England beat Greece 3-0 in the UEFA Nations League.

 England beat Greece 3-0 in the UEFA Nations League.

So let's get the formalities out of the way. England are on the verge of promotion to a much better group of European nations in their quest to reach the latter stages of the UEFA Nations League. Are we all clear on that one? Sometimes football tends to lose itself completely in the translation and a full, detailed explanation is perhaps all we need. But this is increasingly looking like the one international football competition that remains in some dark room with the door well and truly locked. 

But the impression is that England are about to arrive at some bizarre fancy dress party with outlandish clothes, strange dynamics and an ultimate conclusion that still beggars belief. The UEFA Nations League is that interim European football tournament where nobody really loses as such but none particularly care whether their country lifts this novice trophy or not. It's hard to know whether England should be in a buoyant mood or just happy to be playing other countries in Europe regardless of the eventual outcome. 

Lee Carsley's England beat Greece in the Olympic Stadium of Athens where once athletes of all abilities and immense gifts proudly flaunted their natural strength, endurance and remarkable agility. The spirit of Baron Pierre De Coubertin followed the England football team both spiritually and emotionally all the way to a comfortable 3-0 victory, dispelling any underlying fears that this is one competition that they should find both degrading and completely beneath them.

Adittedly, this is not the European Championship and thank goodness for that. We're all acutely aware now that England have suffered more than enough humiliation in recent times. The two consecutive Euro Final defeats to respectively, Spain and Italy, have left some nasty psychological scars on the England camp. Gareth Southgate, their former manager, did his utmost to restore some semblance of credibility, changing attitudes and mentalities along the way. But last night felt like one of those exercises in rehabilitation and recovery that must have felt very good but should never disguise nagging shortcomings. 

England are still far from the finished article, a team still wearing hard hats, high viz orange jackets and mixing huge quantities of cement. There are still loose bricks in the foundations, the structure and framework of the building is far from stable, yet to meet the required health and safety specifications but there are no windows or doors. The nuts and bolts are there but the chief components are still missing. England are a work in progress and labour of love, perhaps a tad naive and gullible. But not necessarily cliched. 

When Lee Carsley inherited this England squad from Southgate, he must have known what he was letting himself in for. The England job, although not yet a poisoned chalice, has all the makings of one of those booby traps where something very unsavoury could yet blow up in their faces. England have yet to acquire the status of trapeze artists on a circus high wire but you really wouldn't want to swap places with any of the players on show.

With so many England regulars crocked and injured, England were at the highest altitude and there were no safety nets. Instead what we had last night an England team consisting of promising teenagers, burgeoning talents but nothing in the way of familiarity. This is not to imply that these were strangers in the night because Sinatra would never have known what to make of England football teams anyway. 

This was a patchwork quilt England side, a team  strong on both individuality and team ethics but whose knowledge of the bigger picture around the world may still be a bewildering one to many of them. This has always been an ongoing project for whoever may be brave enough to undertake what often turns into the most traumatic ordeal. 

Most of England's hardiest and devoted fans have been to hell and back with England over the years. Besides, some of us just hate roller coasters anyway. There have been two major Euro Finals and a World Cup semi final in the World Cup of Russia in 2018. In hindsight the very mention of Russia at all is simply repulsive and if we'd known it at the time England would never have embarked on that journey but we must be grateful for small mercies.

But for 90 minutes, yesterday evening in Athens felt like the conquest of Mount Olympus. There were no Herculean feats this time although this one felt extremely satisfying. England must have felt purged and cleansed, revived and revitalised after the Greeks had broken too many plates at Wembley last month. The Greeks 2-1 victory still feels like a painful scab on the skin of too many England players. This though may be the time to move on. There are bad days at the office and ones where the photocopier stubbornly refuses to work so let's put this one down to experience.

The truth of the matter is though that England are close to promotion in the UEFA Nations League and that has to be a jolly fine thing. Eventually England may reach another major European tournament Final and that has to be something to get excited about. The reservations and questions are, it has to be said, frustratingly on the surface of any conversation about football. This is all very new fangled and yet to find acceptance in some quarters.

Last night England met the criteria at every level. They were smooth, fluent, professional and extremely accomplished at times. Their football was a joyous antidote to all of the other problems that may exist in Britain's often troubled political world. Their passing was of the most exquisite quality and the white shirts looked to be on the same page for much of the game. Once again there was a fundamental understanding of the game, their cohesion and clarity of thought a cause of much rejoicing and almost relief given what happened at Wembley in October. 

England's football had the kind of streetwise intelligence and the sweetest of fragrances. The ball has become more or less a very close friend to them, controlling and manipulating the ball with both a heartwarming touch and subtlety that resonated with all the purists. There were hundreds of triangles, rectangular and perfectly geometrical patterns in the middle of the pitch that cut open Greek lines with a swiftness and incisiveness that must have thrilled Lee Carsley. 

At the back of the England's players thoughts will be Thomas Tuchel, England's new manager, who will be monitoring activities from some far off corner of Europe. Tuchel could be the answer to all of England's fondest dreams. The long term future for England is still in up in the air and abeyance. Nobody knows anything about Tuchel's credentials at international level but we shall see. 

And yet England,at times, looked like men who were trying to piece together a complex model railway set. From time to time there were bits missing such as signalling equipment, warped tracks and not a sign of a platform guard with a paddle to usher in the train. So England had to make do with football was that basic and essential because nobody would ever take this seriously. There was a rigorous efficiency and technical competence about England which was surprisingly impressive.

However after seven minutes England received just the boost they were looking for. Chelsea's exciting young winger Noni Madueke had already been proving a handful for the Greek defence. But the way Madueke so cleverly and brilliantly turned his defender inside out on the flank, must have briefly reminded you of  Peter Barnes or Steve Coppell from yesteryear. The Chelsea youngster looked to have no worries whatsoever, teasing, taunting and scheming relentlessly before cutting the ball back low across the six yard area where Aston Villa's natural striking poacher Ollie Watkins instantly steered the ball into the net for England's opening goal. 

Before the match, some of us were wondering what happened to captain Harry Kane but Watkins stepped up to the plate with persistent hassling and hustling of his defenders. It was never a centre forward's masterclass but Watkins was certainly classy. England continued to set up ever increasing circles in their opponents half and the tapestries of vivid attacking colour were always in evidence. Both Ezri Konsa and Conor Gallagher were moving the Greeks and the ball with a confidence and trust in their judgment that was both heartening and gratifying. 

Once again Kyle Walker, although in the twilight of his career, is as fast as a cheetah and just races back into his position at full back when fires need to be put out. Walker reads the game like a sixth form student swotting for his chemistry exams, still looking indomitable, secure and wisely experienced. Marc Guehi, of course, is still learning the ropes of the game with Crystal Palace and does grow in stature and assurance with every England appearance. Liverpool's Rico Lewis is literally wet behind the ears but has a commendable maturity about him that could send him a long way. Lewis loves to take on all comers, running purposefully at players and weaving his way through the heaviest tackling as if he'd been doing it for years. 

And then there was Jude Bellingham. By his own elevated standards, Bellingham was never the motivational force that England were hoping for in Euro 2024 although he did score England's opening goal in the tournament. Last night, Bellingham was unstoppably brilliant and truly breathtaking on the ball, a force of nature who just breezed past the blue shirts of Greece as if they were petrified ghosts in a haunted castle. He tricked, back heeled insolently and rudely interrupted the Greek flow. He controlled the game like a pilot navigating a long haul flight for the thousandth time. He created time and space, analysing his options with a care and vigilance beyond his years. 

Any comparisons with Paul Gascoigne are both inappropriate and invidious since Bellingham shows little inclination to refuel from dentist chairs or swigging back innumerable quantities of Fosters lager. There is neither desire or inclination to stuff his face with one kebab after another and no sign of self destruction. Bellingham seems to know everything there is to know about moderation and once again gave his opponents plenty to think about. 

By the middle of the second half, England had taken their feet off the accelerator, tapping out Morse Code messages on the grass with simple, easy passes. For a moment you tried to imagine the England football team trying to decipher the Enigma code at Bletchley Park and wondering whether there was any point. But every time they had the ball, you suspected there was some kind of undercover and clandestine plot because it all looked very confidential and secretive. 

But there was nothing furtive going on last night. England were open and expansive, spreading the occasional floated diagonal overload of lofted, angled passes to either Walker in space or Guehi on the other flank, overlapping consistently and encouragingly all the time. Then Gallagher began to pick up the ball and searched for gaps in a tiring Greek defence, giving and taking with either Lewis or Jude Bellingham.

Now a second goal almost seemed inevitable and it was that man Jude Bellingham again who took all the plaudits and bouquets of praise and deservedly so. Now Bellingham, gallivanting into space, received the ball after a spellbinding blur of quick, one touch passes in midfield had sent him through. The Real Madrid midfield maestro went on a magnificent surging, powerful run at the heart of the Greek defence, looked up almost automatically and cracked an unstoppable, low shot that had goal written all over it. The ball flew past the Greek keeper Odyseseseas Vlachodimos and despite a last gasp attempt at a save, he saw the ball trickling past him and nestle in the net. 

Then with minutes to go and the game now seemingly beyond the home side's reach, the goal of the night appeared on the radar and how delighted we were that we witnessed it. Jarrod Bowen, the West Ham striker who came on as a late substitute, gathered speed on the right, inviting his defender to bring him down for a foul but then accelerating away. We were expecting something special from Bowen and we were not to be disappointed. 

 Bowen, sensing an opportunity, fed the ball into Morgan Gibbs White, also on as a sub and the Forest attacker nudged the ball intelligently into the path for an onrushing colleague whose low cut back into the six yard box found the Liverpool striker Curtis Jones who impudently back flicked the ball with his foot and the ball flashed past Vlachodimos for a signature third goal that underlined England's vast attacking superiority.

So England return to Wembley on Sunday for their second assignment of the week. Their meeting with the Republic of Ireland is more or less a non-event since England seem certain to  move on in the UEFA Nations League at a fair lick. Whatever your opinions on this new competition, the fact is that the sceptics may have to get used to it since it's here to stay. England expects but not for the time being perhaps.           

World Kindness Day.

 World Kindness Day.

In a world that the cynics might refer to as one of mean-spiritedness and downright selfishness, it might be said that we should be kinder towards each other, less concerned for those who may have it all. It is widely assumed that most of us have got shedloads of money in the bank, a big, nice house with all the materialistic possessions such as a luxurious, spacious kitchen, enormous bathroom, a conservatory and summer house at the back. But domestic comforts mean nothing if we find ourselves financially broke, skint and destitute. Money then tends to pale into insignificance. 

But for those who become obsessed with greed, overwhelmed by complete dissatisfaction, accumulating more thousands and millions by the day, then we begin to take everything for granted. Then we become inveterate hoarders of everything from newspapers, magazines, books, records and general souvenirs or paraphernalia. It is at this point that we might forget about the simple act of giving to our local charities, models of warm hearted benevolence because, perhaps, we don't need these once valuable keepsakes.

So we then think charity begins at home and determinedly refuse to give anything away to those who may need it more than we might imagine. We begin to save for a rainy day that may never come but then discover that our neighbours have noticed that we haven't spent a penny on a new car for years and our holidays consist solely of a canal barge journey along the Norfolk Broads. The paint is peeling on the walls of a now decaying house, the windows have been neglected and are now filthy. They look down on you condescendingly on you because money is everything to them and they never give anything to those who so thoroughly deserve it. 

Yes folks. It's World Kindness Day, a day for doing a favour to your best friend, neighbour or cherished family members. It is time to loosen those parsimonious purse strings and throw lavish dinner parties, giving toys and games to children without a single thought or doubt or just smiling for a change. World Kindness Day could be a day for either changing the habits of a lifetime by splashing out on a four course restaurant in the West End of London for the first time in ages. Or maybe they'd rather stick indoors with a plate of fish and chips and just turn into sourpusses, miserable and isolated folk who just can't be bothered to paint the town red and party. 

World Kindness Day means unashamed generosity to those who may be less fortunate, taking them out to lunch at the local cafe, buying several pints of booze because they just deserve this largesse. But of course the kids thoroughly merit days out at the local seaside during the summer and to those who have suffered long term physical illnesses which may be sadly terminal, then kindness should be considered as a natural response to adversity. 

This may be a day for just knocking on the doors of the elderly and disabled and inquiring about their welfare, offering to do their shopping, taking them out to a country pub or just organising an impressive picnic for the entire family because it just seems the best idea of them all. We then walk up to the tin rattlers in the street, smiling at the recipient and dropping a fiver or tenner with a munificent heart. We then think nothing of doing voluntary work for the community, painting houses in dire need of tender loving care or swimming hundreds of lengths with the only objective of collecting a couple of thousand pounds for children from broken homes or indeed the homeless. 

On Friday, the BBC will hold their yearly Children In Need TV spectacular, a vast charitable endeavour that seems to have been around for decades. Children In Need, quite literally, has done what it says on the tin for years and years, a multi million pound fund raiser that continues to blow us all away. We watch with a good deal of guilt and discomfort at the children with nothing, poverty stricken, hungry and penniless, children with no academic future or children confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. But then the great British public dig deep into their bank balances or wallets and deliver the goods with classic fund raisers such as bingo evenings or general knowledge pub quizzes. 

For quite a while, celebrities have jumped onto the bandwagon with pleas for more money from the public over and over again. Then rickshaws are seen travelling around country lanes, busy roads and motorways across the country. Invariably the ever-cheerful figure of Country File presenter and former gymnast Matt Baker, has ridden through all the weathers. Then the buckets come out again and vast sums of money are gathered. Random acts of kindness do exist in homes across the whole of Britain but are never really recognised as substantial achievements. 

So Ladies and Gentlemen. It's time to pull on a T-shirt or tracksuit top or bottom because you can't beat a good, old fashioned marathon. Running and fitness are the perfect way of expressing a good heart. Marathons give so much money back to organisations which never really get the monetary help that should be theirs as of right. It's World Kindness Day so let's be good to those who may never know such days. You could change somebody's life or lives permanently. It's worth a thought or two. We've always heard about the milk of human kindness so let's have a pint or two. 

Armistice Day- lest we forget.

 Armistice Day- lest we forget.

In a couple of hours time, London will once again grind to a standstill. It has done so for as long as any of us can remember and will continue to do so because respect and nostalgia must always be valued highly by those who should always remember the gallant deeds of those who put their lives on the line for all of us. It is a day heavy with solemnity, humble reflection and thoughtful reminiscence. It is a day we should never forget and lest we forget. It is a day of sombre poignancy, bowed heads and righteous obligation. 

Today is Armistice Day, a day to signify the passing of those who fought so courageously and yet unavailingly in the many battles that claimed so many soldiers during the First and Second World War. They fell in the muddy trenches, risking life and limb before dying tragically by thousands of bullets, bombs and grenades. Somehow war has always seemed the most futile of exercises, a senseless engagement with perceived enemies, a long held grudge that could never be resolved peacefully. 

But on this day in 1918 at 11.00 am, Britain, the Commonwealth and the rest of the world, will stop for a moment, traffic on roads and streets pausing for just a couple of minutes and just reduced to nothing but silence and contemplation. They will do so and always will. For 106 years now, the forces of peace, reconciliation, gentle agreement and rapprochement have remained in place, undisturbed by the threat of evil, tinpot dictators who just want to glare at the rest of the world with tyrannical hostility. Now though,it is an ugly, sick, bitter and twisted world at times but we should never overlook the importance of loving families and friends.

Thankfully the conflicts of Ypres, Passchendale and Gallipoli are now consigned to dusty and miserably horrendous history. But the deafening blasts of gunfire, explosive bombing campaigns and all the resultant shrapnel that killed so many brave men in action, can never be truly measured and valued. It all seemed to happen so violently and incessantly that none of us can judge the sickening impact of war. The First World War saw so many perish in the prime of their lives that the number of casualties are grim memorials. 

What we do know that men in mufti and khaki spent four years frantically running for safety across mudbaths littered with minefields, then hiding in trenches and garrisons, helmets on their heads, love letters in their pockets, hip flasks by their side for sustenance and nothing but heroism on their minds. They raced across desolate wastelands, hearts trembling and shaking, eyes narrowing with crippling fear and then recognised what they were doing. It was all about sacrifice, bloody minded commitment to the cause and the forlorn hope that one day the guns would stop booming and murdering. 

Then the gunfire would get noisier and then become almost unbearable. Death would be illustrated graphically by countless men in army uniform, desperately clinging onto the precious sanctity of life. They ran for their lives, leaping across their brothers in arms, friends now lying prostrate dead on the ground, bullets rattling furiously across acres of land. There is something truly unimaginable about a war that some of us can barely comprehend, let alone explain. 

We can still see men with filthy faces, blackened by a deadly combination of smoke and spent ammunition. They held onto their rifles tenaciously because they were terrified and petrified. They had no idea where they were going and what they were doing. They knew they were fighting for their country because that was the urgent necessity, something that had to be done. They jumped across trip and barbed wires, bodies crouching and cowering, ducking and dodging death and destruction.

But at the end of it all, the ones who survived were the ones who always believed that divine intervention would be on their side. They knew that girl and boy friends were waiting by the fireplace with a candle flickering nobly on the table, photographs faithfully gazing at treasured members of families. Then they would look at the piano for a small recital of Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Tin Can and Smile, Smile and Smile. These were the rallying calls to regiments and the Royal Fusiliers, the men in the front and in the firing line. 

We remembered the likes of Jona Lewie who pleaded with the Cavalry to just cease the killing, the murder and death. His sweetheart was waiting patiently at home and would always remain hopeful. Then that legendary Beatle Sir Paul McCartney would tug on the trenchcoat, hunkering down in more trenches and then sing romantically about his girlfriend back in their intimate living room.

And so today the nations of the world will become gravely self conscious, almost beside themselves with repentance and remorse for something they may feel they had nothing to do with but feel a debt of lasting gratitude for. Buses, cars, lorries and vans may pull up to their respective traffic lights and hope the red will keep them there for some time. It will be a deeply troubling and harrowing time for many of the centenarians whose faces will crumple with emotion, resigned to the fact that the memories will always be painful.

At 11.00, Big Ben will ring out with its familiar resonance and the veterans will weep with red eyes, recalling again the heart wrenching pain, the aching loss that never goes away, the endless private suffering, recollections that hurt and almost seemed to get lost in time. It's the day that should be celebrated if only because it marked the end of the First World War. But we will mourn and lament, cry and sob if the mood takes us and then remember over and over again. Lest we forget since we should never do that.   

Lord Mayors Show and West Ham

 Lord Mayor's Show and West Ham

This morning the London streets will once again be alive with the vibrancy and traditional colour that normally accompanies the early stages of November. It's the Lord Mayors Show and we all know what that means or perhaps we don't. For those of a claret and blue allegiance and who spend so many excruciatingly painful moments with our football team, it could only spell either complete disaster or glorious redemption. It'll be a case of after the Lord Mayors Show which is a sure sign that this could be a critical day in the recent history of West Ham United. Will it be a dreadful anti-climax or a new manager? We shall see.

The indications are pointing to the exit door for West Ham's Spanish toreador of a manager Julen Lopetegui who is now entering the end of his first four months in charge of the club. When Lopetegui arrived, most West Ham fans must have thought they'd be celebrating with endless street siestas and fiestas, castanets rattling with some conviction, bullfighters swishing their capes outside the Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford and paellas all around. And don't forget the jellied eels, cockles and whelks for tea. 

After that memorable night in the UEFA Conference Final when David Moyes claret and blue of vivacious vintage, lifted their first European trophy for 57 years, it was widely felt that West Ham were on a road to paradise, that the club would romp to a whole succession of FA Cup victories and,quite possibly, an elusive first ever Premier League trophy. But the latter was dismissed as wishful thinking and probably always will be. 

But Moyes left the club at the end of last season having perhaps overachieved at the club and since then the club has been on an alarming downward spiral. We might have known this would happen. At the moment, West Ham face their most important afternoon in the Premier League. A thumping 3-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest's City Ground last week was preceded by a heartwarming and auspicious Premier League victory over Manchester United who would subsequently lose their manager Erik Ten Hag as a result of United's 2-1 defeat at West Ham's London Stadium. 

And yet the gloom and doom naysayers would probably have predicted yet more embarrassment had Moyes stayed at the club. There can never be a happy medium for any football team at any stage of the season regardless of who they are and whatever level they play their football. The balance and chemistry has to be right and for West Ham, the test tubes and bunsen burners still look pretty hazardous. Their football is going through the doldrums, that bleak wilderness where everything looks to be going well but then slumps into a depressing despondency when the team leak goals like a kitchen sieve. One minute up, the next face down on the pavement. 

Last Saturday,  and not for the first time, West Ham's crucial defensive midfielder Edson Alvarez was sent off for a criminally rash tackle and you could almost hear the despairing sighs in the Billy Bonds household. Bonds was a seasoned warrior and crusader for West Ham over 40 years ago but you suspect even he would have been horrified at some of the cringe worthy defensive cock ups and horrendous indiscretions at the heart of West Ham's current defence. What Alvarez thought he was doing at Forest last week defies belief and now the back of West Ham's back four will creak and wobble like a loose fence.

A couple of weeks before that forgettable moment in West Ham's latest Premier League fortunes, things went from bad to worse. For much of the season there have been wide open spaces between both defence and attack which certainly couldn't been have filled with putty. The sense of disconnect and negligible communication between Lopetegui's men, has been horribly noticeable. 

But when Mohammad Kudus, the club's magical and mercurial winger, eyeballed his Tottenham counterpart just over a month ago, it felt that as though the joy had been sucked out of West Ham. Kudus, reacting with all the brash petulance of a four year old at nursery, promptly pushed the Tottenham defender Micky Van Der Ven in the face and then kicked Spurs midfielder Pape Matar Sarr quite violently. What on earth would the late and great Bill Nicholson have thought at such madness and impetuosity?

Kudus now faces a lengthy, and what could prove to be costly, ban from the game and the chances are that if things don't pick up for West Ham, then the club could stare collective daggers at the Ghana international. There is an increasing sense of disenchantment at the East London club since it's all the manager's fault and besides, who else should take the responsibility for the sudden decline at West Ham?

For those with older memories, November has never been the most rewarding time for our claret and blue Saturday afternoon cigarette card heroes. You are now taken back to the mid-1970s when Jimmy Armfield's skilful and disciplined Leeds United side took an early lead at Upton Park on a wintry afternoon at Upton Park and never relinquished it. In hindsight, it was an almost traditional occurrence because a majority of West Ham fans always knew the club were locked in a struggle as soon as the body language betrayed them.

At half time the floodlights would sputter on reluctantly and the North Bank residents at Upton Park would regularly illuminate the day with their familiar light show of Benson and Hedges cigarettes. West Ham would never score in a month of Sundays and if the game had been allowed to drag on uncomfortably until midnight, not a single West Ham player would look like scoring against Leeds. So the Hammers supporters resigned themselves to fate and accepted defeat almost submissively without so much as a whimper. 

This afternoon, West Ham face an Everton side who, although labouring precariously themselves near the bottom of the Premier League, have something about them in situations such as this. Under Sean Dyche, they still look like a bunch of hod carriers at a building site at times.Their football is organised but frail, direct and distinctly unpalatable to the purists with a discerning taste for the game. In fact, that dramatic points deduction last season almost cost Everton their place in the Premier League. There was a shoddiness and dreary predictability about their football last season. But to those who fear the worst at times, West Ham could be in for an ugly and rude awakening for the club if Everton sense blood at the London Stadium.

If the club are looking for any semblance of omens, then previous confrontations with Everton could be of immense comfort to West Ham. The famous FA Cup semi final victory for the East End club against Everton in 1980, will always be remembered for the remarkable Frank Lampard senior diving header winner at Elland Road on a warm and sultry night. And then there was the afternoon when Ronnie Goodlass, a sterling and battle- hardened Everton defender, picked up the ball on the half way line at Upton Park and promptly lobbed the ball over the head of a helpless West Ham keeper Mervyn Day.

So it's make or break for those of a claret and blue predilection. West Ham are now in their almost customary state of grim melancholy and malaise. Recent seasons have thrown a smokescreen over the real West Ham since David Moyes, although never associated with the prettier side of the game, still guided the team to another safe top 10 position in the Premier League. European football is just some distant Hollywood fantasy film from many moons ago but Julen Lopetegui will take his technical area at the London Stadium and look at a sea of blue. Everton were once referred to as the Bank of England side but this will be no home banker for humble, always vulnerable West Ham United. We must hope for the best but, hey it's only a game. 

Donald Trump becomes American president again.

 Donald Trump becomes American president again.

In one of America's greatest cartoon theme parks in the world even Mickey Mouse must have stifled a chuckle and laugh or two. Florida has, it seemed, declared Donald Trump as President of the United States of America yet again. We knew it would happen like this so this was the way we knew this one would pan out. The election of a new American president always seems to bring some kind of emotional baggage with it but this morning the United States of America woke up to another thrilling instalment of Groundhog Day. The good people of America are resilient souls and they know how to roll with the punches. But today is just history repeating itself, a mirror reflection of 2016 and 2020.

This morning Donald Trump will become the 47th president of the United States of America and some of us are wiping our eyes with puzzlement and bemusement in a way we never thought we would. A vast majority of the American population will probably be just beside itself, delighted, ecstatic, relieved more than anything else, gripped with a sense of vindication, knowing full well Trump would get back into the White House again.

Objective eyes could hardly be less indifferent because we could never understand the complex machinations of American politics or any of the global political barminess that continues to follow the behind the scenes manoeuvrings and whispered discussions that get progressively louder before every American election. But today has a feeling of inevitability about it, a sense that of course we've been here before because we have quite undoubtedly. 

The cult of Donald Trump is now so firmly embedded in American culture and every political ideology you can possibly imagine, that this morning will not come as an earth-shuddering surprise. Trump has felt every conspiracy theory in the land for the last four years and still maintains he was unfairly robbed by Joe Biden and that all the forces of evil were hounding him. He was deeply incensed that it took America four years to come to its senses so it's about time justice was seen to be done.

Trump still thinks he deserves to be President of the Free World because his egotistical nature, which is the size of an American condominium, is confirming everything we always knew, anyway. Donald Trump loves himself and is convinced that he's the best thing since sliced bread. Britain doesn't know what to believe but it does like a winner. Trump fits the bill perfectly. He came to his podium in front of thousands of enraptured Trump fans and a forest of phones took their triumphant photos. 

But despite all the attempted assassinations which only grazed the Trump eardrum, the run up to this American election has become almost tediously controversial. Now of course such a statement seems to make no sense whatsoever but you can't help but think nobody has spiked anybody's drink. A sober assessment of the recent goings on across the USA reveals nothing more than two people grabbing each other's throats, attacking each other's faults and deficiencies and remaining steadfast in their hatred of each other. 

Both flagrantly questioned each other's sanity, both have accused each other of suffering from an incurably sociopathic illness and then finally dismissed each other as demented fools. Both, they believe, should be locked up in a lunatic asylum and never allowed to walk the streets of New York or Washington ever again. Trump, for his part, thinks the whole world should bow before him deferentially as one of the mightiest and most outstanding leaders of any country. He really would like be regarded as political royalty with all the trappings of British monarchy.

This morning though it does look very much as if Donald Trump has done it again. Surely the most comical, most incomprehensible, at times seemingly hilarious man ever to become President of the United States is about to put his feet under the table at the Oval Office again. Some will refer to him as one of the craziest, most ill educated and idiotic men ever to walk into the White House with a straight face. Maybe somebody will pinch us and tell us that we were dreaming this but Hollywood has our full permission to suspend our belief for the next four years.

Now across the whole of America, the whole of the Democratic party are now crying into their beer yet again. Kamala Harris, the woman most of her ardent supporters hoped would become the first female President, is now licking the bleeding wounds of almost certain defeat. For Harris read Hilary Clinton who did everything to woo the hearts of the American public but then realised she was up against impossible odds.

Clinton lost her private battle quite convincingly and a man called Donald Trump came blustering into our vision, gesturing expansively with both sets of hands, raising his voice over and over again, grandstanding ostentatiously, showboating almost constantly and then doing a passable impersonation of Muhammad Ali. He was the greatest, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. At times Trump looked like a clubber at Studio 54, boogying and swaying from side to side and pretending to be a distant cousin of John Travolta.

At times it's almost felt as if time has been frozen, time revisiting another day from the past. Trump is genuinely conceited, narcissistic, a man now weighed down with a potty sense of entitlement and living in a world of a permanent illusion and delusion. Here we have a man with a frightening lack of knowledge about the job he's now been elected to carry out burdened by bonkers bombast and a self image so wildly distorted that even his closest advisers will be telling Trump to just tone things down. It's hard to know what to think of a man who never needs any introduction because most of us can hear him coming down the road from another suburb or village. So let's take this one from here.

Now we discover that it's official. Donald Trump is the 47th President of the United States, which for better or worse, means that to the outside world, it's time to board the roller coaster. The ride will be a swooping, sometimes unnerving, often terrifying experience where some of us may feel inclined to go weak at the knees, feeling sick with anxiety and resolving never to go anywhere near a fairground again. Trump, as has now been well documented, is never short of a forthright opinion and his comments are so cutting and acerbic that somewhere in the world, foreign prime ministers or presidents will be trembling with fear and trepidation. 

Then there is the Trump who goes off on some insane rambling rant about something completely inconsequential such as the consumption of cats and dogs, eating animals and doing so completely out of context with anything in particular. Then Trump goes off into his own private world of late night comedy where he takes enormous pleasure in verbally attacking any institution or religion, class and humanity in general. He'll roast you alive if you're in the wrong place or wrong time but you must never cross him because he'll just rip you to shreds if you criticise the colour of his shirt or the now infamous orange hair.

The blunt reality of course is that Trump has now acquired the kind of notoriety and shameful publicity that none of us can understand. Trump is a convicted criminal and felon, a figure of fun in the eyes of some, a sexual pest to the others, a hardened misogynist while claiming at the same time that he adores women. Earlier on Trump was addressing the kind of court charges that made the blood run cold. But it was a set up, totally unacceptable and unfair, illegal in the extreme. In fact, how dare they hurl savage indictments against this honest, respectable citizen of the world who just wants to be the Leader of the Free World? It was all a massive fix.

During the 1970s, this sharp business mind and entrepreneurial genius, once appeared on a late night chat show on prime time American TV. Now in the general scheme of things, this was somehow regarded as normal since Trump was a successful, up and coming businessman who was about to make his first millions. But then we had to hold in our laughter when Trump dressed up as a chicken on a farm, promptly engaging in the kind of bizarre tomfoolery you're ever likely to see on any TV channel.

The fact is Trump could end up conducting vital foreign policy business from behind a draughty prison cell burdened by the knowledge that he has committed fraud and any number of financial improprieties. Here we have the President of the United States still at the mercy of those who still think of him as a master of bumbling banalities, utterances of tosh and trivia that barely seem believable.

 His campaign speeches resembled nothing more than inane comments about Kamala Harris mental stability. He continues to sound like a man who never sticks to the script and then uses the media as an obvious scapegoat for everything that is wrong with American society. Fox and CNN must dread his some of his more irrational outbursts and the national newspapers must hide behind the sofa every Trump opens his often vitriolic mouth. 

But then Donald Trump is an angelic paragon of virtue, flawlessly perfect and there are no flies on him. Trump talks coherent, perfectly understandable sense and his understanding of the world has been enhanced by everything he sees around him. The global wars of Gaza, Israel, Ukraine and Russia should be uppermost in his mind and undoubtedly his concern is a genuine one. But the judgmental and critical nature of the man has to be both disturbing and distressing. At times, Trump may have to bite his lip when the going gets really tough because diplomacy is something that just escapes him.

Today the world has been shaken to its core again. The Trump fanatical fans will see today's election victory as a triumph for good, old-fashioned pragmatic politics. Trump speaks from the hip and never wastes his words. There is an honesty is the best policy of course about him. The next four years should prove to be a fascinating study of human behaviour, the rigorous examination of a man you simply can't make your mind up about. The permanent critics would love to see him fail miserably, a man who is still an embarrassment to the human race. But we do mellow with age and although Trump is rapidly approaching 80, we can only hope that things will get considerably better. Tony Blair certainly thought as much.

Quincy Jones dies.

 Quincy Jones dies at 91.

One of America's most influential and dynamic of music icons Quincy Jones has died at 91 peacefully and quietly. Jones was one of the greatest, most charismatic, productive, prolific, imaginative, groundbreaking and pioneering figures in the history of American music. Jones was a driven, determined and inspirational character who proved to be one of music's most important characters, an irresistible force, a permanently optimistic and galvanic record producer, music arranger, conductor, writer, instrumentalist and a man for all seasons. 

For much of his life Jones always seem to be around celebrities, showbusiness legends, a cheerful, happy go lucky man who devoted himself exclusively to the lives of the remarkable Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and countless singers and songwriters who knew all about Jones aura, his formidable presence and electrifying personality. To be in the company of Quincy Jones was to be in the earshot of musical geniuses, men and women who simply wanted to be surrounded by the Jones entourage. 

Jones was always the driving force and catalyst behind Mike Myers and Jones loved to be behind the movie camera as much as he felt more than comfortable around Jackson and Sinatra. Jones particularly enjoyed his relationship with the privately troubled Michael Jackson, a man who struggled with his psychological demons for ages but felt comforted to be among Quincy Jones. Jones worked on the film the Wiz with Jackson and there was a real rapport between the two. 

And then there was Michael Jackson's iconic and record-breaking album Thriller, a piece of vinyl so transformative in the history of popular music that Jones must have suspected that something very special had taken place. Thriller spawned so many singles and hits that to those observers who could only look on with astonishment, it must have seemed a life-changing moment for both men.

Tracks such as Beat It, the eponymous Thriller and the superbly funky I Wanna Be Startin, Billy Jean, the more reflective Human Nature and the Paul McCartney Jackson collaboration The Girl is Mine were always on our chanting lips. There was also that magnificent album Off the Wall where Jones first ignited the flames of a music revolution. Jones became the best of friends with Jackson but later discovered, much to his eternal regret, that Jackson was suffering behind the scenes and Jackson's death must have come as an enormous shock to Jones. 

Jones also revelled in the crooning superstardom of the unforgettable Frank Sinatra. Sinatra and Jones were inseparable with Luck Be A Lady and the Rat Pack narrative the perfect connection. Jones adored his life in a recording studio and just relished his friendships and enduring relationships with the stars, the Bossonova, the soul groove and the whole organic process of creating, shaping, inventing and improvising. 

There was a time when Jones must have felt a strong kinship with fellow songwriters such as the also sadly missed Burt Bacharach. Both of course were demanding perfectionists but shared a common interest in the sounds, layers and textures in between the great songs. Jones seemed to feel the music, experience its simple delights, smile at its simplicities and then turn into an artistic powerhouse. He drummed his fingers on the complex desks of record companies because music was Jones and vice versa. 

In recent years Jones went into semi-retirement but never tired of rising to the occasion at grand and lavish award ceremonies in Hollywood. He accepted lifetime achievement awards, acknowledged his leading role behind familiar musical compositions but was always modest in the extreme.  I Na Colida  and Stuff Like That charted in both the US and Britain but never really made the desired impact as such. Both were superlative disco soul floor fillers in the world's nightclubs and bars and did much to keep the Jones brand image in the public domain. 

But Quincy Jones epitomised the American music scene because he touched hearts as one of its most innovative forces. Jones was one of the great conductors, presiding over the engine room of music's vital dynamics with subtle rhythms and infectiously pulsing beats. Yesterday the world of music lost its truth, its vital essence, its raison d'etre, the man who waved a magic wand and never failed to be lively, entertaining and wholly dedicated to the people who mattered.   

Non League Tamworth knock out League One Huddersfield Town

 Non- League Tamworth knock out League One Huddersfield Town.

The FA Cup normally reserves its giant-killing for the third round of the competition but we'll make allowances for early contenders. Normally, the Football League pyramid sits quietly in the background at the first round stage of the competition but we were now both stunned and shocked by the magical and unexpected. Last night, National League pace setters Tamworth, gently tucked away in Non League hinterland and unobtrusively minding their own business, sent League One Huddersfield Town toppling out of the FA Cup in this year's first cries of its infancy.

Ordinarily, most of us wouldn't have reacted with gobsmacked amazement at this startling turn of events but Huddersfield Town were the visitors to Tamworth's typically tight, neat, cramped and claustrophobic Lamb Ground in the middle of Staffordshire. But this one was a mighty conquest. Huddersfield, admittedly 100 years ago now, were old First Division League Champions under the legendary Herbert Chapman before Chapman came down to London and transformed Arsenal into a world-class League Championship side. 

So Huddersfield have bejewelled history and have also lifted their FA Cup and that was back in 1922. So much for those Football League superiors with all their flashy affectations, airs and graces and serial achievements. Huddersfield briefly ventured into the Premier League in recent times but that was just a fleeting flirtation and now they're back in the shark-infested waters of League One, fraternising with the less than glamorous, good- time boys who once mixed with the best and finest. 

Last night all of the FA Cup stereotypes were in full evidence. There were the matchbox terraces, shaking with breathless anticipation, little children dangling their legs over advertising hoardings, the seething, heaving masses and the hardcore, dedicated Tamworth supporters who have braved wind, rain and snow through innumerable seasons over the years. There were the signs for local steam cleaners, metal car showroom signs and clearly prominent sponsors from Staffordshire's most well- respected factories and companies.

This was Tamworth's greatest night in the TV limelight. Nobody would have ever heard about anything that in any way related to the club apart from perhaps that celebrated story of escaping pigs many years ago. Now though the fantasy story came joyfully to fruition. Yesterday evening, the tightly knit communities and amiable clubhouses of the National League were full to the gunnels with chairman, managers and fans munching away gleefully at well made, nutritious sandwiches, plenty of harmless and inoffensive booze, crisps and savouries and that pervasive air of rock and roll celebration. 

The obscenely wealthy environment of the Premier League seemed a world away and Tamworth amply demonstrated their non League prowess with their more than competent capabilities. It would have been easy to dismiss Tamworth as lightweights, little known minnows, purring pussycats who were just there for a severe battering at the hands of their once illustrious opponents. Instead, the National League got their come- uppance over League One, a classic example of the so called peasants and proletariats coming unstuck against the posh, swanky, bourgeois elite who play their football on an altogether different planet. 

Recently, my son and I had the enormous pleasure and honour of watching Prescot Cables, a cosy outpost in the shadow of Merseyside, a land of solar- panelled rooftops, crisp, leaveless, autumnal trees without any summer foliage and men in yellow shirts who could have been mistaken for Wolves. It was football of earthy authenticity and warm sentimentality, where the local lads play for simple, unalloyed joy and little in the way of national recognition. Prescot Cables were beaten 2-0 by Northumberland's Morpeth Town. There was no end of the world sense of apocalyptic disaster for the Cables because nobody had been hurt, there were no film stars or celebrities, no prima donna, pampered superstars. It was grassroots football at its most intoxicating. You were drunk with happiness. It was the FA Cup working its magic. 

At Lamb Ground last night, there were tiny cafes and busy refreshment kiosks doing a roaring trade selling warming cups of teas and coffees. There were shining palaces of commerce glowing in the evening light and the floodlights towering over the ground were truly uplifting. These were not the massive chandeliers of the Premier League, more the lovely studio apartment lights of the National League with a slender pole at each end of the ground.

But Lamb Ground is a glorious or, perhaps not so glorious throwback. Lamb Ground has a plastic,artificial pitch known in the modern vernacular as 4G. You were painfully transported back to the 1980s when artificial football pitches were all the rage. Queens Park Rangers became the trailblazers for plastic pitches at a time when the late and much loved Terry Venables was still writing detective novels and crooning songs with the Joe Loss Orchestra. Venables also happened to be instrumental in one of the most memorable moments for the England national side when he almost guided the country to Euro 96 winning glory but then saw Germany in the headlights and bit his lip. It was semi final heartache at its most excruciating.

Then there was Luton Town who also got into the act of this new fangled business of plastic pitches. To this day there simply seemed a nonsensical silliness about these synthetic grounds where the bounce of a ball reduced the game to the status of mockery and satire. Then there were the burn marks on the body where the friction caused by the scraping of players well honed legs and arms, just beggared belief. 

And yet the shiny green 4G pitch was somehow acceptable because this was the FA Cup and anything goes. There were no WAG girlfriends in the crowd, no VAR, no controversial decisions although the winning goal itself might have been chalked off. This was plain, unpretentious Tamworth, old school, old fashioned, illuminated by the splendidly heroic figure of one Tom Tonks. Tom Tonks may be an unknown journeyman who just loves the electrifying atmosphere of the FA Cup but Tonks revelled last night in one of the most magnificent long throw routines that saw off Huddersfield when none saw it coming.

The FA Cup was still weaving webs of withcraft and the supernatural even a night after Halloween. There were no orange pumpkins or broomsticks at the Lamb Ground but even the most wide eyed optimists were predicting a night to remember. How dare Tamworth assume ideas above their station. They should have been preparing for another National League fixture rather than planning for the world's most famous competition. But football of course can be the most richly fertile of level playing grounds. We all knew that. Football has an innate capacity for turning the world upside down.

As for the football itself in this often free- flowing and rewarding FA Cup first round match between Tamworth and Huddersfield there was something very raw and natural about the game. It reminded you of one of those old Pathe newsreels where the rattles and rosettes can be both heard and seen the length of the local shopping centre. This was never football designed for the purists and connoisseurs of the one touch, instinctive variety seen in matches involving Brazil, Germany, France and Spain. But it was good to watch and essentially pleasant on the eye.

Tamworth had Jasbir Singh in goal who was the very epitome of bravery, flinty courage and absolutely bravura heroism, flinging himself at everything, being hit in every part of his battered body and sacrificing life and limb. Hadyn Hollis and the wonderfully named Jordan Cullaine Liburd were towers of security and reliable as front doors at full back and centre back, locking up the home defence rather like yeomen at the Tower of London. Luke Fairlamb was a busybody, ubiquitous, here and there midfielder, various fingers in different pies, scurrying and scampering to all points of the compass, helping out when necessary and urgent. Ben Milnes, Tom McGlinchey were always intelligent and perceptive while Rico Browne just stood tall and assured for Tamworth. David Creaney, up front, buzzed, darted and probed for the ball rather like a kid hunting for a lost ball that had landed in a neighbour's garden.

For Huddersfield of course this was a deeply uncomfortable, distressing and humiliating defeat which wasn't supposed to happen but did. Their small knot of away travelling fans could hardly look through bemused eyes. Tom Lees, Nigel Lonwijk, Matty Pearson, David Kasunu, the hapless Serbian Bojan Radulovic were never on the same wavelength and frequently moved the ball about between themselves like a wartime grenade, never quite knowing where they were going with the ball. When they did get anywhere the Tamworth goal, it looked as if too many cooks had spoilt the broth. 

It was all very well intentioned and honourable but Huddersfield were going nowhere. The up and under, long ball nature of football at this level always ruined the spectacle at times. But Tamworth did try to play it the right way and for that they have to be commended for their enterprise and willingness to keep the ball on the deck. At times it was all very higgledy piggledy, dreary and desultory occasionally descending into the typically awful. But this was the FA Cup and, besides, who cared?

The winning goal itself was both accidental and ever so reckless and careless. Tom Tonks, Tamworth's man of the night, wound himself up for one of those long throw-cum missiles for which he is now renowned across the whole of Britain. Rubbing the ball on his chest and staring menacingly into the eyes of petrified Huddersfield defenders eyes, Tonks held the ball high into the air and launched a miraculous throw into the away side's trembling penalty area. 

Chris Maxwell, the Terriers goalkeeper, leapt up for the ball confidently but then broke every goalkeeper's time- honoured rule. Maxwell fumbled and bumbled, dropping the ball clumsily and getting punished for his negligence. The ball fell into no man's land and,after an unseemly scramble, prodded the ball into his own net with his back foot. It was not the way Maxwell had imagined the night would turn out for him but his Huddersfield team had now unravelled. 

You remembered the Huddersfield of yesteryear, the immortal and exceptional King Denis Law who began his career at the old Leeds Road ground but then discovered Manchester United and never looked back. Then there was the lovable socialite and party animal who went by the name of Frank Worthington who started his career at Huddersfield. Worthington once scored one of the most spectacular goals ever seen while at Bolton. Trapping the ball deftly with his back to goal, Worthington juggled the ball with both feet, back- flicked the ball over his shoulder impudently and drove the ball into an Ipswich Town net, a goal to treasure in an unforgettable 3-3 draw.

But last night Huddersfield were back in less enlightened company. It felt as if they were almost completely overawed by these humble surroundings. Your mind drifted charmingly back to Herbert Chapman, the Huddersfield manager who revolutionised the club overnight. The formal waistcoat, bowler hat and cigarette characterised the man but even Chapman would have been at a loss at the modern incarnation of Huddersfield Town. It was not a pretty sight.