Wools - Why are you an Evertonian?

[JokerJ]

I have a history of bad choices what can I say

 

[Charles Hawtrey]

Grew up in the one-eyed city and went on scolarship to school at St Anselm's, no footy team! All Rugby and Cricket We used to play in the yard all lunchbreak (didn't eat lunch) it was always Red vs Blue. No-one supported Tranmere! One lad even went off to play for them but no one cared. I always played for the blue side as there were less of us than them so sided with the underdog. My uncle Peter (actually my brother in law but 20+ years older) took me to my first game and I was hooked forever.Went to live in London for 13 years but came back. Started going to Tranmere on Friday nights and Goodison on Saturdays. Tranny were a pleasant distraction at the time but Everton were the main event. Worked all around the world since then and now in DC. nothings changed in 45 years.

 

[Toffeemeister]

I lost a bet in 1986. Sorry but you couldn't drag me away now. Even have a few shares.

 

[Big Bob]

Grandma & Grandad from Liverpool and both blues. They moved to Wigan after the war the rest of us are now blues too. Grandma used to live on Goodison Road when she was young. 3 kids all blues (had no choice really!).

 

[ClausThomsen]

I believe this map answers allView attachment 81361

Said it before and I'll say it again. That map is discredited by the inclusion of Whiston and Rainhill as "Sound".

It's clearly a propaganda piece designed to portray one Mr.S.Gerrard of Whiston as a proper scouser when he is in fact a massive wool. It's basically St.Helens.

 

[ClausThomsen]

Southport has a Preston postcode, PR8 & 9.

Formby and Burscough have Liverpool post codes but its stretching it to say they are Liverpool

I'm originally from Southport and I have always viewed it as 'Wool'

I reckon there are areas of Huyton, Prescot and Whiston which are closer to St Helens Town Centre than Liverpool City Centre so I reckon they are borderline 'Wool'

Prescot and Whiston are definitely wool. Both are riddled with plastics.

Huyton is a disputed border region of even more exaggerated plastic scouseness with King George playing fields acting as a demilitarised zone.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

cos me great grandad who wasn't a wool watched us at Anfield.

 

[MiserableBlue]

Prescot and Whiston are definitely wool. Both are riddled with plastics.

Huyton is a disputed border region of even more exaggerated plastic scouseness with King George playing fields acting as a demilitarised zone.

Aren't those who hail from over the water classed as 'Placcy' ?

On the Merseyrail network map, they have Rainford as 'Sound'

I mean Rainford, Maghull really?

Those loveable, salt of the earth reds across the way were going nuts about our stadium being out of Liverpool when Kirkby was on the agenda.

Back when I was a young lad, to be a true scouser you had to be born within sight of Pier Head/Liver Buildings and outside of that you were a 'Wool'

 

[Pejic300]

cos me great grandad who wasn't a wool watched us at Anfield.

My great-great grandad watched the St. Domingo's cricket team in the early 1870's and it kind of spiralled from there.

 

[ClausThomsen]

Aren't those who hail from over the water classed as 'Placcy' ?

On the Merseyrail network map, they have Rainford as 'Sound'

I mean Rainford, Maghull really?

Those loveable, salt of the earth reds across the way were going nuts about our stadium being out of Liverpool when Kirkby was on the agenda.

Back when I was a young lad, to be a true scouser you had to be born within sight of Pier Head/Liver Buildings and outside of that you were a 'Wool'

Kirkby is another place where the exaggerated accents take on a comedy value as those residing there attempt to mask their insecurity about the legitimacy of their scouseness.

 

[Chris O'Connor]

I'm from Southport and have always supported Everton and Southport as did my Dad and Grandad before him.(Southport only nominally as rarely go).

Brought up on tales of Dixie and Tommy Lawton from my great grandad too who lived into this century.

 

[Verbal Kint]

I can still vividly recall the moment as a young 5/6 year old. My older brother asked me who i supported, he went through the teams, Utd, Liverpool, etc etc but i knew other lads that supported them. He then said Everton "good Irish team"

That was it

 

[Camboselecta]

I ask myself that same question daily during every season since 1986.

 

[TyphooToffee]

I was asked to put a piece together for my wife to publish in her magazine yesterday after a contributor let her down. The feature is called 'My Team - why are you affiliated with the team you support?'. In lieu of any actual news, though you lot might be interested in my witterings. Would be good to get something similar from other non-locals.

So. Why would a seven-year-old boy from South Warwickshire with little real exposure to football, end up making a choice that would lead to an adulthood of abject misery? In hindsight who knows, but here’s how I ended up supporting Everton.

I liked football. I liked sport. Actually, I liked watching sport.

As a child I had zero aptitude for any physical activity. Reading and writing? Yes. Riding my bike and sitting in my dad’s tractor? Definitely. Watching the Fall Guy, Dukes of Hazzard and Danger Mouse? Without a doubt. Running and/or kicking a football? Hahaha, no.

My dad was a sports nut, we’d be at the cricket club during the summer and the winter weekends were spent watching Grandstand or World of Sport. Didn’t matter what the sport was, if it was televised – it was on our TV. He was (and still is) a Manchester United fan, a regular at Old Trafford in the sixties even hitching weekly flights back from Germany to watch matches whilst stationed out there during his RAF days. He pushed me in that direction but no. I liked Spurs. Ardiles, Villa and Hoddle had got my attention as I watched them on their way to lifting the FA Cup. We’d even braved St. Andrews and the cold to watch Tottenham in action the following season, a 0-0 draw and some horrific National Front skinheads put me off completely.

So, 1982 and back to my Panini album. Liverpool winning everything, all of the kids at school jumping on the bandwagon. I was always a contrary little sort, so as twenty of my classmates claimed to be die hard Liverpool fans my decision was made. “I’m an Everton fan. They’re clearly the better side from the city.”

The first few years and I felt like I’d made the best decision in the world. Howard Kendall’s squad gelling and then excelling. The FA Cup on 1984, League Champions and Cup Winners Cup winners (I even got to stay up to watch that one) the year afterwards. A fight to wrest the league title back from the red half of the city in 1987. What an amazing side I was following from afar. Surely they’d go on to dominate football for the foreseeable future? Well, no. A European football ban saw the best players slowly filter off over the coming seasons leaving for the allure of the European Cup. The enforced dismantling of the best side I’ve ever seen still makes me think, “what could have been?”.

And like that, the glory years were gone. Some spirited performances here and there but no trophies. Little would I know in 1988 that I’d only see Everton lift one more trophy in my lifetime. We’d won so much in such a short time, we were dominant, it would be back. Wouldn’t it? Not long after this I moved to Nuneaton and a new love affair was stuck up. My love of football was unabating. My ability still had yet to manifest itself, so I was forced into a watching brief. Fourteen years old, 110 miles from Liverpool and I needed my football fix. Welcome to my life Nuneaton Borough. The Beazer Homes League, crowds of 500ish. I was hooked from game one. Bolehall Swifts at home. Birmingham Senior Cup First Round Replay. Hardly a glamour tie but it was two miles from my house, and it gave me something to invest in. For the next three seasons I barely missed a match. My mum relented after a few months and let me travel to away games as well. Glamorous bus journeys to The Hawthorns, to Wembley (Wembley FC, not Wembley Stadium) to Woking, to Barrow, to Kings Lynn. It was the perfect fix for me. Still some of my fondest football memories before my move back to Stratford at seventeen led me to follow two sides from my armchair.
I’d made my first trip to Goodison during this stage too. Opening weekend of the Premier League in 1992. The experience just cemented my Everton decision, such an atmosphere and I still get the same goosebumps when I walk into the stadium these days.

From my armchair I watched the 1995 FA Cup win, a much needed (if not fortuitous) win following the almost-relegation of 1994. I’d backed Everton to lift the trophy at 25/1 as well, however I can’t remember how it felt it was so long ago. Nearly 25 years and we’ve won nothing since. From a powerhouse to an afterthought in Sky TV’s reinvention of football.
It’s been a tough run. Some terrible, terrible football and players. Some false dawns and the excitement of David Moyes bucking the trend with a raid into the top four in 2005. Oh, and I finally learned how to play the game as well. I was even quite good for a brief period in about 2001. Never could run though. The final coup de gras is that my football supporting life has come full circle and once more Liverpool are the media darlings whilst the Toffees flounder around hopelessly.

It’s been eventful. It’s been horrible, but I made my choice and I’ll see it through. Would I go back and change it? Not a chance. #COYB

As a ten year old football mad boy living in North London in 1963 I also leant towards Spurs, but not in a fanatical way. I had pictures of footballers from many different teams on my bedroom wall that I had cut from Charles Buchan's Football Monthly. Then, late in 1963, my mum bought home some shopping that included a packet of Typhoo Tea. I was always looking for pictures of footballers and football teams that came with tea and cereal packets so, when I saw there was one on the side of the box, I asked Mum if I could have the box when she'd finished with it.

There was something about the photo. I don't know if it was how good the kit looked, even in monochrome (or black and white - a ten year old primary school boy like me didn't know what words like 'monochrome' meant then) or the fact that the players and staff all so looked happy as they posed with the Football League Division One trophy and the Charity Shield, but I was smitten and wanted to be one of them.

I sometimes wish I had supported a team I could go and see on a regular basis (I used to go to Arsenal to watch football as it was the easiest ground to get to) but never, ever, have I wished that I hadn't fallen for that photo of the Everton team of champions in 1963.

 

[Toffeelover]

Kirkby is another place where the exaggerated accents take on a comedy value as those residing there attempt to mask their insecurity about the legitimacy of their scouseness.

Bollocks, my Dad, Mum and bros were living in Breeze Hill, before that it was Stewie road. Plans were afoot to widen Breeze hill but we had no where to go. The council rehoused us in Southdene as Kirkby was where they were building Council houses. The fact that we then lived in Kirkby did not lessen our feelings of being Scouse or of Evertonians, We were all born and lived in L4 going back 10 generations.

There is and never was any doubt about our Scouseness!