The Beatles were No: 1 with ‘She Loves You’ and Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister when West Ham United last won at Anfield.

On that day in 1963, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst scored the goals in a 2-1 win, and it might be a flight of fancy on my part but I am sure on some old black-and-white newsreels I once saw, that was also the game when a loose Bobby Moore cross-field pass knocked the referee’s top hat off and Luddites rioted in the streets post-match.

It gets worse though: in those defeats the Hammers have scored a paltry 16 goals and astonishingly, in a club total of 56 visits to Anfield, the Hammers have won just three times.

That is not just a bad record - this might possibly be the worst sequence of results in world football. Talk of a hoodoo and a curse may seem whimsical but what other reason can there be? Where is the famous fluke result, bad refereeing decision or Liverpool off-day that a reasonable statistic demands?

Quite what it is about the Liver bird on the badge that so torments the forlorn Hammer is difficult to guess, but the odd thing about losing to Liverpool isn’t just the result - that’s a foregone conclusion and a bookmaker’s dream! - but the fact that the Hammers continually fail to look as if they even have a chance.

It has not been the case that the Hammers have met Liverpool on the same footing often but, even when they have, the Reds have a way of stopping the Irons from doing what they have previously been achieving successfully, turning the team into little more than a string of claret and blue washing on a line, blowing about on the winds of caprice.

Things don’t get any easier for Sam Allardyce as it is Manchester United up next in a televised match at Upton Park and Louis van Gaal will be hoping his team can continue their current good form.

The transfer window didn’t bring any fresh breath for Big Sam to utilise, but the Hammers have looked a cohesive unit for most of the season and there’s no reason to think they can’t return to their form of earlier.

It is likely to be a difficult afternoon for a Hammers squad that have only won one of their last six Premier League matches, but the team usually raise their game against the Old Trafford side and at least - unlike when they play Liverpool - the result isn’t a foregone conclusion.