Carlos Tevez is sure to get a rapturous response at the Boleyn Ground on Saturday when the Argentina striker returns with Manchester United.
It will be Tevez's first visit since leaving for Old Trafford in the summer, having played a key role alongside others in West Ham United securing top-flight status - not least with his goal in the 1-0 away victory against his future employers on the final day of the campaign. As such, in much the way Rio Ferdinand has always been greeted positively, he will undoubtedly get a rousing reception.
"I am sure the West Ham fans are going to show their appreciation," said Alan Curbishley, recognising that Tevez "ignited something within them" in a survival fight that brought the best out of the whole squad - for example Robert Green's match-winning display at Arsenal and Bobby Zamora's outstanding winner against Everton. He added: "If the fans can find someone like that, they will support them. I think the biggest attribute he had was that he kept the crowd [in the run-in]. They were still there and he kept them.
"The one game that stands out was the Bolton game which if we hadn't won, would have made the Old Trafford one irrelevant. What stands out is how he tried to get fit that week. He did everything he could to start that game. We trained on the Tuesday and that afternoon he phoned up the physio and said my ankle's sore. He came back in here and had treatment - and on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday he went in the oxygen chamber. He was desperate to play."
Having done all he could to feature, Tevez showed his appreciation by scoring from a free-kick and then running to the bench to celebrate with the medical staff. Of that 3-1 win in the last home game of the season, Curbishley added: "He was desperate to play, desperate to do well and desperate to keep us up. That was the game which we had to win to take us into the last week."
The rest as they say is history and Curbishley will particularly relish a few quiet words with his former charge again. "No one really got a chance to say goodbye to him really. We played on the Sunday at Old Trafford and he turned up here early on Monday morning to pick his stuff up. I was one of the only people here - he had a smile on his face.
"I had a little chat with him. He was delighted. He felt as if he had achieved something for us. I had a little bit of an affinity with him. My brother's married to an Argentinian girl and whenever I had five minutes with him we talked about Buenos Aires and Argentina."
Although Tevez's early days in east London were problematic because of injury, Curbishley said he saw nothing but hunger from the 23-year-old forward. "A month into my arriving at the club, he just decided that he didn't want to leave, he wanted to tough it out. He was happy at the club and he was going to do his best to help keep us up and that's how it turned out.
"What endeared him to the fans was that in actual terms of mileage he didn't do that much but it was concentrated in a certain area that gives people a lift - in the final third. For me, his biggest asset was he kept the crowd up. The way the fans were at the time was that if he was on the team-sheet we had a chance."
The manager added that Tevez was a popular figure among players, especially for the way he attacked training and life at Chadwell Heath. "He was trying all the time in the canteen to mix and everything." As such and because of his rapid rise in Argentina, Curbishley knew Tevez would have no difficulties in settling in at Old Trafford, where the lure of Champions League football proved too much to resist.
"He is playing on a stage which he has had no problem in handling. That crowd and that arena, because that is what he has been brought up in." His home may be Old Trafford now rather than the Boleyn Ground, but when Tevez steps out on to the pitch again on Saturday afternoon, it will be like he has never been away. At least until kick-off that is.