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Once upon a time, a wise man said "Have that you cunts!" - before doing a merry, euphoric jig.

Whether that wise man was me or not isn't relevant here, but it's a good summation of the scenes at Upton Park last night following Zavon Hines late, late winner against Aston Villa.

Normally this fixture would be three points on your pools coupon rather than to either team, the only notable differences to this outcome in recent memory being last season's unfortunate 1-0 loss to a deflected Milner cross, and the 2005/06 season's comprehensive 4-0 demolition courtesy of a Marlon Harewood hat-trick and some Benayoun trickery (how long ago does that seem?). The final game of the 2007/08 season is notable, despite it being a draw, for it being the last time we scored direct from a free kick. Probably.

Actually, that's not true, I just remembered Tristan's effort at Stoke last season, but thought I'd waste more keystrokes typing this than deleting the above waffle. That's just how I roll.

So, to last night's game. Nobody can say it wasn't a deserved win. Ok, obviously somebody could say that, but they really wouldn't be worthy of your time, and should be filed away under 'idiot'.

If Villa had won, they would have gone fourth in the table, our game in hand would have gone, we'd be firmly entrenched in the bottom three, the vultures would be circling, the four horseman of the apocalypse would appear, John and Edward would win X-Factor and basically the universe would end. Well, if the papers are to believed anyway. Of course, the upshot of this would be the demise of Ashley Young. More on him later.

The team saw three changes from our previous match at Sunderland, with the expected return of Parker in place of the suspended anyway Kovac, the semi-expected replacement of Spector with the more attacking minded Faubert, and the unexpected replacement of Tomkins with Da Costa. As Tomkins was on the bench this must have been a form related switch as the young man has looked a little shaky of late.

West Ham started the game with furious pace and shoulda, coulda, woulda been one up in the first couple of minutes after great work by the impressive Collison found Noble in space in the box, but he couldn't control the ball and the chance was gone. Moments later the pair teamed up again as Collison fed Noble, but his shot was well covered by Brad Friedel.

And then the West Ham injury curse struck again. Racing on to a through ball, Illunga pulled up sharply feeling his hamstring, got it strapped up and then came off again almost immediately. Spector's relegation to the bench lasted a whole eight minutes.

Sensing the uncertainty as our defence reshuffled, Villa pressed forward and drew what can only be classed as a world class save from Rob Green. Petrov unleashed a fierce drive from outside the box, which green looked to have covered until it took a deflection - with his momentum taking him in the wrong direction, Green threw himself backwards and punched the ball clear. Replays only make it look better, and under the watchful glare of Cappello, it can only do his chances of being number 1 in South Africa a world of good.

A further fine save from Agbonlohonolohor came before the injury curse struck again, again. Racing on to a through ball, Cole pulled up sharply, feeling his hamstring (I'm seeing a pattern emerging here). He immediately signalled to the bench that his game was over. One of those four horseman appeared on the touchline, but it actually turned out to be Hines coming on and not a jockey.

As the first half drew to a close and people stood resigned to facing their "We're only one Carlton Cole injury away from a disaster" comments coming true, something happened to lift the mood - we only went and got a penalty. A clever ball from the thoroughly excellent Franco (you know that sh*t bloke that was a real barrel scraping signing, get out my club Zola you Chelsea dwarf c*nt, boooooooo!) found Hines marauding into the box, where a combination of Beye's arm, Beye's leg and gravitational pull sent him to the floor and the hopeless (other than this incident) Bennett pointed to the spot and booked Beye when a red card seemed the more obvious choice. "Off, off, off" chanted those with short memories. "On, on, on" chanted those who remembered how we played against 10 men the previous weekend. With no Diamanti on the pitch, penalty duties reverted to Mark Noble, who cast aside the fact he'd missed his last two and placed the ball high into the net, sending the keeper the other way.

Happy days were here again.

Collins and Young got booked after the whistle for protesting too much. Which brings me on to Ashley Young (I told you there would be more on him). Since Ronaldo departed these shores for Madrid (yet still seems to be on the telly as much as when he was here - seriously, who cares?) the position of "Head Diver and Cheater (English Premier League)" has been available. Young Ashley (oooh, that's clever) clearly heard about this, probably through twitter or something that these footballers make a twat of themselves on these days, and decided to put forth his application last night. Now, I will dish out grief to opposition players for trivial things such as, say, playing for the opposition, having a ridiculous hair cut, sounding like you come from Greece when you in fact come from South Africa and the like, but there is always some special abuse, kept securely away under lock and key, reserved for divers and cheats. And El-Hadj Diouf. Such is the potency of this abuse, that there is a select list of players for whom it can be used on. Well, Ashley "I'm black, but I'm not that black" Young is now a lifetime member of this list. If I see him in the street when he's old, he will still get the treatment. He was a truly disgusting, despicable display of throwing himself on the floor any time a player was even in the same post code of him, before moaning and whinging at the referee about every single decision. In effect, a black Robbie Keane (the other lifetime member).

In fact, such was my vitriol and rage at his 'performance' that several times in the second half, I almost forgot to boo Reo-Coker a couple of times as I was still to busy berating Young. Fortunately those around me pointed out my lapses and I rectified them immediately.

I'd like to take this moment to thank Martin O'Neill for bringing Reo-Coker on at half time - surely the biggest sign ever that he hates him? "Out you go Nigel, you've had 45 minutes of grief from that little section where you warm up, now you're getting it from everyone. Enjoy!" I did think he was going to score right at the end, he did that one bursting run we saw that one time (you know the one) before someone tackled him (I'd closed my eyes and turned away by this point, fearing the near inevitability of what was to come).

So, Villa had clearly got a coating at half time, while we'd clearly got cocoa. Once again we were slow out of the blocks in the second half and a Villa corner turned into a Villa penalty. Now I'll admit to not seeing what happened at the time as it looked like a routine clearance to me, but there was Steve Bennett pointing at the spot and motioning for climbing (Having since seen the incident on the TV, I fail to see how a penalty can be given for "Jumping higher than the other bloke"). I came to the conclusion that it was clearly a bad decision as a)our players were livid, b) the Villa players were looking at each other as if to say "eh, what's he given that for?" and c) it was against us so was clearly wrong. However, whichever omnipotent being had taken his eye off the ball and allowed this event to happen soon made amends by making Ashley Young take an appalling penalty that literally gave Green enough time to run up to where Cappello was sitting, say "Watch this boss, I'm going to save it", before running back down to the pitch, signing autographs on the way, and stop the ball. Oh how we laughed. Mainly at Ashley Young.

Couple of minutes later he rammed it all back down our throats though. Was it a cross, was it a shot? Only the player himself, and smarties, will have the answer, but from where I was it looked like a wonderful shot, from fully 25 yards out, by the touchline and curled magnificently into the top corner. His celebration was one of a player that meant that shot too. The cunt.

The game turned into quite an open affair after that, with both teams having periods of sustained pressure, Villa's came first, as you would expect with them having just scored, before we worked our way back in and opened Villa up more and more. We also bore witness to some more truly atrocious refereeing from the hapless Bennett where Hines was about to rinse Dunne for pace, so Dunne basically hauled him to the ground whilst pulling Hines' shirt over his head. The result? A Villa free-kick of course.

Hines, who was proving himself a real handful, and will surely get a run in the team if Cole is out, had a few more chances, but the more we pressed, the more my Daily Mail style "WORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!!!" mind kept convincing me we would concede.

But no, we were not to be denied - even if we were eventually reduced to playing against 10 men after Beye got his marching orders for a second yellow after trying to cut Collison in half (and prompted a furious reaction from O'Neill for walking off slower than is even humanly possible - honestly, Steven Hawking would have got out of his chair and walked quicker) - as the fourth of the four added minutes came up, the imperious Parker played a ball into Hines in the box, and he somehow squeezed a shot between Friedel and three Villa defenders.

Cue pandemonium amongst those still in the ground. Strangers hugged, friendships were reaffirmed, shins were skinned on the seats in front. It was beautiful

Player Ratings (using the attractive woman scale)

Green - Kelly Brook - couple of truly outstanding bits
Illunga - Sabrina Salerno - wasn't around long
Da Costa - Yvonne Strahkovski - didn't know too much about them, but very much liked what I saw
Upson - Evangeline Lilly - Quiet, but still good
Faubert - Carla Bruni - A frenchie that gets better every time I see them
Noble - Davina McCall - Been around for ages and I like more than I really should
Parker - Charlotte Jackson - All action and great with it
Collison - Katherine Jenkins - an outstanding taff
Behrami - Georgie Thompson - Impressive, most impressive
Franco - Salma Hayek - Best thing to come out of Mexico since Corrona
Cole - Sarah Chalke - looking forward to them coming back

Subs

Spector - Liv Tyler - a hard working yank
Hines - Megan Fox - The best, simply the best, and would let them ruin me
Jiminez - Pixie Lott - not enough time to impress, but don't see what all the fuss is about