I think there are far more "Nominal" Liverpool fans than Everton Fans in the city and greater city region nowadays. By that I mean people who are not really interested in football, but if asked, will more naturally gravitate towards the club with the city's name. Of course, there is the glory-hunting element too. Let's face it, our club must've lost the bulk of one or 2 generations of new local fans either side of our window of success in the mid-80s..... and the club also did its best to make itself an "almost irrelevance" for the past 30+yrs too!
So it's no wonder our proportion of the population has shrunk. What's worrying is that my kids were all massively ournumbered in their schools, at least 3:1 (schools all in South Liverpool but drew their intake from the whole city). It hasn't always been that way. When I went to School 1969-83... it felt like it was roughly 50:50 (maybe slightly in favour of them). My brother who was 10yrs older, always claimed there were far more blues in his school days, and my oldest brother who was 20yrs older said: you couldn't play Everton v Liverpool in the school yard, because you couldn't find enough reds in his day. Of course, this is pretty much reflected in historic average gates too.
All that said, the statistics about numbers of local season ticket holders etc are very telling about the difference in character of the two fanbases. I knew hundreds of local matchgoing reds growing up and in early adulthood. I only know a handful now! Lots stopped going in the early to mid 90s when they sampled their first period of mediocrity... and the growing number of out of towners moved in. Many of the local reds lost that match-going habit and they became tellypudlians en masse. At the same time, blues just kept going.... and many of their kids did too..... in increasing numbers. It almost defies logic. However, we desperately need some success soon to halt that slide and build on that solid, loyal fanbase.
Best retort? Just say 17, 26.... when they ask if they're your Lotto numbers, say no, they're the bus numbers to get closest to their ground, incase they ever need to know.
