St James' Park echoed to the chant of 'Allardyce for England' during Saturday lunchtime's game against Liverpool.

That might sound like a ringing endorsement from one of the most passionate - and long suffering - set of supporters in the country.

But accompanied by 'You should have stayed at the Reebok' and 'You don't know what you are doing', it becomes more of a plea from the terraces to rid the club of the manager.

Can it really be just 14 months since Big Sam was being touted as the finest English manager of his generation.

Where did it all go wrong?

I am not sure it did really 'go wrong' as it was never really right in the first place.

Allardyce did a sensational job with a Bolton side that punched well above its weight for a number of seasons. And his influence on the group of players he assembled looked like it had been the major factor in Wanderers success when Little Sam took over and failed.

But new Bolton boss Gary Megson showed on Saturday that with a bit of organisation and the massaging of egos the Bolton players can still do the business.

Perhaps Allardyce was not the special one after all.

Speaking of which, Jose Mourinho has emerged as the fans' choice to take over the national side.

It would be an interesting appointment because the Football Association have never liked a manager who speaks his mind.

Why else would Brian Clough have been overlooked for the job for so many years.

It is unlikely that Mourinho would be the 'yes man' the bosses of our national game crave.

But that has to be part of his attraction - and he certainly knows how to handle players who earn more money in a week than most of us do in a year.

There is one thing I don't fully understand about the sudden surge of popularity for Mourinho. When he was at Stamford Bridge, he was the man all non-Chelsea fans loved to hate, taking over the mantle of Sir Alex Ferguson.

And it was the style of football his side's played that ultimately cost him his job with owner Roman Abramovich.

The key was that they won and England fans would surely be willing to put up with a series of 1-0 wins from a man who knows what he is doing than suffer further qualifying campaign failures.

I came over all nostalgic when the final whistle eventually blew at Wembley last Wednesday to finally confirm England's failure to qualify for the 2008 European Championships.

While clearly a massive disappointment, it reminded me of my childhood.

Born three years before the 1966 World Cup win, I might have expected to have witnessed a golden age for the national team.

Instead there were the failures to qualify for the World Cup finals of 1974 in Germany and 1978 in Argentina.

Only at the very end of my teenage years did I see England in the World Cup and that was a dismal failure in Spain in 1982.

Still, at least it didn't make me bitter.