England thrash Albania in World Cup qualifier- almost there.

 England thrash Albania in World Cup qualifier- almost there

Within hours of losing its most important England player from yesteryear, England walked purposefully onto the Wembley pitch. We are now heading for the home straight and England's journey is still a straightforward one with no traffic jams, no complications, no tailbacks and little in the way of any anxiety. World Cup qualifiers are normally stress free, too simple for words and almost as logical as basic mathematics. England love World Cup qualifiers since the teams they are normally confronted with have brittle, delicate chins and are easy targets for a lethal, knock out punch.  

Last night England just overwhelmed an Albanian side who may have privately harboured hopes of some kind of a football miracle when suddenly they discovered that it was just a mirage, a desert without water and left Wembley gasping for air and dizzy with vertigo. Half way through last night England's demolition of Albania the match had ceased to become a contest and more of a five-a side training exercise. England have been going through the motions in most of their World Cup assignments and the sense of anti climax was almost laughable. 

Before last night's match, tributes were paid to the legendary defender Ron Flowers who had died at the age of 87. Flowers had admirably served the cause for his club for Wolves. He had also been an integral part of Sir Alf Ramsey's England squad in 1966. He may have been a fringe member of Sir Alf's class but was nonetheless highly regarded by the rest of the victorious World Cup winning side. 

It is hard to know what Flowers would have thought of his modern day successors John Stones and Harry Maguire but last night's display against a bunch of no hopers and punch drunk nonentities was not the criteria by which any international team should be measured. Stones and Maguire were rather like those mums and dads standing on wintry touchlines shouting encouragement at their young children. This was not so much a football match as a painful exposure of bleeding wounds. Albania looked like rabbits caught in the headlights, shocked, stunned, downtrodden, bewildered and wishing they hadn't bothered.

After some brief struggles against Hungary and Poland in recent matches, England looked completely untroubled, unflustered and ready to hit the ground running. By half time Albania were flat on their backs, lying on the canvas and out for the count. England were five goals to the good, coasting, cruising and any sea going analogy you care to mention. This must have been the worst kind of hellish purgatory any team could have endured but this was an England performance to warm the heart and uplift the soul. 

The demoralising Euro 2020 Final defeat by Italy may still be subconsciously on the minds but you would never have known it. England are inching inexorably closer to the Qatar World Cup Finals at roughly this time next year and it felt good. England though, under Gareth Southgate, bear the template of their manager; shrewd, measured, restrained and controlled. England are a side of art deco patterns and thrilling passing movements who wove their way in and out of the Albanian defence. England are no longer those heavy footed, labour intensive footballers who treat the ball as if it was a hot potato. 

On Monday they face yet another set of bowling skittles in the shape of San Marino. Of course England are haunted by Stuart Pearce's rush of blood in a match where San Marino scored after seven seconds. But the San Marino of today are an altogether different proposition. By all accounts they are there to be smashed to smithereens, a ragged collection of part time players who still can't figure out what to do with a ball when it's given to them. The fact is that England will qualify on Monday because a defeat is almost ludicrously unthinkable and besides how demanding can a game be against a side with no international pedigree and who rank hundreds of places below England. 

So it was that England began last night rather like commuters on a train who have to catch the last train on time and are simply in a hurry. They swept aside the challenge of Albania quite dismissively and clinically as if they just wanted to think ahead to a warm winter break in the desert. 

Once again the defensive back four of John Stones, Harry Maguire, Kyle Walker and the brilliant Reece James of Chelsea excelled themselves without ever breaking sweat. They held their lines magnificently and reminded you of deckchair attendants tidying away after a busy day at the seaside. Of course this was Albania and some of us could probably have beaten such pliant opposition with our eyes closed. It was game over before the match had properly started. 

In the midfield engine room Leeds United's busybody and industrious Kalvin Phillips roved and roamed around the central areas, supporting his back four with huge intelligence and passing of the most economical kind. Then there was the evergreen Jordan Henderson, Liverpool's calming and steadying influence, a player of mild mannered composure and equanimity, still prompting, looking for the right pass and making the game look remarkably easy even in his thirties now. Raheem Sterling, of course, has been a model of consistency, his sharp bursts of pace and close ball control  still a revelation. 

Both Sterling and Phil Foden, who are almost inseparable at Manchester City such is their dynamic effect on City, were once again at the heart of everything that was inventive for England. Foden does look like an England regular but even he must realise that he too has fierce competition for places in Gareth Southgate's firing England attack.

Then up front Harry Kane, England's lion hearted captain did what all England skippers should be under obligation to do. He led by example and scored the umpteenth England hat-trick of his career against Albania. If the new Spurs boss Antonio Conte can coax the very best out of Kane in the forthcoming months then Kane should also provide England with the kind of service we know he's capable of. Kane was here, there and everywhere, dropping deep elusively, shielding the ball at his feet and always instinctively aware of his colleagues. And yesterday evening he remembered how to score with a vengeance. 

And so for the goals. With barely 10 or 15 minutes on the clock. A Reece James free kick from way out was floated gorgeously into the Albanian penalty area and nobody had followed Harry Maguire,  the Manchester United jumping almost unchallenged to plant the ball into the net with the meatiest of headers. The goal bore an uncanny similarity to the one Maguire scored against Ukraine in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

England were now in complete command of both the ball and the game itself. There were none of the troubles that may have dragged them down in World Cup qualifiers of old. Graham Taylor never really forgave the referee for his lack of vision and alleged myopia against Holland in Rotterdam and sadly it did cost him his job. But England were both comfortable in possession and perceptive in their range of passing. Once again at close quarters England had all the right threads and stitches to disentangle the Albanians. 

Minutes later England increased what would now become an unassailable lead. Another glorious set of passing combinations began with Kane, before James cut inside incisively and fed Jordan Henderson. Henderson ran on to the one two before calmly striding to the edge of the box. Henderson's chipped cross to the far post found Kane who leapt bravely to nod the ball home for England's second. It was easy rather like the child who devours jar after jar of sweets without feeling guilty. 

When Raheem Sterling picked up a criminally loose ball for England in the middle of the pitch, we knew that we were sensing a rout. Sterling drove forward masterfully and after the cutest of reverse passes, found that man Harry Kane. Kane, who looks as though he might have found a goal scoring gold rush, hurried away from a now rapidly disintegrating Albanian defence and slammed the ball firmly into the back of the net from an acute angle. 

And just to add the icing to the proverbial cake England scored their almost inevitable fifth. Another in swinging corner arrowed its way to the far post. The heads went up, the ball came down from a posse of heads and Harry Kane, twisting his body almost acrobatically, executed his overhead bicycle kick with the utmost precision. England were now out of sight, the match as a spectacle had been over for ages and England find themselves within touching distance of Saudi Arabia at the end of next year. 

So it was that an 80,000 England crowd shuffled away into the late night darkness happy go lucky, buoyant and confident that nothing can stand in their way. There is a sense here that Gareth Southgate, the studious and conscientious England boss, may never wear those natty waistcoats again. The beard is still tidy and trim while the suit is a menswear's dream. You look immaculate Gareth. 

 The ever fashionable Southgate is never one to miss a trick but the former Crystal Palace defender may want to take a leaf out of Sir Alf Ramsey's book. Ramsey knew England would win the World Cup years before  the event. Maybe Southgate is thinking along the same lines. Oh what England would give for a crystal ball.      

Tory rule breakers are back again.

 Tory rule breakers are back again.

Don't you just love politicians? They simply think they can get away with murder. Perhaps they believe that nobody will notice if we all blink and just ignore them. The nasty smell of corruption, duplicity, double dealing, sneaky, covert behaviour, underhand tactics, deceiving, scheming and conniving behind our backs is back on the discussion table again. How did they do it? They must have an inherent flair for trying to pull the wool over our eyes. So why are we so shocked and appalled at this deplorable greed, this insatiable lust for more and more publicity and notoriety?

Today the Right Honourable or perhaps not so Honourable Geoffrey Cox stands accused of supplementing his already well endowed fortune with £900,000 earnings and trips to the Caribbean. Now money and wealth have always gone hand in hand with the Tories. The titled grandees, the Tory backbenchers with vested interests in big multi million  pound conglomerates and the ones who just want to feather their nest, are now under the fiercest scrutiny of a  public who can only dream of aspiring to their privileged position in society. 

Now the Tories have found themselves boxed into a corner they may have difficulty in wriggling out of. The Conservative party, whatever moral high ground they adopt when they move into 10 Downing Street have once again have fallen into a trap of their own making. Sleaze, sex scandals and outrageous deception continue to be their enduring enemy whichever way they look. It may, one day, lead to their downfall since only the Tories could deny any culpability in the dodgy dealings of financial jiggery-pokery. 

So tonight in Glasgow where the leaders of the world are still wrestling with climate change issues that somehow seem beyond any kind of resolution or clarification, Boris Johnson, Britain's embattled Prime Minister really doesn't know which way to turn. In one ear are the viciously critical snipers who think that he just wants Britain to end up in a filthy, potentially poisonous gutter. Then there are the people who simply want an explanation on the subject of its grasping money grabbers, the untouchable mercenaries who love to earn a million more here and there in the hope that the public will still be their friends. 

But when Owen Patterson became the latest individual to declare that he too indeed had lined his pockets with exotic trips to the Caribbean, we knew what kind of reception he'd get. Patterson's case for the defence is that he was working as a consultant and just trying to add a couple of thousand quid to his already swollen bank account. No harm in that surely or is there? But this is surely unacceptable behaviour for there is still a vast majority of Britain who haven't been on holiday since goodness knows when. 

The truth is that the Conservative party may have left their moral compass behind them without giving a single thought for the damaging consequences. We can now back in time to the 1980s when the so called literary genius of one Jeffrey Archer once blatantly falsified his CV with information about a degree he'd allegedly gained at an American university. There were the sexual dalliances of Cecil Parkinson and the arrogant declarations of  Norman Tebbitt, a man convinced that the three million who were unemployed at the time were just bone idle, couldn't be bothered to work and were a drain on the nation. 

Then there were the unfortunate business dealings of Michael Heseltine who got his fingers terribly burnt in a helicopter company while still in Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet. Memorably the whole of Mrs Thatcher's Cabinet were delightfully caricatured by TV's Spitting Image, a British satirical masterpiece that had most of us in stitches. For the Tory loyalists this is not a good time to be seen behaving in such a cavalier and irresponsible fashion. But then again this could be hard wired into the Tories philosophy-cum manifesto. Maybe this has always been the way and we should have known things would turn out in the way they have. 

The fact is that the dubious figures who comprise the Tory mischief makers are desperately trying to keep the lowest of profiles. We have a planet to become extremely concerned about and there have to be overriding priorities. When Boris Johnson emerges from his Scottish climate change summit this week he would be well advised to remember that next Sunday is Remembrance Sunday, a time for red poppies, and that sombre reflection on the sacrifices millions of our soldiers made during both World Wars. It is time for the British government to keep their heads out of the money trough, consider the plight of both the homeless and disadvantaged while always thinking of others rather than themselves. It shouldn't be a lot to ask for.  

FA Cup first round day.

 FA Cup first round day.

For those who may be unfamiliar with  FA Cup history and its status you may like to read on. The FA Cup is one of football's most beloved, dearly cherished and fondly recalled Cup competitions. It is Cup football on a level playing ground, very little in the way of discrimination or prejudice and it does love its giant killers. 

These are the part timers and amateurs who happily ply their trade as bricklayers, fitters, plasterers, lorry drivers, postmen and milkmen, engineers, supermarket shelf stackers and people who generally go about their business, unsung, probably grossly underpaid and keeping their noses clean. They are the humble ones, the modest ones, the self deprecating ones who just want to earn a living and look after their families. 

Today marks the first round of the FA Cup and a vast array of talent from all of those lower division likely lads and non League sides will step onto the bandwagon, visualise Wembley Stadium in May and then chuckle innocently at the sheer preposterousness of their ambitions. You see the trouble with the FA Cup is that somebody has to lose at some point but when your ground is nestled charmingly between a couple of park roundabouts or an industrial estate you have to believe that anything may be possible. 

Then there are teams whose ground lies right next to an idyllic river in the countryside or a field of sheep in the Lake District. But this is not a day for worrying about the state of the farming industry or whether your team are just happy to be in the FA Cup's first round. Now they know and you know that the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal may not be trembling in their boots at the prospect of meeting these lovely minnows. But it's still one day and one opportunity, their chance to shine, grab the headlines and monopolise the Sunday back pages. 

When the likes of Buxton FC and Sudbury make their way onto their respective pitches their thoughts may turn to Yeovil who, as a non League team in 1948, toppled mighty First Division Sunderland and even Alec Stock, Yeovil's very grounded boss, had to rub his eyes with incredulity. Then there was Sutton, newcomers to the League Two and the League, who once played out of their skins to beat Coventry City, then a thriving top flight team. It was the FA Cup third round then but that's for January and later. 

But today is the genesis of their season, all of those little clubs who sit discreetly tucked into the folds of  the non League. Here they are just blissfully content to earn a couple more bob than they may be used to. For those whose main day job consists of repairing cars or driving trains the FA Cup represents a day off, indulging fantasies, forgetting about the outside world and just concentrating on the ultimate objective of walking out at Wembley and shaking the hands of royalty on FA Cup Final day. 

Several seasons ago you remember little Canvey Island, quite the oddest and most improbable participants at any stage of any FA Cup rounds. How they must have pinched themselves when the BBC cameras came calling. For just 90 minutes, this tiny Essex suburb made a household name of themselves. They were the most welcoming and hospitable of non League teams since although Canvey lost there was a sense here that this was the very essence of the Cup. 

Suddenly, Match of the Day cameras panned across the whole of Canvey Island and its immediate surrounds. For a while you could actually see the traffic outside on the roads, cars, buses, vans and lorries trundling towards their destination. Then you noticed the serried rows of neat, terraced houses back to back, whole neighbourhoods watching the game out of their windows. And right at the end of one road a fire engine stood patiently, oblivious to the FA Cup perhaps but nonetheless present. 

Then there were the likes of Morecambe and Accrington Stanley, who used to be non League battlers but are now League Two stalwarts. Of course Burnley, not a million miles away from both Morecambe and Accrington Stanley, could provide a backdrop of Lowry's smoking factories and humming mills but they were the ones who may have felt left out on FA Cup third round day. They used to be in the first round of the FA Cup but nobody really gave them any credit whatsoever.

But this weekend it's all about baby steps, those eternal dreamers and idealists, full of wishful thinking but determined to give it a crack. They'll be sitting in their quaint grandstands which are roughly the size of a matchbox. They'll be patting themselves vigorously because it's November and we're bound to put on the central heating when Match of the Day cameras are on them tonight. They'll be eagerly twisting off the lids of a hundred Thermos flasks and then lifting their ageless scarves. Step forward St Albans and Forest Green Rovers. This is the FA Cup in a nutshell, the most perfect contest. 

By the end of the weekend those magnificent chairmen, women and directors on the board will be pouring out their gratitude to those loyal supporters who have stuck with them through thick and thin. They'll thank the fans for clicking enthusiastically through rusting turnstiles and just being there. Their involvement in the FA Cup may just be a yellowing page in the history books but they've played in the FA Cup and that's all that counts. 

On Monday morning those same fans might be huddling by their I Phones, Tablets or the radio, hoping that among others, Exeter, Grimsby, Portsmouth, Rochdale and Plymouth Argyle will be sweeping their terraces, cleaning their seats and readying themselves for the non League challengers, those plucky troopers from outside the Football League pyramid but fired up, pumped up and galvanised at the thrilling immensity of their task. 

The FA Cup first round is more or less that point in the season when the Premier League, Championship, League Ones and Two become very self conscious. They may be more interested in the weekly chores of scrapping for League points but subconsciously they may give a fleeting thought to Thurrock, Buxton FC or even Accrington Stanley. Today is that notable stage in the season when the bourgeoisie, the monied classes and the wealthy elite stop for a while perhaps and cast their minds towards January and the beginning of the FA Cup third round. But first things first.      

Pretty Woman at London's Savoy.

 Pretty Woman at London's Savoy.

It's hard to believe that it's been 31 years since Pretty Woman last entered our consciousness. Then we were ushering in the 1990s and Margaret Thatcher must have felt like the most reviled woman in Britain. As Prime Minister she'd polarised, alienated and then rallied the country together when the Falklands war was at its most belligerent. Then she presented Britain with the poll tax, quite clearly the worst decision she could ever have made as Prime Minister. Shop windows were unceremoniously smashed and there were the kind of street riots that had rarely been seen at that point in the UK. In the end though it all blew over. 

But from nowhere the cinema provided us with a refuge, a lovely haven of escapism from the ferocious battles in the towns and cities of Britain. It was a film that took us away from the worries and woes of the world, a saucy, sassy, cheeky and sometimes outrageous film which perfectly captured the soul and topical zeitgeist of the new decade. It showed an America at its wealthiest and funniest. It reflected an America that was proud of its materialism, its soaring skyscrapers and  the investment firms that were making dollars by the million. 

The name of the film was Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Gere was the smooth talking, suave, debonair, fiercely ambitious businessman with fingers in different pies such as shipping companies that were making substantial profits by the hour, week, minute and month. Gere played Edward Lewis, an immaculately suited and booted go getter, wheeler and dealer, entrepreneurial to his fingertips, a chancer and opportunist, a sealer of deals in five minutes flat and dynamic into the bargain. 

Pretty Woman is though now a spectacular West End musical playing at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End. If there's any justice it'll sell out for the next 10 years and already the reviews are rave ones guaranteed to put a smile on directors and producers faces for the first time in ages. Pretty Woman, it has to be said, was pretty cool and sensational, living up to the metaphors and adjectives that you probably see on London's Underground Tube train service. 

But personally it felt such a wondrous relief to be among the packed hordes of people thronging the West End for the first time in ages. In fact you could finally feel the pulse of London, the heartbeat of the capital city powerfully throbbing away and this was exactly what the West End needed after 18 months of pain, monumental death tolls, suffering on a quite unprecedented scale and Covid 19 oppression. 

Admittedly, the pavements weren't exactly alive with the pounding of thousands of feet but we'll get there of that there can be no doubt. The cafes and restaurants were doing a lively lunchtime trade, the half price ticket theatre booths were probably doing brisk business and that big cinema in Leicester Square, which you can remember so fondly from your youth, still looks in good nick.

But then we settled down in the Savoy Theatre in our plush seats and my wife turned around and smiled at both me and the rest of the audience. We embraced the magical aura of a West End musical and it was my lovely wife's birthday so we had to paint the town red. Pretty Woman exceeded our expectations because everything about it was recognisable and identifiable. The singing was terrific, the dancing exceptional and the characters on stage were just having a ball. It could hardly fail.

So the story is that Aimie Atkinson as Vivian Ward, Julia Roberts in the film, is the hooker, sexy, brazen, feisty, unapologetic, ruthless, wild, feral and independent. Vivian Ward, as you may well know by now, is a hooker, a prostitute, proud of her rampant femininity. Aimie Atkinson plays the role to perfection, crawling across towards Edward Lewis and wrapping her legs around him with lustful and licentious intent. Vivian, initially at least, is looking for only financial gain but then finds herself embroiled in conflicting emotions. Does she fall in love with Lewis or just leave her man?

We see the gradual unfolding of a passionate relationship that seems to get lost in the translation. Vivian is just a hooker who wants to pay her rent and surround herself in glamorous clothes. Vivian wants enough money to buy diamonds and then hunt down a man who will love her for who she wants to be. Vivian wants to settle down as a wife and bring up children without ever resorting to short skirts and high heels ever again. 

Aimie Atkinson is just an all smiling, all dancing, loose talking, free spirited girl who just wants to be loved and there can be nothing wrong with that. Edward Lewis, who became deeply and emotionally involved, simply wants to turn Vivian Ward into a lady of taste and breeding, a woman who can mix freely within high society, say the right things, eat from crockery and cutlery in the right way, remaining perfectly sweet and tactful without ever swearing because that'll never do. But she did and all hell breaks loose. 

Lewis, bathing in the role of man about town with bulging wallets of dollars in his pockets, promptly introduces Vivian into the world of high society but then gets his fingers burnt. The big party invitations are readily accepted by Ward but then she breaks every rule in the etiquette book. She sneers at convention, embarrasses Lewis and then thinks she may have got away with it. 

The story itself eventually turns into a full blooded musical, songs flooding the Savoy like an old Victorian nickelodeon. The choreography of course is just stunning and there was just an old fashioned elegance about the production that most of us have missed terribly. This was a story about man and woman relationships, their dynamics, lots of slushy romance and then dollops of fun. Pretty Woman is funny, cute, very humane, warm and what happens when money gets in the way of what begins as a sleazy alliance between man and woman but then flourishes into something that could work. 

So put on your West End musical clothes, get down to the box office at the Savoy Theatre and just enjoy the capital city. It's missed all of us and we've missed it. Pretty Woman is a big, bolshy, carefree, wanton and spellbinding musical. It doesn't care and nor do we. You could always make an evening of it since Christmas and Chanukah are just around the corner and Leicester Square is ready and waiting. Go for it.

The Premier League managerial sacking game is up and running.

 The Premier League managerial sacking game is up and running. 

So here we go again. We're at the beginning of November and fireworks night has come far too early. In fact to be precise three days early. The rockets are screaming into the air, the sparklers are fizzing with some effervescence and the Catherine Wheels have burst into the night sky with the most deafening crescendo. At Tottenham Hotspur the air is thick with cordite, dynamite and the kind of incendiary material that could explode in their collective faces if they're not careful. 

Today Spurs appointed yet another manager after the Portuguese Nuno Esperito Santo sheepishly sneaked out of the back door at Tottenham, the victim of that now customary sacking ordeal that has now become an almost frequent occurrence. The wealthy owners of football clubs have decided that enough is enough. Admittedly it wasn't as if we couldn't see it coming since poor Nuno didn't stand a chance or did he? Spurs are now in the middle of the most depressing sequence of defeats in recent games and the season isn't that old. 

On Saturday Spurs were beaten by a Manchester United side who, the week before, had been on the wrong end of a 5-1 thrashing by Liverpool at Old Trafford. But then Manchester United remembered the gravity of their own predicament and carried out the most traumatic execution since the last time Spurs lost their manager. These are deeply troubling times for everybody within the Spurs hierarchy but today Spurs replaced Santo with the former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte. 

The whole business of hiring and firing Premier League managers reminds you of the baggage carousel at an airport where huge suitcases slowly lumber around in circles and then go through the same rotation until somebody grabs hold of their bag or holdall and finds that it's almost midnight. From the outside it simply looks as though some managers are doing a whistle stop tour of Europe because Jose Mourinho almost ripped out the proud fabric and heritage of Spurs in no time at all. For Portugal read Italy. It's quite the most scenic route if you happen to be a football manager. 

Antonio Conte, Spurs new manager, has been this way before and has certainly got the handbook. At Chelsea things seemed to be ticking over quite nicely and efficiently until things went wrong. Chelsea started losing important matches and Roman Abramovich, their ridiculously rich Russian oligarch, almost notorious for his impatience, rolled the dice again, weighed up the permutations, saw that Conte was struggling and pulled the trigger. Conte had to go and there were no excuses or apologies. It's that way Antonio and there's your P45. 

Your mind travelled back to the beginning of the 21st century when a Swiss gentleman by the name of Christian Gross was shown with a Central Line Tube railway ticket on his way to Tottenham's old training ground in Chigwell, Essex. Gross, sadly, was about as useless as a chocolate tea pot  and the sense of squirming embarrassment was palpable. Sometimes being a football manager at any level can be as precarious as walking a tightrope in the circus or gambling thousands on the roulette wheel. 

Then there was Andre Villas Boas, another highly acclaimed boss at French Ligue 1 club Marseille who was lured to Tottenham because his reputation had been established and he looked the right fit. But Boas seemed to go nowhere, a man entrusted with leading Spurs out of the doldrums and then discovered that somebody had given him a bomb. Spurs last major trophy was a League Cup Final victory against Chelsea in 2008 and Boas was just another experiment that just shattered a test tube. 

At times the older Spurs supporters indulge in wistful recollections of the legendary Bill Nicholson. Bill Nick was Tottenham through and through and he was the one man who guided Spurs to the Double of FA Cup and old First Division League Championship in 1961. 60 years have now passed since those days of Olympian achievement at the old White Hart Lane and the natives are restless.

 Nicholson was a revolutionary, a new broom, inventive, always thinking ahead, progressive, an almost academic student of the Beautiful Game, moving counters around a board that represented his players positions, a tactical and technical genius. He was  a manager of brand new ideas, rich innovation, clever judgements and an avuncular figure who cared for his players and just wanted them to be the best. He even had a road named after him and famously lived next to the ground so devoted was he to the club. 

What on earth would Bill Nicholson have made of Spurs latest pickle. He'd have probably covered his eyes in shame and horror and wondered if the club had just lost its way. When Keith Burkenshaw took over Spurs in the late 1970s everything seemed to hang in the balance. But then in one incredible summer, Burkenshaw went out to Argentina and invested in two glistening gems. One was called Osvaldo Ardilles or Ossie and the other was Ricardo Villa or Ricky. Both Ardilles and Villa injected Spurs with a new lease of life and overnight Spurs became a formidable force, feared throughout the land. 

Tottenham will always have a soft spot for their celebrated young graduates such as Glen Hoddle, Steve Perryman, Terry Gibson and countless others who have squeezed through the revolving door at Spurs. Hoddle's talent was so sublime and natural that by the time he left the club, he was already an England player of some distinction and deservedly so. Perryman, for his part, came straight to the club from school and glided around at the back of Spurs defence like an emperor surveying his empire. 

Now though Spurs are quite literally back at the same drawing board. They came flying out of the blocks at the start of the season with a landmark 1-0 victory at home to Premier League champions Manchester City. They'd also tied down their own prized asset Harry Kane for another season and everything seemed to be going well. Spurs though imploded and unravelled like a threadbare piece of cotton. It was not a pleasant watch.

But more recently both West Ham and Arsenal beat Spurs and the last straw was what looked to be a humiliating and degrading 3-0 defeat at home to a struggling Manchester United side who are also juggling with too many plates. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the striker who scored one of the winning goals that won the Champions League Final for United against Bayern Munich in 1999.

And yet football managers are still easily dispensable characters who seem to be only one game away from the bullet, the sack and ta ta for now. When Arsenal lost their first three games of the season to Brentford, Chelsea and Manchester City, most of us assumed that their likeable manager Mikel Arteta was about to be shown the exit door at Arsenal. But the club have sensibly persevered, not panicked and just retained their faith in a man who was, after all assistant, to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. Such credentials could not be questioned. 

Then there was West Ham manager David Moyes, who was initially appointed as a firefighter at the club to stave off near certain relegation. But Moyes didn't seem a reputable enough name for a demanding club who were looking for a much higher profile man in charge. West Ham turned to the man who'd won the Premier League with Manchester City Manuel Pellegrini. Horribly, after a promising start Pellegrini plunged into the darkest hole with the East London club and by Christmas 2018, Pelligrini was about to face the firing squad and then promptly sacked. It was untenable and had to be done. 

From the depths of yet greater mediocrity and mid table buoyancy, Moyes got hold of West Ham, shook them to their senses and last season enjoyed taking West Ham to the rarefied heights of sixth in the Premier League and a place in the Europa League. The critics who wrote off West Ham dismissively as a side with little ambition, would now eat their words. No longer were they just treading water but a side to be reckoned with, a free flowing, quick passing, quick breaking attacking side released from fear and inhibition. 

Meanwhile Antonio Conte is back in London with Tottenham. Still, Conte wears those mournful dark suits and trousers, still animated and excitable at times on the touchline. Conte is still at war with referees, the length of the grass on the pitch and generally grumpy, irascible and fed up. It's hard to tell whether he's mellowed or not and if Spurs do respond to his angry gestures then we could be in for some fun. We'll look forward to those wild exhortations in the technical area and try to imagine how he'll react if Tottenham do win a trophy one day. Who on earth would be a football manager? It's a good question. Answers on a postcard please.  

Halloween.

 Halloween.

So here we are right at the end of October and that can only mean one thing. In case you hadn't noticed today is Halloween and tonight most of us will be celebrating that charming, religious ritual that always seems to come around at this time of the year. You know everything there is to know about Halloween. It's been around for long enough. It normally precedes the equally as agreeable Guy Fawkes Night or Firework night when families and children across the land will gather around and the kids will be let loose on a million front doors of homes across the country. 

Door bells will be rung almost ad infinitum until an expectant public twitch their curtains, resign themselves to another visit from both toddlers and young schoolchildren and just giggle quite discreetly. This has now become the standard reaction to youngsters who simply want to Trick or Treat and then politely ask for a couple of pennies in the new currency rather than the tanners and sixpences of old. 

For most of us Halloween has always been regarded as something of a quirky addition to the calendar, that night of the year when the kids have a good time and the loving parents button up their thick coats, telling them implicitly not to bother the elderly folk for money or anybody for that matter. Then the said children run up the roads of a multitude of neighbourhoods, shout out Trick or Treat as they push the gates of the house back and then gleefully look at their bounty for the evening. 

We all know that Halloween is all about orange pumpkins, ghosts, mysterious things that go bump in the night and pumpkins with hollowed out gargoyle like faces. It's about those cackling witches that fly over whole communities roofs with familiar broomsticks. For centuries now Halloween has become enshrined in the cultural history of our lives, a good excuse for kids to frighten the lives out of adults in a very jokey, humorous fashion. 

Last year Halloween was postponed since Covid 19 had spoilt everybody's party. There was no tricking or treating, nor pumpkin soup or sinister looking witches dressed up in rags. Instead we drank several urns of tea and coffee, gobbled down a biscuit or two and pretended that Halloween was alive and well in our hearts. But now we have permission to go out into the darkness of night and try to imagine what it was like in medieval times when the whole festival probably meant something entirely different. 

But now Halloween joins forces with a news agenda equally as mystical and unfathomable. In Scotland the eminent ministers and politicians of the world are trying to make sense of a severely damaged environment. Insulate Britain, a vocally active protest group, are doing a wonderful impersonation of stubborn defiance, angry militancy and red blooded fury. They're blocking motorways, shouting the odds and generally behaving like stroppy nursery schoolchildren who won't stop moaning. 

Back in London the protestors, the eco warriors and the energy-cum- electricity campaigners and crusaders are on the warpath. They sit in front of whole stretches of traffic lights, crossing their legs, folding their arms and making their feelings abundantly clear. In front of them large contingents of police officers stand over them, quietly reprimanding them but achieving nothing into the bargain. They leave them warnings, kindly asking them to move on, threatening them with arrests and a draughty police cell. Occasionally they seem to get a constructive response but then it all fizzles out.

They reluctantly shuffle into the back of a van, cuffs stifling their wrists but nonetheless aware that they're just making confounded fools of themselves. They profess to care passionately about their children's future but fail to realise that a nation of motorists going nowhere are just cluttering up the roads of Britain. So we sigh with exasperation and curse Insulate Britain because they're just sanctimonious do- gooders who just want their families to grow up in a clean, healthy country where the roses can be smelt in summer and there are no ghastly chimneys coughing up all manner of poison and smoke. 

And so it is that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will leave his holiday painting well alone and get down to some serious business. Johnson's spokesman of course is the admirable Sir David Attenborough who tells us with a huge intellectual mind that always seems to know everything there is to know that the world is going to hell and a handcart if we don't clean up the planet now rather than later. Attenborough has been among most gorillas in jungles to know that we have to act now because if we don't, the human race may be for the compost heap. Humans though just want to live their everyday lives and be together without worrying about lethal chemicals in the air. 

Still it's Halloween so you can be sure that Johnson may be obliged to carry out a spot of trickery himself. Covid 19 has led him through so many confusing mazes that the least Britain can do is to cut him some slack and give him credit where it's due. Johnson's ghosts from the past may still be stalking him at times and the skeletons in the cupboard have been rattling away for some time. 

However, Halloween is about to get all spooky, weird and wonderful. The world may be wrestling with any number of problems at the moment but for tonight we can allow our children to be children because that should never be stopped. Anybody for pumpkin soup or one of those Shakespearean witches from days of yore when Banquo was a lad in shorts and Macbeth was and will remain a literary legend.    

The Budget

 The Budget.

The Budget used to be a springtime event for the good people of Britain. It was the herald of brighter days, the clocks going forward, the first tulips and daffodils to make their perennial presence felt. In Holland the canals were choc a bloc with touristy barges and the cyclists looked as though they were warming up for the Tour De France later on in the year. 

But back in Britain the Budget was probably the one day we all privately dreaded. Some of us though were not hardened boozers or drinkers nor would we have dreamt of smoking cigarettes since the smell was a repulsive one and you had to just grin and bear it all, as the said fag smoke kept pouring out of a thousand noses, mouths and lips. The smell was horrendously detestable. You could hardly bare to be in the same room as the smoker and winced with disgust when somebody decided to light up.

And yet this is no high minded, impassioned rant against all smokers around the world because smokers love to be in the same company of other smokers and besides they're not hurting anybody. So well done smokers and continue to smoke to your hearts content. You're at perfect liberty to smoke wherever and whenever you like. It's simply the sight of a thousand nicotine fuelled cigarettes has never appealed to you at any point during your life. 

During your childhood and then adolescence you remember with some affection that endearing timber framed shop in High Holborn, London where a rich variety of cigarettes, cigars, lighters, pipes, acres of tobacco would be on display and a whole host of friendly members of staff would tend to your every need. There were the distinctive Havana cigars and every conceivable smoking indulgence you could wish for. For years this smokers goldmine served the great British public but is no longer in business which does seem quite a shame. We do love our London landmarks even though none of us would ever considered going into the shop. 

Anyway back to the all important subject of the Budget for which most of us have now carefully digested the good and bad points, the disappointments and those tolerable decisions that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made yesterday. Smokers and drinkers were always directly affected even if the hike in prices of both would have aroused nothing more than a sigh of despair. It could be that this has always been the way and maybe we should be conditioned to the inevitable. Still, another Budget has passed and there's no changing of anybody's mind.

And yet when Rushi Sunak, the current incumbent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, got to his feet against a backdrop of a full to capacity House of Commons we held our breaths and wondered whether he'd become the pantomime villain again. Boo, Hiss, opprobrium. Dear Rushi we don't approve of your announcements and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Chancellors do get on your nerves, utterly abhorrent individuals who can barely do multiplication and long division let alone preside over Britain's economy. Or maybe they're just friendly souls just doing their job under duress. 

So Sunak smiled his sarcastic smile at the opposition Labour bench and you can almost see the mischievous glint as he tried quite successfully to undermine and humiliate the Labour party. He kept taunting them and tormenting them knowing fully well that Labour may never ever form a United Kingdom government at any point in our lifetime although things can still pan out differently. Sunak seemed to be pointing at certain members of the Labour cabinet and back benches with an almost sadistic pleasure and schadenfreude. Who are the Labour party to pass judgment against the impregnable, unbeatable Tories. The Conservative party rule OK! So there and take that. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer then attempted to make his salient points heard throughout the Chamber of Noise and at times Comedy. Amid a cacophonous bellowing and yelling that could almost be heard at Westminster Tube train station, Sunak then gave us the detailed bullet points that different parts of the population and demographics could hardly bring themselves to listen to. It all became decidedly too technical and complex for those uninitiated in the whole process of percentages and number crunching. 

There was for instance the return to Foreign Aid to 0.7% of Gross Domestic Product. This was followed by the news that the National Living Wage would be bumped up to £9.50 an hour which sounded promising or totally unacceptable depending on your point of view. There was the 50% business rates discount, as well as the now very topical gas and electricity rate. There was the two billion pound funding for schools and colleges which doesn't really sound bad at all although this may be open to debate within the powers that be.  

Of course we should not forget those vitally significant measures such as wages. Now you need no reminding that wages constitute your loaf of bread for the week, the essential shopping and sustenance. With the gradual return to shops, warehouses and high tech offices, wages have now grown by 3.4% so that'll be very satisfactory for the working man and woman again. Still, there are bound to be a barrage of complaints and grumbles about how wages have now been frozen since the Crimean War and Britain will simply sink into poverty. 

But now we go to the original point about the Budget that either rubs you up the wrong way, leaves you seething and shaking with rage. How on earth are you going to afford a round of drinks in your local pub tonight? Now what did we tell you about those unnecessary vodkas, cocktails, scotches and whiskies? Is it any wonder that this is the most expensive round you'll ever buy? Now why on earth did you have to order the most extortionately dear pints of lager and beer. Stick to the Cokes and orange juices please. 

Cigarettes of course will always be regarded as an accessory to the crime of the scene. When the former Chancellor of Exchequer Kenneth Clarke, a Tory of the highest rank and widely acclaimed by his own party, rose to his feet to deliver a Budget you could almost hear the respect and then hostility from the Labour benches. This was the time to sit down and listen to a man who commanded the attention of the House. 

Clarke, with whisky and cigarette by his hand, would announce his Budget speech with that posh and impeccably presented delivery that almost sounded as the man had just stepped out of an Anthony Trollope political novel. Every so often the hands would move easily to the glass of whisky and then a gentle puff on the Benson and Hedges ciggies. Clarke had no time for doubters and cynics and responded to any criticism with that icy disdain in his voice that would silence everybody immediately. 

Still, Rishi Sunak emerged from 11 Downing Street with red suitcase in both hands and the most contented of smiles. Many years ago it used to be the black suitcase that looked rather weather beaten but the message was very much the same. The news always had a bleak and depressing feel about it. The man and woman on the street was always considerably poorer as a result of the Budget and it always felt there was nothing concrete or positive to take from it. 

So today Britain will resume its Post Covid 19 stance which still feels as if it's still in our subconscious even though everything is open for business. You can check your pockets today or at any time of your own choosing and the pennies will always seem like pounds. The economy is now out of any immediate danger and we can all go back to watching Strictly Come Dancing on the TV without worrying about the price of the TV licence. Oh the sparkle, the glitter and glamour. Bring it on.