Mad this cyberworld thing, I still don’t really tell my mates that I spend a lot of time discussing Everton and various savoury foods with mostly complete and utter strangers, some of whom are probably grooming me.
I used the prefix mostly as I’ve met with a few of the hearty souls on here too, which has not been a disappointment except when someone shouted my bad username across a pub to gain my attention.
Point in order, post game rage and inbetween match moods. Absolute [Poor language removed] isn’t it. I was lucky as I started really consciously following Everton in 1984, I’d fell out with my Grandad who’s a devout Liverpool fan and despite the gifts of a knitted Kenny Dalglish doll and some of my best mates bagsying Rush et al in three and in, something just didn’t fit right with me. I liked the team in blue, no persuasive uncle, neighbour or epiphany – just I liked them. The subsequent Milk Cup Final and FA Cup win enforced it really – at the ripe old age of 7 I felt good about rebellion against the family wishes.
Anyway, we were suddenly as boss as the trabs that Santa would bring, until I found the Pot Black snooker table under me mar’s bed. Then I just hounded me mar for sound trabs from Gansgear really. We were lifting cups, getting ace articles in Shoot (never Match) wrote about us, hell, they even wrote songs about us. Then I think it was 21 years, to the day weirdly enough, that I realised we suddenly weren’t all that in a 6-2 mauling in front of the cameras at Aston Villa.
And from then, well for 15 years – apart from that brief Joe Royle spell – we were [Poor language removed].
The pissed off, angst ridden feeling driving back up the M6 on away days when we’d been easily swept away at a ground of your choice. Sometimes, some spark in some nondescript season that makes you think we’ve just had that Kevin Brock moment. For the eternal optimist I am, smashing seven past Southampton or five past Boro was a sure indicator of good days to come that never happened.
It’s weird how you adapt your circumstances, seeing us underwhelm every week and living in hope but suffering is how things were – you got on with it. It used to look weird but quite wonderful when we were on page ½ of the Ceefax league tables. The players were at best average, the times we had any decent players – Keown, Beardsley, Kanchelskis, Ferguson, Speed, Hutchinson, Jeffers and (I hate to say it) Barmby would inevitably roll out the door to seek better pastures new or to raise funds for our very own Wirral Hamper Arab.
Then Moyes happened. And we started getting good again. Barring two average seasons we’ve made real progress, in Walter Smith’s last game the team was this:
Steve Simonsen, Peter Clarke, David Weir, Alan Stubbs, David Unsworth, Alessandro Pistone, Tobias Linderoth (Niclas Alexandersson, 46), Paul Gascoigne, Scot Gemmill (Jesper Blomqvist, 74),
Joe-Max Moore (Nick Chadwick, 46), Tomasz Radzinski.
Compare.
It’s not been by any stretch moments of absolute glory as were still very much a work in progress and those Kevin Brock moments just don’t happen anymore, in no large part due to the fact that modern football is absolute [Poor language removed] infested with money/egos and Kevin Brock doesn’t play much these days. But regular European football (I’m glossing over Bucharest/Villareal/Liege here), winning more than we lose, having a team of mostly internationals and a reasonable amount of respect from the condescending media and other fans is stuff we had been without for quite some time.
Which brings us to now. This is not the odd game getting beat but a really [Poor language removed] time for us and there are some good reasons too – we’ve been missing some outstanding players. But that to the inpatient Evertonian becomes obsolete when those Euro teams counter attack us, play those quick one twos and in the back of our lizard mind we’re catapulted back to Bucharest, Walter Smith’s Middlesbrough, almost the entire nineties and for me, back to Villa Park on 5th November 1989 where Peter Beagrie made his debut and I could never love that silver striped kit ever again.
Forums being forums are full of, lets be honest (and I’m one of the worst on here) bad bookmarking snides who love nothing more than rubbing your misguided rants back in your face. And lets be honest, Moyes’ teams have a knack of doing that. The traditional mode of rant, Country Road post match, was usually lager soaked and conditioned rants due not looking like a bad bellend in front of your mates. Although I’ve managed that more than once.
It feels like the end of the world now, and it will feel like it much more I have no doubt. Those games against Benfica were the ones where we would take them apart and instead it just exposed us to those all familiar weaknesses. This season might be gone too far by the time we kick start it, but with those players coming back in its a matter of time before we get things going and pick up the points. Hoping were still in Europe like.
The media have to be avoided tomorrow but where there is another game, there's another Kevin Brock moment.
See you again on Sunday at 4.45pm.
I used the prefix mostly as I’ve met with a few of the hearty souls on here too, which has not been a disappointment except when someone shouted my bad username across a pub to gain my attention.
Point in order, post game rage and inbetween match moods. Absolute [Poor language removed] isn’t it. I was lucky as I started really consciously following Everton in 1984, I’d fell out with my Grandad who’s a devout Liverpool fan and despite the gifts of a knitted Kenny Dalglish doll and some of my best mates bagsying Rush et al in three and in, something just didn’t fit right with me. I liked the team in blue, no persuasive uncle, neighbour or epiphany – just I liked them. The subsequent Milk Cup Final and FA Cup win enforced it really – at the ripe old age of 7 I felt good about rebellion against the family wishes.
Anyway, we were suddenly as boss as the trabs that Santa would bring, until I found the Pot Black snooker table under me mar’s bed. Then I just hounded me mar for sound trabs from Gansgear really. We were lifting cups, getting ace articles in Shoot (never Match) wrote about us, hell, they even wrote songs about us. Then I think it was 21 years, to the day weirdly enough, that I realised we suddenly weren’t all that in a 6-2 mauling in front of the cameras at Aston Villa.
And from then, well for 15 years – apart from that brief Joe Royle spell – we were [Poor language removed].
The pissed off, angst ridden feeling driving back up the M6 on away days when we’d been easily swept away at a ground of your choice. Sometimes, some spark in some nondescript season that makes you think we’ve just had that Kevin Brock moment. For the eternal optimist I am, smashing seven past Southampton or five past Boro was a sure indicator of good days to come that never happened.
It’s weird how you adapt your circumstances, seeing us underwhelm every week and living in hope but suffering is how things were – you got on with it. It used to look weird but quite wonderful when we were on page ½ of the Ceefax league tables. The players were at best average, the times we had any decent players – Keown, Beardsley, Kanchelskis, Ferguson, Speed, Hutchinson, Jeffers and (I hate to say it) Barmby would inevitably roll out the door to seek better pastures new or to raise funds for our very own Wirral Hamper Arab.
Then Moyes happened. And we started getting good again. Barring two average seasons we’ve made real progress, in Walter Smith’s last game the team was this:
Steve Simonsen, Peter Clarke, David Weir, Alan Stubbs, David Unsworth, Alessandro Pistone, Tobias Linderoth (Niclas Alexandersson, 46), Paul Gascoigne, Scot Gemmill (Jesper Blomqvist, 74),
Joe-Max Moore (Nick Chadwick, 46), Tomasz Radzinski.
Compare.
It’s not been by any stretch moments of absolute glory as were still very much a work in progress and those Kevin Brock moments just don’t happen anymore, in no large part due to the fact that modern football is absolute [Poor language removed] infested with money/egos and Kevin Brock doesn’t play much these days. But regular European football (I’m glossing over Bucharest/Villareal/Liege here), winning more than we lose, having a team of mostly internationals and a reasonable amount of respect from the condescending media and other fans is stuff we had been without for quite some time.
Which brings us to now. This is not the odd game getting beat but a really [Poor language removed] time for us and there are some good reasons too – we’ve been missing some outstanding players. But that to the inpatient Evertonian becomes obsolete when those Euro teams counter attack us, play those quick one twos and in the back of our lizard mind we’re catapulted back to Bucharest, Walter Smith’s Middlesbrough, almost the entire nineties and for me, back to Villa Park on 5th November 1989 where Peter Beagrie made his debut and I could never love that silver striped kit ever again.
Forums being forums are full of, lets be honest (and I’m one of the worst on here) bad bookmarking snides who love nothing more than rubbing your misguided rants back in your face. And lets be honest, Moyes’ teams have a knack of doing that. The traditional mode of rant, Country Road post match, was usually lager soaked and conditioned rants due not looking like a bad bellend in front of your mates. Although I’ve managed that more than once.
It feels like the end of the world now, and it will feel like it much more I have no doubt. Those games against Benfica were the ones where we would take them apart and instead it just exposed us to those all familiar weaknesses. This season might be gone too far by the time we kick start it, but with those players coming back in its a matter of time before we get things going and pick up the points. Hoping were still in Europe like.
The media have to be avoided tomorrow but where there is another game, there's another Kevin Brock moment.
See you again on Sunday at 4.45pm.
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