If You Know Your History?

There are lot of reasons why we become Evertonians, family, locality, some horrific crime we must’ve committed in a past life.

We all have our own stories, the determinants of why we decided to take up the one true faith.

My own journey to the light was rooted in threat and anxiety, my rabidly Blue mum informing me, aged 5, that Father Christmas only visited Evertonians. It was a parental act that, from the vantage point of today, does seem like a mild form of child abuse.

When we do become Evertonians, we emerge into an existing narrative, one whose origins stretch back more than a century. It is a story peopled by legends, populated with moments of wonder, pockmarked by flashes of despair. As a young Blue, you step into this world bewildered, filled with questions: Just who were the Holy Trinity? What made Bayern so magical? Why was our mascot once a giant smiling testicle? You listen as older Blues talk about past heroes, reminisce about titles and cup finals, lament instances of ‘Everton That’, wondering at the stories behind those moments and phrases.

But football is a breathless and demanding love, often focused on the here and now, compelling your constant attention. While we navigate this new world, we try to snatch bits and pieces from the past, but it’s difficult. As you weave your own Everton tapestry, it is something that inevitably largely dates from the moment of conversion. Despite our best efforts to embrace that storied history, our ‘Everton Lives’ tend to be matched to our own direct interaction with the club. While we possess a vague knowledge of what came before, it is patchy, sacrificed on the alter of football’s relentless demand for the immediate.

As a child of the 1980s, my ‘Everton Life’ was that of Reid and Bracewell, Bayern and Kevin Brock, the slide to mediocrity under Harvey. Stories of Hickson and Young, of the never-ending League Cup Final, of Eddie Cavanagh outrunning a hapless ‘bizzie’, belonged to another world, old and mysterious. It was only with age, as my love affair with the club developed into something richer than just the ‘Here and Now’, that I delved deeper. And with that I grew to understand and appreciate why these moments and these figures mattered so much to Blues at the time.

I’m sure other Evertonians have experienced something similar. I have certainly watched my own son go on such a journey. As a child of the late-Moyes and Moshiri era, his ‘Everton Life’ has been Lukaku, Richarlison, the attritional battle for survival. Stories about the legends of the past and the moments of wonder have been known, but not entirely understood. Like every Blue, whatever age, he knows for example, that our last trophy was won in 1995, But like so many new, or relatively new to the cause, he’s yet to understand the miracle that trophy represented. The against-all-odds end to a season that seemed to promise oblivion at its start.

It was through his journey that the idea came to me that there should be something out there for young Blues, a handy guide into what makes Everton ‘Everton’, something that answers all those many questions. It would be one that explains just what ‘Everton That’ is really about, one that explores why those statues around Goodison matter so much, something that outlines why a rent dispute in 1892 gave rise to a unique evil in the world.

And that’s what If You Know Your History (A Young Evertonian’s Guide to the Toffees) hopefully provides. My new book, specifically written for young Evertonians, is the guide to the club I wish I had possessed as a fresh faced Blue all those years ago. All Evertonia is here, the songs, the legends, the startling recruitment that saw us decline to sign Erling Haaland (twice!).

If, like me, you looked at your babe-in-arms, and (likely motivated by the guiding principle that misery likes company) decided to indoctrinate them into the faith, then this is the book for you to gift to them. It is the handy guide to the magical world of Everton, giving your young Blue not just an insight into what constitutes our club but also a reminder of why we remain, despite our generational trophy drought, a giant of the game (a valuable perspective during these turbulent times).

For those interested in really cementing your child’s affiliation with the club, copies of If You Know Your History are available at the Everton Heritage stand at St Lukes before the game and via Amazon at: https://tinyurl.com/24nhn48w