Colm's Corner
Columnist: Colm Kavanagh

Nirvana! Smells Like Team Spirit!
14 December 2004

Determined and Effective

“And so this is Christmas”, sang one of Liverpool’s more famous sons, John Lennon, many moons ago.  Indeed it is John, indeed it is.  Why wait another week or more for the ‘official’ date?  Right now, every Evertonian knows that Christmas has come early: a Mersey derby victory leaving us in second place, twelve points ahead of our struggling neighbours.  The Have Nots 1 The Have Plenty 0…

Not bad for a team seemingly destined for relegation on the opening weekend of the season – our worst fears apparently about to be realised, starting with a 1-4 thrashing from Arsenal.  Funnily enough, back in 1984, we were stuffed on the opening day of that season also – a 1-4 home defeat by Spurs!  The rest, as they say, that season is history.  An omen perhaps? Nah, we can’t dream, can we?

The game has changed so much since those halcyon days.  There’s no room (or so we’re told by the ‘experts’) for a team consisting entirely of (supposed) journeymen and homegrown talent to challenge for the game’s highest domestic honour.  And yet, here we are – Christmas upon us – and Everton are riding high, second in the table, with the knowledge that a win against Blackburn Rovers this coming Saturday will move Everton four points clear of reigning champions Arsenal, who do not play until Sunday.

It’s been great listening to some of the pundits of late.  Just the other week, that affable (???) scouse wit Mickey Quinn spent a good 20 minutes in Ron Manager mode… “it’s dead great this, seeing non-league teams ‘doing good’ (like) in the FA Cup and dreaming of gerrin’ a draw in the third round of the Cup against one of the big teams… it’s what football’s all about… living the dream” – and yet, just 10 minutes further (once the token ‘we give a fuck about non-league teams in the FA Cup’ segment was out of the way) he was putting the boot into little old Everton who were upsetting the applecart that is a G14 led Premiership. Everton were third and had been so for… Christ, how many weeks?  “Wouldn’t last”, he said.  “Can’t last”, he said.  “Not good enough, not strong enough”. 

Now, we all know the supposed limitations of Moyes’ squad.  We know our strengths.  We know our weaknesses.  We know our expectations have already been exceeded.  But… fuck me… what does it take these days, particularly in an era when money dictates (ruins?) everything, to see David Moyes and his team being afforded just a little respect that they’ve earned for their deeds out there on the pitch, eh? 

After the summer we’ve just had, you’d imagine there’d be more appreciation for the minor miracle that’s occurring before our very eyes.  Sadly, not so.  They were right when saying that Everton wouldn’t stay third for long.  We’re now second.

Why indeed must the FA Premiership be a battle royal between Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United and no one else?  Is there a ruling somewhere stating no ‘unfashionable’ teams may involve themselves towards the business end of the season as the millions are about to be carved up amongst the chosen few?  I’d hazard a guess and say that Newcastle’s ignorant fuckwit of a chairman, Freddy Shepherd, is absolutely bricking it at the thought of a club like Everton upsetting the status quo of recent seasons.  Liverpool likewise…

Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Newcastle United – five clubs who have over recent times stolen a march on the rest, mainly due to the almost guaranteed continuation of European football annually.  Five into four (CL places) doesn’t go so we have a season-long battle between the weakest two of the five mentioned.  That’s your Premiership season.  The rest of us feed of scraps (or £10.4 million in advances if you’re to believe all that’s aired at AGM’s!).

This season, though, add the names of Middlesbrough and Aston Villa to the mix — and both Liverpool and Newcastle are already feeling the heat.  Even Portsmouth, should they win at Anfield this evening, would find themselves in a higher League position than our Red neighbours!  Crisis?  What crisis? 

Note I’ve not mentioned Everton in the above group.  Twelve points ahead of Liverpool with 21 games left and 15 ahead of Newcastle leaves a lot of ground to be made up for our rivals.  We’ll not get a better chance to keep our noses ahead than this.  Unfashionable cash-strapped Everton are giving some of the supposed big boys plenty to choke on this festive season...

Can we achieve something no one dared to dream about this season?  I say yes.  The spirit being shown out there, weekly, by those who don the Royal Blue shirt has been nothing short of amazing.  This, in the main, is the same shower of shite who didn’t appear arsed last season, as we gradually became more and more of a shambles.  End result?  Team, management and fans were all apart – there was no unity throughout the Everton ‘family’. 

We like to look upon ourselves as being something special, different to most other clubs.  There is a heartbeat that runs deep through Everton, supposedly connecting all together – the young, the old; the players, the fans – but it wasn’t there last season.  Now though, that heartbeat is absolutely pumping!  It may indeed be an old-fashioned quality but what price spirit being a key ingredient in better times returning to Goodison?  We don’t have Abramovich’s millions.  To quote another Lennon (and McCartney) number – “money can’t buy me love”…

Which is kind of ironic, in its own way, as Abramovich’s millions took Jose Mourinho from Porto to Chelsea this past summer.  Mourinho, a man who likes to play the press at their own game, was fulsome in his praise of Everton earlier this season when we gave the millionaires of Chelsea a right run for their money at Stamford Bridge (if only Alan Stubbs eh?).  His praise for our work ethic and travelling support struck a chord with Evertonians, more used to donning tin hats and being accused of paranoia at the lack of decent coverage from the media.  Mourinho spoke up and with Everton now lying in second place – do you know something… he was right.

The media in England dwell entirely on the supposed bigger clubs and their supposed millions.  I find it funny that Jose Mourinho somehow managed a lesser G14 club like Porto (playing in a supposedly unfashionable league like Portugal’s) to win the G14 Chumpions League last season.   How did he manage to do this while competing against the Galacticoes of Madrid?  The might of Manchester United, the supposed richest club in the world?  The finest Italian football could offer?  How so?  How did an unfashionable club like Porto win the G14 Chumpions League? 

How on earth did Greece manage to upset the odds and defy ‘logic’ when lifting the European Championship last summer?  How the hell did Shrewsbury Town ever manage to beat us in the FA Cup two seasons ago?!  How did Wimbledon, rising from non-league football, ever find themselves playing in the season’s showpiece game, claiming the unlikeliest of victories when beating Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup Final?  It happens in football.  Teams with spirit so often defy the odds. Whether Everton can continue this marvellous run is, of course, open to debate.  And injury free runs!

Anyone who was in or around Goodison Park last Saturday, for the derby, will know exactly the feeling that’s there right now.   Others have said it and I agree wholeheartedly that we’ve a team where every player knows his role within.  We are just so bloody hard to break at the minute – and that is down to sheer hard work.  Teams like that make their own luck.  Long may it continue – and fuck the begrudgers!

We Shall Not Be Moved?

Colm Kavanagh

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