I was asked to put a piece together for my wife to publish in her magazine yesterday after a contributor let her down. The feature is called 'My Team - why are you affiliated with the team you support?'. In lieu of any actual news, though you lot might be interested in my witterings. Would be good to get something similar from other non-locals.
So. Why would a seven-year-old boy from South Warwickshire with little real exposure to football, end up making a choice that would lead to an adulthood of abject misery? In hindsight who knows, but here’s how I ended up supporting Everton.
I liked football. I liked sport. Actually, I liked watching sport.
As a child I had zero aptitude for any physical activity. Reading and writing? Yes. Riding my bike and sitting in my dad’s tractor? Definitely. Watching the Fall Guy, Dukes of Hazzard and Danger Mouse? Without a doubt. Running and/or kicking a football? Hahaha, no.
My dad was a sports nut, we’d be at the cricket club during the summer and the winter weekends were spent watching Grandstand or World of Sport. Didn’t matter what the sport was, if it was televised – it was on our TV. He was (and still is) a Manchester United fan, a regular at Old Trafford in the sixties even hitching weekly flights back from Germany to watch matches whilst stationed out there during his RAF days. He pushed me in that direction but no. I liked Spurs. Ardiles, Villa and Hoddle had got my attention as I watched them on their way to lifting the FA Cup. We’d even braved St. Andrews and the cold to watch Tottenham in action the following season, a 0-0 draw and some horrific National Front skinheads put me off completely.
So, 1982 and back to my Panini album. Liverpool winning everything, all of the kids at school jumping on the bandwagon. I was always a contrary little sort, so as twenty of my classmates claimed to be die hard Liverpool fans my decision was made. “I’m an Everton fan. They’re clearly the better side from the city.”
The first few years and I felt like I’d made the best decision in the world. Howard Kendall’s squad gelling and then excelling. The FA Cup on 1984, League Champions and Cup Winners Cup winners (I even got to stay up to watch that one) the year afterwards. A fight to wrest the league title back from the red half of the city in 1987. What an amazing side I was following from afar. Surely they’d go on to dominate football for the foreseeable future? Well, no. A European football ban saw the best players slowly filter off over the coming seasons leaving for the allure of the European Cup. The enforced dismantling of the best side I’ve ever seen still makes me think, “what could have been?”.
And like that, the glory years were gone. Some spirited performances here and there but no trophies. Little would I know in 1988 that I’d only see Everton lift one more trophy in my lifetime. We’d won so much in such a short time, we were dominant, it would be back. Wouldn’t it? Not long after this I moved to Nuneaton and a new love affair was stuck up. My love of football was unabating. My ability still had yet to manifest itself, so I was forced into a watching brief. Fourteen years old, 110 miles from Liverpool and I needed my football fix. Welcome to my life Nuneaton Borough. The Beazer Homes League, crowds of 500ish. I was hooked from game one. Bolehall Swifts at home. Birmingham Senior Cup First Round Replay. Hardly a glamour tie but it was two miles from my house, and it gave me something to invest in. For the next three seasons I barely missed a match. My mum relented after a few months and let me travel to away games as well. Glamorous bus journeys to The Hawthorns, to Wembley (Wembley FC, not Wembley Stadium) to Woking, to Barrow, to Kings Lynn. It was the perfect fix for me. Still some of my fondest football memories before my move back to Stratford at seventeen led me to follow two sides from my armchair.
I’d made my first trip to Goodison during this stage too. Opening weekend of the Premier League in 1992. The experience just cemented my Everton decision, such an atmosphere and I still get the same goosebumps when I walk into the stadium these days.
From my armchair I watched the 1995 FA Cup win, a much needed (if not fortuitous) win following the almost-relegation of 1994. I’d backed Everton to lift the trophy at 25/1 as well, however I can’t remember how it felt it was so long ago. Nearly 25 years and we’ve won nothing since. From a powerhouse to an afterthought in Sky TV’s reinvention of football.
It’s been a tough run. Some terrible, terrible football and players. Some false dawns and the excitement of David Moyes bucking the trend with a raid into the top four in 2005. Oh, and I finally learned how to play the game as well. I was even quite good for a brief period in about 2001. Never could run though. The final coup de gras is that my football supporting life has come full circle and once more Liverpool are the media darlings whilst the Toffees flounder around hopelessly.
It’s been eventful. It’s been horrible, but I made my choice and I’ll see it through. Would I go back and change it? Not a chance. #COYB
