Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

2011-05-23T15:59:00.001-04:00

I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.

- Edward

Edward Bottomley
Manager of Search Services at Search Entrepreneurs, Inc.
Greater Detroit Area

Mario Balotelli – an alright bloke.

2011-04-21T14:36:00.002-04:00

Over the past few months Man City striker Mario Balotelli has been portrayed as a blight on English football. The levels of opprobrium (despite sensible articles documenting Balotelli’s horrifically troubled childhood penned by people like Gab Marcotti) have become ridiculous.

Look closely at what Balotelli has done (smashed his car, thrown darts at the training ground, generally foisted his ego on anyone close by) and he’s not exactly the worst person in the world. Is he?

New Everton Website Launches

2009-10-27T07:22:00.000-04:00

The new Everton website Dixie's Sixty has launched, it comes from the writing team of Ed and Peter Bottomley - looks pretty nifty - and promises to provide a positive counterweight to moany kvetch-filled sites like ToffeeWeb...

Coming Soon: Everton's Top 60 Players

2009-10-27T02:16:00.000-04:00

To celebrate the launch of new Everton Website Dixie's 60 we'll be covering the Top 60 Everton FC players. Ed Bottomley's previous Top 50 Toffees written for the Times Online caused quite a bit of controversy - we'll see if this one does the same when it is published.

Four Reasons Goodison Will Never Leave Everton's Heart

2009-10-05T12:58:00.003-04:00

This was published on the Times Online's Fanzine Fanzone Last Week...

The Four Sides To Goodison Park

At the mere mention Goodison Park, my mind spins like a roulette wheel. Goodison has created a mountain of moments and her wingspan touches three separate centuries. Monarchs have strolled through Goodison's stands, and its fans have crowned blue legends on Goodison's green turf. The architect Archibald Leitch gave Goodison its shape, and hundreds of players painted memories onto the blank canvas.

My first memory is of grappling with a tight Le Coq Sportif shirt in the mid eighties. It was annoyingly restrictive, uncomfortably itchy, but still had my child's heart drumming staccato beats with excitement. The shirt gave me a taste of what it was to be an Evertonian.

I remember too some of my favourite games: Duncan Ferguson rising head and shoulders above everyone to score, Danny Cadamarteri, a roadrunner of a player, scoring an adrenaline encrusted goal against Liverpool, Limpar diving, Farrelly shanking, Southall stretching, and Rooney scoring against a death proof Arsenal. The one common factor, the glorious backdrop to all of these memories, is Goodison Park.

Only a few weeks remain until what will probably be the most important event of our season - a decision on "Destination Kirkby" and with it the possibility of leaving Goodison. Here are four moments, not definitive by any stretch, but all very different, showing four sides to Goodison Park.

I. Dixie’s Sixty
May 5th 1928, Everton 3-3 Arsenal

"The crowd invaded the pitch and I got more whiskers on my face from the Scotland Road lads than Soft Joe." Dean on scoring his record breaking 60th goal in one season.

In May 1928 Bill Dean, one of history's most ravenous goal scorers and an Evertonian to the marrow, was at the end of his greatest season. Dean was a spluttering, roaring muscle-car of a player and by the time the final game against Arsenal came hurtling around the corner he was on 57 goals, a hat-trick away from breaking George Camsell's record of 59 (and Camsell had set his record in the division below).

Everton had already won the league by then. All eyes were on Dixie. He had sustained a muscle injury in the previous game against Burnley, and Everton's trainer Harry Cooke kept a bedside vigil; waking Dean every three hours to apply a new warm bandage to make sure.

Arsenal managed to take the lead after just two minutes but Dixie equalized quickly after and then scored just before half time. One can only imagine the blue throng squeezed into Goodison, and how they must have exhaled as one, screaming for their hero when he got his hat-trick with just eight minutes to go. The goal was courtesy of Alec Troup, who according to Dixie "was so precise with these corners that he could have laid the ball on one of the hairs on my head." Dixie, ever modest for a man of such talent, claimed that he "just butted the ball in."

It was the perfect denouement to a season of compulsive goal scoring. In 39 League Games Bill Dean - on eight pounds a week - scored 60 goals.

Although his goal tally that season was his crowning achievement, Dean's entire career is a blizzard of impressive numbers won during an era of tough physical football. Dean had 15 major operations in his career, he even lost a testicle after a rough challenge whilst at Tranmere. Dean once spoke of 42 professionals on Everton's books in one season, such was the number of serious injuries. Dixie rattled up 100 league goals before he turned 21 and 349 League goals in 399 games. Amazingly, Dean scored 37 true hat-tricks during his career - and he scored with a smile - showing the kind of sporting joie de vivre that links Dean to people like the racing driver Fangio - who used to chirrup, sing, and bounce on his seat during races.

Dixie went from 0-60 in one season, and no-one would ever do it quicker...

II. Garrincha at Goodison
July 12th 1966, Brazil 2-0 Bulgaria

"BRAZILIANS DELIRIOUS OVER YOU STOP KISSES IN THE HEART STOP CRIOULA" – Telegram sent by Garrincha’s wife Elza after the Brazil's win over Bulgaria at Goodison.

Elza was - of course - toying with the truth a little. Brazil were not convincing against Bulgaria, they were eleven men that had never played together before. They won thanks to a Pele and Garrincha free kick; Garrincha's corkscrewed toward goal-net; these two legends never lost a game for Brazil while playing together. Garrincha’s first and only loss came against Hungary in their next World Cup game and it was to be his last game for Brazil.

Goodison saw Garrincha well past his prime, his bent legs - the cause of his unique balance, were also the reason for his bad knees. The CBD only picked him for the Brazil squad out of a combination of pity and blind hope. Study video of the Bulgaria game though and you still see more than a glimmer of this prototype for all wide boys; he was the original card shark. Despite his knees, despite his liver, he was still tabasco and black coffee, and still torturing defenders with his cute but devastating skill.

Garrincha's journey stalled at the junction of catastrophe and brilliance. The man kept his earnings squirreled away in the back of the sofa, stuffed under urine soaked mattresses, and in fruit bowls – forgotten about until they were worthless rotten paper...Garrincha clearly loved the ball, but he was indifferent about the game swirling around it.

As for Pele, he never played at Wembley, even in a friendly, but he played at our Goodison. Biographer Ruy Castro says that “For Garrincha, sex was a sport that gave him as much pleasure as football.” He must have been licking his lips and tapping his feet at the prospect of combining his two loves on landing in England, the epicenter of the Swinging 60’s. Tragically for Garrincha, Brazil's home base was Lymm – 188miles away from London's lascivious swinging bell bottoms.

The man with bent legs was a reluctant star, but the best... His unfinished career was beautiful, like the half completed Gaudi church. Predicting which way he was about to turn was like predicting a Jackson Pollock paint dribble, and Goodison had the privilege of meeting him.

III.Escape on the last day - Barry Horne
May 5th 1994, Everton 3-2 Wimbledon

Really? Did he REALLY score that goal, the goal that pulled us out of the relegation mire on the last day of the season?

Somehow, dog of war Barry Horne channelled Graeme Sharp and Marco Van Basten as he lashed the ball in. He was a mongrel painting the Sistine Chapel. More skilled players can take a lift to elite football but Barry Horne had to take the stairs to become a top level professional.

The match itself was craziest of all games; we were an own-goal and a penalty down to glass-chewing, route one Wimbledon. We managed to scrape our way back through a penalty earned through a dive, and equalized with a Barry Horne's wonder shot, a goal that had been gestating inside him for his whole career. Miles out, Horne bounced the ball of his thigh and thwacked the ball, clipping the ball round the ears and sending it scurrying home. Graeme Stuart scored the winner, with a shot that Hans Segers could have saved in his sleep, but no keeper stood a chance against Barry Horne's equalizer.

It was the first time I tasted Champagne, but we were celebrating an awful season. There is a dash of Dunkirk about all relegation escapes, they are glorious failures, and this was a wonderful end to a woeful season.

IV. A Gift from Joseph Yobo
August 13 2005, Everton 0-2 Manchester United

Against Arsenal (like Dixie), Wayne Rooney became a household name by chucking a football shaped fist through televisions and into living rooms up and down the country. Clive Tyldesley may have sealed the deal by whinnying "Remember the name!..." after Rooney scored his first, but Wayne put his name in lights when, moments after chipping Seaman, he had the tried do it again.

The young Scouser was bouncing around like a videogame character, somehow transplanted into a world of professional footballers, and his feet did what legions of teenagers with their XBox thumbs could only dream of doing. To chip Seaman once at that age was precocious, to chip him twice, and see the ball stray just a pixel too high, was amazing. It was AUDACITY with the Caps Lock on. After Rooney left Everton I was haunted by his cheeky brilliance, he was a baby Hercules, thumping defenders over the head and using them as rattles. I was scared stiff that his first goal against us would be as wonderful as his first against Arsenal. As it turned out, his goal was a gift from a former teammate; Yobo played Jeeves to Rooney's Bertie Wooster - handing him a goal on a silver platter.

There is a small sign that hovers over Joey Yobo's head that notes the number of days since his last accident, against United his sign re-set to zero. Yobo, a lanky quick defender, has always been prone to occasional lapses and navel gazing. It was an unfortunate accident, an ooops of a pass that wasn't so much defence splitting as condom splitting. Yobo literally slid the ball square to a free Rooney, Seeing HIM score for THEM enraged Goodison, and they won that game 2-0. Goodison's stands creaked, the fans groaned and seethed - but his first goal could have been worse. Maybe Joey Yobo did us all a favour by taking the sting out of Rooney's first goal against Everton.

----

Goodison is comfy and old, but it is easy to forget what a cutting edge stadium it once was. Splitting from her will be painful – if only because we need to get to know and love the new ground all over again…

We may be mixing with cold-blooded billionaire run teams with Hollywood smiles, but I'm proud of our tousled hair, our snaggletoothed grin, and of our Goodison....

Work permit denied for self abusing Argie

2009-08-21T15:12:00.004-04:00

Toffeeweb, always first off the mark with any juicy gossip, reckon that bishop basher extraordinaire Ever Banega's work permit has been denied. Everton will have to now lodge an appeal.

UPDATE: The above is a load of gubbins, the Daily Mail brings us the real story:

But Manchester sports lawyer Chris Farnell successfully argued for the permit to be approved during a hearing at the Premier League HQ.

Ever Banega could be a disasterous "car crash" at Everton

2009-08-21T09:57:00.002-04:00

Everton head to today's work permit hearing for Valencia's Ever Banega amid claims that the young Argentinian could be "a car crash" in the Premier League.

Hot on the heels of this article claiming that the 21 year old left Argentina too early, that he had a dodgy childhood, and that he is "too weird" to succeed comes Guardian football expert Dr Sid Lowe's tuppence worth.

In the Guardian's Football Weekly podcast Dr Lowe gives his opinion:

"I personally think that Banega is a very talented footballer, he moves the ball very nicely. There have been one or two occasions when he's looked like a genuinely good player, both at Atletico and Valencia...BUT the key word there is 'one or two'...I think he's not that good, I think he finds the Spanish game too quick and therefore would probably find the English game too quick as well. I think he is potentially a very very good player but I think he is also potentially a car crash."

Most Evertonians also know about Banega's Ashley Young-style "web shame" where he was captured peeling the eel and grunting violently, but it could his online antics just be the tip of the iceberg?...

Prediction: Liverpool Star To Move To Man City?

2009-08-18T11:43:00.002-04:00

...Not in this transfer window, but next summer. With Rafa having failed again to grab the Premier League, and with Aquilani getting cozy with the treatment table, Gerrard's relationship with Benitez will come under increasing pressure. No normal club would willingly shell out cash on an aging Gerrard (he'll be 30 next summer) but Man City aren't a normal club.

I predict that Stevie G will be swept off his feet by Sheikh Mansour in the summer of 2010.

Everton - The Ship Isn't Sinking

2009-08-18T10:11:00.001-04:00

Our end game of last season was the Cup Final, a match which Chelsea deservedly won. It was OK though, our run to the final had been heroic, and as I watched our glum chain gang lope up the stairs to claim their runners up medals, most were consoled by the fact that next season our spine would be back. I suppose I was deluding myself, because our spine – Jagielka, Arteta, Yakubu – won’t be back for a while yet. Not to worry though, we’ve signed some new players haven’t we? Well no, not really... with only days to go until the transfer window slams down on us – we have no signings...

And yet I still have faith that we’ll do well. Contrary to popular opinion, Lescott was one of our better players on Saturday (not saying much I know), we appear – at the last minute – to finally have some money to throw around (sharp whispers ricochet around the web – “Kenwright doesn’t like signing players early, because then he has to play their wages for the whole summer” “We’ve finally secured a loan against our Sky TV dosh”), and crucially, this is the early season Everton we all know well. Moyes’ sides always seem to start badly, and only once the Scot has navigated the maze of problems that seem to pop up like eager weeds, can we settle down and let the momentum build. In many ways this is business as usual at Goodison.
Lescott is far from our only problem; Sheikh Mansour’s money may have twisted his head, but all of our defence looked like they had their heads on backwards against Arsenal. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Cahill and Fellaini can’t be crow barred into Moyes’ 4-5-1 together and we look weak along our right side - Lescott’s transfer to City has the press antennae twitching, but we can only hope that Naughton’s failed move to Goodison might wake Hibbert out of his slumber.

Getting smashed by Arsenal is also nothing new to us – 4-1 and 7-0 score lines still stick in our throats. If we come into games like this lurching into blood curdling tackles and hectoring them all over the field, we may have a chance. But relaxing against Arsenal, trying to out-play them, is never an option and left us with red cheeks atop our blue shirts. It was a woeful result, but in this crazed see-saw of a league, this could easily be the kick up the backside we need.

Two statistics on this game say everything, Arsenal had 9 shots on target – and scored 6 of them. Last season, when they beat us 3-1 at the Wengerdome – they had 11 shots on target. Saturday was an exercise in surgical efficiency from them and dozy defending from us, let’s not pick at this wound too much. The other interesting statistic is that not a single Everton player got booked. Not even Fellaini, who usually sprinkles the turf with grenade pins, saw yellow. An Everton side stripped of that aggressive edge isn’t going to be able to compete with the top sides.

This ship isn’t sinking; we’re just facing a bloody strong headwind.

Oi, Hughes! No Means No!

2009-08-14T10:06:00.004-04:00

David Moyes, the man who had the temerity to say no to Mark Hughes, let rip today - and I love him even more for it. According to every news source with a pulse, Moyes has torn "Sparky" a new one for not understanding the word "no"...

The Independent's Paul Walker writes:

Moyes, preparing his side for tomorrow's season opener at home to Arsenal, launched a bitter attack on Hughes and City.

He said: "There is no dialogue between us and Manchester City as far as I know.

"Maybe City are having dialogue with somebody else, but it is not between me and City.

"He (Hughes) said they were talking to people who make the decisions here. Well he knows who makes the decisions at Everton and it is me.

"He has never once picked up the phone and given me a call, so he is not going to get the answer. I am the one who makes the decisions here, not like other clubs.

"It has disrupted us. They have been talking about it and we have not been talking about the start of the season, that has been disruptive. So maybe that is what the overall plan was."

Moyes added: "I look back and see how Real Madrid did their business with Manchester United (over Ronaldo). It was done at the tail end of the season, and it was done quickly to allow United to buy if they wanted to do so.

"We cannot be getting offers a week or two to go before the end of the deadline. And the offers they made shows that we value Joleon Lescott far higher than they do.

"Joleon is a massive player for us, we think so much of him and do not want to lose him.

"The players here think so much of him, and as a (coaching) staff we do.

"His head has been twisted and I cannot say the way things have been done is right, it is not how we do things at this club.

"But maybe their football club is different, I control things here, maybe it is not quite the same there."

How many times does Moyes have to tell Hughes that Lescott isn't for sale? Should he carve it onto Hughes' forehead with a Victorinox? And isn't it brilliant that are next game after Arsenal is Man City away?

Mark Hughes: Blithering Idiot

2009-08-13T12:43:00.002-04:00

Mark Hughes' antics remind me of a scene from Dumb and Dumber:

Lloyd: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me... ending up together?
Mary: Well, Lloyd, that's difficult to say. I mean, we don't really...
Lloyd: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you, Mary. The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Mary: I'd say more like one out of a million.
[pause]
Lloyd: So you're telling me there's a chance...

Meanwhile, Football 365's Mediawatch nicely points out the raving hypocrisy of Hughes, claiming that he doesn't talk about players he wants, and then going and talking about Lescott. Again. And again. And again.

The Mirror outdoes even Football 365 though with an article claiming that Man City want to have a butcher's at Joleon Lescott's medical records before they put in another bid....hmmm. I wonder what Moyesie makes of this:

Manchester City want to see England centre half Joleon Lescott's medical records - before making a new and even bigger bid for him.
City officials want to clear up concerns about Lescott's historic knee problems and will make the unusual move of asking to check on him ahead of any further offer.
Mark Hughes's club are already willing to pay £18 million and will go to £22 million if they are satisfied that Lescott has no long-standing problems.
The idea of looking at the confidential documents is to avoid the embarassment of making a huge bid and then possibly seeing the player sent back as damaged goods if he 'failed' the actual medical.
However Everton will be reluctant to part with the information, especially as boss David Moyes is determined to hold on to Lescott at any price.

The Joleon Question - Three sides to the story

2009-08-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

This was originally published on the Times Fanzine Fanzone Page.

And it continues...Lescott wants to leave, Moyes doesn't want to sell, and Hughes is still returning with bids for the player. The harder Moyes rejects the bids the more the Welshman boomerangs back. Hughes' bids amount to Chinese Water Torture; an incessant drip - intriguing Lescott and annoying Moyes in equal measure. All this is surrounded by hordes of blithering idiots, who munch unquestioningly over the daily tabloids. It's impossible to know what is happening at the centre of the storm, but here are three views...

I. Mark Hughes is a pillock.

A dangerous pillock who won't take no for an answer in the worst way, a transfer rapist. His mumbled admiration for Lescott, and his clumsy public bluff (claiming that he'll move on to other transfer targets if something isn't settled soon) are brazen brushstrokes on a backdrop of Moyes' blanket rejection.
Behind the quiet steely front, the iron curtain that is the Welshman's atrophied face, complete with brillo pad hair and a crack of a mouth permanently on the verge of succumbing to lockjaw, lies a scared man out of his depth and bereft of imagination. A man who, somehow, despite having an oily ocean of millions to spend, cannot look beyond Everton's second best defender as a transfer target.
Moyes is jealously annoyed with Hughes for several reasons. Hughes has a bulging war chest, Moyes has a pittance. City were midtable but got bought by very rich men, Everton have been camped in fifth place for two seasons but cannot find a buyer. The day after Moyes claimed that none of his players were for sale, Hughes thrust a cheeky £15 million Lescott bid under the Scot's nose. Moyes was already having a barrel-scrapingly bad summer in terms of transfers, most notably being gazumped by Tottenham over Kyle Naughton, and now this?? He had promised players like Jagielka and Arteta - signed to long term contracts - that Everton weren't a selling club. Moyes had to deal with no strikers last year, does he really want to risk playing with no defenders this time around?
Moyes views Lescott - a polyglot defender who can play centrally or on the left - as essential to the team, and is backed up by a fanbase who are prepared to sing for their stopper, even if his head is being turned. Lescott is meek,and its a world cup year so if Moyes keeps him, he won't be able to let his form dip if he wants to make the squad.

Despite all this Hughes continues his lusty groping and refusing to take no for an answer.

II. David Moyes is a pillock.

Moyes knows that Lescott wants to leave, and has known for some time. He could sign a cheap player who could fill in for Jagielka until his return from injury, and then act as cover for Jagielka and Yobo at the back. The money from Lescott could have gone towards upwardly mobile youths (Elm, Delph, Naughton) , big names we've been known to want (Moutinho, Sessegnon, Defour), or even to secure Jo on a permanent deal. Moyes is the unwanted side in a love triangle, acting like a shunned boyfriend; refusing to accept that the relationship is over.
Moyes is swiftly becoming a rusty haired anachronism - you cannot tell players no these days, we are the generation whose fans give their souls but not their bodies, and whose players give their bodies but not their souls. Lescott is a professional who has been told he cannot move to new employers who are willing to double his wages. Only in football would this be seen as acceptable. Simon Kuper recently wrote that managers should "be as eager to sell good players as to buy them." Moyes should listen.

Despite all this Moyes continues to cling to Lescott, refusing to give yes for an answer.

III. Joleon Lescott is a pillock.

Under Moyes' protective wing he has improved immeasurably, cemented a spot in the fifth best team in the land, and fought his way to deserved international recognition. Lescott's desire to go to Man City (or "Money City" as Kolo Toure accidentally called them) begins and ends with the promise of a fat paycheque. Take money out of the equation and Lescott would turn his nose up at a move to Eastlands. No one can predict how the Man City experiment will turn out this season, and he could be plunging head first into a sea of chaos. Joleon is mistaking ambition for greed, and I would love to see the wording of his transfer request.
Lescott's timing is also atrocious with days remaining until the start of the season and he should be vilified for handing in a written transfer request whilst away on international duty. Lescott is risking a career with the best young manager in the British Isles and a more stable club for a crazed menagerie of blustering egos; its tantamount to a small kid's desire to run away and join the circus.

Despite all this Lescott continues to cling to his transfer demands, refusing to take no for an answer.

Ed Bottomley

Holiday Blues in Detroit

2009-08-12T16:37:00.000-04:00

"Dee-troit has some great teeth… she’s just got a lot missing too."

The driver tossed this witty nugget into the backseat of the taxi, he was a small man whose mood could be entirely gauged by his grip on the steering wheel.

They say that if you want a good tour of a city, take a taxi. And I had never been to the centre of Motown so I thought I’d give it a go. This is a city with a rich history but a non-existent bank balance — a city whose (now ex) Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was someone definitely in the Peter Johnson mould, screwing Detroit out of money in a multitude of ways; slapping dishonesty on top of mismanagement in a gruesome layer cake of political skullduggery — and also a city that is 3,000 miles from my Blue Boys — but very close in many ways.

I took the taxi tour to try and distract myself from Everton, but I should have known better. Holidays have always been a time to obsess over football, with the absence of actual games being instead filled with relentless sound of transfer tongue wagging. Back home I remember descending into a summer holiday frenzy of day-long Teletext vigils, pouring over tiny rumours in the Liverpool Echo, and the evil and legendary Clubcall (where a titillating transfer ad lured you into an extortionate 5 minute call in which the utterly fictitious transfer target was only divulged after an excruciating wait.) Both Clubcall and Teamtalk were as ubiquitous as the Nigerian prince emailing for your bank a/c details, and oceans of adolescent football fans fell for this ruse.

When abroad on my July hols, I used to pour over overpriced tabloids, days old, the text blanched by the sun, but still redolent with bullshit. And therein lies the problem, the summer months are so lacking in any proper club football, that fans are baying for any transfer news whatsoever, and we work ourselves into such a crazed and ravenous state that any rumours will do. Rejections by players, whether perceived or real, therefore hurt more — we can’t wash away the pain with a 3-0 victory, we just sit there marinating in our own fears and worries, waiting for the season to start.

The summer is such a strange time to be an Everton fan. Despite constantly breaking our transfer records (AJ, Beattie, Yakubu, Fellaini) we still feel a sense of missing out. The grass is always greener next door, and the signings we narrowly miss out on are always the missing links — the players who would have propelled us to the “next level” — the likes of Sean Davis, Moutinho, Fernandes and Naughton. As the summer rolls by Evertonians' faces begin to grimace tightly like clenched fists, ready to blame the powers at be for inactivity.

The focus moves from our overachieving team, to the nebulous hunt for new recruits. David Moyes, the most dynamic young manager in the league, being headhunted by Man Utd as the Lord of the Ferg’s successor, somehow morphs into Dithering Dave in the summer sun; only eclipsed by Bill Kenwright — the potless refusenik who turns away rich investors in droves…

Like the spoiled kid who rushes to the door when a relative visits, hands out, demanding “what present did you bring me this time!?!” – we have a strong sense of entitlement at Everton. Most of us believe that it is our manifest destiny to be in the top four, even though as a team without money we are footballing Neanderthals walking amongst billionaire oligarchs. There is also an equally powerful demand for new signings, we wave away claims that returning stars will be “like new players” – even though returning Arteta, Yakubu, and Jagielka to a team is like putting an engine back in a car, and we discount the fact that our young team is growing and improving together.

Nope, the only thing that will slake our transfer bloodlust is signings, not loans, not freebies, big glittering signings. If Moyes had signed Jo for £20 million rather than somehow again bagging him on loan from City, maybe that would have shut people up. Just as Tony Hibbert still larrups the ball up to the ghost of Duncan Ferguson, we still demand transfers as if we were still the Merseyside Millionaires.

Every so often I would come back to the real world, and remember that I was sitting in the back of a Detroit cab - I couldn’t stop thinking about Everton but my mind needed occasional respite from worrying about the Merseysiders. I was driven past the crumbling facade of once glorious and historic Tiger stadium, Joe DiMaggio played there and it opened the same week that the Titanic sank. All of which pried open thoughts about Goodison, and Kirkby. It seemed that all roads in Detroit led to Goodison, even the most obtuse sight would trigger thoughts of my Blues.

The lavish beauty of Detroit's Guardian Building also woke me from my daydreams - an Aztec Art Deco skyscraper. It rivals New York’s Chrysler Building, maybe even betters it, but it is an unknown pearl. This ornate, pre-Wall Street crash, Babel is a 36 floor ode to the possibilities of a blank chequebook – but also a reminder that the sky is no longer the limit; a building of such glaring opulence couldn’t be built today. Are we as Everton fans asking for a Guardian building, when in our current state the most we should expect is sensible, solid and firm architecture?

Like Detroit, Evertonians are chained to the past, tied to Nil Satis Nisi Optimum – four Latin words which somehow trump Moyes’ hand crafted team. MacGyver Moyes has cobbled together a team of belligerent Gadflies, but still we want more, it’s in our blood, and the more we chant our motto like a mantra, “Nil Satis Nisi Optimum” , “Nil Satis Nisi Optimum” , the more we think it will come true. Marooned like Bligh, isolated like Kurtz, we are charting a unique course, the fourth most successful team in England, without the cash that is seemingly needed to play the game of football these days, but we’re trying.

We look distinctly Clark Kent during the summer, and its only when the season begins that we shamble into the nearest phone box and come out a chest puffing Superman. Detroit's gappy smile is shared by the rictus grin of rickety Goodison, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. As I left the city, and clambered out of the cab, the taxi driver looked at me with the same thousand yard stare, daydreaming about something, he was clearly somewhere else too…

ED BOTTOMLEY

Is Lescott Loyal to the Lucre?

2009-07-06T04:12:00.001-04:00

Loyal to the Lucre?

Whilst summer rolls into action many Blue websites have been indulging in Evertonians' favourite warm-weather pastime: Kenwright kvetching. Some anticipate a summer of scraping around for money, missing out on signings, and seeing our Chairman fail - once more - to sell the club. I'm actually glad Kenwright has failed to flog our beloved Toffees, and because of that, in my eyes he is the perfect Chairman...

If Kenwright is unqualified to run our club, then why is a rich Sheik more acceptable? Would a moneybags owner shed blue tears when we lost to Chelsea? Would he be able to wax lyrical about Mikel Arteta, comparing him to Alex Young like Kenwright did? The sad truth is a Chairman’s success is totally dependent on his money, and his ability to attract investment if he has no money himself. I see it a different way though. Yes, Kenwright’s theatrical tendencies make for ridiculous sound bites: “watch this space”, “I’m working 24/7 to sell this club.” are both embarrassing public belches – but the fact that Kenwright hasn’t been able to find a buyer is a bonus.

I do not want a billionaire at Everton. For all those people moaning about a move to Kirkby, selling to a Sheik would be the ultimate sell out - he would own our soul. The last few years have seen several filthy rich oil-igarchs waddle over the horizon, and the problem is their ridiculous appetite and their crazed shotgun approach to transfers, spraying bids everywhere. It's strange to think that we may look upon our fifth placed finishes as "the good old days". Days where we fielded a team of honest, well drilled pros, players who we love and who love us, rather than multi-millionaire drones. When we ask for our billionaire saviour - do we really want to enter that world, of Glazers, Gillettes, and Kenyons? A world of shelling out and selling out, of many rubles, no scruples, and gluttonous gloating. I would rather watch a snuff movie starring my parents.

If a white knight with wads of cash did come to Goodison, Moyes would undoubtedly face a different climate - no more late night pillow talk with Kenwright and - ironically - just as many stipulations and restrictions on spending. We are potless, but if we became Mersey Millionaires again, would Moyes have full control over signings? ...And the funniest thing? We might not even finish fifth! Worth selling our souls for that? Some quarters of Goodison fight so hard against Kirkby, and demand we stay at Goodison. And yet they have no problem praying at night for a billionaire who will suck away the essence of our club, even though we’d have a roulette wheel of playing staff, unnatural pressures on Moyes, and a team as nebulous, unbalanced, and unwieldy as a pet shop run by Dr Moreau.

To me, Mark Hughes has always been likeable, and Man City always harmless enough. That was until the money started flowing like wine at a Roman Orgy. Mark Hughes, the "centurion with salt and pepper hair", is going to find it hard not to turn into a debauched Nero. When you can have almost any player you want, when you can make Eto'o and Kaka think twice, you are bound to go a little crazed. But City's team are still Ersatz Galacticos, they haven't earned their Top 4 stripes yet...

Some Blues are bemused by Lescott going to City, calling this a step down. But City's bank balance is monumentally huge, meaning that - in a league where everyone is loyal to the lucre above all else - they are bigger than us. Let’s not prattle on about history making a big club, the Premier League is like 1980’s Wall Street. Money is everything. Gordon Gekko said it best: “The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”

If Lescott can double his wages by moving to Man City -a team that will soon be dining from English football's top table - why are some fans asking for him to loyally kneel at the Goodison trough? Was he loyal to Wolves? No, he moved to us, a club with more potential. Again, he is doing the same if he leaves us for City. As much as I want the Peoples' Club to be poster boys for potless Premier League success - we all have to admit that Man City's bank balance makes them far more upwardly mobile than us.

Moyes has made it clear that he doesn't want Lescott to leave, apparently not even for 20 million (could he really turn that down though), and Lescott's few words on the matter sound like an "I'll do as I'm told, gub'nah." The press though, have been sitting and watching, breathing heavily like a parking lot dogger - and are squirming with glee ; claiming that Lescott just has to "agitate" to get his dream move. And who can blame them, transfer tripe sells papers.

Thanks to the press frotteurs, rubbing their words against Lescott, almost daring him to ask for a move, this is a matter beyond Moyes. Lescott may not be loyal to the Man City lucre, but our board may be....And the money, whatever portion of it that Moyes sees, could help us get a right back ("the Scouse Cafu" is more Clark Kent than Superman) and an upgrade on our doe-eyed Smyke, Leon Osman.

To twist and mangle a famous quote: "In the next week or two this house, the nation and the Rt Hon Lescott himself will learn of what metal he is made’

Let's continue the fight without a sugar daddy. We are Sensible Soccer - they are FIFA '09...We are a local independent record store - they are a faceless music franchise... And with any luck we'll be Godzilla and they'll be Tokyo

Can we stomach a groundshare with Liverpool?

2009-06-25T09:28:00.001-04:00

This post was originally written for the Times Fanzine Fanzone Blog.

Moving home was always going to be an extremely testy subject. The very idea of it swills around our mouths until we spit it out like particularly disgusted wine-tasters.

It looks like we have three options with regards to our footballing home. First option, which should Kirkby go belly up will become even more viable, is to stay at Goodison, attempting to remodel our beautiful and historic stadium. For those who hate change (and as an Evertonian, force-fed past glory but starved of modern day success, how can we be anything BUT traditionalists) this looks like the least painful option. We stay in our beloved home and try and redevelop not a seismic shift, but a comfortable makeover for the Old Lady.

The second option is to move to Kirkby and "leave" the city of Liverpool. I am undecided about this one, only a heartless and brainwashed Orwellian Premier League Party Member would wave goodbye to such a beautiful old stadium and with it a mountain of memories, careworn laughter lines and crows feet. However, we have to move a few painful thorns from this argument.

First of all, we are only "moving out of the city" on a very dubious technicality. Try telling Terry McDermott or Alan Stubbs that Kirkby isn't in Liverpool. As much as the red side of town wants to believe that Everton are moving to a desolate atoll, we will in reality only be a handful of miles from Goodison. The other thing we have to realise is that we voted for this - this isn't a decision being forced on us by a distant and vengeful oil-igarch - but actually the result of a pretty fair plebiscite vote. Lastly, we have to at least take this option seriously, and give it time to breathe without the "Tesco Kirbydome" tag being foisted on it at the first chance. A new, bigger stadium will ultimately bring in more money, and we are a million miles and four decades distant from our Merseyside Millionaires moniker.

If leaving Goodison for Kirkby is tough, then how about the third option? A ground share with Liverpool. The knee jerk reaction is "not on your life, not in a month of Super Sundays"...But take a step back, take a deep breath. This could make sense.

By sharing we can get a bigger and better stadium than Kirkby, that much is obvious. One end, presumably, will be Blue, and the other red. Warren Bradley and his acolytes may feel that this is the only option if Merseyside wants to be involved in England's bid to host the World Cup - as neither Anfield nor Goodison compare to the two vast and modern stadia across the M62 in Manchester. To be honest, the idea of the city of Liverpool hosting a World Cup barely registers on my footballing radar - after losing one of our greatest young talents to Manchester, do we really care about a Mancunian stadium playing host to a World Cup game?

Of course, for many - including me - this isn't about sensibly stated facts, its about deep-rooted emotions. No Evertonian wants to say goodbye to Goodison because we worry that we would be saying goodbye to all the legends and memories. Dixie Dean, the gluttonous striker who told a different story with each of his goals, even though every tale ended the same; with the meeting of ball with net. Or Alex Young, fine bone china skillfully sliding through a bull market. As these tales, and countless more, are passed on we still have Goodison to frame them. But what if we leave the Old Lady? The very real fear of many is if we turn our back on Goodison we turn away everything that has made us great.

There is a strange symmetry to a ground share with the reds. One club split into two early in our common history, and now we could be grafted together like conjoined twins, long since split but now reunited again; still with our own identities but sharing living space. Is it possible to share with the enemy?

Even at its very worst, the relationship between Blue and red on Merseyside isn't even close to Barca- Real or Rangers-Celtic, teams pressganged by history into mutual enmity. There was a time when we sat together, sang together and dominated the league together. The answer to why this has changed lies at the bottom of Morrisseys melancholy caterwauling We hate it when our friends become successful. We are jealous because they didn't miss the boat for the top four like we did. We now get under their skin because we are starting to catch up after years spent beached at the wrong half of the table, they can no longer put their feet up and relax.

We need to realise that we are two sides of the same coin, Beardsley, Balmer, Morrissey, and Abblett and yes, even Abel Xavier. We are Blues dressed as reds Jamie Carragher and reds dressed as Blues Leon Osman. In the blue corner we have the punch drunk Rocky Balboa and in the red corner they have Joe Louis piston fists

Was I really the only one who wanted us to win the FA Cup and them to win the Premier League with the sound of Merseyside, Merseyside bobbing and weaving through the crowd in a Wembley season opener? This is neither Spanish morbo nor religious sectarianism or Italian vendetta. This is sibling rivalry.

Some will shake their heads until this idea is shot down. Some reds will scream until their faces turn blue, and some Blues will shout until their cheeks turn red. But to retain our history, a communal stadium with Liverpool, is the best idea for the Peoples Club: fact.

How can we guarantee that we dont see our hard fought history flutter away? By combining with our historic rivals, literally meeting halfway in Stanley Park. By swallowing our pride, sharing with the enemy in a halfway house of Blue and red. A stadium that befits, pound for pound, the most successful footballing citadel in the country.

We should flog Lescott...For the right price

2009-06-24T08:40:00.002-04:00

Today's papers are awash with stories of Man City's latest transfer capers; and apparently Mark Hughes is preparing a bid for our very own Joleon Lescott.

It's midly irritating when the Sun and Mirror are prattling on about players leaving Everton, but it's a whole different matter when the broadsheets start getting in on the act too. Today's Guardian reports that City's "opening gambit" will be around £15m.

Obviously £15m is a huge amount, but Lescott is a hugely important player to us. If we can squeeze £20m out of them then the offer looks tempting, but Jagielka will not have recovered from his knee injury until October at the very earliest. What that means is that Jack Rodwell - who is being drooled over by every journo with a pulse thanks to his "tour de force"/"superlative"/"immense" display in defensive mid for the U-21's - would have to play at centre half again, until Jags got back to fitness. Either that or Moyes would have to pull yet another brilliant defensive signing out of the bag.

So City's massive bid, shouldn't just represent Lescott's value to the team, it should also take our lack of backup into account. Rodwell is excellent, but very young to be expected to consistently perform at centre half for the opening months of the season.

Looking at it from a purely financial perspective, £15-£20m is a glorious profit on a player that Moyes bought for £5m, and we all know that Lescott has two ropey knees, which often need treatment after games. Could we be getting £20m for a player that - when he hits the 30yr mark - could descend into a footballing Douglas Bader - like Paul McGrath or Ledley King? On the other hand, money is nice, but players are better - could we find an instant replacement for Lescott?

Barcelona and Everton

2009-05-28T14:15:00.002-04:00

The papers heaped ridiculous praise on Man Utd before the Champions League Final on Wednesday, and after the game drizzled Barcelona in superlatives. Sandwiched in between was a game where Barca played well (not a superhuman performance like some papers suggested, but a good one - Barca have played MUCH better than that this season) and smothered Man Utd, killing them softly with their passing game.

What does this have to do with Everton? Well quite a bit actually - the fact that Barca were there in the first place grates a lot - as Chelsea would have been very tired an distracted if they had to play a CL Final three days before facing us. There's also this article in Toffeeweb entitled "Barca-ton" - and there's also's Barca's socio system - where each fan is a financial member of the club, surely the perfect system for the People's Club?

Trying to make sense of Fellaini...

2009-05-19T10:58:00.000-04:00

Are we all just hypnotized by his feral frizz or is Marouane Fellaini slowly moving towards brilliance at Everton? Maybe it's because his big hair reminds people of Carlos Valderrama, the Colombian midfielder with the orange Afro who was a bubbling cauldron of skill; whilst our Belgian isn't exactly a footballing pen pusher - he is no Valderamma, Fellaini's loud hair masks a player whose game (fouls aside) is based on unfussy simplicity. Tommy Gravesen too, was a victim of his looks, most lazy commentators claiming that he was Everton’s tough midfield firebrand, when in reality his shaved head and goggle eyes belied his skill.

And yet the question still boomerangs back: does Fellaini bubble and fizz in our minds like a drug on a rusty spoon because he's 6ft 4 with a mountainous halo of hair, or does he stand out because he is good? Fellaini seems to make the difference in some Everton games, but when you analyze why he is good, you again get more questions than answers...He seems slow, his ungainly tendrils, and awkward rather than hard challenges on the deck, send grenade pins flying everywhere - and in the air he causes problems but often outside of the rules...

Fellaini, a man obscured by his totemic Afro (he tried braids but looked like Medusa with her snakes tamed) and surrounded by media bluster, has quietly and efficiently got on with his job. His goal at the weekend against Sunderland describes him perfectly, an unfussy finish from a man who - like Tim Cahill - is continuously in the right place at the right time for Everton.

A lot about the Belgian youngster has been confusing, early on he was met with nonplussed silence, misunderstood from all four corners of the Goodison box that he thinks outside of, and other times he’s been celebrated, with a large number of Fellaini acolytes donning Afro wigs in tribute.

At first we knew very little about him; he was tall, thin, and a midfielder – and even that fact became less certain over time. Stories of his stamina sapping brilliance in the Liege-Liverpool game - where he covered every blade of grass like a forensic crime scene analyst - beat him to Goodison. When he arrived he wasn't what we expected, but I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual. He'd been plucked in the last few seconds of the transfer window from Standard Liege, with Moyes knowing well that no signings would actually provoke a full scale riot. What perplexed us what that the entire summer Everton’s eyes had been fixed on Joao Moutinho of Sporting Lisbon, amidst the carnage of Wyness walking, and our transfer policy atrophying - and what we got was very different from Moutinho...

It is on paper where Fellaini really excels, 8 goals for Everton so far in the Premier League ( the same as Cahill) for a 21 year old midfielder, in his first season in the English top flight, is an excellent haul.

15 million Euros (even the amount is in dispute amongst fans) got us a work in progress, a young player that hasn't yet been fully reverse engineered for Everton by Moyes. He looks like a lanky Blaxploitation Syd Barrett, and often plays like one too - his kung-fu kick goal early in the campaign woke us all to his potential. Sometimes his ponderous passing can be excruciating, his ability to see cards dealt is that of a seasoned Vegas croupier, and at other moments he looks like Tim Cahill's rightful successor. And what position should he play? He's been shunted around filling in for injuries, but underneath do we really know where his best position is? He is immense in the air - but not in the conventional manner, his flaying elbows, fists, and hair, make for an utter melee every time he goes for an aerial ball. In many ways he is as difficult to play against as he is to sometimes play with; Gab Marcotti described him as a "beast" - and to me that is the perfect description. We just need to tame his wild side....

He's young and still learning, Goodison Park is his workplace and also his classroom, and I cannot wait to see Fella grow at Everton.

Ed Bottomley

Everton:No Jags? No Mikky? No Yak? Less is more!

2009-05-18T06:38:00.001-04:00

"Here comes success, hoo-ray success!"
So hollered Detroit's grizzled Iggy Pop, the optimistic lyrics mirroring the minds of thousands of Everton fans who jubilantly bounced through the week on Champagne bubbles after our Cup win over United. We even managed to bag a point a Stamford Bridge, and things were looking very rosy. That is until Phil Jagielka's injury stopped us all in our tracks.
Jagielka has had a wonderful season at Everton, looking more assured with each game and forcing his way further into Capello's thoughts and the England squad along the way. With our bare bones squad, a decimated strikeforce and a weakened midfield - it was comforting to have so much solidity at the back. For Phil to miss the Cup Final is painful for everyone, but it is just yet another setback in a sea of problems which started last summer with CEO Keith Wyness walking - and somehow we are heading to this season's finish line still fighting for a trophy. At Everton every injury to personnel miraculously transforms into a team building exercise, we are swiftly becoming the masters of less is more.
It has been a funny old season for the funny old game. Newly promoted Hull City rose so fast they got the bends, while previously bullet proof Aston Villa now look as prone as Detroit roadkill. Arsenal have had a rocky season but are firing on all cylinders now, and Everton, despite their rancid start, have had a strong season. Riley may be a United fan (we know he isn't really), Clattenburg may support the RS and Lady Luck - more important than those two shambling buffoons – is definitely not a Toffee. So the cards have been dealt, for our star defender and burgeoning England squad player - anterior cruciate damage and at least six months out - for our Iberian midfield laureate - season ending knee damage too - and for our main striker, a man who scores more goals than I have hot dinners - a ruptured Achilles tendon.
All you have to do is look at the Premier League table to see that thick black line between fourth and fifth, a line that separates the haves from the have-nots. First amongst the underclass is usually Everton, and we are seen as outsiders in the FA Cup too, with many a pundit already dismissing our chances against Chelsea. Things will definitely be harder without Jagielka, but when a team knocks three of the five teams above them in the league out of the FA Cup they can never be written off in such a cavalier fashion. Chelsea could also still progress to the Champions League Final, which is just three days before our Wembley match-up. Against Barcelona on Tuesday Chelsea's millionaire superheroes looked decidedly Clark Kent, and I fancy Everton, comfortable in their underdog status, to hassle, harry, and harangue them in the Cup Final.
Above all, no matter how gutting the Jagielka injury is, we need to remember that it has happened to the strongest area of our squad. Defence is one of the few positions where Everton have reinforcements; step up Joey Yobo. Jags may be our number one choice for centre half , but Joey Yobo is the man who helped us sneak under the velvet rope, and into fourth place. This is Moyes’ first chance at silverware, and his first Everton signing - Joey Yobo - could yet help him get it.

Barry banned for Goodison Cup Clash

2009-02-08T09:41:00.004-05:00

Villa skipper Gareth Barry picked up a 5th yellow card at Ewood Park on Saturday for 'over-exuberant' celebration of their second goal and as a result will miss next Sunday's fifth-round FA cup tie at Goodison. Aston Villa also have injury concerns over Cuellar [hamstring] and Heskey [achilles tendon].

Following their exertions of recent weeks David Moyes has ordered the boys to take a few days rest before resuming training. An early doubt for the weekend is Marouane Fellaini [back], while Steven Pienaar is banned and unfortunately Joao Alves de Assis Silva, aka Jo, is ineligible having played for just 20 minutes in City's humiliating third-round defeat by Forest at Eastlands.

EVERTON STRIKER SEARCH: Racing hurry to offload

2009-01-17T11:04:00.008-05:00

According to Spanish media reports the president of Racing Santander says he is in negotiations with the Toffees regarding a possible deal for their Belgian/Burundian striker Mohammed Tchite. Apparently a loan deal, with an option to buy, is what Kenwright wants, but Racing, who have debt problems, would prefer a straight cash sale. Tchite is almost 25 years old, stands 5 ft 9 1/2 inches tall and has played for: Standard Liege [2003-06] 58 App / 21 goals; Anderlecht [06-07] 30/21; Racing [06-to date] 45/14. He had a brief loan spell with Juventus in 2004 during which he failed to impress. Observers in Spain describe him as being injury prone and "less than clinical" in front of goal. Sounds like another Spanish club president trying to dump some dross.

Evertonians REJOICE: Rafa has a Keegan Moment

2009-01-09T13:28:00.005-05:00

Looks like the RS just blew their title hopes with Rafa scoring as spectacular an own goal as Carragher has ever managed. And it was worse, much worse, than KK's famous outburst because it was premeditated, the dope had written it all out in longhand and read it as if delivering a bad wedding speech. Sir Alex has won the psychological battle, now let's win the physical battle!

Good News; Moyes Shopping in Aldi Again

2009-01-09T06:43:00.005-05:00

Sifting through the daily transfer rumour dross is a depressing chore, but occasionally a story strikes a cord.

All the evidence shows that David Moyes is at his best when shopping in the bargain basement. When he visits Harrods his judgement seems to get blurred by all the bright lights. Beattie and AJ were expensive flops and the jury is still out on The Yak and arguably on his latest 'record' signing Fellaini, however when he scours the lower shelves for the overlooked or underestimated he finds a bargain every time; Pienaar, Lescott, Jags, Neville and the two Tims.

So it is with unconfined joy that I read of our interest in Andrew Driver the Hearts winger. The Oldham born 21 year old has been earning rave reviews north of the border and has scored 11 goals in 61 appearances, including a 'wonder' strike against Celtic at Celtic Park. He is pacey, a great crosser and strikes a superb dead ball. England under-21 coach Stuart Pearce has flown to Scotland 3 times to watch him and says "He is very much in my thoughts"

Hearts have major financial problems - £12.5 mln annual wage bill on a revenue flow of just £10.3 mln - and so may be willing to cut a deal whereby we take Driver on loan until the end of the season and then buy if he works out.

The last time we bought a young English winger from the lower leagues who could cross the ball he had played 74 times and also scored 11 goals for his team......that was Burnley......and the player......Trevor Steven.

Everton to Sign Another Dwarf?

2009-01-08T02:15:00.010-05:00

Strong rumours have emerged in the last 24 hours linking us with a loan deal for 26 year old Venezuela striker Giancarlo Maldonado. Scorer of 16 goals in 32 appearances for Club Deportivo O'Higgins of Chile he currently plays for Mexican side Atlante FC for whom he has scored 30 goals in 47 appearances since joining them in 2007. He has played 41 games for Venezuela netting 16 times, including in their historic victory over Brazil and is considered by many to be his country's finest striker.
The fatal flaw in all this, at least for our vertically challenged squad, is that Giancarlo stands just 5'8" in his cotton socks. But as one of my best mates, a Burnley supporter when they were a top team, used to say "They don't make diamonds as big as bricks!"

Everton:Return of the Band of Brothers

2008-12-18T03:51:00.000-05:00

First came Ramsey's 'wingless wonders' back in the '66; last season we saw Man Utd play their headless horseman formation, a lazy-Suzan style striker-free carousel of attacking talent with each star taking their moment in the spotlight. Now this season we have Everton, fielding a tackle-free midfield last week, and a line-up without a natural striker the next.

We started the season by inverting all expectations, our defence has turned from well drilled centurions to lollygagging daydreamers, our midfield was stripped of Carsley's snarl, and to top it off - Fortress Goodison resembled more of a cozy Bed & Breakfast for away teams.

Last week though things began to look even worse, we had one fit striker at the club, and the quintuplet midfield that came out against Aston Villa was bereft of anyone even remotely versed in the art of the tackle. Cahill can harry all game but is a tactless tackler in the Scholes-mould. Pienaar and Osman can pickpocket, Fellaini is not yet fully aware 0f the telescopic reach of his legs, and to expect midfield laureate Arteta to turn into a slide-happy tackler is beyond even our workaholic credo.

And yet, remarkably, these two performances - losing to Villa at home and beating City away have arguably been our best back to back games of the season.

Even after Ashley Young delivered his last-minute kick in the teeth with such aplomb, we can still look on the Villa game as one where we played well. Fellaini, with his massive afro and beatific face, has been excellent in both games, his unkempt and rangy style that stays just this side of legality makes him as troublesome and totemic as Big Dunc in the box, and as unpredictable and dynamic as galloping mustang outside it.

This week came Manchester City away, and due to Anichebe's failed fitness test we had no healthy strikers at the club. Step up Cahill, and an ersatz emulation of Utd's striker-free experiment. That it was a success is testament to the unpredictable game of football, where management is often a noxious mix of alchemy and poker.

No matter how much a manager pretends that he is in control, there are always factors he just cannot legislate for - transfer requests, injuries, the men in suits taking away his transfer budget, new and fabulously wealthy owners with skyscraping expectations, Heurelho Gomes. The pestilence thrust on the Everton strikeforce by the footballing gods came after a summer of supreme discontent in which tension was ratcheted up on a daily basis, with fans getting transfer window tinnitus at the wilderness of players linked to us. We failed to make a signing of note until the 11th hour, and now, at what should be our lowest ebb, with Moyes already looking to January's free-transfer flotsam - we have finally found a winning formula.

Moaning is the knee-jerk reaction of pretty much any football fan as soon as the going gets tough, but when you have no fit strikers you know that you are unlucky. Anichebe has a back niggle, Yakubu ruptured his Achilles tendon and is out for the season, Louis Saha returned to his natural state of injury, and when James Vaughan managed to injure his other knee the prestigious surgeon set to operate on it injured himself skiing.

Despite this backdrop of horrors - and even with a desperate Nuno Valente buying 100 lottery tickets in one go earlier this year – Moyes could turn this to our advantage. Under Moyes our biggest asset has been our spirit. Our strikerless formation and tackle-free midfield could yet prove to be the answer for a club down on its luck. It is in the pressure cooker of uncertainty, with no fit forwards at the club, and with a midfield unable to tackle, that we finally look balanced. Removing personnel has seen the return of the tight knit band of brothers.

For Moyes necessity has been the mother of invention, and right now we look curiously strong. The sum is definitely greater than its parts; at Goodison 2+2 definitely equals five.

Everton: 6 Reasons Why Harris Should Be Able To Sell The Toffees

2008-12-18T01:46:00.000-05:00

Written for the Times Fanzine Fanzone on November 14, 2008

Keith Harris is apparently finding it hard to find a credible buyer for Everton, blaming the unattractive demographics of Liverpool and the fact that we share the city with another team. Admittedly, Merseyside is a poor area, and the demographics must look bad, particularly in a recession, but on the other hand – television rights in the Premier League dwarf gate receipts – just as the global reach of the Premier League is becoming colossal in comparison to its rivals.

I have come up with six reasons why Harris should be able to sell “The People’s Club”.

I. Membership of the Premier League.
As the Premier League’s tentacles spread further afar – a stake in our league will become more and more precious. Purchasing Everton buys an investor just that; a foothold in the world’s premier football league, a Noah’s Ark of international stars, where tackles crunch like credit – and a home to oligarchs with more roubles that scruples. As the numbers of clubs shrink that haven’t already been gulped down by billionaire fat cats, Everton percolate to the top.

II. History.
History and tradition are difficult to crystallize into value but they are there in the truckload. Everton is a club that bleeds history, and in the 130 years that we have been in existence we have changed like Dr Who playing musical chairs; Bank of England, the Mersey Millionaires, the School of Science, the Dogs of War, and now our latest reincarnation – the People’s club. I like to think that we are an interesting club – the exotic curio at the back of the antiques shop. A blend of good and rubbish – if we were an album we’d be the Clash’s Sandinista – an epic of the great and the dire.
Everton are a team for all seasons, a Sandinista, with its everything but the kitchen sink philosophy. We’ve had a smorgasbord of players – from immense centre forwards like Joe Royle, Bob Latchford, Dixie Dean, and our one season shooting star Gary Lineker. With Everton you get everything from the Holy Trinity (Kendall, Ball, Harvey) and the Golden Vision (Alex Young) to the Dogs of War (Horne, Parkinson, Ebbrell) and the Big Yin (Duncan Ferguson). Wingers like Johnny Morrissey – with the balance of an acrobat and those that have fallen off that tightrope, like failed wideboy Andy Van der Meyde.
Any incoming fat cats have the in-built ego boost of knowing that they are transforming a team’s fortunes, whilst also realizing that Everton belong amongst the top clubs.
Much as it pains me to think of us being sold to a billionaire Verruca Salt, I can see that Everton’s dual persona – being equally happy troughing from the gutter as elegantly sipping Champagne from the top table – can’t hurt. An incoming buyer will be hailed for his transformative presence, but he won’t have to deal with the sniping barbs of elevating a club above its natural position.
The oft lobbed epithet of Chequebook Champions will be water of a duck’s back – we dealt with that nickname back in the 60’s. I may not want us bought, but I see little alternative, we missed the boat in not mobilising swiftly enough after the Premier League’s inception, missing the boat twice would be a tragedy.
I don’t just get the jitters thinking about billionaire buyers coming in, but about them leaving too. We already witnessed a soupcon of those effects after Agent Johnson’s spending splurge – and about turn – leaving us well in the red, with a number of players stopping off at Goodison as you’d stay at Clapham Junction whilst changing trains, most notably World Cup winning skyscraper Marco Materazzi, and French defensive midfielder Olivier Dacourt.

III. Mixing it with the big boys. Our track record in the Premier League of late has been excellent, butting against the top four glass ceiling – and actually smashing through on one occasion. It is that, our recent form, which will have billionaire buyers salivating and seeing pound signs – and could possibly have their huge wallets creaking open.

IV. Moyes. There is Moyes himself, our wily manager freshly tethered to a new contract – so often standing outside the dugout like Prairie Dog – man managing and nervously sniffing the air. If Everton’s constant harrying of the Big Four is attractive to buyers, then surely so is the alchemist who created our success.

V. Our current squad.
They say feed the Yak and he will score – even though he has been getting nil-by-mouth during our decaffeinated start – he’s still scored three this season. Yakubu is an idiot savant of a goalscorer – someone with little else to his game than the uncanny knack of scoring. This isn’t a criticism though, he is a born goalscorer, who sometimes scores despite himself, loping around and firing of magic bullets from multiple grassy knolls.
Special mention should also go to Marouane Fellaini – 15million quids worth of talent – who is starting to replace his question mark with an exclamation point – transforming from a lanky bag of nerves into a goalscoring midfielder as comfortable in the box as a frotteur in a mosh pit.
At the back we have a group that, if kept together, will only improve – defenders with talent and potential in Lescott, Yobo, and Jagielka, and an elastic goalkeeper behind them.
We also have our poet laureate in midfield, Mikel Arteta, has been quiet in the last few games, but he is the most talented player at the club – and another huge asset – with feet like Rory Delap’s hands.

VI. Our youth team.
Although not quite on the level of the playground superstars at the Emirates, we have developed an excellent crèche for young talent, with our first team squad currently boasting Jack Rodwell, James Vaughan, and Victor Anichebe – and cameos from Jose Baxter. The spores from our youth team have always translated into exciting youngsters; be it flash in the pan kids like Danny Cadamarteri, slow burning talent like Richard Dunne, or superstars like Wayne Rooney.

We miss you Lee Carsley!

2008-12-17T18:00:00.000-05:00

Written for the Times Fanzine Fanzone on October 17, 2008

While over the pond they fight for four years in the White House, on Merseyside David Moyes has signed on for five more years at Goodison. A myriad of creases has always framed the eyes of our irascible Scot; and those eyes, always cool and focused, as calm as a Californian swimming pool, must have betrayed a little more than a flicker of annoyance at the mess Everton have been in for months now. Surely - he must have thought - the "best pound for pound manager" in the Premier League - deserves more that this?

Now that Moyes has at long last signed, a season that is seven games in can finally begin. This awful summer we were led to expect a bumper crop of signings, but instead got a half cooked plate of loan and cheap signings and a last minute flourish in Marouane Fellaini. All 15million pounds of him. On top of a hailstorm of problems, our manager hadn't even signed. You can't help but wonder that it has taken Moyes so long to sign because of failed promises from above, but any concrete truths are very hard to find; Mersey journalist Dave Prentice went so far as to say that Moyes was silent because the only other option for him would be to lie.

Moyes' signature, although welcome, has solved just one of our problems. On the field we will be permanently chasing Cars this season, running after the memory of our departed defensive midfielder. Moyes has been pilloried for his stark summer, only bursting into action at the last minute. Because he telegraphed his main targets so publicly - M'Biah and Moutinho - when neither of those arrived, the signings that did arrive had a distinct pawn shop feel to them - but you can wait several seasons to find an adequate defensive midfielder.

I'm not implying that Carsley was the Irish Makelele, but without him we look far less solid, and his absence isn't something Moyes could just throw money at. The defensive midfielder isn't just the water carrier; the position is actually pretty nuanced and subtle too. Witness Alan Curbishley tossing Javier Mascherano to the sidelines and limiting him to 5 games in 5 months, only for Benitez to pick him up....With even Premier League managers unable to spot a good defensive midfielder when they see one, it is no wonder that Moyes has found it hard to replace Carsley. The loss of the Irishman is as painful as the loss of a Monarch's food taster - and without him the heart murmur at the centre of our defence has been magnified one hundred fold...

Whilst news of Moyes' new contract is great for the team, the fans are a different matter. Although many players will welcome the steadying of the ship with Moyes' signature - a surprising band of supporters are now upset by Moyes. We are almost unique in our history in that although we tasted Championship joys in the 80s, our Premier League existence has been mainly in the gutter. We rail against mercenary fans and rich oligarchs gobbling up our clubs, but for Everton one of the most worrying things is mercenary fans. People not willing to give Moyes a chance, when he has been wonderful for us. Moyes has won 41% of his games (better than Martin O'Neill), Walter Smith won 31% when managing Everton - Moyes got us into the Champions League - Smith couldn't even get us into the top half.

We need to forget the 80's - and look to the dire 90's - Moyes is the People's Club, without him we will slide backwards. This weekend we play a depleted Arsenal, another chance to shake off our slow, decaffinated start to the season.

Everton in Limbo

2008-12-17T17:00:00.000-05:00

Written for The Times Fanzine Fanzone on October 03, 2008

They say that problems come in threes, and for Everton read: Blackburn, Liverpool, and Standard Liege. Like a classic hat-trick, Everton's trio of losses have involved both feet and a head...The feet are both lodged in Moyes' mouth, and his head is in his hands.

In reality though, we have more than three issues. Troubles have come in all shapes and sizes for us and the People's Club has been pebble-dashed with problems.

Everton have ticked several boxes in the self destruct manual of late; moving from a panic stricken summer, to a shaky autumn. The fact that the angst grew all summer, with AJ leaving, Wyness leaving, noone signing and Kirby plunging into stadium pergatory meant that by the time Moyes did sign someone we had already torn our hair out.

And then there's the absence of Lee Carsley. Our wily Irish mechanic was allowed to move to Birmingham. He had been the perfect shield for our defence - a defence that, it turns out, flattered to deceive and now looks dangerously porous. The levee has broken without Carlsey and Moyes' answer, £15m Fellaini and cheap Equadorian Segundo Castillo, is an attempt to replace an Oak with two acorns.

The loss of Carsley has caused a big splash, rippling both ways towards defence and attack. At the back Tim Howard, our elastic goalkeeper who always exerted a firm control over his defence, has now morphed into a Quiet American. Our back four have layered mistake upon mistake. Recently our international defender, Joleon Lescott, has seemed to lie back and think of England, letting many a wide man use him as a doormat. Our other defenders, Yobo, Neville, and Jagielka, have also been like frail facsimiles of last season's defenders.

Up front the adage goes that if you feed the Yak, he will score, but recently he has had to bin-dive for scraps of service. Ironically, with such a stripped bare midfield, even Andy Van Der Meyde could get into our side, but alas he's injured and seems content to Bacardi breeze through his career.

And finally there is Moyes, whose unsigned contract remains the most potent sign of our instability. He has been, throughout his reign, a melding of austere dourness and molten ambition, like a stodgy Scotch broth laced with Scotch whisky. All the uncertainty should come to an end very soon, as I write this he has said: "I am here and I will sign a new contract with Everton shortly, maybe even before the weekend."
But, like the late, late, signing of Fellaini, has the damage already been done? For months now, Moyes has been walking around like a married man not wearing his wedding ring; signing this contract guarantees his commitment, but not his future.

For the architect of the People's Club, uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Why Man City could be good for nearly men like Everton...

2008-12-17T16:30:00.000-05:00

Written for the Times Fanzine Fanzone onSeptember 12, 2008

The Sheikhs may have bowled into Man City's lives turning them into the richest club in the universe, but this could be good for all the nearly men too. Although Man City's declared desire is to gatecrash the Big Four this season, not even a Trillionaire can change the transfer window, which slammed shut before they could really get stuck into any orgies of spending.

The ensuing worried gulp from the Big Four is to be expected, but I'm not sure if the groans from the cheap seats are warranted. If Manchester city do upset the applecart, the thinking is that one of the big four will tumble down from the Champions League top table into 5th place thus shunting teams like Everton even further down the pecking order.

I'm not sure this is necessarily going to be the case, the gluttonous Big Four are designed - in every way - to suck in the refined air at the Premier League's summit, once one of these teams falls into the congested smog of the PL's second tier, they may find themselves unused and unprepared for the pugnacious elbows and clenched fists of their new roommates.

If they stay there for more than one season, deprived of their umbilical Champions League cash point, then they could be in real trouble. Propelling invaders is very different from actually being one. Why is the assumption that one of the fallen big four idols would instantly set up home in fifth place? A team on the up is likely to slowly drag itself higher - but controlling one's descent is a much harder thing to do.

Arsene Wenger is sticking more and more to his principles than ever before (perhaps assisted by the fact that his transfer wings have been clipped) and Benitez and his Americans are in a state of flux too, even Man Utd have borrowed themselves well into the next century, if any of these three slip out of the filthy rich elite total chaos could ensue.

Much has been written about the fact that managers these days cannot be trusted with huge amounts of cash, but can the owners be trusted with making footballing decisions? The buck now stops with the Sheikhs at the Eastlands, and they will need a pliant yes man in the managerial role -- will Mark Hughes be able to handle this?

People think that there is a glass ceiling for non-big four clubs, but Everton breached that before under Moyes, with a very thin squad, and could do again. Amidst the chaos of a Big Four reshuffle and Man City's entrance, who's to say other teams couldn't scurry into contention?

Man City were taken over so close to the end the summer's transfer window that no proper planning has been made. This means that they will have to hobble on with their middle class visage and rich man's wallet until January, but even if a carousel of glimmering signings do waddle in come the new year, their presence - in the short term at least - is likely to cause more issues than they solve. A horde of Galacticos at the Eastlands chewing over their wages with bovine indifference might be hard to motivate, and when (because with that much money it is a certainty) they do supplant one of the big sides, it could spell the end of this cartel sitting atop the Premier League.

Everton are the Premier League's Everyman, a side that has endured relegation scares and Champions League qualification, who has had Wayne Rooney and Brett Angell on their Premier League books - who better to spoil this filthy rich love-in?

A letter to Everton's Chairman

2008-12-17T16:18:00.000-05:00

Written for the Times Fanzone on August 13th 2008

Dear Mr Kenwright,

The Premier League is one of interchangeable Davids and four regular Goliaths, ensconced comfortably in their Champions League places.

My team - our team - has been the only recent side to breach the top four, last season finished fifth, and we boast a manager who was crowned - by Martin Samuel no less - as the best pound for pound manager in the league. In goal we have the elastic Tim Howard, in defence we could field three England internationals, the two Phils - Jagielka and Neville - and Joleon Lescott. In midfield - our midget gems - Arteta, Pienaar, and Osman, as well as Tim Cahill the boxing 'roo, and up front Yakubu the goal machine. Youth, and plenty of it, will fill our bench with stars like Jose Baxter and Jack Rodwell, as well as Gosling, Agard, Kissock, and many others.

I've lived in south London for much of my life, where sneers and laughter ricocheted around me whenever I wore my Everton shirt. I didn't care, and I made sure I wore my Everton scarf when we lost, wrapped around my neck like a stiff upper lip. Duncan Ferguson wore his Everton tattoo, and we wore our shirts and scarves, as if to say that sufferance was the badge of all our tribe. The Merseyside Millionaires, The Bank of England, and the School of Science were names given to an Everton from another era, a distant whisper of an ancestor, so different from our Dogs of War. Now though, we have the Band of Brothers, reflecting the tight filial bond between the players...But somewhere someone has failed, we haven't signed anyone yet, something that would be mildly worrying if there were three weeks until the start of the season, but is shocking and unacceptable with only three days left until we face Blackburn.

Are our Band of Brothers shrinking?

Will they soon be the Last of the Mohicans?

Why do I feel like a whining child, beached on the back seat of his parents' car, asking with metronomic regularity "are we there yet?"

Why has David Moyes been publicly forced to bemoan the lack of signings, looking at us with "no one knows the trouble I've seen" eyes, and an "I wish I could tell you the whole story" mouth...

It is easy to dismiss the press, and I have done lots in the past, but when tabloids and broadsheets alike present one solid voice, you have to take notice...So far the BBC, Daily Mirror, Sunday Times, The Times, The Sun, Liverpool Daily Post, and Liverpool Echo have all expressed concern. Why haven't you told us the full story? Even a flood of new signings won't wash away the bitter taste that this summer has left us all with. Our dreams of the second coming of the School of Science have been met with nothing but the sound of silence.

You claim to be working 24/7 to secure investment for the club. In my eyes that statement is the acme of failure, the nadir of nonsense. How, Mr Kenwright, can you work constantly at something with no results? Many do, but few keep their jobs as long as you have....

Sincerely,

Ed Bottomley

England - Our Urbane Bedwetters

2008-12-17T15:45:00.000-05:00

Written for the Times Fanzine Fanzone onSeptember 03, 2008

England are back this coming weekend, returning from their summer sabbatical and their dire performance against the Czech Republic, and ready to attempt to squeeze six points out of Andorra and Croatia. During Euro 2008 everyone looked up to teams like Spain and Holland and down their noses at England, snootily declaring that Fab's Army have nothing to compare to the classy European teams.

A few months ago, Andrei Arshavin was bobbing around peoples' minds like a catchy summer pop tune. His surprising brilliance was a jolt as shocking as an impromptu back, crack and sack waxing session. The Russian was initially linked with the elite of Europe, but as the summer went on his star faded, and he ended the close season being heavily linked to Spurs. In the end even Tottenham didn't bite, testament to how a star can wane quickly, and how high hype can drive a player's value. There is an ersatz glamour associated with the unknown, even now, we get more excited by a mysterious signing from abroad than by a domestic purchase; ultimately most English players are still seen by most as cack-handed clodhoppers.

It is hard to discount England with such a sweeping and cavalier disregard for the facts. Greece won Euro 2008, and Spain won this year - a team that had been twiddling their thumbs in football purgatory for even longer than we have. Why then was it unfathomable that England would succeed?

Looking at the England players - at once dubbed the golden generation and a disgrace to our footballing methods - we see that in terms of personnel, they aren’t as bad as they are made out to be. Rooney, Ferdinand, Lampard and Terry are all vital cogs in the strongest club sides in the world. The truth of the matter is that England are urbane bedwetters, a team brimming with talent but simultaneously bereft of it.

David James is at once Calamity James and the best shot stopper we have. John Terry is the heroic penalty misser, Rio is the daydreamer with razor sharp defensive skills, and Wayne is the hothead with an ice cold footballing cerebrum - often bellowing at the ref and then taking out his aggression on the ball spanking the hapless orb goal wards with naked rage.

As for the managers, they have to withstand being the focal point for the nation’s volcanic ire. Steve McClaren’s face painted a thousand words, all of them maudlin, as he trudged off with only his brolley as defence against soccer's slings and arrows. That, along with the snatched squeal of “Do I not like that” repeated by Turnip Taylor to a crescendo, and the calm panic of Sven's last games must be a fate that Capello is aware might befall him. Like the players, the gaffer can be lauded as a messiah one day and tarred and feathered the next...

In the Olympics, the US Basketball team was dubbed the "Redeem Team" thanks to their gold medal effort after the previous bravado laden "Dream Team" blustered into the Olympics and didn't live up to expectations. England are coming into qualifying, kicked into the ground and stripped of morale, is there any chance they can redeem themselves?

England may have been bad in the last qualifying campaign, but we have been atrocious before and we were barrel scrapingly cack for an entire decade in the 70's. When it comes to football, we are all convinced we can do a job as manager. Taking a goal kick at Goodison Park in the 60’s Gordon Banks was overheard harrumphing “Gerrup and gerra goal!” - and that simple tactic would be one used by most armchair fans. In Italy, they pride themselves for being tactically obsessed, a country full of fans who chain-smoke their football, but perhaps that is why they value Coverciano - their space age Lilleshall - because they realise just how deep football is. Over here, we do the minutiae of tactics is a similar way that Alistair Darling undertakes the finer points of eyebrow maintenance.

Players like Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, and Steven Gerrard, who play like fuel-injected lions for their clubs, are merely castrated Chihuahuas for the national side.

The problem is not that they aren’t good enough; the problem is that they wilt in an England shirt. It is hard to blame the fast-growing foreign weeds for coming in and muscling out our gentle English flowers, when this patently isn't the case. Admittedly, there is a large foreign contingent in the Premier League, but a team with Gerrard, Lampard, John Terry, Rooney, Joe and Ashley Cole, and Rio Ferdinand in it is surely capable of mixing it in the European Championship, as all have made it to the summit of domestic football, sucking in the refined air of the Champions League final.

If foreigners are such a harmful influence, how do people explain the fact that England were at their wretched nadir in the '70s, when there weren't any foreigners playing? The argument unravels still further when you look at the Italian League. Serie A has a huge number of foreign players and most top Italian players stay in Serie A – you’d think that they’d be crowded out by the pernicious foreign element but that is far from true; Italy are current world champions.

So this weekend, sit back and relax as our urbane bedwetters again confound and confuse...

A Nasty & Meanspirited Anti Tottenham Rant

2008-12-17T15:37:00.002-05:00

Written for the Times Fanzine Fanzone on October 17, 2008

Last week's game at Goodison against Newcastle was a grey game, neither black nor white – but grey, neither a success nor a disaster; and if truth be told it teetered closer to the latter. While Moyes spent the second half fuming at his team’s capitulation, shooting daggers at anyone that would meet his glare and standing defiantly on the edge of the pitch like a flame haired Jimmy Cagney – Newcastle gaffer JFK (the worlds most vile man according to the press) spent most of his time sitting in the Gods, only once coming to the tunnel…

There are some things in life that will never happen, fearsome former Everton assistant manager Archie Knox won't down tools, don a dinner jacket and join the Junior Ganymede club...David Moyes will never enter Celebrity Big Brother, and Newcastle will never occupy a warm and fuzzy place in journos’ hearts.

Ever since Keegan quit the circus to join the Toon, the press have found Newcastle absolutely irresistible, and the poor Geordies have had their thin gossamer dreams ripped to shreds. No, you are not the most passionate supporters in the land. No, you are not a big club. And shame on you for wanting Keegan back. Printing diatribes against them like that with neon-light obviousness is the football equivalent of telling a cherub faced kid that Santa doesn't exist...

Geordies have been portrayed as naive dolts, and it was no coincidence that the vapid vox pop talking Toon heads that chuntered on during the Keegan-Wise crisis were all toothless Geordie goons - a cheap shot from Sky Sports news indeed; what club doesn't have a carousel of half-wits permanently circling their stadium who produce never-ending TV friendly tripe from their sausage grinder brains?
This notion of the shirtless, shameless, waddling Geordie has got to end.

It seems like the press have permanently been looking down their nose at Newcastle - the fans were in a Keegan wonderland, dreamily guzzling their unique brand of heady optimism. The press claimed that this was partially because Newcastle were literally the only show in town. If that is the case, then why are Tottenham so deluded? And if there isn't a southern bias in the media then why do the anti Tottenham articles still not amount to a tenth of the vitriol written against the Toon?

Whilst Newcastle's football club makes the press gag, Spurs still fail to bring the same levels of disgust. Journos have ridden Newcastle, whipping them like sadistic jockeys; do they honestly deserve this - especially when below them lie Spurs? Spurs have long struck me as a cultish team, the Scientologists of the Premier League. Like Scientology's poster boy Tom Cruise - they are over optimistic fools, jumping the shark and joyously leaping on the sofa - before they have won anything.

At Everton, our issue is not knowing how good we have it, at Tottenham, they are the other way around - they don't know just how bad they are. Both Tom Cruise and John Travolta would make the perfect Spurs fans, and Glenn Hoddle isn't too dissimilar to L.Ron Hubbard either.

They share the same elements of delusion and nastiness as the Church of Scientology. From nabbing youngsters like Bostock for a pittance, to bringing in the finest of superfluous silky skillsters in Modric and Dos Santos, to stabbing Martin Jol in the front, they operate in a world of subterranean morals - unaware that they themselves are as functional as male nipples.
Soon to depart director of football Damien Comolli is the Guy Richie of Directors and the Ali Dia of football - and he must strike fear into the suits at Spurs and the hearts of young players - he is the Childcatcher - but an incompetent one.

Spurs are forever chasing the carrot dangling on a stick atop their heads - the Glory Years. Scratch that. The Glory Year. 1961.

Nick Hornby described Spurs as having a "smug air of ersatz sophistication" and this sums up my feelings on the matter perfectly. Transmitting their superior style of play to the infidels and restoring the glory year(s) is everything to the Tottenham faithful. However, if you point out that both Everton and Aston Villa are more historically successful you will be shot down with their preference for hot air rather than cool concrete facts. The sad truth is that on the opening day of every season, most Tottenham fans think they will storm the Champions League with unfettered style and class, like a modern day swashbuckling pirate, the Jack Sparrow of the Premier League - whereas right now they seem to be heading to Davey Jones' locker. The reason that Spurs get away with this while Newcastle are pilloried? Because the press always predict Spurs glory too, look into any pre season predictions section and there will be always a healthy support for Tottenham.

"The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It's nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It's about doing things in style, with a flourish. about going out to beat the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom"

A rousing bon mot from a football aesthete, admirable in its intent, but this legendary Danny Blanchflower quote has - for a while - been the opiate of the Tottenham masses. I wrote about this exact same thing last season, and the season before that, and it still holds true. That is the thing about Tottenham supporters, they are as repetitive as Groundhog Day and as deluded as Truman Burbank. Spurs fans have - with their limpet-like optimism - latched onto this Blanchflower quote that justifies their style over success credo.

Maybe this is why, come opening day, Spurs fans are always smiling; they are getting high off their own supply - happy with their football, safe in the knowledge that they are staying faithful to their philosophy. White Hart Lane; where player's feet talk a good game, and fans dreams simply aren't match fit.

It is obvious that Spurs supporters are sacrificing themselves too much for their art, like a skinny supermodel who sticks their fingers down her throat after every meal. Their policy of spending big, and adding baroque towers and extravagant avant-garde water features to their poorly built shack is proving disastrous. But as long as Spurs have immunity from the most vicious media hounds, they'll stay happy. Having a go at Newcastle, when below them sit Titanic Tottenham, sliding around and merrily tinkling on their pianos while they go under, seems ridiculous.

The School of Silence

2008-12-17T15:30:00.000-05:00

Written for the Times Fanzine Fanzone on September 02, 2008

The whole summer Evertonians have been like tetchy Californians, pacing along the San Andreas Fault waiting for the Big One, and now – finally - we have him. Marouane Fellaini is 20 years of age, a defensive midfielder and someone who ran himself ragged against Liverpool last week, and yet £15million seems a lot to pay. Seismologist Moyes had obviously been mulling this one over, and after M’Bia and Moutinho dissipated, spending his money on someone became crucial. Fellaini signing is doubly important, because it could be seen as proof that we had some money, as well as giving us a midfielder. With rumours rife that Wagner Love will be joining in January, things don’t look as bleak as they did a day ago, but the real Big One is David Moyes, his signature is the one really needed.

This was to be a summer of huge promise for Everton, we finished fifth last season, and most expected Moyes to attempt to bridge the gap, perhaps trying to reopen the School of Science. A stellar trajectory had been mapped out, but the grand opening never happened, instead we got nothing - only terse statements, and scattered disasters. Destination Kirkby was called in by the government, CEO Keith Wyness resigned, the long drawn out AJ saga was accompanied by huge pregnant pauses – and the excruciatingly muted responses from the official club site hurt too. When all we wanted was new players, we were instead greeted with a transfer hush. Somewhere during the summer, Everton turned into the School of Silence.

People forget that this summer has not just been about Everton’s stagnation, it has also been about seeing our strong willed side eroded by not just the press but by the fact that Lee Carsley was released and Andy Johnson sold. Amongst the others to leave were our small tribe of loan players; Gravesen, Fernandes, Gardner, players who didn't take centre stage but who provided insulation during the long cold winter months.

Moyes has been playing an interesting game, his contract, like those of the players he had been chasing, remains a hollow promise. Rumours, the only viable currency for Toffees this summer, are rife - that Moyes will not sign, that he'll walk; or conversely, that he's so noble that he cannot bear to sign his contract whilst there is still room to ferret away in the transfer market and remedy our problems.

The constant rumours buzzing around our ears left us with a transfer tinnitus and a queasy unease about what lies ahead. The frenzied shrieks for new signings have now stopped, partly because of the arrival of our lanky Belgian, and partly because the transfer door is now shut.

Relief that we’ve finally signed someone who wasn’t available on a free has to be tempered by the fact that Moyes missed his top two targets and that apart from one big name all of our signings have been cobbled together for nothing. On the day that Man City were gobbled up by a group rich beyond avarice, our old nicknames sound like caustic taunts; the Merseyside Millionaires, Chequebook Champions, and the School of Science.

Bialystock Kenwright remains with his smoke and mirrors smile, and no doubt, he is happy to claim credit for our Belgian record signing. Take a step back though. In January we sold McFadden, this summer AJ was shipped off to Fulham, and the only two signings that have cost us anything have been Pienaar and Fellaini. Our two sales pretty much cover our two signings – were there ever any transfer funds in place this summer? Again, we are left with more questions than answers for our School of Silence.

Moyes the trapeze artist may have to turn into a magician.

2008-12-17T15:15:00.001-05:00

Written for the Times Fanzone on August 10th 2008.

Put your average Everton fan on a shrink's couch and eventually he will crumble. Scoffing away at football's top table and then tumbling into the nineties without a pot to piss in was a Wildean fall from grace, and it has damaged every single one of us. Everton boss David Moyes, a specialist in the art of the transfer trapeze, is now heading towards the Premier League curtain raiser with a squad that is paddling pool shallow, especially when compared to the Olympic sized pools that the Big Four can boast.

Welcome to summer at Goodison Park, where you wait for a bus, and get run over by five at once.

We are coming to the end of a crazed karmic see-saw of a fortnight - "Wyness Out" turned from a demand into a reality - Kenwright morphed into Max Bialystock - and Mo Al Fayed brought in a crack squadron of quacks at Fulham to probe Andy Johnson for evidence of an injury.

The first news that broke the silence at Goodison wasn't that of a shiny new signing but word of CEO Keith Wyness' departure; something that was somehow painted as a tragedy, but as the truth slowly oozes out, it looks like he wasn't performing well in his position. Rumours persist that he was giving advice to a friend, who had recently bought Real Mallorca, on Everton time, and the spectre of the Kirkby stadium being called in by the government may also have forced his resignation. The other option of course, is that Wyness jumped a sinking ship...

The second piece of news to leave Goodison was the transfer of Andy Johnson. AJ's sale to Fulham is upsetting because of the striker's taut expression when the Toffee's were mentioned at his unveiling. You would expect reference to Everton to fold AJ's face into a wide smile , but he was sold because (with 4-5-1 as Moyes' favourite formation) we'd received a huge offer for what was essentially a back-up striker, but it looks like the player himself wasn't as keen to leave. A price of £13 million though, however it is structured, is great value, and now the transfer money from Johnson will be added to our kitty.

Next came the news that the Kirkbydome project would be called in by the government, potentially stalling the move for anything up to two years, and in all probability leaving the project stillborn. I can see why this move is such a wrench for so many Evertonians, Goodison is the link to our glory years, and leaving it will make those halcyon days seem distant. I voted "Yes" because I believe, sadly, that we have to leave Goodison. I do this because I know that neither bitumen nor macadam, girder nor postcode will move our feelings for Everton. This is the one issue that is truly splitting the club though, not since clan Rooney and clan McCloughlin engaged in drunken fisticuffs, has there been such a harsh clash between Evertonians.

...And if all the above wasn't enough, Moyes' contract has spent all of these tense summer months sitting unsigned - as a faithful "In Moyes We Trust" acolyte, I'm certain that he'll stay, but less sure how long for. Is Moyes starting to outgrow Everton's ambitions? I remember asking a Gooner pal what player he would least like to leave his club, he responded by saying that the only life threatening wound to his team would be if Arsene Wenger left; I feel exactly the same, Moyes is our architect, and without him we'll have to start from scratch again.

To many, the most fluorescently worrying issue in Everton's summer of problems has to be the fact that there have been no signings yet. Johnson, Gravesen, Carsley, Manny Fernandes, and back-up 'keeper Wessels have all left, but on the other hand Arteta's injuries have gone, and Cahill and Vaughan will both be back too. As Everton fans we have reveled in our tight unit with its unparalled team spirit, but like a Hollywood nymphet who has shunned one too many meals, the team now resembles a skeleton squad.

Toffeeweb and Blue Kipper, the top two Everton websites, have filled the void of news coming from official avenues. If last year's pre-season was difficult, this time around we have become mad man, strung out on a diet of internet gristle and half truths. This year though, Blue Kipper and Toffeeweb have been picking up increasingly accurate information from within the bowels of the club. The official site - like most - stays close to the mediocre moil of the clubs party line and it is Toffeeweb and Blue Kipper's two big stories (broken before any other news source): that the AJ deal might collapse, and that Wyness had resigned - that gave them more legitimacy. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king, and now most Toffees punch in the web addresses of those two sites long before they venture to the official one. (Interestingly, the latest to come from the rumour addled mailbag on Toffeeweb is that Moutinho and M'Bia could be on their way very soon.)

Here at Everton we have cabin fever, and the nervy sauna sweat doesn't let up, sanity will only come with an objective step-back, something most of us aren't capable of. A legion of Everton fans have been faithfully holding their breath for the whole summer, but one by one we are relenting. The latest is the Liverpool Echo's Dave Prentice, who asks "Who do Everton think they are kidding?"...

The fear, of course, is that Everton will regress - but despite all the swirling negativity there are some positive signs - Cahill back, Arteta released from his niggling groin injury, and money to spend; but Moyes the trapeze artist could be working without the safety net of a decent sized squad unless he makes some purchases soon. The increasing attention from the national media - something we have craved for so long - now seems detrimental. The tabloids present a negative tale but all the noises from Everton are of stoic optimism, and the poor fans are being flipped over, again and again - like a gambler's coin. Do we have a skeleton squad or tight unit? Passionate Chairman or rudderless board? Crumbling Goodison or noble stadium? The tawdry Tesco Dome or the 'deal of the century'?...I for one am left with a spinning head.

The names of players mooted as potential signings, from Moutinho and M'Bia, to Cana ('Le Destructeur') and even Alan Smith, all sound good, but they have to materialize into real signings. Many of our niggling gripes will melt like butter in a kiln if, if, we bring in some more bodies, but as yet we have nothing, and Moyes could be asked to switch from being a trapeze artist to a magician.

I am a bastard Evertonian from Bromley

2008-12-17T03:50:00.000-05:00

I am a bastard Evertonian. The son of a bona fide local Everton fan, I was instead born in south London, and have often felt out of place at Goodison Park because of it.

In my teens, fascinated by all things blue, I tried to pull back the layers of Everton, voraciously gobbling up all reading material and eventually settling on the fanzine – the subterranean avenue of choice for most wannabe ‘die hards’.

I still remember the chill that swept through me when I came across letter after letter attacking fans of Everton that didn’t hail from Merseyside. My club had just broken the news to me that I was an illegitimate son, a Goodison Gaijin; not a pure blue blood, but a southern mongrel who couldn’t even speak for fear of exposing his prissy accent.

Bromley – my home town – has also been geographically bullied and buffeted around; neither accepted as proper London nor seen as being proper Kent. Foreign countries don't think much of the region either, in 1996 the US State Department put south london on a par with Guatemala, and advised Americans not to travel.

The London Borough of Bromley has two identities; and the first was concreted over by the second. My home sat above the Chislehurst Caves; directly underneath a garden of bed-head rhododendrons lay the labyrinthine cave network. These druidic catacombs became a protective shelter during the Blitz, and then played host to The Who, Led Zep, and Pink Floyd.

Whereas Wayne Rooney’s talent was born on the streets, the closest pick up footie game in my neighbourhood was at Widmore Green, a small square of grass peppered with turds - and lacking anyone remotely resembling Wayne.

Bromley eventually flattened and hid much of its history. It became a huge Kentish cement mixer, slathering everything with a thick skin of macadam – seemingly transplanting culture for shopping. The Sex Pistol’s first gig was at Orpington College; HG Wells' birthplace is now an ant farm of a department store. The Royal Bell, a once noble coaching inn mentioned in Pride & Prejudice, is now a heaving den of iniquity. The Bell was a stop for people on their way to London; years later on that very same road whispers say that Joe Cole - drunk, shirtless, and shameless - vaulted into a taxi, telling the incredulous cabbie that he was an England International.

Around the corner from where a young HG Wells was schooled, Tim Cahill's brother was recently caught deconstructing someone's cranium.

In terms of football, Bromley FC is just a minuscule footnote, and my memories of the beautiful game in that area centre around watching buses tipped over after England Germany games, and occasionally dodging bile flecked abuse for wearing my Everton shirt.

Of course, the triumvir of Bromley's proudest sons: Darwin, Bowie, and Wells, all inevitably upped and left. A wily gent once told me that such was their desperation to leave their Kentish hell that Darwin sailed to the Galapagos, Bowie flew to Mars, and Wells fashioned a time machine. Those days Bromley was the acme of average; with the former British Ambassador to the US even admitting that the life of a Bromley citizen was something that New Labour felt all Britons should aspire too.

Shift 3,000 miles west, to my new home of Detroit, and you will find similar hidden depths. Over here, football is a whole different ball game. The Detroit Lions, Motown’s representative in the NFL, are a singularly woeful team. The Lions only ever won four NFL Championship’s – the most recent being back in 1957 – and almost all memory of it has been driven underground.

Buried under the car park of Detroit Mercy University, where the Michigan Winter has cracked countless crow’s feet into the asphalt, the Lions won their first title in 1935. Half hearted efforts are being made to erect a plaque to where a stadium once stood that the Detroit Lions actually won something in, but no one is really interested in what is essentially a memorial to failure - one look at the plaque would reveal a lack of success almost unprecedented in American Football.

Motown is no town for a Brit; there you are bear hugged by a citadel obsessed with American sports, and it is very hard to escape its hold. In terms of our football, Detroit has been brushing cheeks with the beautiful game for decades. Football has flickered like a faulty light bulb through US sporting history, occasionally drawing attention, but often hiding in the gloom and stuttering sporadically.

In the 1920’s, the golden era for all sports in the US, even our football managed to draw huge crowds. Match reports at the time reflect a passion for the game – an increasingly unsafe sport in the US, played as it was in the winter months, often on pitches covered with sheets of ice. 30 years later, a legendary US team managed to beat the English. Despite that, a mere decade later football became virtually extinct in America – it lay stagnant in an evolutionary blind alley.

In the 70's though English whimsy was exchanged for American bombast with the National American Soccer League; football had moved to the other side of the pond but it wasn't the sport as we knew it. Imagine passing football through a game of Chinese whispers featuring Jeffrey Archer and Richard Nixon - out the other end popped the NASL. An eccentric league was born, only to be replicated if Sam Hamann and Mo Al Fayed had joined forces with Barnum and Bailey. Peter Frampton, another escaped musical Bromleynian, came to the US took partial control of the NASL franchise the Philadelphia Fury.

Motown’s offering to this footballing theatre of the absurd was the Detroit Express, they played their home games on skin-graft Astroturf in the Pontiac Silverdome, a cavernously huge stadium which also played its part in World Cup ’94, but which presently lies fallow, as forgotten as the Chislehurst caves. The NASL now occupies the same kitsch corner in many peoples' hearts as the A-Team and Knight Rider, with sites like this even offering t-shirts of these former teams.

Jimmy Hill, George Best, and Trevor Francis - three football men as inextricably linked to the Sceptr'd Isle as Pete Doherty's bleary patriotic vision of gin in teacups and leaves on the lawn - were all part of the Detroit Express at some point. Francis was their 'marquee superstar'; Jimmy Hill - the owner - came to join the potential gold rush, and Best played in two European games - triggering a stern response from Fulham, who still regarded him as their player. Football's missionaries eventually failed, as owner of the Detroit Express, Jimmy Hill lost (according to his son) everything but his home.

New gambles were followed by collapse elsewhere in the Motor City as John DeLorean, father of the DeLorean automobile company, fell asleep at the wheel of his business and drove his firm into the red.

DeLorean, whose fall from grace was sudden and sordid, appeared in a whisky advertising campaign the year before his company hurtled head first into total collapse. In it, he says: "One out of every 100 new businesses succeeds. Here's to those who take the odds."

Like DeLorean, Jimmy Hill gave everything to his adventure; but the Express were losing money hand over fist.... Football's freedom fighter wanted to spread the word. He invested a huge amount of money in the Detroit Express, but ultimately his quest was disastrous. For Jimmy of Detroit read Clive of India, he came to plunder but left chastened. Hill ,all too often viewed as a past-it teddy bear, the conjoined TV twin of Bruce Forsyth, chuntering on about football’s old days with his white noise wittering, had made a miscalculation, that much is clear. The other side of Hill that isn’t spoken of with the same frequency is his fierce stubbornness, and proselytizing to America’s football heathens would have been right up his street.

Major League Soccer - the new NASL without a sense of humour – has liberally sprinkled franchises all over the US – but Detroit is rarely mentioned as a possibility. Detroit's presence in the NASL lasted only a handful of seasons, and the team was eventually adopted off to Washington; a muted ending for a club featuring luminaries. Given recent events, one wonders whether, after the turn of the year – Ford, GM, and Chrysler will be added to the historical black hole including Jimmy Hoffa, a rare Detroit Lions success, John Z DeLorean, and the Detroit Express.

From Jane Austin pub yobs to Narnia with guns; football hides in the strangest of places...

Andy Johnson - Will Everton's Blue Collar Blue Boy Be Missed?

2008-08-13T14:32:00.001-04:00

I wrote this on the Times Fanzone last week:

So AJ looks to have been sold. And he will be missed; principally because he was a ridiculously hard working player, and because Everton's ethos is an embodiment of the kind of shirt-off-your-back altruistic teamwork present only in Lenin's wet dreams, AJ came to be one of the chief symbols of the People's Club.

Johnson may have lost form during his time at Everton but he always played as if listening to a Black Sabbath record, all adrenaline and pace. When the ball was in the final third he seemed to play like a Rugby Union forward whose remit was simple: follow the ball.

Now though, Johnson is on his way to Fulham, and with his departure, Everton have now said goodbye to their triumvirate of baldies, but it will be AJ that will be the hardest to see go. Lee Carsley was a wonderful servant of the club, but a move to his home town and a fitting retirement at Birmingham City was something that we couldn't begrudge. Tommy Gravesen's second stint at Goodison wasn't even a pale shadow of his first. How we missed his gesticulating and zig-zagging around midfield, gobbling up grass and hogging the ball like a gloriously defective lawnmower - unpredictable and unfathomable to teammates and opposition alike. AJ though, is 27, and although his shooting sagged, his head never dropped, and there is always the chance that at Fulham he could rediscover his scoring form. However, seeing Johnson's perpetual motion curtailed by a static spot on the Everton bench seems cruel, and having a player that can bring in over £10million go to seed on the sidelines is truly a luxury only the Big Four can afford.

This has been a quiet transfer summer for Everton, at least in public, but the sale of AJ wasn't something forced on Moyes; it was a calculated gamble from the Scot (4-5-1 is Moyes' weapon of choice, and Yakubu is our prime striker) and he will use these extra funds to plug other gaps. No doubt behind the scenes the cogs of the People's Club are whirring frantically, but looking in from the outside just reveals an eerie silence. The vacuum of information from the club has meant that the frothy optimism that many fans had at the start of the summer has now curdled.

Since the early 90's Everton have had a pretty embarrassing history with transfers, from elderly Brazil star Muller (we threw everything but the kitchen sink at him - but he wanted it all tax free), to the Fabrizio Ravanelli saga, and Moyes' own poor experiences. The Scot was gazumped by Rafa Benitez in our chase for Sissoko, while Emre and Scott Parker chose money and the mediocre middle road at Newcastle over upwardly mobile Everton.

Since these deals, Moyes has pulled the curtains shut.

With Everton's manager keeping quiet on his transfer targets and keeping the press at arms length, the papers are left with no option but long-range speculation. The truth is that in the transfer market Moyes needs to have eyes bigger than his belly, and the AJ money will help our ambitions.

Moyes' first team at Everton, largely inherited, were drilled for functionality. The Scot's second team had one eye on the relegation battlers of the past, but also gave us glimpses of the future. Moyes' third team will be his most exciting - if interest in Moutinho is any indication (Moutinho, Arteta, Pienaar, and Osman is mouth watering) the Scot is moulding a team in the image of the legendary School of Science.

Even though AJ won't be part of that, we should never forget about the man with the blue shirt who played like he was a blue collar worker, cleaning out the Augean stables week in, week out.

Kirkby Stadium Called In; What Now?....

2008-08-06T13:41:00.003-04:00

Latest news fresh from the Official Everton site is that Kirkby has been called in. Quite what this means for our transfer fund, which EFC have claimed - until they are blue in the face - won't be affected one jot by any failed stadium remains to be seen.
The club said:

We are disappointed by the decision. Having spent more than two years working diligently on a project which would not only provide Everton Football Club with a new home but also regenerate Kirkby, we had hoped to avoid a Government call-in.

It never rains but it pours...

The Toffeemonger - July 25, 2008

2008-07-25T10:19:00.005-04:00

A quick daily scan plumbing the depths of transfer tripe and rumour gristle.

Setanta Sports reckon that for all Bully Wyness' chuntering on about how great Joao Moutinho is, we still haven't actually got round to putting in a formal bid. Is that because this is a smokescreen used to slake Evertonians' transfer bloodlust or because we are frantically trying to structure a deal that will enable us to pay the £18million over a long stretch of time?

A quick look at the Official Everton website reveals that Sir Neville The Younger has signed on the dotted line, until 2012. SNTY said:

"First of all I am really proud that the club has offered me a 4-year contract.

"I've been here three seasons now and I have to say that I've loved every minute of it."

...And talking of Toffee love, it seems that Marcus Bent still sees himself as an Evertonian, at least according to NSNO. Bent uncorked some pretty effusive praise for his old club, saying:

“I was the most settled at Everton and played my best football as a result.

"That was the most I have achieved. I am still an Everton fan. I love the club and the people to bits and I try to get back there as often as I can."

And the Daily Mail's very own rumour monger, "The Insider" reckons that Roy Hodgson is preparing to stuff an envelope with 10.5 million quid and send it to Goodison in exchange for AJ...

The Toffeemonger - July 24, 2008

2008-07-24T09:01:00.006-04:00

A quick daily scan plumbing the depths of transfer tripe.

The S*n - who yesterday ran a ridiculous expose outing Everton as the Premier League's nancy boys because Jack Rodwell and some teammates went to see Sex and The City - today focus on some ugly transfer gristle. They reckon that AJ is going to Fulham imminently, and that CSKA's Wagner Love will be shipped in as his replacement.
In other news, according to Setanta Sports, Vladimir Stojkovic has denied that he pootled around for an hour and then did a runner when on trial for the Toffees:
“I’m not a trouble maker, everything went fine, I didn’t have any problem.

“I stayed there for three days, trained three times, once with the goalkeeping coach and twice with the rest of the team, and the coach praised me.

“What I’ve read in the Portuguese press is wrong. I’m not someone who creates problems.

“Let’s make things clear, Sporting are my club. I never had any problem with coaches and with everybody I’ve been working with, besides I’m considered a leader.”

The Toffeemonger - July 23, 2008

2008-07-23T10:15:00.005-04:00

A quick daily scan plumbing the depths of transfer tripe.

The Liverpool Echo reckon that we have accepted a £10.5M bid from Fulham for AJ. The once fearsome band of baldies: Lee Carsley, Tommy Gravesen, and AJ has now split up with the departure of its final member.
The Official Everton site meanwhile, is having none of this tripe, and claims that no deal has yet been brokered with Fulham.
Everton beat Preston 1-0 at Deepdale and there were two performances to note, Andy van Der Meyde clocked in for the third game running and Jose Baxter nearly scored with a ripper of a free kick.
And finally... We've turned goalie Vladimir Stojkovic away after he pottered around our training ground for an hour, and then did a runner when noone was looking - sounds like an utter pillock.

Is Andy Van der Meyde the comeback kid for Everton?

2008-07-22T10:19:00.002-04:00

The legendary story of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" recording session has it that Syd Barrett shuffled totally unnoticed into the studio. The exiled founder of Pink Floyd, cut adrift from the band for years, was recognised only once the rest of the band started listening to this stranger's listless mumblings. Barrett was a rogue genius, who encapsulated English whimsy in his one full album at the helm, before succumbing to a madcap half-life in the shadows. When he turned up at the studio that fateful day - he was a changed man, no eyebrows and a shaved head, pig fat had replaced the lean musician's torso.

One wonders if Andy Van der Meyde, head shaved and apparently with new purpose and drive, engendered the same reaction from his teammates last week. When he lined up for Everton's first game of the pre-season in Switzerland against FC Sion, he seemed to be transformed, some even claimed that the Dutchman was Everton's best player. This Saturday in our 4-2 loss to Cambridge United, Van der Meyde was again present and correct, showing snatched glimpses of what we initially thought he was capable of.

Glottal grumbles will no doubt greet the mention of him, but having done his penance in the Gulag that is the reserves, maybe - just maybe - Van der Meyde can contribute this season. Of course, a certain sheen is stripped from that potential happy ending when you realise that exactly the same thing happened last year.

And if last summer was anything to go by he will take a few gulps of action before the season begins, and then retreat to his subterranean rock-face, doing yet more time in the reserves. In truth, Van der Meyde has been a first team blur, a whirligig of elbows, injuries, red-cards, embarrassment, and above all disappointment.

Contrite, shaven headed, and focused he may be, but the former Ajax and Inter Milan winger, blighted by enormous personal issues an tragedies, would surprise me greatly if he was anything more than a short-lived cameo in the Everton squad.

And how we could do with him; Rodrigo and Jesper Blomqvist were both failed experiments, but before them we had a glorious cavalcade of wingers, a wonderful swansong from Limpar, Kanchelskis the goal machine, Johnny Morrissey - a tightrope walker out wide who could wear rubber studs on the most gelatinous of pitches , our 80's icon Trevor Steven - and the list goes on. Wingers are in our blue blood, and with our thin squad, a fit and ready Van der Meyde would be a wonderful bonus. So much trite nonsense is pumped out about a player returning from injury being as good as a new signing, but in Andy's case we have only sampled a taster, a minuscule soupcon of his skills, he really would be like a new addition to our team.

Will Van der Meyde be a part of Everton once again, or like Pink Floyd, have we moved on?

Walter Smith was just as boring at Everton as he is at Glasgow Rangers...

2008-05-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

[Last] Wednesday night saw a plucky and workmanlike Glasgow Rangers lose 2-0 to Zenit St Petersburg in the UEFA Cup final.

I am not here to rip into Rangers – for what it’s worth I think all the mephitic guff floating around about how inferior the Old Firm are compared to the big English clubs is utter drivel. Carping on about how unfair the Scottish two-horse race of a league is whilst simultaneously ignoring the footballing Groundhog Day that the English Premier League has become is sheer hypocrisy.

Make no mistake, though, Rangers boss Walter Smith is a bad manager.

For 10 years now Everton have had a Scotsman at the helm, and the difference between bungling Walter Smith and upwardly mobile David Moyes is gargantuan.

Under Smith we witnessed a manager who was a giant of the Scottish league, a big-shot gaffer in a veritable paddling pool. When he arrived at Everton he realised that things were very different and it was soon obvious that he was out of his depth.

Let's be fair to him, Everton were never going to set the world alight – the fact that Kevin Campbell and spotty youth Franny Jeffers were our striking saviours shows what depths we plumbed – but some of his tactics were obscenely defensive, the footballing equivalent of hibernating for the winter.

Between 1998 and 2002 Smith, aided and abetted by drill sergeant Archie Knox, led an increasingly fractured changing room on a perilous tightrope of mediocrity, utilising some of the most puritanically dour tactics.

I remember once watching Everton flail around like newborn seals at Highbury; every time we conceded a corner (and we seemed to do so every other minute) Smith's orders would be to bring everyone back to defend the goal with every ounce of their being.

This tactic worked very well in the Everton box, but once the ball was clear, Arsenal were free to saunter back into our area and have another go; this mindless “buy one – get one free” system typified the Smith regime.

Smith’s favourite was Kevin Campbell, and the boss seemed to be constantly applauding Campbell’s every move, like a star-struck Stalinist apparatchik, whilst his violent and puritanical sidekick Knox reduced Stephen Hughes and Alex Nyarko to useless, shuffling navel-gazers.

Looking back on Smith's tenure I realised we were a dour, monochrome outfit compared to the Technicolor side we are now.

Smith’s lack of imagination was very evident in Wednesday’s UEFA Cup Final – granted, he got them there, but his team’s defensive credo positively encouraged Zenit to attack.

Is it time for Moyes to leave Everton?...

2008-05-19T11:15:00.003-04:00

Something I wrote last week for the Times Online Fanzine Fanzone Looking back, I can see that the Anti-Moyes bunch is only a minority...but it shouldn't exist at all.

Nineteen Eighty Big Four

"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always - do not forget this, Winston - always there will be the intoxication of power constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face...for ever."

Orwell's novel 1984 perfectly describes the Premier League Big Four and their choke hold on domestic honours, aided and abetted by Sky Sports and the horrific carousel that is Grand Slam Sunday - a phlegm projectile in the face of supposed 'random' fixture lists. Whilst the four fat cats scoff away at the Champions League spots the Premier League cur dogs scrap for the right to play in the UEFA Cup, an obvious attempt at anaesthetising the proles' ambitions.

In the past six years only one team has broken the Big Four's collusive oligarchy - and this year Moyes' men finished just short of that target. In American sport-speak, second place is "first loser", in the Premier League that dubious accolade is reserved for fifth place. Everton have yet again punched above their weight, beating our previous best points tally in the Premier League, going on a strong UEFA Cup run in which we were only undone on penalties, and yet...there are still some people saying that Moyes has taken the club as far as he can - a mouth-frothingly crazed assertion.

Moyes, our Winston Smith, has turned Phil Jagielka into a possible England international, coaxed the best out of Yobo, Lescott, Carsley, Arteta, and Osman - and without his touch, these players could revert to their former selves. The Scotsman has been critiqued for his supposed tactical naivety, and is apparently to blame for several dropped points but the fact that we won our first penalty this season in the 82nd minute of the last game, tells you everything you need to know about our luck with referees - surely more worthy of Everton fans' vitriol. The fact remains that with modest funds we have achieved a trajectory that should have been mapped out by a Tottenham or Manchester City with their vast vats of cash.

The black dog of negativity is on Moyes' back; recently - after Everton's 1-0 defeat at the Emirates - a torrent of abuse flooded Toffeeweb, one of the largest Everton fan sites. The most melancholy Morrissey wail couldn't sum up the depressing dirge that this site has become, with many fans railing against Moyes and his apologists, who are seen to be too accepting of a mere fifth placed finish.

Our motto - Nil Satis Nisi Optimum - roughly translated as Nothing But The Best Is Good Enough - has now become a weapon to attack Moyes. I have been very critical of Chelsea and their swift, money assisted ascent to success - but many Everton fans seem to have woken from a coma - I think many are under the impression that we are still in the 1980's. It is all too convenient for mealy mouthed spoilt gits to slide their yearning for instant glory behind the club's motto - this is a dangerous path and isn't right for my club.

This has been a great season for Everton, and while the stands rock with "if you know yer 'istory" - many are ironically forgetting the barren tundra that was the 90's (FA Cup win excepted) and most of the noughties too. Let's put this into perspective - we spent as much as Middlesbrough this season - we have lost Cahill, Vaughan, and most recently Arteta to injury, and yet still performed well. Everton have a paddling pool of a squad - at Old Trafford they have the Prawn Sandwich Brigade - but at Goodison there is a growing band of spoiled brats; the Veruca Salt Brigade who somehow think that fifth place, and a hearty run in the UEFA Cup is nothing.

And once the angry locals with their pitchforks and burning torches have had their way with David Moyes, they will turn to our Chairman Bill Kenwright, a "theatre impresario", two words that - amongst his detractors - paint a picture of a bumbling Max Bialystock figure - continuously chasing investment, and pursuing the super-flop at Kirby. The negative Toffees glumly sit in Goodison, looking to the heavens, and see Kenwright sitting there in the gods, and wonder why it has all gone to the dogs.

It's strange how expectations warp like a Polaroid in the fires of crazed ambition; we would have gladly taken fifth place and a good run in the UEFA Cup at the beginning of the season, but now for some that isn't enough. Make no mistake, if we do break into the top four once again, soon that won't be enough - these knee jerk assassins will be the death of Moyes. We criticise Chairmen for being too trigger happy, and mercenary players, but our fans need to stop acting like it is our right to succeed.

Everton Football Club, where - to some - success tastes like failure.

Everton Transfer Tales: Sunday's Newspapers

2008-05-18T08:22:00.004-04:00

A blulging burlap bag of mewing fluffy rumours...

The News of the World regurgitates last weeks' rumour claiming that Davy Moyes is sniffing around Valencia's winger Joaquin and is ready to shell out £11m for him. (News of the World)
At Everton he blew hot and cold but there are still several clubs lining up to save James McFadden from "a fate worse than a fate worse than death" playing in the quicksand that is the Championship. Poor old Faddy wouldn't last five minutes in that league and Portsmouth, Sunderland and Celtic are all ready to take him in, and give him room and board, offering Brum £6m for his services. Hang on a sec' - how has his value increased since joining Birmingham?! (Sunday Express)
Spurs boss Juande Ramos is continuing with his masterplan of having at least twenty players for every position, and is busy stalking his latest quarry, Man City's ex-Evertonian Richard Dunne. I have to say, the Dunny Monster is looking very svelte these days, and may like the idea of swapping weight loss tips with fellow weight watcher Tom Huddlestone. (Mail on Sunday)
It seems that the President of the USA is going to offer Liverpool's bograt of an owner Tom Hicks a lifeline buy buying one of Hicks' other sporting teams, possibly ice hockey team the Dallas Stars. (News of the World)
Zoltan Gera's move from West Brom to Everton isn't a done deal, the Hungarian is still pondering staying with the Baggies. (Birmingham Mail)

Just how much money did Everton make from the UEFA Cup?

2008-05-17T10:42:00.000-04:00

We have a host of competing links here and here, and one written by me here but none really clear up this murky situation - how much money did Everton actually make from their European jaunt?

Everton Transfer Tales: Moyes wants a midfielder, but who?

2008-05-17T05:39:00.001-04:00

Top press hound Andy Hunter at the Guardian reckons that David Moyes is mulling over his transfer targets and Everton's very own Max Bialystock, Bill Kenwright - is preparing to
prise open his wallet and give Moyesie the green light to buy an "outstanding central midfielder". Interestingly, Hunter reckons that Moyes' top midfield target last summer, Lucho Gonzalez, is now being trailed by Barcelona...
A look at less lofty sources brings us the mephitic stench of this rumour, a classic 'silly season' yarn admittedly, but I would still love to believe it...Marouane Fellaini and Michael Bradley to Everton? You heard it here second...

Rooney at Everton vs Rooney at Manchester United...

2008-05-16T16:41:00.003-04:00

This is something I wrote for the Times Online Fanzine Fanzone a while back, I think much of it still holds true.

I am still haunted by Wayne Rooney. Even now, sitting in my exile in the rust-belt of the Midwest, his short Everton career boomerangs back into my mind again and again. I was there in the Park End the day Wayne scored that goal. Sat there, in what - looking back - felt like a Royal box seat for Rooney's coming-of-age - I wasn't sure exactly what I was witnessing. Was Wayne going to be another false dawn like Danny Cadamarteri, the dreadlocked 17-year-old who came into the world of football feet first and hit the ground running, like a precocious young chess champ seemingly intent on playing a pickup game of speed chess with the Grand Masters.

We all remember what happened the day Rooney came on against a bulletproof Arsenal side. Little snapshots flicker back into my memory. Wayne's goal; looping over Seaman like a vandal's brick, a Krakatoan eruption at Goodison, my dad letting off a minute long ecstatic scream at the final whistle, and listening to the feverish hoarse voices at the train station talking about "our Wayne". The rest of this fairy-tale remains unwritten; Wayne didn't go on to drag us into a golden age, instead he left for Old Trafford. But as long as I live in the U.S. - 3,300 miles away and sheltered from his successes with Man Utd - Wayne will occupy a strange limbo in my heart. Everton were of course compensated with millions of pounds for letting him leave, but the Wayne I knew, the bullish mercurial street-fighter, I wouldn't swap him for a wilderness of millions.

No matter how much dirt emerges about Wayne Rooney, no matter how much the Scouse genius runs roughshod over his "Once a Blue, always a Blue" oath of fealty with obnoxious and hypocritical badge kissing, I will always regard him as a footballing God.

To get over Rooney's departure to Old Trafford, I treated the new version of him as a different player - and it wasn't to hard to do. Sir Alex Ferguson has straitjacketed some of his wilder tendencies, turning his feral flair and atavistic aggression into the more controlled player he wanted him to be. Whilst at Goodison, Rooney notched up 15 goals in 67 appearances, a record that - on the face of it - is inferior to his goalscoring rate at United, where he has scored 52 goals in 124 league appearances, but that isn't taking into account Moyes' softly softly approach. Of those 67 games for Everton, 27 of them were as a substitute, and the Everton side of that time doesn't hold a torch to the current United squad.

When watching Wayne now you see an awe-inspiring and excellent player; but I think that he could have become even better. The early Rooney - bursting past defenders, ruthlessly direct and blinkered, known to taunt defenders by putting his hands on his hips in mock boredom, who like a belligerent matchmaker, never ceased to revel in introducing the ball to the back of the net - won't be seen at Old Trafford.

Say what you want about your Wayne, but OUR Wayne had it all and in many ways was uncoachable. The glorious trajectory predicted by many for Rooney hasn't quite panned out and although he is the jewel in England's crown, he is overshadowed by others such as Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Kaka, players who should have been his peers in the high altitude world of top class football.

Even Wayne's performances for England have suffered since he moved to Manchester. As an Everton player, Rooney scored nine goals in 17 games for England - but now he is playing under Sir Alex, his tally for England is a far more modest five goals in 25 games. Reading through the match reports during his time with Everton, you are struck by the fact that he was lauded by the press for his finishing and "killer instinct" - two things that have been removed in the lobotomised talents of the United version of Rooney.

Sir Alex Ferguson got it very right when trying to coach out Cristiano Ronaldo's showboating flair, but he got it wrong with Wayne, as the young Scouser's direct early self was more akin to the Brazilian Ronaldo at Barcelona - a footballing egomaniac, and a lighting rod for every attack - attributes that no longer are present in Rooney.

Manchester United's millions bought a star, but by separating Rooney from his boyhood club, they never got the legend.

Everton's Ginger Braveheart chases this excellent signing.

2008-05-13T11:28:00.003-04:00

Jesper Blomqvist, Rodrigo, Andy Van Der Meyde - Davie Moyes hasn't had the best of luck with wingers but he remains undeterred in nabbing a decent wide boy and is currently having a sniff around Valencia's Joaquin. Not only is Joaquin a cracking player, but he could be a "friend" for Our 'Tater and may also draw more attention to Arteta's Goodison performances from the Iberian peninsula. A cavalcade of press hounds have been on the scent of this story, and this Sky link is one of the best.

The Guardian's Spanish football guru Sid Lowe proclaimed on the Football Weekly Podcast that

"Everton have looked at him and would be very keen on signing him."

but he cautions that

"Joaquin, in principle doesn't like the idea of going to England. But, if the money is there - which of course it will be in England compared to Spain - and if the buyer is there, and there isn't a better option in Spain, he would take that..."

So it looks like if we play our cards right, we could bag ourselves two quality players from the Mestalla in Manuel Fernandes and Joaquin.

Light the blue touch-paper; we are going to the stars!

2008-03-13T12:23:00.003-04:00

TOFFEES 2 - LA VIOLA 0 [aet]
Aggregate score 2-2

Tie decided on penalties: Everton 2 - Fiorentina 4

Sport has been defined as "a pleasant pastime; amusement; diversion" and professional sport clearly extends into the entertainment industry. Few inside Goodison last night could desribe events as 'pleasant' but for the millions of neutrals watching on TV this match was entertainment of the highest quality. Exciting, dramatic, climactic, and cruel, this game had it all; the sort of content that makes media executives drool.
For the committed Evertonian it was heartbreaking, but to be part of it, to be at Goodison last night was uplifting. Make no mistake this team are the 'real deal'. Moyes is sculpting a wonderful squad who will ultimately be capable of fullfilling all our dreams, and I mean ALL! They are already the finest Everton team since the mid-80s so just imagine where the additions which Moyes will add in the summer will take us.
Fiorentia were completely outclassed, and at times reduced to a bickering, dishevelled unit until rescued from the requirement to play as a team by a penalty shoot-out, a creation which is to a football match what Katie Price is to literature - unconnected. Ah the tyranny of the shoot-out; individuals plucked from the team, and a contest between 11 men playing as 1 suddenly becomes like, well, darts. All the continentals on show scored including Gravesen - trundled out for the occasion - and Arteta....you know the rest!
One question gnaws at me: Up until now I have been 100% behind the move to Kirby, the financial arguments are as obvious as Katie Price's assets [apologies for that]. Could any new stadium, however cleverly designed, replicate the atmosphere that was Goodison Park last night?

Everton's Leon Osman For England?

2008-03-10T10:31:00.001-04:00

A jealous look over Stanley Park reveals that Liverpool have been spending a lot more money than us – an oft-cited fact that adds yet another veneer of brilliance to David Moyes’ tenure at the top of the Everton tree.

In under four years, manager Rafa Benitez has frittered away £146m (and recouped £70m) – all of which has had his side frantically pedalling for the parity of fourth place in the Premier League, whilst enjoying some admitted European success.

Ask Rio Ferdinand and he’ll say that Liverpool are getting ahead of themselves, that Europe is merely a placebo trying to supplant domestic league trophies, a far more reliable gauge of a healthy club.

Before Rafa came Gérard Houllier, who in a similar amount of time spent £119m, whilst bringing back £57m. In six whole years prudent Moyes has blown just £79.1m and brought back £51.9m. He is also changing the face of Everton, formerly pockmarked with relegation worries, into the proud People’s Club – jostling with the big spenders for fourth place, all on a budget of under £5m a year.

Sunday’s Premier League bout between Everton and Portsmouth has a lot to do with this prudent spending, slowly adding to the squad and developing a galvanised unit. That Liverpool played directly before them, beating Bolton 3-1, put a certain amount of pressure on Everton’s band of brothers – replicating Liverpool’s 3-1 scoreline merely shone the light back into the Anfield outfit’s faces.

One of the key figures for Everton was little Leon Osman, a lightweight balsa-wood player, so small in fact that he has found it hard to initially be taken seriously by Moyes. Only constant knocking on the first team door with a barrage of goals for the reserves got him noticed.

Tragically the same thing is happening with the press. Although Osman was the man of the match in many fans' eyes, The Sun's 'Goals' supplement – not the best barometer of footballing judgement, granted – gave our intrepid hero a measly six out of 10.

Hopefully new England boss Fabio Capello won’t continue this scandalous cycle of abuse, as Osman is an FDR of a player – refusing to let you dwell too long on his physical ailments and forcing you to respect his talents.

Osman oils the cogs in Everton’s midfield, and is as unsung a presence there as gravity.

The simple fact that this post will either prompt a flood of incredulous emails, or a couple of tepid responses, also shows how ignored this man has been.

Against Portsmouth, a side that is the embodiment of everything that Osman is not in terms size and physicality – Leon again showed his credentials, with a performance of wonderful technique and forensic touch.

When he was loaned out to Derby four years ago as a 22-year-old, they fell in love with him, and Rams fans still sing his praises. Little Leon could do a job for England, but his biggest challenge won’t be his perceived problem of being shrugged off the ball, it will be trying to shed false press opinions about him.

Everton to swoop for Lorik Cana 'le destucteur'.

2008-03-09T10:04:00.003-04:00

This news isn't exactly hot off the press but I thought that after our dismal midfield performance against Fiorentina I'd take a look at the Albanian midfielder that we are supposedly after, Lorik Cana.
The good news is that he is young (24), he is already the captain of Marseilles, and he plays like the bastard lovechild of Roy Keane and Vinnie Jones. His You Tube entry is , somewhat predictably, 5 minutes of crunching tackles - and he definitely looks like he could fit in well at Everton.

The bad news? We'll have to fight both Bayern Munich and Roma for his signature, oh and he's under contract to Marseilles until 2012 - so if we did sign him we would have to hand over a large slice of our summer transfer kitty (although the Daily Mail reckons we could nab him for a mere £5m).
Interestingly, Marseilles are also in the UEFA Cup - and played Zenit St Petersburg last week - beating them 3-1 with Arshavin scoring the only goal for the Russians (yet another player we've had a sniff around).

Everton's Vaughan injured again...will we ever see his best?

2008-03-08T09:11:00.003-05:00

The BBC is today reporting that our young striking genius James Vaughan is to fly to the US to have yet another knee operation, truly gutting news. Vaughan has been dogged by injuries throughout his fledgling career, a major one to his knee, (the same one that will be operated on this time round) a severed artery in his foot, and a dislocated shoulder too.
Moyes said:

"The knee just locked a couple of times in training and it is terrible luck.

"We don't know yet whether it is the same problem as before but it is the same knee.
"We decided he should have the operation now rather than wait until the end of the season and he has to be a doubt for the rest of the campaign. He is going to go out to Dr. Steadman to have a bit of cartilage trimmed.
"I don't know how long he is going to be out for but he is a doubt for the rest of the season, I would have to say.
"It's a blow to us and to him. We knew that there was something bothering him. We had a look at the knee and we thought it was getting better but then his knee locked again.
"We have decided that we need to have him operated on now. We were hoping that he could get through to the end of the season."

Horrific news for such a great hope, but the positives are that he is young, and he will be operated on by the world's best - Dr Richard Steadman. Get well soon James!

Why Tim Cahill Is The Undeserved Victim Of Press Bile

2008-03-06T23:19:00.003-05:00

The reaction from most of the press was overwhelmingly against Tim Cahill's mock manacle tribute after scoring against Portsmouth. The Australian midfielder, visibly on the brink of full blown tears, said he did it as a message to his incarcerated brother, to show that he was thinking of him. Sean Cahill was jailed for for six years in January over an assault which left his victim partially blind. The incident happened after Cahill left Delanos nightclub in Bromley and headed towards a nearby taxi rank.
Unfortunately, celeb press goons like David Mellor, eager to bash a quick one out (article that is) leapt on this story. In Mellor's column for the Evening Standard, the famous Chelsea fan claimed that:

"Football can't be turned into a propoganda platform for a ruthless yob like Sean Cahill"

The tragic thing about David Mellor is that he is very hard to take seriously. It is sorely tempting to mention as an opening gambit that he briefly worked under Jeffry Archer (what a nice way to start in politics) and to allude to that sex scandal (to borrow from Morrissey, "Caligula would have blushed") with Antonia de Sancha where he had to resign as Heritage Minister.
Interestingly Mellor had previously claimed that PM John Major, and not the tabloid press, should decide his fate after his affair with de Sancha was discovered . And yet on the matter of Cahill and his brother, Mellor's clamour was a part of the hysterical tide of opprobrium. I don't condone what Sean Cahill did, but to say that he launched "an unprovoked attack" is clearly not telling the whole tale. I think Mr Mellor wanted an early night, and wrote a weak and easy piece without thinking.

Anthony Gardner: An inspired Moyes signing?

2008-03-06T12:03:00.001-05:00

One of the quietest of the January deadline-day transfers was the loan acquisition by Everton of Spurs defender Antony Gardner.

Gardner, just recovered from a broken ankle sustained in Tottenham’s encounter with Getafe, has completed a reserve run out with his new surrogate club, and most of the noises coming out of White Hart Lane are of the "good riddance" variety.

So why did David Moyes sign the much-maligned Gardner, whose prime position is centre-back – one of Everton’s strongest areas with Phil Jagielka, Joleon Lescott and Joseph Yobo all vieing for contention?

The primary reason has to be back-up – with 36-year-old Alan Stubbs leaving for Derby County we looked a tad short at the back if hit by injuries, and Gardner could be a useful 'body' and adds some depth to our usually emaciated squad, especially on a low-risk loan.

From the moment Moyes arrived at Everton, he worked his magic on two fronts. Firstly he realised that funds were finite at Everton, and looked to bring players in on loan, a 'try-before-you-buy' policy, perfectly tailored for Everton and an excellent way to gauge a player and good insurance against any flops.

If a player isn't good enough, then ship him off, if he does make the grade then we can splurge – usually for a pre-agreed price; this policy has worked best with Yobo, Steven Pienaar and even Tim Howard. The consensus amongst Spurs fans is that Gardner is a barrel-scrapingly bad player – described by some at the Lane as "the Heskey of defence". They claim he has no pace, bad control, poor composure, sloppy passing, heading, strength...you name it, he hasn't got it.

Gardner was a focal boo point at Spurs and in that respect he is similar to Kevin Kilbane, a player tossed aside by Sunderland like an underrated Superted. In 1999 Peter Reid paid a whopping £2.5m to bring 'Killer' to Sunderland, making him the third most expensive club signing at the time and setting him up for a huge fall.

Although Kilbane’s start for Sunderland was perfect – he came off the subs' bench on his debut against Southampton and instantly set up Kevin Phillips to score the winning goal, this was to prove a cruelly unique game as the Black Cats nosedived thereafter, something the fans called "The Curse of Kilbane".

Once the boos start, they rarely stop – and scapegoat status was something that Kilbane couldn’t shrug off – relegation followed, and the boos increased. Kilbane had had enough, and in the summer of 2003, on a tour of France, he aimed a two-fingered salute at the Sunderland support, a King Canute sticking his fingers up at the waves of abuse.

Moyes took this apparently useless player to Everton at the beginning of the 2003-04 season for just under £1m, and mild-mannered, gaffe-prone Kilbane became superhero Zinedine Kilbane – a barnstorming player happy to help out in numerous positions on the pitch.

Kilbane has been rejuvenated by Moyes, who sold him on to Wigan for the tidy sum of £2m. Disregard the boos and the opprobrium levelled at Gardner, and his signing makes sense. Like Kilbane, he can play in a number of positions, and after Gardner’s impressive start to the 2003-04 season he got a call-up from Sven-Goran Eriksson to the England side.

Moyes has also been adamant that more height needs to be brought into the squad and at 6ft 5in, Gardner can help us out there, too. Moyes loves to shine up reluctant stars, could it be possible that he’ll tap into untouched potential with Gardner? Let’s hope so…

The Fat Cat Chairmen That Meddle With Our Lives

2008-03-06T12:01:00.000-05:00

As an Everton fan I can appreciate how lunacy in the boardroom can destroy a club.

Peter Johnson (dubbed “Agent Johnson” by the Anfield faithful), did a mini-Leeds with Everton, mortgaging their future away so we could buy a cavalcade of stars. After a season we had to sell almost every single one.

Johnson also had the charisma of roadkill – he once took Nigel Martyn to a meat-packing factory for contract talks and, unsurprisingly, Martyn chose to sign for Leeds.

David Moyes said in an interview a few weeks ago that chairmen shouldn’t run the rule over prospective managers as much as potential managers should interview potential chairmen.

But are there any altruistic fat cats among the nest of vipers? And who is the best fat cat in the league?

Everton’s “fat cat”, is more of a anorexic moggy, Bill Kenwright – theatre impresario and obsessive Toffee fan, who has been a constant supporter of Moyes, and wears his heart on his sleeve.

Moyes has often spoken about how tirelessly Kenwright has supported him but there are question marks about how far he can take the club and he has been criticised for his central role in moving Everton to Kirkby.

Across the park we have an utter mess, with Tom Hicks and George Gillett at the helm. They made a huge mistake by sounding out Jurgen Klinsmann, and now that another DIC bid looms on the horizon in the next few months neither will put their foot down and sack Rafa Benitez…

Hicks was described by Luton boss Kevin Blackwell as having “the morals of an alley cat” – is Blackwell right, and is Hicks really unusual when you look at his Premier League peers?

Analysing the ever-growing American presence we move on Aston owner Randy Lerner, who has provided funds for Martin O’Neill and kept himself to himself, and in comparison to ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis he appears to be an absolute saint.

Even the Glazer family come out well, having taken over Manchester United in controversial circumstances, and facing angry supporters groups. But Glazer himself seems to have slipped off into the shadows and is far less visible than his children.

Perhaps you think that Chelsea fat cat Roman Abramovich is a good chairman and you’re able to forget his constant meddling. Abramovich – lots of money but no patience. If the stories are true, Abramovich and his sycophantic retinue go round to Chelsea players’ houses with little or no notice, to ‘discuss’ football matters, and this – in my mind – is the biggest Abramovich flaw. He seems to think that he knows about football and management.

Reading chairman John Madejski has to be up there with his total backing for Steve Coppell and seems to be one of the most benign and positive forces in the Premier League, even claiming that he will sell up for the good of the club, but only to a super-rich billionaire. "I'll listen to sensible offers – but from billionaires only. Millionaires need not apply," he has said.

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is infamous for the utterly cack-handed way they have handled the Martin Jol situation. Levy’s demands for Champions League football were reasonable considering their spending. Going behind Jol’s back to court another manager wasn’t the big mistake, being caught was.

Now that Juande Ramos is in the Spurs hot seat, animosity towards Levy and his cronies has receded – but the possibility of another ‘stab in the front’ campaign always remains.

And Spurs’ north London rivals could also have an interesting “fat cat” if Russian Alisher Usmanov gobbles up Arsenal and belches all over their history and traditions and then starts putting his greasy fat sausage-like fingers in places where they aren’t welcome.

However, whilst he tried to convince the Arsenal faithful that he was a Gooner at heart, he also made a teensy-weensy confession – that he thought about purchasing Manchester United with his business partner, and I haven’t even mentioned Usmanov’s supposedly dodgy past.

So is Usmanov a nice guy, or just a sly toad trying to appear as a nice guy? Chairman Peter Hill-Wood claims that there is no place for such allegedly tainted money, even if the party claims innocence or politically motivated attacks.

Then again, tell that to Manchester City…

Everton put to the sword by Junior Gunners

2007-12-29T23:41:00.000-05:00

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? I was left contemplating that after a nasty 1-4 home defeat to Arsenal with all the kick in the teeth trimmings. Does Eduardo’s handball exist (despite the confirming howls of disgust from the Goodison crowd) if the ref and his linesmen don’t see it? Is Arteta’s non-violent hand flail all the more real and reprehensible to ref Martin Atkinson because it happened two feet away?... The irony won’t be lost on Moyes that in the week that he presented the FA with a video dossier of offside inconsistencies against his team, the fixture list brought him a result in some part sculpted by the referee.
Everton dominated the first half, but threw it all away in the second – something which will boil blue blood. Everton went up through sheer hard work, a corner being pounced on by not one, but two Everton players, Cahill scything down on the ball and Yakubu attempting to head it, the ball bouncing in to the corner. 1-0 Everton. Going in at half time the Arsenal team must have looked to rainmaker Wenger to cure their goal drought, and the Frenchman must have come up with some rousing magic, as his side almost instantly started scoring in the second half.
Eduardo’s first of two saw Everton succumb to the young Arsenal side and their playground brilliance, conceding four goals in the process. The Brazilian’s second was again a fiercely punished goal, squirming around Jagielka and finishing smartly, the ref missing his handball en route to goal. Bendtner then proceeded to get sent off for a second yellow courtesy of a leg scraping studs up tackle. And with Everton being roared on Adebayour scored Arsenal’s third followed shortly after by Arteta’s red. The Spaniard seemed utterly bemused when ref Martin Atkinson sent him off – he had the quizzical look of a matador that had the red cape turned on him.
All in all a gutting result, not only because we could finally have claimed the scalp of a “Big Four” club (currently played four, won 0, drawn 1, lost 3) and move closer to the Champions League spots, but also because we will now be without Arteta as he completes a three game ban. Hopefully the imminent opening of the transfer window will cauterize these wounds.

Why Everton's Potential New Signing Could Bring A Spain Call-up For Arteta.

2007-12-23T18:27:00.001-05:00

Over the past week Everton have been linked with Valencia's David Albelda; the Spanish star, 29, formerly captain of Valencia, has fallen out with Ronald Koeman since the Dutchman took over at the club. Albelda is a defensive midfielder who was converted from a central defender, and took over the captaincy of Valencia after Gaizka Mendieta was sold.

According to Spanish football guru Sid Lowe, such is the nosedive in Valencia's La Liga form that players are queuing up to leave the club, and Albelda and goalkeeper Canizares have even stronger reasons than other players to want to leave. Both players are Spanish internationals and both realise that their positions with the national side are in jeopardy unless they get regular football, the situation is complicated even further by the fact that there is a La Liga edict which prevents players who have played more than 5 games for one club from transferring to another Spanish side in the same season.

All this opens up the possibility of an Everton swoop, but Albelda would surely be mad to move to a club which his Spanish International manager doesn't watch regularly - and this is the crux of the matter - if Albelda does sign for Everton one of his main aims will be to stay in contention for the Spanish side - and if Luis Aragonés does start watching Everton games, he might be intoxicated by Arteta, performing toung twisters with his feet.

So does Albelda hold the key for Arteta's international career (which has been, up to now, non-existent.) Arteta constantly shrugs off suggestions that a lack of international recognition could force him to leave Everton, and merely emphasises his dreams of playing for Athletico Madrid one day. Would these dreams be dulled by a call up to the Spanish national side?

Manchester United 2-1 Everton - Why I forgive Steven Pienaar

2007-12-23T09:14:00.000-05:00

So a game which looked to be going totally according to plan, bellyflopped at the last minute when Steven Pienaar inexplicably felled Ryan Giggs with mere minutes remaining. Ronaldo despatched the penalty with aplomb, naturally; and what looked like the blueprint for how to take on Man Utd at their place dissolved into heartbreak.
Steven Pienaar's tackle was idiotic, and it took away from a good performance - but I forgave him in a heartbeat. It is exactly the same with my beloved Jack-Russel; what can you say to him when he shits on the carpet?

How The Press Fool Us All Into Thinking Like Them...

2007-12-17T22:31:00.000-05:00

That England weren’t up to snuff in the Euro 2008 qualifiers isn’t rocket science and you don’t have to be the bastard love child of Hercule Poirot and Mystic Meg to realise this. Or maybe you do…
To borrow from and distort Spinal Tap, all the press hype surrounds us like a turd tuxedo of tabloid twaddle. Everywhere we turn, we are forced to view life through the tabloids' rancid prism, as they trough from the gutters for more sensationalist bile.
If I told you that I agreed with The Times’ Gab Marcotti that Blackburn's Christopher Samba ''is better than every single Manchester United defender”, you’d probably scoff, and possibly express your disgust with my lack of football knowledge. But why? Because the tosspot tabs have distorted our views, and if it isn’t top four it isn’t any good. Period.
Every day the press throw us garrulous tripe that we gobble up so willingly that now, whenever certain players' names are mentioned, we react as if presented with a rigged Rorschach test:
• Martin O’Neill? Brilliant for Villa
• Mark Hughes? Far better than Graeme Souness
• Arsenal? A team with class and a proud history
• Tottenham? Currently in a slump
• Everton? A small club
• Christopher Samba? Nowhere near as good as any Manchester United defender
• England? Utterly craptastic, their limp performances are simply unacceptable.

The press have trained us to have a feral Pavlovian froth around our outraged mouths when any of the following things happen; Spurs slump (hang on, have they ever NOT been in a slump, apart from in 1961?), someone wants to move grounds away from their traditional base (Arsenal were doing this in the 1920s), England fail to qualify for a tournament (didn’t they do that for pretty much all of the 1970s?)
The real answers to our Rorschach test should be as follows:
• Martin O’Neill? In his first 56 games at Villa he was outperformed by David O’Leary and his record so far is considerably worse than Ron Atkinson, John Gregory, Brian Little and even Graham Taylor’s first stint.
• Mark Hughes? A record that is an almost exact mirror image of Souness’ – except for one vital factor. Hughes hasn’t won anything.
• Arsenal? Herbert Chapman is talked about too much and Henry Norris too little. Not so proud episodes of moving ground and muscling in on the more lucrative north London fan-base as well as somehow gaining promotion from fifth place and simultaneously getting Tottenham relegated through shady administrative contortions.
• Tottenham? Haven’t ever had a sustained dynastic string of success.
• Everton? Historically the fifth most successful English club, even above Spurs! (look it up, pedants).
• Christopher Samba? Quite possibly good enough for any team in the Premier League.
• England? Perennially cr*ptastic, and compared to the 70s not that bad. I think the problem is that it is simply too much fun to go with the crowd, and bash people simply on a wave of collective tabloid emotion. But the truth of the matter is that what the majority think is usually utter guff. But with this appeal for realism, please don’t think I am asking for a return to the legendary footballing years of bygone eras. I despise all this wittering on about the 'good old days', a mysterious alternate universe where England were a world footballing power, nobody moved grounds, players played fewer games and the domestic leagues were a wonderful hotpot of competition. I’m sorry but this is pure, unadulterated faeces.
The 'good old days' were terrible, our league was horrendous, the England team was cr*p, 1966 was a home victory, even Sweden managed to get to the World Cup Final when they hosted it, for God’s sake! If the 'good old days' were so wonderful, how did we have a match-fixing scandal (Tony Kay et al) decades before the Serie A bribery sensations? If players are paid too much now, do we really want to go back to the old days when a measly tuppence ha’penny was dropped into a player’s shoe for scoring a double hat-trick with all the trimmings?
The great Brazilian winger Garrincha’s biographer, Ruy Castro, writes on Brazil’s 1958 World Cup squad before they departed to Sweden: “The majority had intestinal parasites to spare, several were anaemic, one player even had syphilis. There were precarious bladders, tonsils begging to be removed and players with chronic digestive and circulatory problems.” So let’s not moan about a return to the good old days. All I really want is realism and consistency, it is knee-jerk stereotypes and press hype that wind me up. I’ll leave you with a tale of two players, Duncan Ferguson and Zinedine Zidane; one headbutted a player in Scotland and got six weeks in Barlinnie prison, the other headbutted a player in the World Cup Final, and trudged away a free - albeit tear-stained - man.

Fabio Capello - King Of The World!

2007-12-17T10:06:00.001-05:00

So, Fabio Capello it is then – in every pub, on every red-top tabloid, on every sofa, and on all football phone-ins in the land there has been a constant drone of people who have been blathering on about Fabio, his “wonderful CV”, his “defensive style”, his ropey relationship with David Beckham, and the fact that he “doesn’t speak English."

I’m not sure that Capello actually fits any of these preconceptions, aside from the obvious fact that his CV is so good that it glows in the dark; no doubt the contents of Fabio’s unflushed toilet bowl smells of roses.

Admittedly he has won some titles through a defensive mind-set, but that is only because the resources available to him dictated so. When he first took the helm at AC Milan, his style was far from defensive and his team were spearheaded by Marco van Basten, who eviscerated everyone in his path – Milan’s style did change, but that was because of Van Basten’s career-threatening and then career-ending injuries.

Robbed of the tools to attack, he switched mindsets, gobbling up Scudettos like a Hungry Hungry Hippo on amphetamines. Later at Roma, Capello played Montella, Totti and Batistuta up front, and this horrendously good attacking trident again won him a title. Looking back on the 1994 Champions League final when AC destroyed a Romario-led Barcelona 4-0 it is very hard to slap the “dour defensive” sticker on Fabio. The moral here is that Capello wasn’t addicted to any style; he just made the most of what was given to him, a truly great pragmatist.

Next up is the “fact” that he is the man responsible for killing Beckham’s club career, something that the press have been wetting themselves with excitement over amid speculation about whether or not Becks will be called up for his 100th cap. Now, although Capello did initially drop Beckham from the Real Madrid starting line-up (against president Ramón Calderón’s untouchable Galaticos edict), it was actually Calderón who insisted that Becks should rot in the reserves for not yet signing a fresh contract.

After Becks manfully displayed his commitment in training, Capello decided to once again defy Calderón and pick him, with Beckham playing a major part in Real’s title victory. So the real story behind this one is the fact that Capello is his own man; yet again another perceived point of gossip is actually a point in Capello’s favour.
And finally the accusation that Fabio doesn’t speak English, which is just a polite way of saying that he isn’t English and our England team has to be led by a red-blooded ruddy-cheeked Englishman, preferably someone who eschews tactics for passion, has gnawed on roast beef pretty much from birth and glugs mead before, during and after games. They say that the US Presidency is most often decided by the public voting into office the person they would most like to have a drink with, and I can't help but feel that the same attitude prevails with England's football team.

The truth of the matter is that there isn’t any Englishman out there who can hold a torch to Capello. The fact that there aren’t any top-notch Englishman out there (how this is in any way related to the state of the modern game is beyond me). Look how far we got with Englishmen farting around at the helm – would you honestly prefer Englishmen Graham Taylor and Steve McClaren and their rotten qualifying failures over Sven and his quarter-finals?

I also refuse to accept that quarter-finals are the absolute limit on England’s success. Going out on penalties to Portugal doesn’t mean that it was out of the question to progress to the semi-finals. It just means we are pants at penalties. And after this ranting paragraph it should be pointed out that Capello’s English isn't as bad as people have made out – and it certainly has the potential to beat Wayne Rooney’s mastery of the language within a few months of intensive lessons.

I honestly thought that we had got over this “he needs to be an Englishman” bollocks when we appointed Sven – but that is assuming that England’s football-loving fandom have more advanced memories than your average goldfish – a naïve assumption indeed.

Why I want Everton to play Liverpool every week!

2007-12-17T10:04:00.000-05:00

Everton have now recorded victories or draws in each of their last 11 calendar entries and shouldn’t go anywhere with trepidation. For me, the big difference this season is fear, and more specifically a lack of it amongst Evertonians.

All my immediate family are Evertonians, and when it comes to watching our blue boys in action we usually do it either from behind the sofa, or in extreme cases (Wimbledon, Coventry, Merseyside derby) updates are usually shouted to us as we quiver in fear at the bottom of the garden.

I usually opt for the back of the sofa as my vantage point, hiding from the harbinger of doom - Jeff Stelling - hoping beyond hope that the blue sofa will deflect the painful news. Only when the score is four-nil do we deign to crawl from behind the sofa.

This season seems to be different; for some reason I am aching to play our red rivals as many times as possible - it could be confidence in my team. Led by Mikel Arteta driving his Everton forward and the underrated Steven Pienaar, he of the balsa-wood physique, we have some silk to complement our sandpaper in midfield – or it could be the fact that Liverpool started off our great run with their Mark Clattenburg-assisted victory at Goodison and the fire they stirred in our bellies.

I was too young to be fully aware of either the ’86 or ’89 thumpings we received from Liverpool - my only memory is my dad responding to the news that his car had been robbed with a glum shrug. Everton were too busy monopolising all his angst, and our FA Cup success in ’95 still seems like an out-of-body experience, a warped karmic pay-off for our relegation battles.

But for me there are no seasons more exciting than when Everton and Liverpool threaten to collide in cup competitions. For too long this has seemed only a distant whisper of a possibility. This season I was hoping that Liverpool crashed out of the Champions League – for once not out of malicious spite – but so that they could parachute down to the UEFA Cup, gliding into a dream fixture against my Everton. Alas, that is not to be, but I still hold out hope for a Carling Cup meet-up, either in the semis or the final.

In that fateful year, when we qualified for the Champions League and the preliminary draw nearly provoked a mid-air collision between Everton and Liverpool, the thought of some Merseyside action outside the Premier League – like a schoolyard fight organised after school hours – has had an appeal to me. I would love to see Rafa - the ‘pyromaniac fireman' – constantly dousing Premier League disappointments with Champions League successes come up against the Moyesiah – learning with every breath he takes in the refined air of the final stages of cup tournaments

The parallels for this season are also very interesting. Neither manager has an assistant,with Pako Ayesteran being dispatched months ago and Alan Irvine being patted on the back as he walked away to a deserved opportunity at Preston North End. And more importantly, both managers are practising rotation. But whereas David Moyes still seems to be applying logic to the rotation of his forward line, Rafa’s rotation seems far more random – even Man of the Match awards cannot stop Rafa from imposing seemingly arbitrary changes.

Now, in order to stop a stampede of yelps from the red half of Merseyside I need to qualify the above statement – I know that S’Alex Ferguson uses rotation and that it isn’t solely a Rafa affliction but the crucial element is logic. Early in the season, the excuse was ‘resting players’ and it seems like madness to cool a player’s hot streak with some ‘rotation time’ on the bench.

So, I don’t know about you, but the dream cup draw for me would pit the Spanish pyromaniac fireman against the ginger Braveheart.

Toffee Rumours: Everton To Swoop For Left Back

2007-12-04T08:32:00.001-05:00

The rumour timelords at the Daily Mirror reckon that we're after Swindon's 17-year-old left back Ben Tozer. Despite the fact that he has only played five minutes of football, caretaker manager Dave Byrne reckons that:
"Ben showed he is as good if not better than what Everton already have,"
which seems a tad harsh on Nuno Valente and Leighton Baines.
The Daily Mail, however, reckon that Moyes is interested in Wolves' freakishly tall goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey - who measures a whopping 6ft 7in. Even if you ignore the facts that the young lad would set us back £4m, and we are very happy with Tim Howard this rumour still seems like tripe.

Everton's Tim Cahill Returns To Give Chelsea EXACTLY What They Deserve.

2007-11-14T08:59:00.000-05:00

Mystical types call it the Saturn Return - and most football fans will call it utter tripe. It takes Saturn about 29 years to complete one full orbit of the Sun and return to the exact position it was in when you were born. And when Saturn returns, a cosmic food blender of positives and negatives falls upon your shoulders.

The aforementioned mystic types, therefore, reckon that between the ages of 27 and 30 some funky bizarre stuff happens to us.

The Saturn Return is most famously associated with musicians, and in particular The 27 Club, an unsettlingly large group of musicians who died at the age of 27. From mythic Delta-Bluesman Robert Johnson - who was said to have sold his soul for his intricately brilliant guitar skills - to the famous five of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain.

I find it somewhat strange that this myth about the Saturn Return hasn't swung over to football. Certain players rise and fall like Icarus, and I've always thought that Dixie Dean's stellar 60 goals in one season, followed by the loss of both his legs late in life, points to some kind of shadowy Faustian pact. Personally I thought it was all a load of wacky 60s rhubarb - until Tim Cahill returned for my Everton.

Cahill's return is now surely reaching its peak, with a sublime goal on Sunday against Chelsea. I have to admit that up until last weekend, my memories of Chelsea games have all merged into one giant hemorrhoidal pustule.

Wafer-thin charcoal biscuits masquerading as burgers, Chelsea fans popping up off their seats to laugh at a foreigner in the Toffees team - smugly unaware of Chelsea's own phalanx of foreigners - gippy little goals which come back to haunt me again and again like a persistent pop-up error message on a computer screen (Mutu's handball!).

I even witnessed what can only be described as an Everton roast - no, not the Newcastle United kind - where a 'Chelsea MC' scuttled onto the pitch before the game and ripped into Everton for five minutes, boozy guffaws echoing back at the comedian with the mic.

For us Evertonians, who have more history in our nose hair, watching Chelsea beat us over the past few seasons is like an aged Peter O'Toole jealously watching as Callum Best waltzes off with a bevy of beauties. Chelsea, on the other hand, don't do history, for them the past is only a distant cousin, marked by a few splutters of success amidst the tepid treading-water.

What you can judge from the above passage is that Chelsea lack class. They are the Michael Carroll of football teams, lottery louts who are suddenly in the money, with an utter lack of scruples but an ocean of roubles. Cahill's late equaliser was the perfect antidote to this mess, for a sweet second the Aussie was the same way up as his countrymen Down Under with an honest and brilliantly executed bicycle kick.

And this returns me to the Saturn Return; Cahill - though a strong player before his injury lay-off, has come back even better; he is 27 years of age - perhaps his Saturn Return has brought him more focus and resolve? There are other examples, too; Ronaldinho, in all his distilled, buck-toothed glory, has also had his Saturn Return - and the first major slump in his career.

George Best, the Manchester United legend, who was too differently skilled for even the word 'unique' to adequately describe him, quit the Red Devils at 27. So next time you're watching your team, watch out for those 27-year-olds.

Everton Snatch A Draw Against Chelsea Thanks To Cahill.

2007-11-11T10:50:00.000-05:00

Chelsea 1-1 Everton - Acrobatic 'Roo saves Everton!

Everton approached this game having recorded victories in each of their last five calendar entries. With Arteta out injured, Moyes moved Phil Neville up to midfield and brought in Hibbert at right back, a move that always provokes queasy unease. Perhaps Gravesen should have started in Arteta’s place – to put Phil Neville in Our tater’s place is surely switching silk with sandpaper.
As it was, a cavalcade of Chelsea chances came in the first half and they were all scuffed, missed, or saved. Everton started the second half with a much more positive shape, bringing on McFadden and Anichebe for Neville and Yakubu, a change that was a necessity for Everton to attempt to feature in this game; in the first half Everton hadn’t mustered a single decent chance.
It took a while for things to change in the second half, but Carsley produced Everton’s first real threat on 51 minutes, the Brummie couldn’t replicate his superb effort last week and instead scooped the ball well over the bar.
At the other end Howard was kept busy, as Chelsea cranked up the pressure, and with every chance it looked more and more likely that they would puncture Everton’s defence. It was Drobga who eventually put Chelsea into the lead evading his jailer Lescott and heading in at the near post from a corner on 69 minutes. Again clutching his badge like it means something to him, Drogba sits on the razors edge of hypocrisy - how long before another outburst comes out?
Moyes, finally forced to play a more creative hand, brought on Gravesen, his goggled eyed genius on 76 minutes, bringing him on for Lee Carsley. But this was to no avail as Chelsea looked to be easing towards victory; Moyes must be worried that despite his much vaunted new depth to his squad, his team still rely on Arteta as their creative fulcrum – as it was there was noone to truly take the fight to Chelsea - until the 89th minute that is. Tim Cahill added a splash of antipodean colour to Everton's black and white performance. A beautifully executed overhead kick yet again showed how much Everton have missed their man, points shared - and an excellent result for Everton against a Chelsea side whose defence was so tight and strictly marshalled that they hand't conceded for aeons.
Next up: Sunderland At Home.

Everton 3-1 Birmingham - Keep On Scoring Yakubu You Idiot Savant!

2007-11-05T10:17:00.000-05:00

Everton's seemingly comfortable 3-1 victory over Birmingham belies the fact that Kapo pulled Steve Bruce's men level only ten minutes from time.

A draw would have been a disappointment for the Toffees, but late goals from Lee Carsley and James Vaughan pushed them towards the three points. It is now four wins in a row for Everton in all competitions and all of a sudden the heartburn of losing to Liverpool seems to have eased.

Everton now have the triumvirate of Tim Cahill, Thomas Gravesen, and Carsley fully fit – the potent combination that drove them to fourth place and into Europe. The fact that the squad has since been considerably improved yet a second fourth-place finish hasn’t been achieved shows what a complicated balance has to be struck between a close tight-knit team and a squad with the depth to cope with multiple tournaments.

Everton went ahead after just ten minutes when Yakubu did exactly what he was brought in for – and scored. I have been a big critic of Yakubu, but he is obviously like the Rainman, an idiot savant with only one recognizable skill, the ability to score. In this case the ball bounced off the Nigerian's heel and into the net. Sandwiched between this goal, a simple paint-by-numbers finish turned into a complicated goal by the Yak, were several profligate misses. I have been critical of the Nigerian, and I will continue to criticise him. I’m very superstitious and my childhood memories of watching the Toffees were punctuated with touching wood every 10 seconds to stave off potential bad luck; and there seems to be a strange symmetry between my criticism and his goals.

Birmingham’s equaliser was the matching bookend to Yakubu’s opener, coming 10 minutes from the end, and the shock of dropping two points combined with the gaggle of needless misses earlier in the game pushed Everton back into life. With seconds remaining, Carsley punched a 20-yarder right into the top corner and, seemingly not satisfied with that, he then set up the returning Vaughan to score a third.

Everton now have a horde of potential goalscorers; Yakubu, Vaughan, Cahill, Victor Anichebe, Andy Johnson, Mikel Arteta, and even Joleon Lescott have proven their goal-nabbing capabilities.

Everton's squad now looks a far cry from the emaciated three-point gathering machine of the Champions League qualifying season. A swarm of polyglot players have been brought in, both Phil Jagielka and Phil Neville can fill a number of roles, and Lescott is becoming increasingly comfortable with speaking the language of a left-back.

Arteta and the slight Steven Pienaar have shown the beginning of an excellent relationship, and Gravesen, the goggle-eyed Dane, will also thrive next to these two. Perhaps it is time for Everton to stop being labelled as a long-ball side; the only residue from that era is Tony Hibbert, constantly shooting the ball upfield searching for the ghost of Duncan Ferguson.

At half-time in this game a cavalcade of past heroes were paraded around Goodison. Historically this brings a tear to the eye and a lump in the throat, our present players looking poor in comparison to past legends, with the inflated memories of their achievements.

Half-time at Goodison is usually a time for worries to mount, for programmes to be throttled in the clammy hands of umpteen pessimist Toffees; a retired Neville Southall once even came out for a half-time tear-jerker, urging the fans to give one final push in a relegation scramble. These days we look forward to the second half, rather than back to our past heroes. For once thoughts were of the present, and the halcyon past wasn’t dragging us down.

Liverpool, Chelsea, Everton, and England should Shut It With The "Burn Out" Malarkey

2007-11-05T10:15:00.000-05:00

This piece was originally written for sportingo.

Phil Neville and PFA chief Gordon Taylor both think that players are getting burn-out, which is a fatuous and hackneyed argument. Although today’s stars do play a lot of games, I don’t recall burn-out ever being a tangible reality; rather it is a invisible miasma, a ghostly threat like Communism in 1950s America.

The BBC define burn-out as ‘physical and emotional exhaustion, reduced performance, and a lack of enjoyment/ reward from playing and training’. Taylor’s poster boy for exhaustion is Steven Gerrard, who started six games in the last 18 days, including the sojourn to Moscow's plastic pitch and Liverpool's trip to Istanbul.

Taylor claims that: "If that was a racehorse you would say that was too much and have the RSPCA on to you. It is a good life and nobody's denying that, but we do have a duty to look after our sporting heroes."

There is no doubting that Gerrard’s form has been patchy, but is this a result of burn-out? By the BBC’s definition, it is possible, although Gerrard himself seemed pretty irate to be subbed in the Merseyside derby.

The old burn-out argument has been dusted off and brought out so many times that I think I now have burn-out burn-out. So is there any solid evidence regarding burn-out? How many times can I say burn-out in this piece?

Taylor continued his pleas for some R&R for players, and especially those at the top of the hierarchy. "The biggest problem is probably with the elite, who need the most looking after. Think of the number of international players who have had foot injuries, such as Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney and David Beckham, or of John Terry playing with broken bones and having cortisone injections.

''It's up to the authorities and administrators to make it as safe as they can. Some players can clock up 50 to 60 games a season and it's obviously going to take a toll.”

And so that brings me on to Exhibit A, England legend Alan Ball, a tireless runner and as good as example as anyone for examining burn-out. In the 1966-67 season he played over 50 games, on the back of his glorious Duracell bunny style World Cup campaign, but never once was burn-out an issue that was brought up.

Not only did Ball play a huge amount of games, with far less sophisticated training regimes, but the game was a far more violent form back then. Tackles from behind were woven into the games and players often sustained injuries as a result of what would today be described as on-field GBH. The biggest factor was that there was no respite, only one substitute - usually Tommy Jackson/Sandy Brown would be sitting there.

Phil Neville should perhaps stop moaning about burn-out and be thankful that he has achieved as many England caps as he has. Dixie Dean lost a testicle playing football; I wonder what Gordon Taylor would say about that? And if anyone was wondering, I have mentioned burn-out 12 times, even talking about it has left me jaded and listless.

Tottenham Need To Change Their Style Before They Get Success.

2007-10-26T15:03:00.000-04:00

"The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It's nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It is about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out to beat the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."

A lovely bon mot from a footballing legend and aesthete, admirable in its intent, but this legendary Danny Blanchflower quote has now become the opiate of the Tottenham masses, a mantra that can be latched on to and one that justifies their style over success credo. But maybe this is why Spurs fans are always smiling, they are getting high off their own supply, happy with their style, and safe in the knowledge that they are staying faithful to their philosophy. White Hart Lane is full of players whose feet talk a good game but whose fans speak in riddles that aren’t match fit. Tottenham fans, are you really happy?

It is obvious Tottenham fans are sacrificing themselves too much for their art, like a skinny supermodel that sticks her fingers down her throat after every meal. Their squad, literally bursting at the seams with attacking talent, was further garnished this summer with Darren Bent, a striker who cost over ₤16million. Mirroring Real Madrid’s purchasing ideals was never going to bear fruit for Daniel Levy; if Tottenham are serious about getting into the top four then the model they need to follow should be Everton’s. Of course once they break into the top four they should depart from the Toffees’ tactics (dumped out in the qualifying round) and go back to spending big, adding baroque towers and extravagant avante garde water features to their strong foundations, as it is they are slapping skill on top of nothing else, and the combination is proving disastrous.

So to get into the top 4 they need to become an Everton, who in their Champions League qualifying season were sustained by the polar opposite of the Danny Blanchflower quote, rattling off metronomic 1-0 wins, and at times patiently laying siege for what seems more like 4 weeks rather than 90 minutes. So are Tottenham prepared to do this, to move away from that principle, because currently their style is unsustainable – you need graft to scale the mountain, then once that is achieved you can bring in the stars; Spurs need to become an Everton, for one season at least, to wriggle into the top four, then they can open the style floodgates.

Have you ever seen a footballer’s foot? The appendage that brings so much joy, the epicenter of football, is actually a disgusting sight. The initiator of everything that is key to our beautiful game is actually a bloated pink mass covered with scars and blisters. This tool of scintillating skills is actually pretty rough looking. Maybe Spurs need to recognize this, to create beauty you need some graft in there too, and put some hearty foot-soldiers in with their strutting stars.

There is a little slice of North Korea in N17, White Hart Lane is a little corner of England that will forever be successful (in their own eyes) – rather like Kim Jong Il’s North Korea, whose government shuts out the out the influence of their more successful neighbours – what has happened at Arsenal must be intensely hurtful to Spurs, and the fact that they weren’t riled and galvanized out of their stupor by the Gunner’s success speaks a lot about their managerial vicissitudes again shows how willing they are to use the Blanchflower quote as a crutch.

Yakubu In Danger Of Being Irrelevant At Everton.

2007-10-26T08:09:00.000-04:00

Soon Yakubu, like Bentley will become a word synonymous with filthy rich excess. The Nigerian didn't feature in Yesterday's 3-1 victory over Larissa, and the day before he was stopped by the police for driving his Bentley without a valid UK license, yesterday it was Anichebe who delivered the final coup de grace whilst Yak remained on the bench.
For some players, an £11m price tag could be a heavy burden, but for Yakubu it is swiftly becoming the only reason he is still being picked. And with James Vaughan returning from his long term injury, and AJ on the road to fitness, Yakubu can thank his lucky stars that he is the Everton transfer record - as it serves as an aide memoire for Moyes - reminding him of why he paid so much for him. Goals used to be Yakubu's currency, at Maccabi Haifa, he scored 7 goals in 8 European Champions League appearances, including a hat-trick against Olympiakos and another against Manchester United. In the Premier League, his goalscoring record in the last few seasons is second only to Thierry Henry - but take away this history and Yakubu's price tag and we are left with nothing. Will Yakubu manage to prove himself at Everton, a team synonymous with hard-working graft?

Everton 3-1 Larissa - Toffees Welcome Cahill Home.

2007-10-25T22:44:00.000-04:00

David Moyes’ disgust with derby referee Mark Clattenberg is so all consuming that you wouldn’t put it past the Scot to take out television adverts warning against the biased ref. Before yesterday’s game Moyes used his team’s UEFA cup press conference to slate Clattenberg, and then even added some extra bile into his programme notes about the referee. Everton’s 3-1 win against Larissa then, couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.

This game had everything you would expect from the unpredictable and unsettled mix that is the Everton squad. Arteta was as always fabulous, playing football in a similar manner to Napoleon playing Risk, and Lescott (although caught daydreaming for Larissa’s goal) was reminiscent of the Tony Adams fashioned by Arsene Wenger – and made several surging runs from the back.

Everton started well, scoring through the returning prodigal, Tim Cahill – later described by Moyes as “our Johnny on the spot”. Cahill’s diving header in the 14th minute instantly exorcised any derby ghosts, the Australian’s celebratory run towards the corner flag and subsequent “Boxing ‘Roo” routine must have sent hearts soaring.

Everton’s second, a gloriously manufactured goal, starting on the left with Cahill, who sent Baines sprinting down the wing, delivering a cross to Pienaar who then flicked the ball back for Osman. Leon still had a split second before he arrived to meet the ball, and it is in that silence, that static calm before the storm, that the genesis of a truly great goal blossoms. Once Osman made contact the ball wriggled through the air, eager to reach the back of the net – it was easily one of the best goals by Everton this millennium.

With so many players returning we have some fascinating partnerships that could emerge, Gravesen paired up with his replacement Arteta and they showed glimpses of a preternatural understanding – similar to the short lived - but superb - passing relationship between Gravesen and Paul Gascoigne. But before we could enjoy this game too much, Everton, as they so often do – dragged us back into a world of uncertainty. It was somewhat fitting that after a derby game in which no Everton player scored, and many events seemed utterly out of our control – Everton would control yesterday’s game totally, so much so that even Larissa’s goal was made by Everton. A trickled ball to Lescott from Howard, and a ponderous response by the England international, let in the Brazilian Clayton.

All the tension of a possible defeat was then deflated by Anichebe, who came on and showed us what an important asset pace is (so sorely lacking with McFadden), and also exhibited a lot of strength too – bundling past two defenders for another European coup de grace by the young Nigerian.

Everton (4-4-1-1): T Howard – A Hibbert, J Yobo, J Lescott, L Baines – M Arteta, L Osman, L Carsley, S Pienaar (sub: A Stubbs, 88min) – T Cahill (sub: T Gravesen, 66) – J McFadden (sub: V Anichebe, 66). Substitutes not used: S Wessels, P Jagielka, Nuno Valente, Yakubu Ayegbeni. Booked: Yobo, Lescott, Gravesen.
Larissa (4-4-2): S Kotsolis – M Sarmiento, N Dabizas, I Kyriakidis (sub: A Lampropoulos, 75), S Venetidis – G Gkalitsios, G Fotakis, M Foerster (sub: A Venetis, 78), F Parra (sub: C Kalantzis, 58) – I Bakayoko, C Alexandre Silva. Substitutes not used: F Kipouros, I Kotsios, D Gkikas, P Katsiaros. Booked: Dabizas.
Referee: M Ingvarsson (Sweden).

Everton remain half-formed whilst Liverpool are at a crossroads.

2007-10-20T18:11:00.000-04:00

Whilst Everton have Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky as a celeb-fan, Liverpool had Joe Louis – the tough Detroiter with his piston like fists as a former ‘player’ on their books. During WW2 Louis came to Liverpool as a morale boost for the GI’s assigned to England and during a press conference he ‘signed’ for Liverpool. These teams reflect their two mascots – whereas Everton’s is a fantasy figure, always the underdog – Liverpool’s is a figure that although legendary is grounded in real life.

In this 206th league match up between these two sides Liverpool won in a game that was inflated with hype before and punctured with the opposite of clean and normal goals during. Everton didn’t even have the satisfaction of scoring their goal themselves, it was a Hyppia own goal that opened things for the Blues. The blunderbuss strike force of Yakubu and Anichebe were a physical presence and Yakubu had a number of good moves, notably a shot deep in the midfield wilderness which threatened to smash through Liverpool’s goal like a vandal’s brick. The two strikers they lurched and pushed their way around the field to no avail with Anichebe being the younger and more mobile of the two. McFadden, when he came on, was again an enigma – although the Scot is concise and uniquely brilliant for his country, he is frustratingly verbose on the ball for Everton.

Everton will appeal to the fouls on Neville and Lescott – the former a two footed lunge – and the latter a definite penalty, with recognition of either one by Clattenberg meaning a different outcome to this game. The decision not to grant Everton a last gasp penalty (after Kuyt’s earlier last gasp penalty) was made all the more bizarre by the fact that Clattenberg had just given a penalty to Liverpool. Weak refs are often criticized for trying to make amends – this referee, when given a legitimate reason to give a penalty to the blue half of Merseyside, inexplicably didn’t. Ultimately though, football is about results – and this one matters more than most – sometimes the pain of defeat is dulled by scintillating skill but in the Merseyside derby performance is always of secondary or tertiary importance, the result – the trump card in the office on the Monday morning – that stamps out all excuses is of precious value.

The Observer’s Paul Wilson thinks that Everton and Liverpool will miss each other when the Blues move to Kirkby, and this is true – the rivalry is symbiotic and without each other, so tangibly close like a conjoined twin, the derby will be less like messy fisticuffs between two neighbours in a semi detached house, and more like all other local rivalries.

This game was a crossroads for Liverpool, but it is different for the Toffees. The Everton of 2007/8 still isn’t fully formed – players like Cahill, Vaughan, and Gravesen still have to be added to the mix, and a decision has to be made about whether recalcitrant wide-boy Andy Van Der Meyde’s artistry has a place in the squad. Everton still have players that can remember Duncan Ferguson, and Hibbert in particular, when harried, seems to have flashbacks of the totemic Scotsman, vainly firing up to the memory of the number 9 with the frequency of the English archers at Crecy. Liverpool will push on from here I’m sure, but Everton – my team, will still remain as unpredictable as Rocky Balboa.

Everton 1-2 Liverpool - Finally Time For Hibbert To Go?

2007-10-20T09:46:00.000-04:00

The only thing that today's referre Mark Clattenberg and I can agree about is that Tony Hibbert, so poor this season, doesn't deserve to be on the Goodison Park pitch. Clattenberg sent off Hibbert for his foul on Gerrard, the subsequent penalty being despatched by Kuyt, who got another in the last minute, from yet another penalty - this time conceded by Phil Neville - caught with his hands in the biscuit tin - diving to save a certain Liverpool goal.
And the game started off so well, Hyppia scoring a wonder own-goal which we all thought would exorcise the ghost of Sandy Brown - alas , it wasn't to be as Clattenberg, Hibbert, and Neville conspired for a painful defeat. Clattenberg left Everton fans tearing their hair out as he denied Everton a even later last-gasp penalty, which seemed like an obvious foul from Carragher - Is Clattenberg a red?

Everton's Yakubu - Should we have just kept Beattie?

2007-10-18T13:33:00.000-04:00

Yakubu, so far, in my mind at least, a royal waste of money, two flat track bully goals, and the general contribution of a slug on ketamine, coupled with better, harder working youngsters breathing down his very large neck like Anichebe and Vaughan.

And why oh why did we spend so much on him - we should have just doubled our bid for Lucho Gonzales rather than buying this mope from Middlesbrough. The consensus amongst most of the 'Boro fans I spoke to during our usual Scrooge-esque dealings with them was that they should take the money and run, and good for them. What rankles even more is the fact that Beattie is now top scorer in the Championship charts having played dismally for us. Faced with all of this, doubts start to creep into my mind about David Moyes - McFadden isn't setting the world alight at Everton (unlike at International level) , AJ is in the mother of all slumps, and Beattie - a total dead loss at Everton - is now top scorer in the Championship...and coupled with Moyes' handling of Yakubu I begin to think that we will forever be aimlessly searching for our '20 goal a season man'.

I'm starting to disagree with Tim Sherwood in his assessment that with Yakubu sometimes you get Thierry Henry, and sometimes you get Lenny Henry. So far all we have had is a comedian upfront. Yakubu spends most of his footballing life lying relaxed submersed in semi-consciousness, occasionally drifting to the surface about twice a game. Someone needs to investigate Yakubu's internal wiring and change the "relaxing slow jams" cd that is playing on loop in his head with something heavier, some Slayer would probably wake him up from his Rip Van Winkle slumber. .

Yakubu's signing was a huge risk for Moyes - the Nigerian is as synonymous with an abysmal work-rate as Everton used to be with fluid passing in the 60's and Moyes will have known that - so either he had to abandon the work ethic and let Yakubu sit on his backside and score, OR he had to to try and transform Yakubu into a hard working goalscorer...but do you play over £11 million for someone you want to transform? No, there is a much simpler answer to this mess...Moyes is still intoxicated with the barnstorming goal that Yakubu scored for Portsmouth against us...Collecting the ball from a header he charged through several Everton defenders with such strength it was as if Jonah Lomu had switched footballing codes and then slapped the ball through the back of the goal...If only he could come up with something like that on Saturday all will be forgiven...

Cahill Is One Of Many Reasons Why Everton Can Beat Liverpool

2007-10-18T09:47:00.000-04:00

Whilst bearded goon Rafa Benitez is weeping to all and sundry about his team's lack of form, Everton are calmly preparing for Saturday's game at Goodison and have been given a timely boost by the return of Tim Cahill. Whilst Rafa and his entourage are followed by a swirl of rotation controversy wherever they go, Everton have never even had the luxury of rotation, up until now that is.
Boxing 'Roo Cahill's return has given David Moyes an unusual treat, a selection dilemma in midfield! Moyes chirped:

“Tim started training on Monday and we are pleased to have him back..There is no doubt we have missed him since he’s been out...He is a goalscoring central midfielder with drive and when you look at the goals he has scored for Everton in the past three years, he has been a big part of our success."

Cahill , who has scored three times in six games against Liverpool could possibly be joined by goggle eyed Tommy Gravesen, Moyes said: “

Tommy has done a bit of training and we will keep monitoring him...We have had to limit his involvement, but he is doing better."

Adding to the jovial party spirit is the fact that AJ has returned from his ankle op and will be starting some light jogging (or in Yakubu's terms some normal training) and could be back for the November 8th game against Nurnberg.

Everton vs Liverpool - Let Battle Commence

2007-10-10T12:12:00.000-04:00

It's the big one boys - no I'm not talking about England-Estonia - I am talking about Everton-Liverpool and yet another chance to kick those upstart rotation fiends into touch. Rafa has the glazed out of it look of a hardened addict - and I bet he won't be able to keep his fiddling ways under wraps for the Merseyside Derby. My only worry is that given the international break (and a break from Rafa) many of the Liverpool players will return to Merseyside with a sense of optimism. But hopefully the three Everton boys crossing the horizon like mean gunslingers will keep their positive attitude down - Yep, Cahill, Grav and Vaughan are all returning to full fitness, and Liverpool should be quaking in their polyester pantalones.

As I have said before Liverpool came out of Everton like a dystenteric stool, since then they have been more successful, and more lucky than their blue counterparts. But next week's game, will bring together Rafa's Lunar Calendar, and the equal and opposing force - Moyes' "best players play" policy. A heady brew that is as unpredictable and potentially corrosive as a medieval cough syrup (with chain-mail croutons) beckons.

Both these sides need each other like Heads needs Tails, and whereas Liverpool have pugilist Joe Louis as an ex-fan, we have Sylvester "Rocky" Stallone, as well as our boxing 'roo Tim Cahill, I'm backing a bloody affair, but an Everton win.

As for me personally, I would gladly remove my own kneecaps and use them as knuckledusters and then gut myself and wear my entrails like a Rambo headband charging into war against the Reds like a wailing Mel Gibson - that is how much I want to beat them - and to pay lip service to Mr Keegan "I would love it, LOVE IT, LOVE ITTTTT if we beat them!"

Sheffield Wednesday - Everton - TEAM NEWS

2007-09-26T08:54:00.000-04:00

With the main issue being will the Yak play, and secondly, will he listlessly meander around the pitch like a jet lagged tourist in a crowded airport, our sneaky Dutch winger Andy Van Der Meyde has slipped back into the squad with little fuss. The Liverpool Echo is reporting that recalcitrant wide boy Van Der Meyde will be in the squad

"for the first time since he was heavily reprimanded for missing a training session after the Blues’ opening day win over Wigan Athletic."

In other news Alan Stubbs will probably replace the injured Joseph Yobo, while Mikel Arteta (ankle) is doubtful, while Stefan Wessels should continue in goal while Tim Howard is injured.

West Ham & Kieron Dyer, a marriage consummated on the treatment table.

2007-08-29T11:04:00.000-04:00

West Ham midfielder Kieron Dyer, a recent £7 million acquisition from Newcastle United, succumbed to a double fracture to his right leg yesterday. Dyer, who is as well known for his injury flecked career than he is for actually playing the game, will be stunned by this setback, mere weeks after moving to West Ham. It goes without saying that this will also be a huge setback for West Ham who have nearly as bad a track record with injuries as Dyer does.
Manager Alan Curbishley didn’t bother to hide his obvious distress after the Hammers 2-1 Carling Cup win over Bristol Rovers, Curbishley sniffled:

“The whole game was immaterial after this. I’m devastated for Kieron.”

Presumably Curbs is frustrated in equal part with the fact Dyer earns about £80,000 a week and that he cost his club £7 million . But maybe the Hammers could have seen this coming, as the dual debut injuries to last seasons new signings Upson and Neill show, these things come in pairs for West Ham. Already dealt the cruel blow by the injury to new (and equally expensive) signing Julien Flaubert, West Ham will have to deal without Dyer too. Alan Curbishley must wonder what he has got himself into, look to the sky and cursing the Gods for the Dyer injury, or splashing the cash for the umpteenth time are his only two options . Injury prone West Ham signing injury prone Kieron Dyer, that’s a marriage made in hell, and set for a long session on the treatment table. Curbishley can at least take solace that none of his signings have gone the way of the pugnacious and unstable loon, Marco Boogers, who was sent off on his debut for West Ham, and subsequently tumbled into obscurity.

Everton 1-1 Blackburn

2007-08-29T10:32:00.000-04:00

Roque Santa Cruz & Benni McCarthy cost £6million in total, Yakubu has cost Everton nearly double that but if he performs as well as either of those two it will be money well spent.
As has often been the case, events off the field competed to drown out Everton's on-field conviction. The tragic killing of Rhys Jones, the go-ahead for a move from Liverpool to Kirkby, and potential signings, all floated around the edge of the pitch - but Everton began with some sprightly touches. Any Everton spark was nullified by Blackburn's goal, a predator's finish by Cruz who was perfectly placed, lying in wait for a rebound off the crossbar. The goal seemed to draw a line in the sand on Everton's dynamism, and for the rest of the half it was Blackburn who were the dominant team. McCarthy and Cruz were ably supported by Dunn and Bentley whilst Everton were forced into two defensive changes, Carsley and Stubbs were replaced by Lescott and Jagielka, but it was Blackburn's defence, led by Samba (fast, powerful AND tall), matched everything the Toffees could come up with.
It was only when McFadden was transferred out wide that he came up with the goods. Arteta capitalized on a slack touch by Cruz, fired in a low cross, and and McFadden shot neatly, almost before the ball arrived.
It is rare indeed for both teams to be satisfied with a result, but Rovers can take positives from their attacking quarters, as well as their man-mountain, Samba. Everton can take solace from the two new boys, Jagielka and Baines, who rivalled each other for Everton's Man of the Match.

Moyes in last chance transfer saloon.

2007-08-29T10:13:00.000-04:00

This Saturday Manuel Fernandes left Everton in the lurch; instead flying to Valencia and signing within hours for the Spanish side. It is really unclear whether Moyes, Kenwright, the FA, Fernandes, or his owners were to blame for this transfer gaffe. Whispers suggest that Valencia simply offered more money, catching the eyes of not just Benfica but the owners of the other portion of Manny's contract, thus gazumping Everton at the 11th hour.
What is certain is that the meticulously laid jigsaw of transfers Moyes has completed over the summer, each taking a long time and requiring patience and determination, has been upended. If an alternative is to be found, the player will have to be acquired almost instantly; Appiah has been mooted by Sky Sports today - he would be an excellent signing, however, with the transfer deadline on Friday Moyes has walked into the last chance saloon just as last orders has been shouted.
Yakubu's signing has been wrapped up today, which , although a formality, must be a relief to Moyes.

Reading 1-0 Everton; The Song Remains The Same

2007-08-21T10:04:00.000-04:00

When David Moyes took over at Everton he instituted a simple but brilliant rule. If you play well you will stay in the team. This rule has galvanized Everton over Moyes’ reign as boss, players are rewarded with playing time if they succeed, and are driven on even further by other squad members who are kicking their heels in the periphery.

If Joseph Yobo hadn’t succumbed to injury then there is no doubt that Moyes would have fielded an unchanged side for the third game in a row, as it was Valente came in and Stubbs and Lescott paired up at the back. New signings Pienaar and Baines were left on the bench, still unable to break into the Everton first team. When Pienaar did come on in the second half he looked far too eager to please, attempting to beat players rather than pass.

Sporting their dark blue third kit, Everton looked like a subdued shadow of their former selves before a ball was even kicked. It was the Royal Blue and white Reading that punctured the starting whistle with urgency and bite, playing Everton at their own game.

Everton’s previous two wins counted for nothing at the Majedski Stadium as Reading , an asbestos blanket of a team, put out the oppositions fire and drive. Arteta’s undoubted talent was a barely audible murmur and Andy Johnson’s jailer, Bikey, was supreme. Readings goal came late in the first half, Hunt snuck in behind Stubbs and scored with a pickpocket’s feet.

Although Everton fought back in the second half with memorable post slapping strikes from Johnson and McFadden, Reading deservedly maintained a belligerent grip on the three points. It will hurt Moyes that he was outmuscled by a team crafted from the same solid oak as his blue boys, but at the same time Readings playing style can’t have come as a surprise to him.

Familiarity Breeds Success

2007-08-15T14:46:00.001-04:00

Tottenham 1-3 Everton

IKEA is a strange place, some furniture is cheap and other items are extortionate; it is often very hard to tell which is which. As husbands sleepwalk through this male tundra, cajoled by eager wives, hopping around, picking up purchases like a bird building a nest. Whilst I was trudging through my Swedish hell, my blue boys were winning at the Lane, a place that
before last season was utterly barren to Everton; we had failed to win there for 21 years.

As I was held up in IKEA I instructed my dad and sister to text me with any updates. It wasn't long before my sister informed me that my dad had switched off his mobile for the duration of the game to dodge any Spurs gloating; such is the level of trepidation that an away game in London inspires. As time progressed I feverishly whipped out my mobile like a sharp-shooter, but it blankly stared back at me. No messages.

My family usually watches Everton play from behind the back of the sofa, in a refuge at the bottom of the garden where goals are communicated through yelps from the kitchen, or at a game, where we attempt to throttle the tension out of the match day programme, teeth chattering in tandem with sweaty palms. Because of this when I didn't receive a text I feared the worst. Had Spurs beaten us? They'd probably run us ragged, as I searched for a comfy sofa bed with my wife, Berbatov and Keane were probably running towards the away fans, hands cupped to their ears and the bulbous home crowd was jeering at my boys with a victor's blood lust.

All this contributed to my bad mood as my wife guiltily pointed towards what looked like an expensive sofa bed. As I reached towards the price tag I was given a surprise, the bizarrely named Grankulla was cheap!

When I left IKEA the texts started rolling in, we had won - it was IKEAs thick walls , designed to keep in husband's screams and keep out footballing text messages, that had stopped the news from arriving. Moyes yet again fielded an unchanged team, this band of brothers, full of unselfish filial duty, has become a galvanized unit and succeeded against a Tottenham team rammed full of superfluous signings.

As Sky sports ridiculously told me when I got home, Everton went to the top of the League and Spurs went bottom. Such knee-jerk reportage annoys me, it is far too early to be talking of league positions, I preferred the days when league tables weren't even broadcast until 7 or 8 games in to the season. Having said that six points is a wonderful start, and the fact that
Leon Osman scored again last night and was joined on the score sheet by two defenders is a good sign. One has to wonder what will happen when AJ and Arteta start scoring, when Vaughan and Cahill return, and when we complete the additional transfers that Moyes clearly wants. Getting 4th place was a wonderful achievement for Moyes and to do it again would feel like winning the lottery twice.
It is obvious that at Everton familiarity breeds success, and yesterday was evidence that although Jol boasts the more expensive furniture, no one can really tell from the performances.

Manny

2007-08-14T08:29:00.000-04:00

Everton 2-1 Wigan

2007-08-13T10:24:00.001-04:00

The first game of the season is often a worrying one, with occasional thrashings dispensed, and jittery defeats a definite possibility, but this was in the end a relatively comfortable win, with Wigan only flirting with a fightback for a few minutes.In the days approaching this game all thoughts were away from Goodison, to possible sites for a new stadium (Kirkby and the mythical "Loop site"), to the prolific Nigerian from the Riverside Stadium with the Barry Bonds physique, and to the "continent" - in search of a skillful partner to share some of the creative burden with Arteta in midfield. Before the game peoples eyes went to the skies, a small plane had been circling Goodison, urging the fans to vote against a Kirkby move. But when peoples hearts and minds focused on the Goodison turf, it was two homegrown youngsters who ushered us towards victory. Leon Osman, he of the perfect touch and Belsen physique, opened up Wigan with a header and Victor Anichebe, a bellicose mix of power and brio, scored the second whilst the two returning prodigal sons, Leighton Baines and Phil Jagielka will have to wait to feature on the starting sheet.Goals aside, the rest of the game was dominated by our skillful Spanish sapling, who for the umpteenth time outshone all others, indeed a sheepish Koumas was switched several times to keep him out of Arteta's flightpath. The Spaniards most memorable moment; weaving through a throng of Wigan players only to be felled by the heffalump Titus Bramble. His drive and vim to push "his Everton" up the league mountain will be the key to success this season. Next up for us is Spurs, and the worrying fact that for all but a few match-ups in this league, Spurs have been our "bogey team" - and they will be even more determined to clasp 3 points against us after an ego-crushing defeat against Sunderland.

Everton Fixture List 2007/8

2007-08-10T11:03:00.001-04:00

Saturday, 11 August 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton 2-1 Wigan

Osman 26', Anichebe 75'

Sibierski 80'

________________________________________

Tuesday, 14 August 2007

Barclays Premier League

Tottenham 1-3 Everton

Lescott 3', Osman 37', Stubbs 45'

Gardner 26'

________________________________________

Saturday, 18 August 2007

Barclays Premier League

Reading 1-0 Everton

Hunt '44

________________________________________

Saturday, 25 August 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton 1-1 Blackburn

McFadden '77

Santa Cruz '14

________________________________________

Saturday, 01 September 2007

Barclays Premier League

Bolton 1-2 Everton

Yakubu '11, Lescott '90

Anelka 55

________________________________________

Saturday, 15 September 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton 0-1 Man Utd

Vidic 83

______________________________________

Thursday, 20 September 2007

UEFA Cup

Everton 1-1 FC Metalist Kharkiv

Lescott '24

_____________________________________

Sunday, 23 September 2007

Barclays Premier League

Aston Villa 2-0 Everton

Carew 14, Agbonlahor 60

________________________________________

Wednesday, 26 September 2007

Carling Cup

Sheff Wed 0-3 Everton

McFadden 59 84, Yakubu 85

________________________________________

Sunday, 30 September 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton 2-0 Middlesbrough

Lescott '7, Pienaar '58

_________________________________________

Thursday, 04 October 2007

UEFA Cup

FC Metalist Kharkiv 2-3 Everton

Lescott 48, McFadden 72, Anichebe 88

________________________________________

Sunday, 07 October 2007

Barclays Premier League

Newcastle 3-2 Everton

Johnson 53, Given o.g. 90

Butt 42, Emre 86, Owen 90

________________________________________

Saturday, 20 October 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton 1-2 Liverpool

Hyppia O.G. '38

Kuyt pen '54
Kuyt pen '90

_______________________________________

Thursday, 25 October 2007

UEFA Cup

Everton 3-1 Larissa

Cahill '14
Osman '50
Anichebe '85

Cleyton '65

________________________________________

Saturday, 27 October 2007

Barclays Premier League

Derby 0-2 Everton

Arteta 25

Yakubu 62

________________________________________

31st October 2007

Carling Cup

Luton Town 0-1 Everton

Cahill '100

________________________________________

Saturday, 03 November 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton 3-1 Birmingham

Yakubu '9

Carlsey '90

Vaughan '90

________________________________________

Thursday, 08 November 2007

UEFA Cup

Nuremburg 0-2 Everton

Arteta (pen) '83

Anichebe '88

____________________________________

Saturday, 10 November 2007

Barclays Premier League

Chelsea 1-1 Everton

Cahill '90

Drogba '70

________________________________________

Saturday, 24 November 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton 7-1 Sunderland

Yakubu '12, '73

Cahill '17, '62

Pienaar '43

Johnson '80

Osman '85

Yorke '45

________________________________________

Saturday, 01 December 2007

Barclays Premier League

Portsmouth 0-0 Everton

________________________________________

Wednesday, 05 December 2007

UEFA Cup

Everton 1-0 Zenit St Petersburg

Cahill '85

________________________________________

Saturday, 08 December 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton 3-0 Fulham

Yakubu '51, '61, '79

________________________________________

Wednesday, 12 December 2007

Carling Cup

West Ham 1-2 Everton

Osman '40

Yakubu '88

Cole '12

________________________________________

Saturday, 15 December 2007

Barclays Premier League

West Ham 0-2 Everton

Yakubu '45

Johnson '90

_______________________________________

Thursday, 20 December 2007

UEFA Cup

AZ Alkmaar 2-3 Everton

Johnson '2

Jagielka '44

Vaughan '79

Pelle

________________________________________

Saturday, 22 December 2007

Barclays Premier League

Man Utd 1-0 Everton

________________________________________

Wednesday, 26 December 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Bolton , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 29 December 2007

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Arsenal , 15:00

________________________________________

Tuesday, 01 January 2008

Barclays Premier League

Middlesbrough v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 12 January 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Man City , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 19 January 2008

Barclays Premier League

Wigan v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Wednesday, 30 January 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Tottenham , 19:45

________________________________________

Saturday, 02 February 2008

Barclays Premier League

Blackburn v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 09 February 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Reading , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 23 February 2008

Barclays Premier League

Man City v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 01 March 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Portsmouth , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 08 March 2008

Barclays Premier League

Sunderland v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 15 March 2008

Barclays Premier League

Fulham v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 22 March 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v West Ham , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 29 March 2008

Barclays Premier League

Liverpool v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Sunday, 06 April 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Derby , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 12 April 2008

Barclays Premier League

Birmingham v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 19 April 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Chelsea , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 26 April 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Aston Villa , 15:00

________________________________________

Saturday, 03 May 2008

Barclays Premier League

Arsenal v Everton , 15:00

________________________________________

Sunday, 11 May 2008

Barclays Premier League

Everton v Newcastle , 15:00

“You don’t have to be crazy to blow $30 million in 30 days. But it helps.”

2007-08-09T15:38:00.000-04:00

“Feed the Yak and he will score” …so goes the chant and with Everton’s need to bolster their strike force Yakubu would certainly be a great signing. Perhaps Everton could kill two birds with one stone and feed the Yak all the extra Kirby stadium ballots that have been floating around peoples’ mailboxes, thereby sweeping the ballot farce under the carpet, and getting lots of goals for the Yak. Failing that we could feed him James McFadden….

When I first heard of Everton’s planned transfer splurge a few days ago I kept all my feelings to myself, my brittle faith in the blue boys is always ready to snap and most Evertonians simply didn’t believe what they were hearing. Where has all the money come from? My first reaction was that there were two answers to this; either Bill Kenwright has robbed a bank, or David Moyes is on acid.

In fact it seems that Bill Kenwright has now been given additional financial backing from other board members, including the Planet Hollywood mogul Robert Earl, this has given Moyes a huge amount of money to spend. The main problem with this is that although Everton now have financial clout, they now find themselves in a poor position, like an American schoolgirl in dire need of a prom date. Moyes has already stated that he likes to have his summer signings booked in early so that they can complete a full pre-season program but more important than that is the utter reluctance of managers to sanction the sale of their star players.

Since Moyes has been given this money we shown interest in three players, who are all integral to their teams plans. Yakubu, who Gareth Southgate is violently opposed to the sale of, Lucho Gonzales, the Argentinian midfielder and captain of Porto, and Manuel Fernandes, one of the young jewels in Benfica’s crown, who is also part-owned by agents, which could lead to a thick, murky morass of a transfer.

The tagline for the Richard Pryor film Brewster’s Millions was “You don’t have to be crazy to blow $30 million in 30 days. But it helps.” By being given such spending power so late in the day, not only will these players come in late to Everton’s pre-season plans, but we will disrupt other teams by trying to wrench these players away from their clubs just before the curtain raiser - making it all the harder to get them in. Yakubu has a great scoring record of .40 goals per game, and Manuel Fernandes has already won Goodison over, but to get them so late in the day?

Moyes faces a very tough task indeed.

More MLS Ranting

2007-07-26T11:43:00.001-04:00

It is highly frustrating, I flew back to the UK for 2 weeks and during that time ALL the major football news was happening in LA on the side of the pond I just left.

I like to think that whilst I was flying to London, Becks and his cultural attaché Posh were up in the air too, flying in whilst I'm flying out. There seems to be a lot of confusion in both countries as to what Posh and Becks have come over for; Posh isn't coming to LA to act and Becks definitely isn’t coming over to play football.

At school I was a history boy, it was the one subject I loved and in some ways it is fitting that I am an Everton fan , our good fortune and success seem tethered to the past, history being my passport to these fertile Evertonian lands.

My favourite quote with regards to history is by Cicero; “Those that forget what has happened before them are doomed to forever remain children” … and boy are they forgetful here in the US. And the weirdest thing?

This layer cake of deluded positive thinking all seems to emanate from Michigan. Alexi Lalas, was born and raised in the footballing tundra of Birmingham Michigan, and spouts nonsensical MLS hype with every breath. As recently as last week the general manager of Michigan MLS feeder club the “Bucks” said that Becks (and MLS) would be an utter success, after all “Pele was in his 40’s when he came here”… when in fact he was only three years older than Becks….he continues to rationalize this by saying that “they all came over in the twilight of their career”, as if that is any different from what is currently happening in the MLS.

In fact many parallels can be drawn from the Pele-led and defunct NASL, and the Beckham-driven MLS. Both leagues see one superstar as being integral to the success of soccer. However there are some stark warnings that many people aren’t taking. Following the slow piecemeal success of the New York Cosmos they graduated to the huge Giants Stadium, in a playoff game of 1977 the Cosmos filled the stadium with an attendance of 77,691, a staggeringly huge amount of people. The first body blow to the NASL was the addition of extra franchises into the league, diluting the quality of the league and adding stamina sapping trips across this huge continent of a country. The death knell was television viewers, and although the playoffs were given a decent slot on television the viewing figures were not as high as expected, so they were cut from television, the lifeblood of any sport, especially an embryonic one.

Everton, where has all the money gone?

2007-07-26T11:41:00.000-04:00

Everton

Where has all the money gone?

The past few weeks, and the ones to come are going to be vital for the start of Everton’s season. In our only (official) game in the U.S. we got beaten 2-0 by Real Salt lake, a result which the puritanical David Moyes would not have taken lightly. Added to Jagielka, the footballing Swiss army knife, is Pienaar, a useful looking attacking midfielder who doesn’t come with any risk as he is a loan signing. The potential signing of Swiss captain Vogel seems to be a good one, although his previous club Real Betis are rumoured to be holding out for some kind of transfer fee so we could be in for some wait.

So is that it? Three signings, two of them (potentially) for zilch. Leighton Baines has been spoken of and Moyes is also sniffing around Alan Smith? Whilst everyone else is seemingly wallowing in dosh with American suitors are courting clubs a division below us we seem to be standing still.

We all know about Bill Kenwright's smoke and mirrors tactics when it comes to players, I still believe that many names (Alan Smith included a few seasons ago) are mentioned just to satiate our hunger for bodies at Goodison and that BK and his pals have no intention of buying them. Yes we have the big “vote” on whether or not to move to Kirby, and yes that vote is as much of a fait d’accompli as a Robert Mugabe election in Zimbabwe, but even if we do move it will only bring us hard cash in 4 years time, and only a paltry extra 10million is projected, enough to buy Darren Bent’s torso (or maybe his left femur in 4 years time with inflation.) Nicknames that we reveled in in the 60’s; The Merseyside Millionaires, The Bank of England, now seem like cruel irony-laden taunts.

And yet…. We seem to be a club that is galvanized whenever disappointment and failure attempt to rear their ugly heads. Our blue bruisers Joe Royle’s “dogs of war” fought tooth and nail to keep us in the top flight, succeeded, and then lifted the FA Cup. After the gutting sale of Wayne Rooney (and where has that money gone?) we went on to qualify for the Champions League, every disappointment seems to forge even more strength in us…..

This season we have Tim Cahill back, a new look Van der Meyde (still doing jail time with the Everton Reserves), Arteta – the best Spaniard on Merseyside , and players who can only improve further Vaughan, Anichebe, and Lescott. Tim Howard, fresh from his US international exploits will, I am sure, marshal his box like a fascist xenophobe, removing all opposition players, and Everton will go on, fighting the cruel pundits...

Vomit Inducing Spurs

2007-07-26T11:40:00.000-04:00

I have an irrational disgust for Tottenham Hotspur, bolstered by the fact that everyone from Mourinho to my obese cousin are tipping them to “break into” the Top 4. Nick Hornby describes them as having a "smug air of ersatz sophistication" and this sums up my feelings on the matter perfectly. The funny thing is, I am an Evertonian. My opprobrium towards these masters of style over substance is purely because of a cold calculating hatred, not due to footballing rivalries. Going to "the lane" is probably similar to becoming a scientologist. Tom Cruise and John Travolta would be the perfect Spurs fans, and Glenn Hoddle isnt too dissimilar to L. Ron Hubbard.

Scientologists believe that 75 million years ago an evil galactic ruler, named Xenu, solved overpopulation by bringing trillions of people to Earth in DC-8 space planes, stacking them around volcanoes and nuking them. Then the souls of these dead space aliens were captured and boxed up and taken to cinemas where they were shown films of what life should be like, false ideas containing God, the devil and Christ.

If all this sounds like nonsense, try talking to Spurs fans, they believe their own footballing version of this: that they should be the rightful leaders of the premiership. Transmitting their superior style of play to the infidels, and restoring their "glory Years". Spurs are perfect for the new generation of hyped-up, over marketed , sky tv football-watching, habitual masturbating football fans; it is a perfect marriage. Whilst most of us grumble about the state of modern football, for fake plastic Spurs fans, this is their utopia.

One Spurs fan I know told me at the beginning of last season that Spurs were "going to do an Everton" (qualify for the champs league on a shoestring budget) -- In fact they did nearly the opposite -- they nearly qualified on a budget that would sustain Everton for about a century.

Spurs are the doilies of football, or more precisely a pink and green polka dotted 1970's bungalow strewn with a cornucopia of doilies; in crochet, beaded and lace. They are needless and grotesque to all but a deluded few.

Everton's Wide Boy Needs A Purple Patch

2007-07-10T11:11:00.000-04:00

Whenever I meet up with my Spurs-supporting cousin, we always play a game. We rattle off name upon name of comically and chronically bad players -- Vinny Samways (in his blue phase), Justin Edinburgh, Darren Caskey, Dean Austin, Earl Barrett, Alan Biley, Mikel Madar, Brett Angell, and Marc Hottiger always get a mention. However, I never bring up Everton's (rumoured) alcoholic, long haired Dutchman; prone to very occasional bouts of fitness, an occasional player, with a garrulous mouth and a daughter named "Purple".

The most surprising occurrence of Everton's stale summer has definitely not been the flood of new signings (or lack thereof); instead it has been the apparent acceptance and rehabilitation of "Shandy" Andy Van der Meyde, looking trim and shaven headed at Everton's training sessions in St Andrews.

Moyes has a history of not dealing well with wingers (Blomqvist and, especially, Rodrigo were only given a wisp of a chance to prove themselves), recalcitrants, or back chat - the fact that Van der Meyde has displayed ALL of these traits but is still here surely points to a player that Moyes has inexplicable faith in.

Everton have an anorexic squad anyway, and with the UEFA Cup looming menacingly, perhaps Moyes has decided that he needs "bodies," or maybe he has seen exciting sparks in training, watched the tapes anew, and wants to train this footballer back to life. Van der Meyde is an enigma even in his native Holland, where held in high regard by some - being tipped to be player of the tournament in Euro 2004 - , yet others don’t rate him at all. Johan Cryuff reportedly declared that as long as the winger was in the Dutch national team for Euro 2004, the team would not stand a chance of winning.

Van der Meyde's right foot is apparently so strong that some say he needs to be played on the left; such is the temptation to be selfish and over elaborate when playing on the right wing. He is a player with such raw atavistic skill and brio that he has played for Ajax and Inter Milan and was tipped for glory. On the other hand, he is a player surrounded by a miasma of ruinous rumours and painful truths; a dog napped pooch, stolen cars, a burgled house, embarrassing drunken episodes, is prone to injury and when he managed to claw his way back to fitness was sent off for a wild elbow in the Merseyside derby (of all games). All these negative aspects of the player are the reason he is at Everton and not a more successful club, all the positive aspects (the dull glimmer of his potential) are the reason he is still at Everton and not on the scrapheap. Van der Meyde is a man who at his VERY best plays like Pink Floyd's first album, randomly meandering and occasionally stumbling over its own genius.

A few days ago Van der Meyde spoke to the official Everton website, proclaiming his love for the club and saying he was eager to play - even though the interviewer had to clarify the actual date of Everton's first game. He claims he has been "unlucky" but also says it is down to him to prove himself. It will involve far more than that , he has to stay injury free, scandal free, play well and regularly, and also rely on the most important factor of all - Moyes' clemency. I for one would love to see Everton's wide boy come good.

"Do have nightmares, it improves our ratings" by a suburban homesick Briton.

2007-07-09T15:59:00.000-04:00

11:00pm - As I sit on the sofa my little black box cranks up the fear factor - "It's 11 o'clock, do you know where YOUR children are?" asks the rain coated and windswept reporter Ama Daetz every evening, a curious beginning to the news. Nick Ross on Crimewatch used to soothe us by saying : "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well", but the aim here in Michigan is obvious. Scare everyone into watching the news. Newsreaders here have to turn on a sixpence, slaloming between murders, terrorist attacks, and video clips of skateboarding bulldogs. Simultaneously offering to scratch the itch of celeb gossip and inflame potential fear.

Television seems utterly controlled by the local news in Michigan -- it has the power to hijack all programs, popping up on our screen to tell us about shootings, terrorist attacks, and celeb incarcerations, even inclement weather -- yesterday TV shows were interrupted by the weatherman warning that a storm was approaching, I appreciated the warning the first time round, but every 10 minutes grated at my soul. They hide the true stories like magicians hiding the secret to their "tricks": "COMING UP AFTER THE BREAK-HOW TO MAKE SURE YOUR PET/CHILD/HEALTH ISN'T AT RISK FROM..." The full story is never disclosed, it is furiously cocooned and only unravels after several commercial breaks have been endured.

I despise Michael Moore's documentary style, tossing muck with atavistic fervour, hoping that something - anything - will stick, but he is spot on with his view that fear is constantly stoked over here - ; "Michigan School Blueprints found in Saddam's Palace", "Suspicious oil drums left in downtown", "terrorist threat on local high school", plus round the clock coverage on the terror threat in London, constant checks on America's pulse: the terror levels, colour coded for our ease.

Phil Jagielka: Footballing Swiss Army Knife

2007-07-05T13:51:00.000-04:00

We did it! After stalking his quarry for an inordinate amount of time - the Moyesiah has finally snared Phil Jagielka, the man that the Guardian wittily describes as a "footballing Swiss Army Knife". Phil can play all along the back four, in midfield, and even in goal (thus giving Moyes the possibility of playing no goalie on the bench like Warnock did on numerous occasions.) The crucial element of the Jagielka signing is that Moyes refused to be rushed, waited patiently until Sheffield Utd's relegation was confirmed (and the 4mil release clause was activated), and swooped; signing him on OUR terms. Jagielka is an Evertonian, already refers to Everton as "we", is young with commitment and passion without the niggling "sonofabitch" qualities. Moyes is rumoured to be interested in Koumas too, who is also an Evertonian - building up a healthy spine of Blue Boys. Another Evertonian lurking on the periphery like a Shakesperian Ghost is David Nugent - a huge Everton fan. I think if someone else doesn't snap him up soon there is a real possibility that we could get him cut price over Christmas, or even on a free when his contract expires next summer.

Whilst Evertonians were awkwardly trying to cope with the ridiculous debacle going on at the official Everton website - a post going up for a few excruciating minutes falsely claiming that we had signed Riquelme, Liverpool were busy negotiating with Fernando Torres. I believe Torres is an extremely expensive and risky signing, especially given the belly flop of an English career that another Fernando (Morienties) had. I look forward to Reds scuttling out of the woodwork and pointing to his robust goalscoring record. He has however been Athletico's offical penalty taker for a number of years now, something that has added a certain fake sheen to his scoring statistics. I remember that Everton's signing of AJ was met with rabid howls of derision from the imbeciles across the park, "he scores all his goals from the penalty spot" -- Oh how times change!

Mephitic Lumpen Soporiphic

2007-07-05T11:39:00.000-04:00

There has been an explosion of writing on the subject of US soccer ever since Becks decided to join the LA Galaxy. A constant stream of articles from the Guardian have outlined:a) How appalling the standard of MLS is...b) How frustrated Europeans are with America's lack of world view.. (WORLD Series, NFL WORLD Champions etc etc).c) How the MLS fans are a gruesome chimera of a loyal and fierce enclave of hardcore fans and an indifferent mass of bums on seats, the "sunday drivers" of football fandom.
"Sawker" in the States is seen as a either womans sport or a kids sport, as full of ponces and divers, and crucially , a soporific sport.
So is soccer ever going to be a success in the US? I am extremely doubtful. It is simply impossible to generate all the things I find beautiful about football synthetically. Things that are permanently tethered to the heart of England, minnows gnawing at the ankles of giants in the FA Cup, the Dunkirk-esque idea of glorious failure, a well fought away point for Everton at Stanford Bridge, playing sunday league on a muddy november with the ruddy stench of the local farms manure climbing up my nostrils. Things all football crazed englishmen may love - but if presented to an American sports fan they will treat it in the same way that they treat Marmite or Branston Pickle, with bemused disgust. If someone tells you in the UK that they havent missed an Arsenal game in 2 years, you can guarantee that they have seen them in the flesh and they are a season ticket holder. In Detroit, if someone says that they haven't missed a Redwings game in two years they mean that they havent missed a game on tv. The idea of the "draw" is a complete anathema to American sports fans. Their language is a language of glory, of dancing and whooping on command, of abandoning a team as soon as they poorly perform. There is no relegation , teams are instead kept afloat through the "Draft" system. People can point to the rise of soccer in certain states like California but the most painful thing that I discovered in my life over here was that Detroit has hosted a World Cup '94 match between Brazil and Sweden. And nobody cared. Romario who? On finding out that cruel secret I feel like a combination of Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes" when he sees the Statue of Liberty, and Edward Woodward in "Wicker Man" when the wretched truth hits him as he comes over the hill. All this has been done before with Pele, George Best et al. I'm with Rodney Marsh on this one, congratulations Becks - your career is officially over.

Where can you fire a gun but not Fireworks?

2007-07-02T11:18:00.000-04:00

They say that Portsmouth, an island off an island, is the last bastion of true Englishness, by that logic, Michigan, two conjoined peninsulas surrounded by the Great Lakes, has a good claim to being a stronghold of American values. For nearly three years now I have lived within this isolated isthmus, in Milford, a modest town in the outer reaches of Detroit, a poor black city surrounded by rich whites. When I walk the streets people stop and smile, some even pull out a dog treat or two for my pup, I never know how to respond, I'm not really used to such friendliness.

From an American vantage point I am in a paradise of warm summers and great television. I see television and film weeks, even months before my family does in the UK, but living here I also see thoughts seep through the wall of conservatism with excruciating sluggishness, from energy saving light bulbs to stem-cell research and gay marriage.

The outskirts of Milford are littered with fast food restaurants, check points for commuters to check in to. McDonald's near Charing X has svelte designer menus and mocha tinted leather cube seats, McDonald's in Michigan, the belly of the beast, is as it was in 1980. But this article isn't just about the quality of McDonald's apple pie.

I drove past a workers' blockade the other day, the protesters were marching around an inflatable rat and calling for foreign workers to be ousted - naturally I followed the herd and gave them a supportive beep on my horn, it was seconds later that I realised I was beeping against myself.

Bumper stickers also amaze me as you can see someones distilled views on life just from driving behind them. Last night I drove past a van so laden with bumper stickers that the bumper was precariously hanging off from one side - weighed down by the forest of "pro-life" and "Dubya" stickers. My personal favourite is the "these colors don't run" sticker" set on a stars and stripes background, and the "boycott France sticker" to a French tricolore - occasionally they are seen on the same bumper - a rare jewel indeed - and a horrendous juxtaposition. If you notice that most of my anecdotes start with "I was driving by..." it's because you have no choice but to drive here, there is literally no other option.

The first six months of my post-green card existence was spent working as a manager at a fast food restaurant ; parrying questions about whether the UK was a democracy, and if I knew the Queen. My sentence to flip-burgers was cut short when I got a call from someone who had spotted my resume, within days I was being interviewed as an Internet researcher, even though as a history graduate I had no relevant skills. My one asset is my accent and my Boss reinforced that belief;

"Ed, when people hear you answer the phone, they picture a Brit sipping a cup of tea dressed in a Tux". In Detroit the American Dream comes in any colour as long as it is white. I can't help wondering where I would be if I was a Mexican green-card holder.

In the spirit of all Americans proclaiming themselves Irish, I proclaim myself Welsh, a proud lineage from my half-welsh grandfather, making me an 1/8th Welsh at most - but who is counting. I proclaim my allegiance to Cymru half to fit in and half to confuse and confound. "Where is Welsh?" is a common refrain.

During the last winter I became increasingly convinced that London's bad weather is a myth started and perpetuated by colonials who want to keep telling themselves that -20 degree temperatures are preferable to rain. In fact I have a long running battle with anyone who, on a day of abysmal Detroit weather, comes up to me and tells me that I must be used to this being a Brit. I have a well-worn dog-eared answer, and it silences them ; but every rebuttal is a Pyrrhic victory, I am fighting against a landslide of opinion.

The fact that Americans speak the same language as us seems to cloak the fact in my mind that I am in a foreign country with curious idiosyncrasies just like our own. Whereas "Country Music" is an alien thing to Brits, Branston Pickle elicits quizzical and sometimes disgusted looks. Guns are as much of a part of life in the states as cheese on toast with HP sauce is in Blighty (and how they are utterly misunderstood by the other nation.)
Michigan is a state where you can fire a gun but not fireworks, where "Cluedo" is "Clue" and "Monopoly" has the proper American street names. This is a country of big portions and big numbers,street addresses are usually at least 4 digits, and temperatures in the summer reach the 90's. And how Milford residents plan to protest at the "subversive" Arabic Hookah smoking bar that is being built within the metaphorical city walls.

Howling At The Sun

2007-06-28T11:41:00.000-04:00

I know everything about death. I have been studying up on it. Right now I am fastened on the execution table, tethered to my death bed, two intravenous drips have just been inserted, one in each arm. Only one is used for the execution; the other is reserved as a backup in case the primary line fails….

The IV injection will be a sequence of compounds, designed to induce rapid unconsciousness followed by death through paralysis of respiratory muscles and/or by inducing cardiac arrest through depolarization of cardiac muscle cells. They cover all the bases to make sure I die; my execution involves three separate injections:

First sodium thiopental; to render me unconscious. Some say that thiopental is an ultra-short acting barbiturate and that it may wear off and lead to consciousness and an excruciatingly painful death wherein inmates are unable to express their pain because they have been rendered paralyzed by the paralytic agent. I’ll soon find out.

Next pancuronium: to stop all muscle movement except the heart. This causes muscle paralysis, collapse of the diaphragm, and shall eventually cause death by asphyxiation. Some people say pancuronium bromide not only dilutes the thiopental, but also prevents the inmate from expressing pain because I will be paralyzed.

Finally, potassium chloride is administered which will stop the heart from beating, and thus cause death.

The IV tubing snakes out along the floor and through a wall to a room next to the execution chamber. Behind that wall a technician inserts the drips, while a second technician loads the drugs into an infusion pump….

Now the curtain is opened to allow the witnesses to see inside the chamber - sick people, why would they want to do this? A woman mouths the word bastard at me, her face contorted in rage. They are all thinking horrible thoughts, that I am a sick death monger, a deranged Halfling, that I deserve to die. I don’t make a final statement; nothing will satiate the witness’s bloodlust anyway….

The warden, a tall man with a porcelain face, signals for the execution to commence. He doesn’t look at me. The executioner will then activate the infusion pump which mechanically delivers the three drugs in sequence. SHIT! Death usually occurs within seven minutes, although the whole procedure can take up to 2 hours.

IT’S ACTUALLY HAPPENING! OH GOD!

I have about seven minutes until I go.

How did I get here?

Canterbury had become my home; I was ensconced in the catacombs of Rutherford College, a concrete hexagon built in the 1960’s by a Scottish prison architect, its bare brick interior painted an antiseptic mint green as if to inoculate the students from the darker temptations in this Cathedral city. Rutherford sat on top of the hill like an unsightly mole, leaning jealously over beautiful Canterbury. There was a certain balance between the awkward, bulky concrete interloper; Rutherford College and the sublimely majestic cathedral lying below, enveloped by the protective arms of the city walls. The cathedral was an architectural ode to death and luck – hundreds died during the building of it - one of the few survivals of the Germans bombing of Canterbury, it defied all odds, somehow never being hit by a German bomb.

This was the city of urine soaked cardboard and used needles and also of Saint Thomas Becket – a middle class lad who rose to inexplicable fortune as the Archbishop of Canterbury and was then killed by masked knights. A Starbucks sat arrogantly and incongruously next to the site of this martyr’s death. Henry VIII plundered Becket’s bejeweled shrine, and Starbucks was now finishing off the insult some 500 years later – by pissing on his grave with a skinny latte. As Starbucks' sat next to Canterbury – a yew tree sat next to Rutherford, a 60’s monstrosity of concrete next to the keystone of the famous Agincourt victory.

All the windows in Rutherford seemed to look out on the Cathedral; in the dining hall a large rectangular window neatly framed its distant quarry; in summer the Cathedral defiantly stood, outshining nature in its beauty, on a misty day it was the one visible structure, and in the night, when lights were shone on it, it became a resplendent beacon. Ugly Rutherford had no choice but to defer to the Cathedral’s beauty...

I was asleep in my cell when Wayne knocked on room E-105-ii. The huge, intestine-twisting fry up I had devoured for lunch was sitting heavily in my bloated stomach and it swung inside me as I grasped for my bed. My futile body attempted to deal with this greasy interloper but the food was winning. It pulled my eyelids down, simultaneously massaging my temples and pumping its greasy soporific opiates through my veins, leading me by the hand into a frothy, foamy, drowsy dreamland………I was the headmaster of my secondary school, and I was teaching Physics to my class……….my class consisted of my family, but none of them were listening to my lesson…….. My dad sat at the front but his head was face down on the desk………Enraged, I pulled his head up by his hair but his face was a pallid, deathly blue; yellow mucus slithered out of his ears and vomit oozed out of his gaping mouth like lava. Or was it larvae? As a pool of vomit grew on the desk, a menagerie of insects writhed around in the vitriolic mess and danced in pain as they withered to nothing in the acid. As I peered into the detritus on the desk….a message appeared………

The Boy is Dead,

Long Live The Wolf.

That nightmare shocked me like an ice cold morning, it was abnormally grotesque but I had little time to think about it as someone was smashing their fists on my door. It was my ubiquitous friend Wayne, and he had woken me up.

Strings of saliva rappelled down my t-shirt as I staggered to my feet. I answered, but just to stop Wayne’s violent and incessant knocking. I was still punch drunk from sleep but I was able to process the essential words Wayne threw at me:

“WOMEN……..CHERRY TREE……….HOBGOBLIN………….VIOLENTLY DRUNK!.”

I nodded in dumb approval and was met close up with Wayne’s putrid gnome like face. As legions of blackheads laid siege to his freckled nose he unleashed a manic grimace, his lips slowly parted and revealed cheddar-hued tombstones.

“Imgoingtoscoretonight!.........I’m…..going…..to…..score tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he yelped, doing laps around my bed and pumping his hips.

“We are going to have an amazing night, and I am going to have some filthy sex!” Snot hanging from the stalactites in Wayne’s nostrils dripped in approval at this idea.

Wayne’s desires to “score” with a woman had a similar naivety to a ten year old’s dream of Stanley Cup glory. It didn’t happen that night and it was never going to. Wayne was an evolutionary blind-alley, like male nipples.

I remember a curious silence in my room just before we left, and then hearing the neighboring yew tree beating at my window and leaves flying up in excited anticipation. Nature was clamoring for us with a paparazzo’s determination. Nature knew what was coming. Outside leaves scuttled over to greet us; swirling clouds flirted with the moon, coquettishly allowing me momentary glimpses of my superior. The frenetic Canterbury wind whistled in derision at us. It pushed us towards the city, pulled at our clothes and tousled our hair, cheekily whispering in our ears: “You’re going to die… transformed…disfigured… drowning in the fires of He…..”

- the winds subtle murmured warnings were drowned out in the nick of time by the rustling leaves.

The leaves were our escort down to Canterbury, as we stood at the top of the hill groups of leaves cart wheeled down to the bottom. Walks such as this would normally be full of garrulous chatter – talking about football, women, music, friends and enemies, but our walk that day was silent, leaves bustled behind us and the wind subtly sucked us forwards.

Down in town a pram-faced Montague spat out vitriol at a pock-market Capulet and we shuffled past.

Looking down on us the moon trailed our slow progress towards the city of woe. We were tempted by many different options that night. Wayne wanted to go to the Bishop’s Finger first for a swift pint. We loved to play the quiz games – we were a brilliant team, he had encyclopedic knowledge of politics and current affairs, whilst I knew about music, geography and sport. Wayne sniffed the air changed his mind.

“How about Okabasi?”

The Okabasi kebab shop was a hive of activity – the neon signs outside attracted all manner of people. Soldiers, heading abroad soon, students, enjoying their freedom, and every so often, the rarest jewel of all, a local.

But he had different plans for us. As we were ushered through the city walls by the impatient wind I could feel the moon sweep over us, through our hair, in our bones; it surveyed us in our entirety. It was looking for a new servant and a fresh martyr. Maybe it just had to decide which was which. I couldn’t bring myself to look up, but small puddles on the uneven cobbled high street reprised the moons eerie glimmer. Desperate for relief I turned us right, into the Cherry Tree.

I hated the crowds in that undersized pub and normally sat outside, but the moon’s silky silver rays were sucking away at me. I had to sit inside, almost unable to move for the jostling phlegm flecked students, whilst a smoky miasma was buffeted around by chattering idiots and raucous laughter. Wayne drifted towards a siren with caramel eyes and I remember feeling utterly alone in this packed 13^th century tavern.

The only other human not gleefully courting inebriation sat at a table, looking down meditatively at his gold ingot of cigarettes. The ebb and flow of human traffic moved him in and out of my view. He was inert and still, like the calm before the storm, or an animal about to leap on its prey. A black haired girl fell onto me and her friends chuckled violently. His hair was dusted with grey, as was everything else about him, from his clothes to his gritty stubble. He continued to look down at his cigarettes, as I swayed closer he told me to sit down, still not looking up. Even at that point, it was too late for me. I wish he never had looked up, for when he did, grey moonlight burned and told me the horrors that I was to commit. I told him to stop. I asked him who he was. I wanted to pull away and run and run and run but I couldn’t……. I didn’t look but I could feel Wayne sitting down next to me, his queasy unease swam through me, and increased my own sense of foreboding.

As we sat there he told us brazen lies draped with occasional truths.

“Some people take the long circuitous hard slog to fame and success; others come to me for a quicker route... Sometimes I just toy with these people…they can’t have it all their own way. Anyone whose cup overflows with talent either got it from me in exchange for payment, or worked for it... everybody is punished accordingly – and no-one escapes punishment. Your grandfather had quite a fortuitous escape from death on D-Day, didn’t he, Dexter?”

I should have said something and yet I stayed tethered to the table, I could feel his cold anger bluntly walking over my soul.

“I fucked up Best, Syd Barrett, and who do you think killed Thomas Becket? I always have to leave my mark. I made Monet blind, took away Beethoven’s hearing, Dixie Dean…..the footballer your grandpa loved so much? I took away his legs!”

He chortled and then swiftly wiped the smile from his face, looking at me straight in the eyes. A sneer crept up on the side of his mouth. He wanted me to say something, but I sat there motionless – scared into silence.

“Did you kill Kennedy too?” Wayne squeaked in, breaking his intense stare.

“No, he fucked that up himself.”

The stranger responded, swiveling his attention back to me…..

“I don’t always kill them, sometimes I like to do the smaller things, I took a couple of guitarists’ fingers in the 70’s, and I once took a drummer’s arm – that was interesting! You’re wondering why I am with you two goons? Neither of you two layabouts have even the slightest modicum of talent. Nope, not a whiff of original thought from you two, a couple of nothings… I am the debt-collector and I have come for your families debts, Dexter – luck has tumbled down the generations for too long. I have brought you here to bring out your sinister side.”

Again a chuckle, eerie and childlike, but smothered almost as soon as it left his mouth.

“And as for you Wayne…..well…. we will get on to you in a little while.”

He went on to talk with snake charmer’s magnetism. He had been friends with George Best in the 60’s and Syd Barrett in the 70’s. George Best was the supreme footballer and playboy - in one match he lost his football boot whilst running with the ball. He simply put one foot on the ball, and put his shoe back on, tying his shoelace with slow, laconic arrogance. It took him thirty seconds to put his boot on – in that time half the opposition team had tried to rob him of the ball, he defied them all with his sublime skills, all the time moving the ball away from its suitors but never removing his gaze from his shoelaces. Best did many things like that. He dated a carousel of Miss Worlds, was the best footballer of his generation, and last year died a rampant alcoholic. He told us that he was the reason that George Best was so brilliant at football, and he was the reason that Syd Barrett’s music lined peoples’ ears like milk with its singular uniqueness – Syd played the guitar with such fierce passion it was as if hate was his first love. The stranger told us that he added “balance to perfection”. He’d taken Syd’s sanity, Dixie Dean’s legs, and Tony Iommi’s finger. Syd died this year of diabetes, but since the mid-70’s he had been a recluse, sent mad by his drug taking.

The stranger had been with countless models, and he told Wayne that he could get him any woman he wanted, and proceeded to woo the girl Wayne had been talking to earlier. He whistled her over, she obeyed , and then cuddled up to Wayne. On paper these actions seem trite, but he intoxicated us into believing his every breath. He showed us his million dollar smile; he arm wrestled with us; the more time we spent with him the harder it seemed to leave. I don’t remember buying a single drink that night, he bought them all for us – and when he rose we stood too and meekly followed him to the Hobgoblin. He said that it was quieter and we could talk properly there.

As we left the pulsating Cherry Tree and entered Canterbury’s cobbled main street Wayne turned and looked up to the Cathedral. Wayne started to have second thoughts; he was walking in front of me, as we both followed him in single file. Wayne tried to turn round, first trying to escape the Demon’s slipstream and then just wailing for help – but it was as if we weren’t there. No one apart from the moon looked at us as we paraded down the high street, and when he stopped we stopped too. He told us we weren’t going to the Hobgoblin. He turned, and quietly informed Wayne that he was going to die. It was the wild-eyed versus the wide eyed and there was no contest.

We were walking in a path well worn by history, 700 years early Henry II walked this exact route – whipped by angry bishops – walking on in penance for his crimes. We walked unknowing in this wrinkled trench of history, and I'm sure Dixie and Syd were looking on too.

Even though the attack didn't come out of the blue it was still shockingly sudden, brutal, and instinctive. I was paralyzed by fear when Wayne was being attacked and now, approximately once a month, I am paralyzed by the usurper of my body. He had changed form and was a whirling snarling mass. He eclipsed Wayne’s soul and mauled his body beyond recognition. Still no one said anything. Stoned students lazily rolled by and middle-aged theatergoers chatted right past us, like a flock of chirping sparrows. And I waited my turn. The wind had picked up detritus from the street and as the maelstrom launched itself at me, various items flew past, showing me what a wasted life I had led, and everything I was going to miss.

Ketchup

2007-06-28T11:40:00.000-04:00

We made the walk together every day. Moving in a set formation through the Valentine Council Estate, Joe was the lookout whilst I stayed at the back, sweeping the area with my eyes for possible attackers. The Valentine Estate was full of bullies; Joe said that blood tastes like ketchup to them.

One day Joe didn’t turn up. I ran to the station alone. I looked through the muddy windows of the apartments for any movement, but there was none. That made me even more scared. When I got to the steps of the train station, the greenery formed a tunnel to cloak me. I crept down to the platform and waited.

There was movement above, an angry bully voice shouted down. I clutched my cricket bat, my only protection.

“Oi! You! Come up here!” said the bully.

I was frozen. He hovered with menace. He came down. I cried. He took my cricket bat and laughed. As the train approached he shouted, “Tomorrow I’m going to beat you shitless with your own cricket bat!”

Why wasn’t Joe there? I mulled over the confrontation, and made my decision. Joe was going to face him alone tomorrow.

The excuse was easy: “Mum, I’m going to take the bus today.”

But the bus was late. With every passing second guilt piled bricks on my shoulders, taller than the highest building in the Valentine Estate.

I ran to the station. Joe was there waiting for me with my cricket bat, sprawled on the steps like a long Sunday morning, ketchup dripping from his head.

Fame in sixty seconds

2007-06-28T11:39:00.002-04:00

With one minute remaining, an anonymous youngster shuffles on. His smooth cheeks glow an embarrassed vermillion. Fans sigh. The boy touches the ball just twice. He traps the ball dead, and then arcs in under the crossbar like a sleek sunset. A goal? A goal! A Krakatoan eruption. He’s a legend now, not a boy.

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