Fans Comment
Mick Quirke

Dear Mr Wilson,
28 February 2005

If you wade through this article by Paul Wilson in last Sunday's Observer, on the dubious quality of Premiership football when confronted with the Champions League, and you reach the end only to read this sentence:

That may seem harsh, but when you have just watched Barcelona make the runaway Premiership leaders look like Everton - and let's not even think about Barcelona playing Everton next season - it makes you realise how insular our nakedly cosmopolitan competition still is.

Mick Quirke responds indignantly to this unmitigated insult on the great name of Everton (although, absent last Saturday's great performance, you have to admit Mr Wilson has a point...):

Any particular reason for this unwarranted and offensive attack on our great football club in the final paragraph of the above article, which was ostensibly about the performance of the 4 Premiership Clubs in Europe this week?  So 'Barcelona made Chelsea look like Everton'.  Tell me, what exactly does that mean?  That Barcelona made Chelsea look like a team that never gives up, a team that still represents values like hard work, sacrifice and team spirit.  For your information, Everton have twice won away from home despite being down to 10 men this season, so it can't be that you're referring to.  Oh hold on, what do you say in the next sentence, oh yeah, 'the thought of Everton playing Barcelona in next year Champions League', you're quite positively cringing at that one, aren't you?

Now then, let me get this one right, I think you're actually saying that Chelsea were as bad as Everton.  Ahem, 'as bad as Everton'....  Now let's see, that's Everton, currently in 4th place, 8 points ahead of the English team that in your opinion emerged with considerable credit this week; ah yes, that will be Everton, the team that's spent minus £23 million approximately this season (about £123 million less than Chelsea for example).  Do tell me, because I'm truly intrigued, what is it about Everton, incidentally an institution with over 125 years of history, a Founder Member of the oldest League in the world, a team that's accumulated over 100 seasons in the top Division of that League, a team that's won 9 League titles (that's 8 more than Chelsea by the way)?  What is it about us that us that makes us so objectionable to your 'sneering undergraduate' school of Guardian / Independent / Observer football journalism?

Are you now taught that History and Tradition count for nothing?  I had thought that the defence of the inalienable right of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea to win all domestic trophies and therefore represent the Premiership in Europe was the 'raison d'etre' of Murdoch employees.  How depressing to find a North-West based writer like yourself and other previously respected broadsheet scribes like James Lawton enjoying gratuitous swipes at our Club in the same week!

I've been an Evertonian supporter for the best part of four decades.  For the last 14 years, however, I've been based in Spain, which means I know a darn sight more about Barcelona and Spanish football than your good self.  On Saturday, incidentally, I was able to listen to the gushing praise heaped on our 'upstart' team by Canal Plus's exceptionally knowledgeable football commentators as we outclassed mid-table Aston Villa.  For that reason alone, I can categorically assure you that Everton will not disgrace themselves in the 'Camp Nou' or the 'Bernabeu', if indeed we are fortunate enough to play there next season.  Nor would Barca, Madrid or Milan relish playing at Goodison, they would be positively 'bricking themselves' (just in case you don't remember how we express ourselves in the North-West).  Incidentally I say 'themselves' or 'ourselves' when talking about Everton because Everton as a Club represents the Club and its supporters ONLY.  Forget England, Britain, the Premiership or the British Press; we triumph IN SPITE of you, not because of you.

It still grieves me enormously that a great North-West progressive institution like the Guardian (once of Manchester) should so flagrantly allow the likes of yourself to violate the principles and traditions upon which it was founded and still apparently professes.  Values like 'the underdog triumphing against the odds', 'wealth not counting for everything', as represented in our case by players and management giving 100% commitment — stuff Murdoch or Abrahamovich's millions could never buy.  Can't quite get your head your head around that one, can you?  I mean, how can footballers be motivated by anything other than money?  Why would Rooney stay at somewhere like Everton, the Club he'd supported all his life?   You hated that, didn't you, tabloid and broadsheet boys alike, the idea that he'd stay with us?  So you started your 'How can Rooney possibly stay at a club like Everton?' campaign during the European Championships.  You got your wish, he went, and guess what?  Everton the institution (something you could never begin to understand), is stronger as a result.

Don't come to Goodison again, Mr Wilson.  Not because we'll give you a hard time like we did to the current Manchester United No 8.  Don't come because you don't understand the language we speak; you don't understand who we are or what we represent.  But Everton, and our values, will be around a long time after Abrahamovich has lost interest in the King's Road; a long time after American gangsters take over from Irish gangsters at Old Trafford; a long time after you've defected to your true home in News International.  And you know the best thing of all?  We love the way you and your ilk continue to belittle what we've achieved this season: 'overachieving', 'bubble will burst' etc....  Keep it going, we lap it up and grow stronger — just a shame the likes of you won't be invited to the party when we prove you all wrong!

Mick Quirke