbyn were still at each other's throats and you half expected a law abiding police force to sensibly intervene and clip both around the ear with a firm warning never to step out of line again. Because if you do we'll have to take you back to your parents where the only punishment would be a strict command to get straight to bed.

And so it was that everybody packed up for the festive knees up, bottles of finest Scotch whisky in tow, a box of chocolates waiting for them on an expectant coffee table and just a nostalgic tear or two for Christmases past. You remembered the words of a certain Harold MacMillan, a Conservative Prime Minister who insisted that Britain had never had it so good. In many ways the Tories have always believed this to be the case but as the two main political parties put down their elastic bands  for a while you longed for a cessation of hostilities and just let bygones be bygones. Besides, it is Christmas and Brexit has just turned absurd. It's time to join hands and just make up. 

  

Jose Mourinho -The Special One becomes football history.

 Jose Mourinho- The Special One becomes football history.

So poor old Jose Mourinho has been sacked by Manchester United. The man who unequivocally believes that he has no equal as football manager and insists that he is the greatest thing since sliced bread was given the old heave ho, kicked into touch, told to leave by the back door in no uncertain terms. The truth is of course that this has been coming for quite some time so maybe we shouldn't have been entirely shocked.

The truth is of course that Mourinho is no longer the Special One. In fact the Portuguese was simply asking for it, almost staring into the abyss because the time had come, the signs were there, patience had run dry, the excuses were no longer credible or plausible and United had had enough. They'd had enough of the sneering and snarling, the vanity, the narcissism, the giant inflated ego, the sense that he was in charge, he was morally and intellectually superior and nobody could possibly argue with his record because that spoke for itself. But Jose always seemed to have an answer to his critics.

So perhaps sadly, although perhaps with a sense of relief, Mourinho was shown the exit door at Old Trafford and a vast majority of Manchester United fans may think that this was a blessing in disguise. Mourinho was just a moping, sulking, discontented liability and just kidding himself. Recently, his press conferences have assumed a soap opera quality, full of impassioned rants, agitated grumblings and personal attacks on anybody prepared to listen to him. Jose was sound and fury, a man who felt the whole world was against him.

It's easy to assume that he had the most gigantic chip on his shoulder since the persecution complex and paranoia that accompanied him may have been the final words on the matter. It is well known that Mourinho hasn't been a happy bunny but then when was that ever the case anyway? He remains that morbid, morose and cantankerous figure in the managerial dug out who never smiled even when United were winning. So what was the point of making my voice heard when nobody would give him the time of day?

High above were those footballing legends who so dramatically transformed United's image to such an extent that Mourinho must have thought that there were red hot pokers in his back. Sitting in the directors box at Manchester United were Sir Alex Ferguson, now thankfully back to full health and the glorious Sir Bobby Charlton, the man who survived the most tragic of air disasters and then breathed new life back into football's most cherished national treasure.

What must be going through the minds of both Ferguson and Charlton at the moment? Do they think that the rashest of decision making was made, that when Louis Van Gaal and David Moyes were no longer applicable or suitable for the manager's job at United, Manchester United simply panicked. Did they think that a more high profile and richly successful football man who had already proved his Premier League title winning credentials would do the same with Manchester United?

But clearly Mourinho was the wrong fit, the wrong man for the job. He didn't quite meet up to the job specifications, he had turned United into a very cautious, negative, functional team whose intentions were probably honourable but were so far removed from the traditional style that United had always advocated that they may just as well have been Newton Heath and still playing in that brief season of yellow and green.

Now though the man from Portugal is no longer the precious one, the beloved and respected one who lifted the Premier League for Chelsea in two back to back seasons. Then Mourinho had a black mop of hair, everything was good and healthy. Frank Lampard was scoring goals from a very advanced attacking midfield role, Didier Drogba had become a world class striker and Chelsea seemed to run away with the Premier League when April's spring's gambolling lambs had just appeared for the first time.

Mourinho's hair is a whiter and greyer shade, the chin thick with increasingly noticeable tufts of stubble, a man who looks out of his dug out  staring daggers at all who may pass him. He sits there hunched and haunted, still convinced that the evil spirits are out to get him and indeed there is a full blooded conspiracy against him.

A couple of weeks ago Mourinho seemed to quite literally see the red mist. Sensing that one of the opposition's coaches had deliberately wound him up and made fun of him, Jose flipped by dashing angrily after his man, threatening to create a civil war if United dared to lose. But then he calmed down, saw everything in a much sober perspective because he privately knew that he was never going to win any battles.

Today though the hierarchy at Manchester United have spoken and it's safe to say that they're livid. What on earth possessed them to appoint this sour, sullen man with a permanent grudge against anybody who challenged him on any subject. It's frightening to think what Sir Matt Busby would have made of Jose since Sir Matt was the gentle and reasonable one, the complete pacifist, the man who smoothed out all the wrinkles and internal conflicts with the minimum fuss. Busby would have probably told Mourinho to quietly leave and then hand him the inevitable P45.

This all seems a ghastly and grisly episode in the history of this world famous, globally loved football team. There is a nasty and acrid smell of terrible mismanagement that could have been avoided much sooner. Mourinho must have known the immense size of his job and the responsibility that came with it. But then the defeats started coming and the shattering 3-1 defeat to Liverpool on Sunday was somehow preordained. Jose had to go and the line had to be drawn in the sand.

Now of course United are rudderless, drifting precariously although in no immediate danger of sinking. The captain is still steering the ship but he may need to change direction sooner rather than later. United have always had those awkward moments in their life when managers are chopped and changed and nothing seems to flow. Perhaps they need a decent sextant to guide them properly.

When Sir Matt Busby left United there was a dreadful flapping and commotion as both Wilf McGuinness and Frank O' Farrell were entrusted with this most daunting of assignments. For a number of seasons United were neither here nor there, a team slipping and sliding ominously before heading for horrific obscurity and then relegation to the old Second Division towards the end of the 1970s.

Then there was David Sexton, wonderfully philosophical about the Beautiful Game with radical ideas as to how the way should be played. There was Tommy Docherty, a man who some might have led you to believe had something of the roguish gangster about him. Docherty was a refreshing breath of air but when United met Southampton of the old Second Division in the 1976 FA Cup Final, Docherty didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Football management has always been littered with trap doors and minefields. But you'd probably be forgiven for thinking that it does need several back up contingency plans if it goes all wrong. It is hard to know what Mourinho is thinking of at the moment. The chances are that he won't be inconsolable because the vast amounts of money he may be receiving as a result of his departure will only leave him cackling like Vincent Price in one of those epic, blood sucking films. Oh to be a fly on the wall in the Jose Mourinho living room tonight. Seasons greetings Jose.   

West Ham beat Fulham in repeat of the 1975 FA Cup Final.

West Ham beat Fulham in repeat of the 1975 FA Cup Final.

The dark winter skies were weeping over West London like a child at the end of their birthday party. It was a Saturday evening at Craven Cottage and that dear old ground by the Thames riverside might have harked back ever so briefly to the days of that lovely comedian Tommy Trinder and that gold embossed season back in the 1970s when those two hardened stagers Rodney Marsh and the peerless George Best had everybody reeling in the aisles.

 Maybe their minds were cast back to the jutting chin and beard of Jimmy Hill, the ever composed Johnny Haynes, a midfield technician with a sharp and intuitive mind and an imperious England player. Or maybe they were thinking of what might have been had that special May day in 1975  turned out differently. They might have been thinking of Bobby Moore, the one player who must have been deeply torn because for a large chunk of his career Moore, then with Fulham could only look at his claret and blue opponents and smile wistfully at the reflection bouncing back at him in the mirror.

Yesterday West Ham, 43 years on from that sentimental day in 1975 and Fulham, met again under completely different circumstances but convinced that this was still a no old pals act. In the 1975 FA Cup semi final Fulham had taken the game to Birmingham City so convincingly that even now it feels like one of those sepia tinted moments when the world suddenly stops still. Viv Busby and John Mitchell terrorised the Birmingham defence cruelly that day and Fulham knew that this would be their year.

For those of a claret and blue attachment though this had been a year to remember. Adolescence was about to set in with a vengeance and West Ham had done sufficiently well to catch my heart. Since my grandfather had passed on his claret and blue wisdom it only seemed natural that something would hook me. But West Ham it was to be and the unstinting support has been severely tested over the years. Still Plashet Grove in Upton Park has a lot to be said for it and, subconsciously at least, West Ham have always been the perfect footballing liaison.

So it was that the claret and blue of West Ham, led out by the bearded and formidable Billy Bonds, marched out alongside the ever dependable Alan Mullery, formerly and unmistakably the leader of the pack at Tottenham - but now distinctively in the white shirt of Fulham. That day West Ham became one of the last all English teams to reach and win an FA Cup Final which may still be regarded by some as a victory for patriotism but now has an old fashioned feel about it. Still, the Premier League is nonetheless wonderfully richer for its global reach and besides who cares?

That year West Ham's yellow brick road to the FA Cup Final had started very humbly at Swindon, moved seamlessly through Queens Park Rangers, Arsenal in a veritable mud bath at Highbury and then the triumphant icing on the cake against Bobby Robson's Ipswich Town which went to a semi final replay at Stamford Bridge. Their path to the Cup Final had been relatively easy apart from Arsenal but one man stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Alan Taylor, who came from the old Fourth Division, plied his trade at Rochdale, who were so miserably anchored near the bottom of the Football League that nobody seemed to bat an eyelid when John Lyall paid the princely sum of £40,000 for a striker nobody had ever heard of. At Highbury Arsenal simply couldn't handle Taylor which, given the fact that most of the players needed a good, sturdy pair of galoshes to wade through the treacly mud, now seems like an achievement in itself.

When Taylor came sliding into meet the low cut back cross into the Arsenal six yard box, the ball seemed to quite literally stick in the cloying glue pot that was the penalty area. You were reminded of the conventional allotment site where rhubarbs join forces with tomatoes and weeds. For a split second a static and frozen Arsenal defence stood stock still in a state of shock. Taylor, anticipating the cross, tapped the ball into the net, grabbed hold of the net and swung elatedly on to it. West Ham were on the way to Wembley Stadium.

The spine of that team back in 1975 was somehow destined to win an FA Cup. Mervyn Day was a young and potentially brilliant England goalkeeper whom West Ham must have felt sure would be a permanent England fixture. Day freely admits that whole day was a blur but when the final whistle went that day, Day had still won the FA Cup, showing exemplary reflexes and  an excellent command of his penalty area.

At the heart of the West Ham defence the blond haired Kevin Lock had been a mature, reliable and cool, calm and collect full back, sensibly doing the simple thing at all times. Frank Lampard senior was still galloping down the flanks and sending logical passes into the right areas. Tommy Taylor, although possibly cumbersome at times, cleared any hint of danger at centre half with a nerveless display of the defender's art.

And then there was Billy Bonds, a model of tireless athleticism, rugged steeliness and the most commanding of auras. Having joined West Ham from Charlton Athletic in 1967, Bonds melted the hearts of the Upton Park loyalists. Bonds was brave, heroic, here there and everywhere, ubiquitous, boldly buccaneering, up and down the sapping Wembley pitch seemingly constantly. The sense of fan identification had become a real one. Bonds knew all about those hard working East End dockers who would go straight to Upton Park and demand entertainment for their hard earned money.

In midfield that sun lit Cup Final day of 1975 three homegrown West Ham academy products would wear their claret and blue cap and gown. Pat Holland was inexhaustible, running, scurrying, carrying the ball almost movingly, darting, weaving, giving and taking in a kind of reciprocal agreement with his team mates. The socks were almost on first name terms with his ankles, the shirt flapping listlessly in the gentle Wembley wind like a rowing boat's sail. Holland was the man who kept shovelling coal into a grand old steam engine, hovering and floating serenely in the middle of the pitch.

Then there was the late Graham Paddon, another of those players of subtlety and cunning that although not a West Ham graduate, still performed with immaculate distinction. Paddon, also bearded like a pirate, was smooth, streamlined, graceful, always comfortable with the ball and never fazed by the immensity of the occasion. Paddon it was whose shot from Pat Holland's pass was sadly fumbled by Fulham keeper Peter Mellor from which point Taylor nipped in smartly to score West Ham's conclusive second and winning goal.

And then the now Sir Trevor Brooking, a West Ham player through and through to the bitter end. Brooking was still generating all of the right headlines at the time, poised to become one of England's greatest midfield players. He was young, fresh, sprightly and full of neat dabs on the artist's canvas. His display against Fulham was modest but even then notably influential. There was that nuanced shielding of the ball from the throw in, the drop of the shoulder and then the varnished accuracy of his passing range, threaded through passes that were softly rolled across Wembley with barely a whisper.

So it is that we come right up to the present day. Yesterday in the gathering gloom of Craven Cottage and the steady rain, Felipe Anderson, a classic West Ham buy from Lazio, gave another perfect dress rehearsal for the role of star playmaker at West Ham. A couple of seasons ago West Ham thought they'd snaffled the top prize in the raffle when Frenchman Dimitri Payet snatched the conductor's baton and reminded the West Ham faithful that there was still a place for the dapper stylist.

 Then Anderson, Brazilian by birth and Brazilian in playing temperament, is beginning to show everybody at West Ham that dreams do come true. He plays the game in the way in the way that Brazilians have always played it: grammatically correct, tap dancing his way in and out of a rapidly retreating Fulham defence and then striking the most devastating of passes in both the short and long form. After a wobbly start to the season, Anderson's stunning display of the samba has become almost second nature.

Beside Anderson, Robert Snodgrass, a busily passionate Scotsman, raced across the centre circle full of energy, verve and joie de vivre, carving out spaces like the proverbial sculptor. Then there was Mark Noble, West Ham skipper and still clocking up the mileage for the club unquestioningly. Noble once again gave the impression that he wanted to be in a hundred places at the same time. In the murk and mist of West London, Noble's shirt positively glistened with sweat.

With Michal Antonio bulldozing his way down the wing, Pablo Zabelata, tidy and always ready for the most crunching challenges, West Ham were mean and moody. Javier Hernandez, who could be vitally indispensable to West Ham in the second half of the season, worked hither and thither, a jack  in the box, always threatening, always sure of himself, a man with a ravenous appetite for goals.

When Snodgrass slammed home West Ham's first goal and Antonio had shrewdly picked up a ball that was headed onto him and completed West Ham's second goal, everything in the West Ham garden had now become rosy. It was a time for the West Ham fans at Craven Cottage to sing about their ever buoyant bubbles, Andy Carroll to make one of those now walk on roles for the club and West Ham to enter a higher stratosphere.

For some of us though it was nice to think back to the last time West Ham met Fulham on more important occasions.  Yesterday though was West Ham's fourth successive victory in a row and for those of us who thought they'd seen it all, the element of surprise can almost be felt. Surely, this is too good to be true and sooner or later the winning run will reluctantly end. For the time being though miracles are possible and West Ham will do their utmost to climb onto higher platforms.

But as long as the Christmas decorations come down with a harmless plop then the second half of the Premier League season may have a spring in its step for West Ham. As long as the London Stadium becomes a home from home for West Ham then all should be fine and dandy. Bubbles will assuredly keep blowing.   

Mark Noble- a West Ham member of the Hall of Fame.

Mark Noble - a West Ham member of the Hall of Fame.

At West Ham they tend to treat all of their players with all the reverence of saints. Once again the claret and blue Hall of Fame has rewarded one of its favourite sons with the ultimate accolade. At a time when most of the Premier League has never been so populated with lavish talents from all corners of the globe, Mark Noble is singularly boy next door, a man with no airs and graces, totally besotted with football.

 Mark Noble has West Ham blood running through his arteries and veins, kidney, liver and heart. He is one of that rare breed, a one club man, with brief stopovers at Ipswich and Hull but, essentially a West Ham player from head to foot, a man dedicated to his childhood club. He breathes, eats, sleeps, walks and talks West Ham, a player of exceptional loyalty, devotion to the cause and unswerving commitment. But then most West Ham fans always knew that and besides those players who have formed a lifelong association with their hometown club will always be there to save the day.

Canning Town born Noble signed an extension to his contract for another year and the chances are he may well decide to continue at the club in a coaching capacity when the sinews and muscles show signs of stiffening and no more can be delivered on the London Stadium pitch. Throughout the seasons Noble has given the traditional blood, sweat and tears without a single moment of complaint. Few have shunned the limelight or high profile publicity and few have recognised the importance of keeping a level head when others may have lost theirs.

By his own admission Noble was never a swaggering artist on the pitch but he knew he how to dictate the tempo of a match, always lunging into tackles with ferocious intent but never trespassing into illegal territories. Noble has run himself into the ground with the kind of full blooded conscientiousness and fervent enthusiasm that West Ham supporters have come to expect of him. Through thick and thin, several relegations and promotions back to the Premier League Noble has shouldered arms, braved the elements and then come back for a second bite of the cherry.

Of course, Noble follows in the blue blooded footsteps of the Upton Park aristocracy, the club who gave us Sir Trevor Brooking, another one club man of faith and fidelity whose majestic passing skills and innate ability to spot a team mate with a pass became his trademark. Brooking was rather like one of those Victorian landowners who survey their domain with a proprietorial air.

 Brooking would sway and glide over the Upton Park green acres with the sweetest elegance, a player of taste and discrimination rather than muscular aggression, a midfield player who always favoured sensitivity over savagery. Brooking painted pictures rather than spoilt them with gaudy smudges. Noble too has drawn more than his fair share of striking illustrations without resorting to anything that could be considered taboo and forbidden.

Mark Noble made his debut at the tender age of 17 and has since fetched, collected and hunted for possession for the ball rather like one of those eager to learn draughtsmen or engineers who love to get their hands dirty. From the moment he first appeared in the very noble claret and blue, Noble chased, scurried and scampered for the ball when it looked as if the pursuit was a pointless one. He was hard working, always receptive and perceptive in possession and never afraid to try something entirely different.

In a way Noble reminded you of some of West Ham's equally as renowned toilers and industrious grafters, nipping into challenges with fearless virility and wholesome vitality. It would have been easy for Noble to declare that  no more could he give to the club who he quite clearly adores. For those of us who still affectionately remember the likes of Pat Holland and Geoff Pike, Noble's 1970s predecessors, comparisons are easily made.

Holland, a tireless hustler and battler par excellence would plough across the Upton Park pitch with socks rolled down and shirt flapping gloriously over mud caked shorts. Holland was West Ham's trade union shop steward, always fighting on behalf of his colleagues but never going on strike. Noble of course was similarly inclined and will continue to be for another year or so, a man cut from the same cloth.

Nowadays though there can be few players who can rightly claim to have spent most of their footballing career just dreaming of brighter horizons without quite planting their flag on the game's summit. Mark Noble though has given everything to the club he knew he'd always played for and surely that has to be highly commendable. Noble of thought, Noble of deed. 

D- Day for Theresa May- the Prime Minister faces the truth.

D-Day for Theresa May- the Prime Minister faces the truth.

So it's all come down to this. This is the day when a British Prime Minister stares into the darkest hole and finds out who her real friends are. Those who are baying for her blood and quite happy to stab her quite happily in the back may be the ones who were never on her side anyway. Suddenly, the whole Brexit charade is beginning to resemble, quite alarmingly, at least one of Shakespeare's most melodramatic plays.

 You can almost see those flashing knives, the inevitable vultures hovering over May's spinning head and a deadly menace. Naturally you can almost smell the betrayal, the ranks of the disappointed, the frustrated and the plainly objectionable. In fact some of the rank and file Tory dissenters are threatening to leave the country if things don't go their way. This is gang warfare on the grandest scale and for the squeamish among us it could get worse before it gets better.

For the rest of this day a potentially lethal air of medieval barbarity may well  hang over for us quite some time. The cynics will tell you that the Prime Minister had this coming, that at roughly 6pm this evening the metaphorical guillotine will be prepared, the blade sharpened and the outcome will be too grisly to contemplate. Heads will roll, all of Theresa May's erstwhile allies and colleagues will be sniggering under their breath sadistically, rubbing their hands with glee and looking ever so smug.

It is all rather messy, chaotically shambolic and, quite frankly, the most appalling fiasco British politics has ever known. For the first time in what seems like many decades there are some of us who can barely hold back our disgust, our fury, wrath and outraged contempt for every single member of the House of Commons regardless of their political affiliations. Surely, we are all now on the verge of  an inflammatory revolt, a fiery street demonstration that could break the country apart with deeply serious consequences.

The truth is of course, that a no confidence vote has been implemented and Theresa May has the best part of the day to win back the support she thought she could count on. Now though she faces perhaps the most uncomfortable day she's ever had to endure as Prime Minister. You're reminded of the school playground bullies who finally confront their enemy before violently pinning them against the wall. They then throw wild rabbit punches at the poor victim's stomach, maul them to the ground and then kick away furiously at the head and the feet.

Poor Theresa May. It's at times such as this that your warm and sympathetic heart goes out to May. Where does she go from here? Who does she turn to in a major crisis. Sure, husband George will be there as loyal, loving and trustworthy as you would expect him to be. But when the door shut last night at 10 Downing Street it must have sounded like a shuddering thud and clump rather anything that could be remotely described as optimistic. Even the Downing Street Christmas tree looked deeply concerned.

Then, the utterly brave Prime Minister emerged bleary eyed to face the cameras this morning slightly miffed at the fact that she hadn't been allowed to finish her tea and Corn Flakes. Her hair had well combed streaks of grey, the jacket looked navy chic and of course she was gallant in the face of uncertainty She delivered that heroic speech that all leaders make when the guns are relentlessly firing around them. She continued to place her faith in her unwavering principles and insisted that even she wasn't the lady for turning.

Now your thoughts went back to that fateful day when a certain Margaret Thatcher had to fall on her sword whether she felt inclined to or not. The men in grey suits ganged up on her in a dark alleyway and plunged the offensive weapon deep into her heart. As the car pulled away from Downing Street later that evening, the tears and grief were clearly etched on her face. It was as though she'd lost everything when the reality was that she'd probably outstayed her welcome. For the final time Thatcher departed the scene of the crime knowing fully well that sadly she'd been the architect of her own downfall.

And yet almost 40 years later the present Tory leader finds herself in a similar predicament but with one or two subtle differences. Then, a majority of Britain had grown heartily fed up with the 'Iron Lady', a woman with an indomitable will and stubbornness that often defied belief. The nation was sick and tired of those long, allegedly droning speeches, the insistence that unemployment had been cut dramatically and that Britain was terribly proud of its Falklands Islands heroes. The fact was that she did stop milk for primary children and she hated Arthur Scargill's bullish miners.

For Theresa May the approach is somewhat more understated, less controversial, far more diplomatic, quieter and more reticent. Within the next couple of hours the whole of Tory party will sit down in sober lobbies and conference rooms, chewing the cud, thinking through all of the possibilities and probabilities, reflecting pensively and then weighing up the pros and cons. This is perhaps one of the most critical decisions any Tory 1922 committee will ever make.

What is safe to say is that consciences will be severely examined, judgments reserved and minds will be made with heavy hearts. The last couple of years since the announcement of that first referendum sent most of us into emotional overdrive, have been agonising and at times amusingly satirical. There have been dreadfully lengthy discussions at the highest level, differing interpretations on the meaning of Brexit, frequent delays, knuckle dragging, name calling, bitter infighting, petty accusations and counter accusations and genuine Whitehall farce.

There have been red bloodedly rude, spiteful and rancorous radio phone ins, Tory and Labour squaring up to each other, viciously eye balling each other, lobbing verbal grenades with no shame at all and determined to undermine each other at every opportunity. Short of quite literally attacking each other and physically mauling each to the ground, this has been hideously disgraceful behaviour that most would normally associate with seven year olds.

So who have been the perpetrators and co- conspirators behind this wicked plot. Are they wearing masks and do they have bottles of laudanum or poison in their back pockets? Are they skulking around wood panelled  Westminster corridors with evil sneers on their faces ready and waiting to pounce on the Prime Minister? Or are they just gossiping salaciously in small huddles, fully equipped with withering sarcasm?

The chances are that the Prime Minister will get to keep her position but not without a fight from her sternest opponents. But the rambling potty talk will doubtless provide the acoustic background music in everybody's ears. Still we'll be re- introduced once again to backstops and other oddly peculiar buzzwords and phrases that have suddenly added to the endless tedium of it all.

If all goes according to plan we will still be debating ad nauseum the merits and demerits of leaving or staying in the EU, changing our mind again and then deciding that they were right or wrong  all the time. They will be burying their heads in their laps, shouting most abusively over each other, stopping just short of obscenities and just giving up because they may be wasting their breath anyway.

What seems certain is that the personal grudges and heated recriminations will continue long into the night. They will because that's how modern politics works. Regardless of the result this evening you feel sure that Tory grandees such as Michael Heseltine will bring very salty grievances to the table, Boris Johnson will undoubtedly grumble and mumble his disapproval with that very well mannered Old Etonian tone and Michael Gove may reluctantly accept the result since Tories always stick together.

Be sure though that when 9pm strikes tonight somebody is in for either sharp jolt in the ribs or just allowed to take over the country and finish off what she started over two years ago. It could be all very unsightly and ghastly rather like that horror movie that could so easily turn into a soppy, happy ever after all romantic comedy where everybody kisses and makes up. There there, that wasn't painful at all was it?

Still here we are in the final countdown before the Conservative party eventually decides what they want out of life. By the end of the evening of course Theresa May will still be in office as Prime Minister unscathed, without a scratch but a slightly bloodied nose. The hope is that all will join hands with each other, slap each other on the back in excessive self congratulation all the while sure that they'd had nothing to worry about in the first place.

 Brexit will still be there like a bad penny but faith will be restored and pride preserved. We will still be playing Musical Chairs and Pass the Parcel because this is the most childish party game imaginable. Besides, you can hardly go wrong with a good, old fashioned argument and politicians have always seemingly loved the sound of their own voices. A penny for the thoughts of David Cameron, Theresa May's predecessor as Prime Minister. Cameron is probably lying on a sun kissed beach relieved that no longer does he have to account for his actions. Sensible man.  `