Getting Everton....

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You "get" Everton the same way you "get" the culture of a country.
You have to live there for a while and it's not one thing, it's thousands of them all added together and jumbled up and interacting with each other.
Over time you gain a feeling of what it means as a whole without being able to put your finger on it or sum it up in a sentence.
It's a chaos really, tens of thousands of diverse, very different people thrown together by some shared geography or passion.
However, out of this randomness, common character traits or behaviours emerge you can instantly recognise, due to the interactions and inter-dependence you all share.

Now the above is, indisputably, pretentious twaddle, but it's kind of the way it feels to me.
 

Honesty - don't patronise the fans
Ambition - even if we aren't ready to challenge make sure that we're working towards it.
Talent - no dross please but if you aren't the best player then at the very least...
Hard work - every player puts a shift in because if you don't then you can be sure that we'll tell you that you aren't.
Always aim to win.
Never admit defeat (look at Niasse on Sunday - that's why he's turning into a cult figure).
Never allow the opposition to bully you.

There's loads more like but be arsed spelling it all out.
This.
 

In fairness to him, although it didn't work out for him in the end, Martinez at least tried to understand the club. He went out of his way to acknowledge the clubs history and appreciated where we were in the past. It felt that with Koeman, he saw us as inferior and lucky to have him.

That's the difference. It didn't turn out for either of them, but one tried to become part of the club while he was here, whilst the other just used us to try and get to where he wanted to be. As a player comparison, think of Cahill and Lukaku.

Was going to say the same thing. Martinez did get it, he just couldn't make that firsts season magic last. It's little things, but I remember when he went to visit the OAP in a blue Santa hat the first xmas and how much he enjoyed that. Never in a million would RK lower himself to actually interact with the fans. Moyes endeared himself with the People's Club comment at his presser. And for his faults he demanded his teams play with an intensity that at least satisfied a part of the Evertonian psyche even if we weren't winning things.
 

um.... points

nobody tried harder to be seen to "get" us than Martinez

when he led us to our record points total, he "got" us

and when everyone figured out his tactics, and he had no response, and we had two indifferent seasons distinguished only by conceding comically inept last-minute goals, then he no longer "got" us

no matter how much he knew his history, it was not enough to make our hearts go woahrrr

if managers/players perform well then we think they "get" us, and if they don't, then we don't. end of.
 
Was going to say the same thing. Martinez did get it, he just couldn't make that firsts season magic last. It's little things, but I remember when he went to visit the OAP in a blue Santa hat the first xmas and how much he enjoyed that. Never in a million would RK lower himself to actually interact with the fans. Moyes endeared himself with the People's Club comment at his presser. And for his faults he demanded his teams play with an intensity that at least satisfied a part of the Evertonian psyche even if we weren't winning things.
Martinez 'got' nothing, he deliberately ingratiated himself with the fans to buy him time. He came across to me like a sales rep. saying all the right things in a calculated way . People who come to the club and claim to be one of us from day one are just extracting the urine, it takes time for an outsider to fall in love with the club . I'm sure there was a section in his business degree titled 'Getting the Punters Onside' and he followed it. Haven't heard him say anything vaguely complementary about us since he left.
To be fair a lot of managers use this cynical ploy on joining a club, I'm sure O'Neill has been a lifelong boyhood fan of every club he's ever managed.
 

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