Joey Barton

I am delighted to hear that Everton are not interested in that offensive little twat Joey Barton.

I should think not, too.

I don't think the young man is very welcome on Merseyside these days.

It was 30 years ago today

It was 30 years ago today that Howard Kendall joined Everton as player/manager from Blackburn Rovers. After a shaky start, and some well dodgy purchases in the transfer market, Howard eventually fashioned together a side that was, at its pomp, considered by many judges to be the best in Europe. They won the FA Cup in 1984, and the League Championship & European Cup-Winners Cup the next year.
The side was to be cruelly broken up after the European ban, yet Kendall still managed to win the title again before decamping to Spain.

He is also a very nice man.

And he likes a bevvy.

Cheers, Howard! Love ya.

Thank you, Walter

So - Walter Smith has retired.
Rangers fans will rightly laud him as a manager who has brought many trophies [17?] to their Club over the years. Indeed, there are many who feel that Walter's achievements over the last three years have saved the Club from financial extinction.

We Evertonians also have much to thank this remarkable man for.

When he was Everton Manager, he was able to bring in many players on big fees and good wages, thanks to the largesse of then chairman and owner Peter Johnson. Johnson, according to local legend, borrowed 20 million pounds for squad development with a bank loan secured against shares in his company which provided hampers at Christmas, and Smith brought in players such as Marco Materazzi, Olivier D'Acourt, John Collins in an attempt to elevate the Club's position. Alas, things went badly tits up for Mr Johnson - he took his eyes off the Company Ball back in Hamper-land, the shares crashed and the bank explained to him that he did not have enough collateral in his shareholdings to cover the loan. Something had to be done, and fast.
So, without the knowledge of the manager - Walter Smith - Johnson negotiated the sale of Goodison icon Duncan Ferguson to Newcastle United, to claw back some of the debt. Eventually, Collins, D'Acourt and Materazzi went too.
The Club was in financial turmoil.
The fans wanted Bill Kenwright to take over, but Johnson was holding out for big money - initially over 70 million. Kenwright did not have anything like that sort of cash. Everton was in limbo.
Shorn of many players, without any finance to develop the squad, Walter kept on going and somehow managed to keep the Club in the top flight.
Eventually, Bill Kenwright took over the Club, but with just enough to buy Johnson's shares he didn't have the wherewithall to bring in massive signings. Walter carried on manfully with little resource available to him, but eventually he lost his job.
Bill Kenwright said at the time that this was the most difficult decision he had ever had to make, and rightly praised Walter for his role in saving Everton.

So - thank you, Walter Smith. You won no trophies as Everton manager, but you kept our great old Club where it belongs - in the top flight of English football.

Enjoy your retirement - and come down and see us some time.

Shooting yerself in the [left] foot?

Emailed this morning from Everton FC on their mailing list, and the headline was - find out who wants to bid for Leighton Baines. The link is into the Daily Mail piece alleging that Arsene Wenger is preparing a ten million pound bid for Baines this summer, as his current left back won't sign a new deal......

Now, the Daily Mail can speculate about this stuff as much as they like [they often get it totally wrong, but that's by the bye] but why on Earth does Everton FC want to add publicity for this highly speculative bit of nonsense - on match day as well?

The half wit who made this decision must be blessed with the judgement of retarded fruit fly.

Apropos of today's game, there is a bit of breeze but it is sunny and bright here on Merseyside. Villa won't be after parking the bus across their penalty box, so I expect a few goals - at both ends. Hoping for a win for the Blues, but most importantly that the luncheon is satisfactory in the hospitality area.

Champagne at 12.15 - hurrah!

Stat of the week

Everton have not beaten Aston Villa for nine matches, apparently.
Bets for tomorrow?

Everton to win, Tony Hibbert to score.

Collect you winnings Monday morning. Thousands of pounds.

I know it's worth pot loads of money, but............

Isn't the Champions League a load of KACK?
Boring boring boring.

Of course, if Everton were in it, different ball game.

Poetry Corner 2

An Ode to Goodison Park, written in May 2000.

She stands alone, aloft and proud
Amidst a sea of dross
Never moving, ever true to all who come inside
A place of love and worship, a place where lovers bide.

Her stands are strong, like towers
Above the terraced lines.
She ushers in her children, she drives their parents mad.
She welcomed my grandfather when he was but a lad.

Sam Chedzoy, Young the first,
Dixie, Mercer, Jones.
All had pause to look around in awe when first they came.
And later, in my childhood, too, others sought their fame.

Royston swerved, Alex soared,
And Gordon, caked in mud.
A hundred thousand woodies, a half a million teas.
The smoke would billow round her roofs. The roars, the groans, the pleas.

And now her paint is faded
She shudders in the cold.
They say it's time to leave her be, to try another field.
She's past her best, she's lost her looks. It's time for her to yield.

So build your concrete monster.
Build your village theme.
Pull the lady down, you fools, and make another start.
Take away the history, pull the lady down. Go on, then, break my heart.
You'll never build another,
When Goodison goes down.
You'll never, ever, recreate that lovely lady's soul,
Which lies upon the terrace, when many years ago
My father, just a boy of twelve, saw Dixie score THAT goal.

I've been to all the others
Those soulless, heartless holes.
Edifices made of sand, cement and no-one's love.
Surrounded by the open fields; roomy and forlorn.
No corner shop. No Chippy. No pub and no queues.
No push and shove.

A hundred years of history
A million billion dreams.
She holds them all within her arms, and that's where they will stay.
If you remove the lady, the dreams will fade away.
Little Bobby Collins, Labby - calm and in command;
Davie Hickson, locks akimbo, charging at the Street.

Pull her down.
Go on, then.
For hope, defeat.

Consistency - and Good Management

One of the measures of a Team is how well they respond to adversity, and whether their manager can pick them up after a defeat and get them on the right track straight away. I was intrigued to note that Manchester United suffered a second consecutive league defeat at Anfield this weekend and wondered which Clubs have gone the longest since losing two League games in a row.

Here ya go:

Everton 52
Arsenal 21
Fulham 20
Manchester City 19
Tottenham Hotspur 18
Chelsea 13
Newcastle United 10
Aston Villa 10
Liverpool 8
West Bromwich Albion 8
West Ham United 6
Bolton Wanderers 5
Wolverhampton Wanderers 5
Blackpool 3
Stoke City 2
Sunderland 1
Manchester United 0
Blackburn Rovers 0
Birmingham City 0
Wigan Athletic 0

Not that I'm biased, of course. Perish the very thought.
Just thought I'd mention it, though.

That is better.....

Very pleased to see that David Moyes switched Michel Arteta out wide at Newcastle - and the impact was sensational. Give the guy a little room and he will cut opposition defences to ribbons.
The centre of Midfield in the Premier League these days is virtually always crowded and cluttered: you win matches by getting the ball wide, and having talented players who can exploit width.
Simple.

Memo to David - keep him out wide please! With Phil Neville looking to have pulled a hamstring, Johnny Heitinga can slot into centre midfield and perform the same role, leaving Arteta and Osman wide.

The games are coming hard and fast at Birmingham City these days, with three in 8 days following a draining Wembley final. I expect an Everton win on Wednesday.

Memo to Leon Osman - very silly haircut. Let it grow properly like a grown up and stop this sillyness.

Memo to Marouine Fellaini - hope the operation goes well tomorrow and see you next season. And tell your dad to put a sock in it. ["Tais-toi, cher papa"]

Technology

I see that FIFA & UEFA are meeting this weekend to discuss the introduction of some measure of goal line technology into the game.
About time too, if it happens.
Here is an article I wrote in my fanzine [Satis?] in the summer of 1998.

Technology – Satis? Summer edition 1998

When Sky TV got their teeth into football, they made an early decision which was to change the way British TV treated the game for ever. Sky put in multiple camera angles, and added state of the art technology to assist the commentators and pundits in their analysis of the action.
The simple old action replay was just not enough; now we were to get five different views of each critical moment, computer tracking analysis, total overkill. And what happened?
Something any football fan could have told you - the deficiencies of our referees were exposed time after time, with sometimes crucial decisions shown to be totally wrong, and important games shown to be decided by the incompetence of the officials, instead of the skill of the players.
And, of course, the debate about the use of technology and the fourth official began to grow.
The initial response of the football insiders was predictable. “We should leave the game alone, the decisions even themselves out over the full season, referees do a great job in very difficult circumstances..blah blah blah” The usual litany on Match of the Day from the Hills and the Hansens.
Utter drivel.
Decisions cannot “even themselves out” over the season. Just imagine that in one game, the referee wrongly disallows a goal, but the team in question are leading 3-0 with only a few minutes to go. Tough deal, but so what? In another game, a Cup semi-final, the referee wrongly disallows a winning goal in the last few minutes, and the team in question lose the replay. No way can you compare these two decisions. In the latter case, the club could lose millions, the fans are heartbroken.
The FA must act now to introduce the use of technology and help make the game fairer. A fourth official, linked to the referee by radio, is seated with a bank of TV monitors and a technician, and can give an alternate opinion on crucial moments in the game.
When should the fourth official be used?
Satis? offers the following blueprint.
The fourth official can only be used in the following circumstances:
1 If there is a “tight” offside decision, the referee should wave “play on”. If the result is a goal, then the referee will call for a replay to check whether it was offside or not. If the result is a goal kick, corner, throw in etc, then the referee takes no further action. Play continues.
2 If there is a penalty appeal, but the officials are unsure or unsighted, then play continues until the ball goes dead. The referee calls for the fourth official to adjudicate on the penalty. If his decision is that it was a penalty, then play is taken back and the penalty kick awarded. If not, play continues.
3 If there is a claim that a goal has been scored, but the officials are unsure or unsighted, then play should continue until the ball goes dead, by which time the fourth official will have decided whether it was a goal or not. If no goal, then play just continues.
In each of these cases, only a major decision is affected - a goal or a penalty. And by the time the ball has gone dead, the fourth official may already have reached a decision, so there should not be much in the way of time delays. Moreover, the above situations don’t often happen during a match, so the total amount of time taken by the use of the technology would amount to no more than a few minutes per game.
If you take the time we spend in going to and from the match, plus the time in the stadium, and mayhap the odd glass with friends before and after, what difference would a few minutes make?
Not a lot.
After the games, the FA can look critically at specific incidents involving player discipline, and get the right answer every time. Suspensions can be retrospectively applied if necessary, to cut down the
cheats.
More importantly, football would get the result right more than it does now. Fans would not leave the stadium fuming about dreadful decisions which have slaughtered their teams’ season, and would be far more inclined to accept the result, in the knowledge that everything possible was done to help get the right result.

And no more Clive Thomas, David Elleray etc to play the film star at our expense.

Isn’t that what everyone wants?

While you're waiting for the microphone to return.....

Enjoy this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwV8rXahuao

Ahhhhhhhh

And now, the Weather.......

It will be cold and gloomy on Merseyside for the next few weeks, with no sign of Fellaini until August, and Cahill for about a month.

Fanny Old Game

What a bizarre day for football. Louis Saha, who is usually out for three months if he bends a fingernail, managed to total a £170k Ferrari and walk out unscathed. Over at the Chelsea rifle range, Torres had ten shots and missed with them all, Ashley Cole hit the youth player with just one shot, but Drogba was the one that fell to the floor in agony.
[with due acknowledgement to Stoo Roberts]

Done him like a kipper

Had to smile at the antics of Johnny Heitinga during the penalty shoot out at Stamford Bridge. Having despatched his own penalty, he proceeded to dance a little jig in front of the six thousand Evertonians packed behind the goal - thus keeping Ashley Cole waiting for a good half minute before he could take his penalty. Then, on the walk back to the centre circle, Heitinga shoved Cole and gave him a little verbal.
Cole's resultant penalty, miles high and well wide, was the product of a tormented and confused soul.

Sledging of the highest order.

Done him Like a kipper.

Fabregas the coward

Sad to see Fabregas try and end Arteta's season with a coward's tackle raking the back of Arteta's achilles at the Emirates.
Sadder still to read the drivel put out by Arsene Wenger ignoring the tackle and claiming that his boy is a regular target for the hatchet men.
Pot.
Kettle.
Black.

"I deedn't see yit" my arse.

This kind of barefaced lying to the media brings no credit upon a fine manager whose teams have brightened the Premier League over the last decade and a half.

Shame really.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. Fabregas, you're a coward.

Spurs hammered, Pienaar rubbish

What a dreadful performance by Spurs at Fulham.
As for Pienaar - good luck and hope you enjoy the money, becuase you were utterly awful today.
And by the way, well played Fulham.

The curse of Walter!
Hurrah!

The curse

We used to call it "The curse of Walter" when Walter Smith was in charge at Everton.
Whenever a player left the Blues for "greener pastures" they inevitably found that very quickly their career went tits up.
Cue Nick Barmby, Don Hutchison, Tommy Gravesen, Abel Xavier and others.

So.

Farewell Steven Pienaar. You were no-one when you arrived at Everton, and now you're off to London.
Enjoy the money.

And remember the curse of Walter [Davie].

Players come and players go, but we fans are here for ever. Never make heroes of these dilettantes, they are just not worth it.

And a chance now for Jack Rodwell to make a permanent place in our midfield line-up.

While I'm at it - Dan Gosling: worst of luck to you, too, loser.

Taraah, then Yak

So - it's goodbye then to Yak
And that's the end of that.
It's not because you're black,
It's 'cos your friggin fat.

E J Thribb [17]

How low can they go?

Have to say that last night's performance was the worst I have seen in over 50 years of watching Merseyside football.

Only a massive improvement will avoid a right old tonking by Everton on Sunday.

End of.

Hello. is that the Alzheimer's Society?

Quote on the radio this afternoon from the Liverpool Manager:

"I can definitely say my glass is half full. No way is it half empty."

Er, Woy.

If it's half full, then it is also [fill in obvious epithet here please].

Please don't let Blackburn win tonight. Don't want him sacked yet, he is just so much FUN!