Times Article

[Louis]

Why I Don't Ever Want Everton To Be "Big Four" Again

 

Gnawed lips, knotted entrails, throttled match day programmes, and for yesterday's Anfield game - cringing behind the sofa; as an Evertonian born at the wrong time I am not accustomed to success...but times are beginning to change.

 

For me Everton used to be pugnacious relegation fighters, and only in the deepest recesses of my mind can I remember vague snippets of success. I recall looking at an Everton team photo, wondering with a child's logic that, if my Dad said he loved Gary Lineker like a son, did that make him my brother? Tragically as time was called on the 1980's, with Lord of the Sod inevitability, my footballing consciousness sprouted just as Everton began to wilt.

 

My dad's boyhood team contained the 'Holy Trinity' and had a full to the brim trophy cabinet, but the team I fell in love with was Joe Royle's Moyes-esque band of brothers. In many ways Carsley, Osman, and Cahill are direct descendants of the plucky midfield mongrels Horne, Ebbrell, and Stuart. And who could forget Duncan Ferguson? The Yossarian of Everton's treatment table, whose career statistics bring a tear to the eye for all the wrong reasons, but the ex-con pigeon fancier was over six feet of contradictions and in many ways the perfect totem for that team; who mixed rough dogfights with one glorious moment in the sun.

 

That team's poke in the eye of the Premier League behemoths was FA Cup victory over Man Utd - and upstart usher usurping Royalty at their Wembley coronation. Move to 2008 and that one-off battle has now become a war, the prize being entry into the exclusive top four. Liverpool are now once again favourites to bag that final spot, having dispensed with West Ham with depressing ease - but we will breathe down their necks and stare at them from over Stanley Park all the way to the end of the season.

 

Although I'd love for us to grab fourth place, I wouldn't ever want Everton to be labelled "Big 4", that term is now something of an insult in my mind, and conjours up images of prawn sandwiches, the habitual masturbation of trophies on demand, mausoleum stadia, and owners with more Roubles than scruples. Putting us in the "Big 4" is like putting Joe Strummer in Girls Aloud, we simply don't belong. I am fully aware of our glorious history, but I want Everton to break the 'Big 4' cartel, not break into it.

 

Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea all drink from the European Cup to forget, to obliterate memories of recent domestic league and cup wobbles. Everton, on the other hand, drink from the UEFA Cup to remember, an aide memoire to rekindle past successes. Victory in Europe for Liverpool will be a distraction, and often proves to be a temporary placebo for their domestic impotence, but UEFA successes for us will give us belief, lift us and inspire.

 

The Moyesiah has catapulted us from lowly basement scrappers into high altitude competitors without the usual gap in between. That sick feeling in my stomach? I'm used to it, but it is for different reasons now. Tonight we play Fiorentina, and my guts are churning like a relegation six pointer of old.

[TrueBlue]

An interesting read and one which I can relate to and agree, who wrote it louis?

[MikeO]

Nice one....couple of inexplicable metaphors though, Yossarian constantly faked illness to avoid combat in Catch22....how can he compare Dunc to that? I was never his greatest fan but I don't think he ever pretended to be injured .

 

Also I think he got his medical terms mixed up, when he said placebo I think he meant panacea. Doesn't make sense as it is.