Time for an exercise in perspective-forming.
Everton have a pre-season friendly with Dynamo Kyiv at Goodison on Friday. It will be interesting to see which group of fans is more humbled by the plight of the other. At the very least, half of Merseyside aren’t laughing at the suffering of the Kyiv supporters. Although…
Perhaps the Dynamo fans, watching at home while parts of their country are being bombed, will be able to experience escape by indulging in some explicit misery porn. They might see the faces of the masochistic voyeurs inside the Grand Old Lady and think, “There for the grace…”. Or see the demoralised men in blue playing on the scorched earth of Goodison and have a super-boosted drive to fight for a county being traumatised by bombs and war crimes. “At least, it’s not Everton here…”
They might suddenly campaign with gusto for our city to be awarded, post haste, the honour of hosting Eurovision 2023. Everton are as low as the year the Eurovision contest gave us Donatan & Cleo singing, “We Are Slavic”, whilst dressed as milkmaids. Perhaps we need “We Are Everton” trilled by players dressed as pussycats. Maybe Kenwright could get Andrew LLoyd Webber to do us a characteristically low-key production. We’ve seen worse. We could even suggest Kenwright gets involved and take a break from running our pantomime. Although maybe the guy just likes being inside the back of a horse.
We’d forgive him that.
I mean…everyone needs some relief from the theatre of the absurd. Who hasn’t thought, from time to time, about taking a shot at, say, one or two of the more sexier chickens? But I’m an Everton fan. I’m resigned to my fantasies not being realised. These days, when I’m tormented by thoughts of free-range chickens, or free-agent talent, I just go for a midnight run. I then read the thread on Nextdoor called, “WHO THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT IDIOT?”. It makes dipping your toe into Everton Twitter after a shellacking feel like a tickly ‘n bubbly foot spa. If only we could heat our homes on the righteous indignation and fume over the behaviour of our neighbours.
Here’s a thought, though. Perhaps Dynamo Kyiv, sensitive to issues of existential chaos, will decide to give us some relief from trauma and let us win. If there are examples of unrest and expressions of anger from the home crowd, maybe DK could go the extra mile by offering Kenwright and Moshiri a flight to Ukraine for some R&R. A trip to Odessa for the waters.
It that seems plausible, it’s certainly not impossible that we’ll see Dynamo Kyiv awarding Vitaliy Mykolenko the ‘Hero of Ukraine’ medal. It’s given for hard work and great heroism. Both boxes ticked there. It does, though, beg, the question, “Is Ukraine’s highest national title enough?”
“Er….yes…but now that you mention it…er.”
“Mate - the lad plays for Everton; I think we’re gonna need a bigger honorific.”
I can imagine Mykolenko, in years to come, sitting on a steel seat in a flat-roofed bar, staring dead-eyed at a smudged glass containing maybe whisky. A fellow, hollowed-out husk of a man, sits next to him, looks straight ahead and says, “Were you in the [Poor language removed]?”
Mykolenko nods. “I was in the [Poor language removed].”
“Mariupol?”
“Everton”
“[Poor language removed]. I’ll get you another drink.”
Better get me one too.
Next week sees the start of a hard campaign and the continuation of an ill-thought-out operation.
But…we’ll always have Palace.
Stay safe, Evertonians, and Slava Ukrayini.
Gavin Bazunu
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