Fans Comment
Rob Williamson

Mastermind
20 February 2005

Name? — The Board and management of Everton Football Club

Subject? — Strategies and tactics involved in running a football club — with particular reference to the 5th Round FA Cup Tie against Manchester United.

Your time starts now....

Question 1:  Why was Sandro Pistone — arguably our best defender this season — dropped from the starting line up in favour of Gary Naysmith arguably the worst defender we have had on our books since Claus Thomsen?

Question 2:  As part of the Wayne Rooney transfer, how much money will Everton FC get if Manchester Utd win the FA Cup this season?

Question 3:  When James McFadden, an attacking midfielder, left the field when we were already 2 — 0 down, why was he replaced by a centre back, when on the bench was another midfielder and a forward?

Question 4:  If Manchester United win the cup this season, exactly when will the money owed to Everton be paid?

Question 5:  When Mikel Arteta, a midfielder, was withdrawn near the end of the game we were losing 2 — 0, why was he replaced by a full-back?

Question 6:  How long will the arrangement last whereby Everton receive financial benefit from Manchester United's success? How many times will we have to play Manchester United during this time?

Question 7:  During the recent break in the sun, exactly how long did the players practice the tactic of playing aimless balls forward to nobody in particular?

Question 8:  How much consideration has been given to just forfeiting the game against Manchester United in April so that the players could spend another week in the sun and save the fans the annual embarrassment of yet another spineless defeat?

Question 9:  Does the management of Everton FC interpret the song ?And if yer know your history"' as a call to repeat the mistakes of previous years? The question is referring specifically to the season 2002-03 when a failure to strengthen the squad in January lead to a decline in performance and a failure to qualify for Europe and the exact duplication of that situation in January 2005.

Question 10:  Was the decision to allow Thomas Gravesen ( the best performing player of the first half of the season )to leave the club based on long-term strategic business and playing considerations? Or was it more likely based on a short-term 'take the money now' approach thereby threatening the club's increasingly unlikely ability to qualify for Europe? (When answering this question you are allowed to take into account the woeful performances of the team since Gravesen's departure)

Question 11:  How much bearing did the fact that the funding for James Beattie's transfer came from the Rooney deal with Manchester United have on his totally out of character behaviour resulting in his sending off and subsequent suspension from a game against said club?

Question 12:  Did the "Beep beep beep — I've started so I'll finish". Did the players and management of Everton FC feel anything like the sense of shame, embarrassment and humiliation experienced by the Everton supporters last night when listening to the Manchester United fans chanting 'This is so fucking easy, so fucking easy'?

Rob  Williamson

Readers Responses: 

Sheer Bliss... fecking think not!

Many thanks for Rob Williamson's fine article, I now rate him with Colm as sharing many of my feelings towards the club and its management.

I was at the lesson on Saturday night, thoroughly agree that we deserved to get spanked and indeed would have should Rooney had shown the slightest interest, no one of that calibre hits a ball straight at a keeper so many times, or if his misery of a manager had released Smith and Giggs on the pitch, funny how no one has mentioned him leaving Rooney on the field despite his earlier assertion he would substitute him before the end of the game to reduce the possibility of crowd trouble.  This same miserable chewing gum munching twat that denied realising him beating the team of a certain ex player of his would mean relegation for that team a few seasons ago, he is a twisted bastard and knows all too well what he is fucking doing, gloating in his victory and cementing the fact he wants Rooney to become a twisted Manc.

Hopefully many will have seen Gary Neville trying to congratulate him after the game and being told by Rooney to fuck off to which the slightly less ugly Neville rushed to turn the BBC camera to the floor so it didn't capture the moment.

Also, I hope that Rooney and his entire family and friends could hear the regular but nonetheless anti-scouse songs being sung over and over; funny how they forget one of their "star" players is from the city.  Wayne, I hope you sleep well thinking of your thirty pieces of silver and soul thrown to the devil with all these songs echoing in your head.

I believe he was sold to keep the club afloat and used as a scapegoat to shoulder full blame.  I also believe he did want to move but players inside always know more than fans outside so his reasons will never be fully known.

As far as the idiots throwing objects at Roy Carroll and his minions, they are clowns that help fuel the biased tabloids so thanks for the fine and ongoing repercussions.  The capitulation on Saturday smacked of Walter Smith's tactics; I was even imagining Dunc coming on in goal and Nigel Martyn moving to bolster Bent, the stupidity stank and showed the complete disdain towards the fans that Everton supporters are taking for granted, we fund the club like bleeding sheep.

Mikel Arteta almost let the plans slip out of the bag in the Liverpool Echo by admitting that a Champions League place is more important than the FA Cup before the game; was this a predetermined agreement made during the Portugese holiday to bend over and take the Man U shaft for another Rooney payment installment?

The display was a disgrace, the club is a shambles if it honestly thinks that the supporters aren't catching on to the same lame performances week in week out.  Gary Naysmith should be driven to Scotland never mind offered up there; in the boot trussed up and thrown out the second the car crosses the border, Pistone must have been in tears jogging up and down the touchline watching that useless get who couldn't catch a cold never mind another player.

Why have Vaughan and Plessis on the bench if we are taking it up the back pipe for some scraps from the richest club in the world?  Any news from fat boy Wyness over the increasing business ventures?  The only paper/web or radio talk is various directors pissing off on jollies to beg for cash from various overseas investors but hey we've heard that shite before too.

Well that's my vent until next weeks mind numbing episode of the dregs of society soap that is Everton FC.

PS  I apologise for the gutter vocabulary but if that's the way the club treats the fans then what's the problem living up to that tag?  Maybe someone from Everton may actually read it if this gets published.

Gavin Ramejkis, Upholland (20/02/05)

"Mastermind" reactions

As the writer of the original Mastermind quiz I feel I must respond to some of the reactions which the ‘quiz’ has provoked.

Yes the article was meant to be tongue in cheek

No, I don’t believe that David Moyes would deliberately send out a team to lose or make his substitutions with that in mind. For me he is the one person in the Goodison hierarchy who comes out of our recent history with any credit at all.

What I do believe is that the sort of deal which the Everton board has entered into with Manchester United, whereby part of the fee is dependent upon United’s success, is wrong - if only because it lays them open to the sort of accusations which were alluded to in my original article. Beattie getting himself deliberately sent off? Probably not – but what the hell did he think he was doing?

As for being juvenile…….well, as a 54 year old I will take that as a compliment. The first game I saw at Everton was the one which immediately followed Dave Hickson’s transfer to Liverpool so you could say I have grown up with the club getting rid of their best players for short term monetary gain. The list now runs from Ball, Lineker, Steven/Stevens, Ball (again) Rooney and now Gravesen.

With the exception of the Championship win of 1987 each one of the earlier ones above was followed by a period singularly lacking in success – I hope that this pattern is not repeated with the more recent transfers.

Not being on the right planet and not recognizing that we have a tiny squad which was going to suffer as the season went on? For me that was the whole point of the article. For far too long this board has not given David Moyes the support which he richly deserves.

Without going into the Rooney deal again my belief is that the seeds of his discontent (richly nurtured by the despicable Stretford) were sown during the close season of 2002-03 when we failed to strengthen the squad with the quality of players we needed to build around Rooney’s talent.

This was repeated during last summer. All of this despite the promises of Bill Kenwright that Rooney was the future of Everton etc etc etc. The failure to strengthen the squad during January despite – yet again – all the promises to the contrary has left us in the position we are now in. The tremendous performances of the team prior to Christmas has taken the heat off Kenwright and his faceless colleagues on the board.

If the team continues to perform as in more recent matches and fails to qualify , not just for the Champions League but for Europe generally – then I think the spotlight will once again be focused on the board. (Don’t even get me started on the Fortress fiasco which as I understand will still leave Kenwright in charge or maybe Samuelson if the later tranche of money comes in.

Given his performance in getting the first amount together, forgive me for not feeling too confident about the future)

Not being a true Evertonian? Not guilty. I will always support Everton Football Club until the day I die. But that does not mean that I have to support the totally inept and amateurish group of people who own and run the club – once again Moyes excepted.

Negative? Yes I bloody well am! Until we get somebody at the head of our club who has a long term vision and a clear and well thought –out way of achieving that vision, we will continue to be the club who the likes of Wayne Rooney will want to leave rather than want to join.

There. Now I’ll just go and have a lie down…..and watch re-runs of the X Files

Rob  Willliamson

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