Fans Comment
Brendan Fitzgerald

Supporting Everton
5 March 06

I am Everton supporter for 17 years, 1988-89 being my first proper season as a fan - obviously I was at least two and really four years too late to enjoy real glory. My status as a supporter is really I always read about Everton, listen to them on 5live, watch them on TV and latterly of course by reading this excellent website I try to keep abreast of all things Everton.

Being Irish, now living in the Isle of Man, I had, prior to the Sunderland match, only seen Everton five times with three defeats and two draws (one of which was Everton 1-0 reversal to Charlton last season). The Sunderland game was supposed to be different; firstly I was on my stag weekend and confess to deliberately picking the weakest side ever to grace the Premiership safe in the knowledge it was a home banker and my run/jinx would be broken.

I brought along fifteen people to share this experience with me and was deservedly riled for the remaining part of the weekend for having made them sit through a truly awful Everton performance and football match. Over one of many pints we wondered what do these guys do to earn vast sums of money. The standard was shocking, almost any of the starting eleven could have be picked but for me it was epitomised by Tony Hibbert who I don't think made one meaningful pass all day.

As soon as I got over the dearth of football on show I realised that I could never be a true Everton supporter and have huge admiration for people who turn up week in week out. I will never stop declaring I am a Toffee but I honestly cannot consider going back to Goodison for a long time — with my record, this is no bad thing — it's a terrible thing to say but for me winning matches is an important part of supporting a team.

Over the last 17 years, Everton have not been one of the better teams at achieving this feat. If I had been living near Liverpool, hand on my heart, I know I would not have gone to see them much more than I have, I could not put up with the despair supporting Everton brings and even last season in all honesty our achievement was overshadowed by the red European triumph and the subsequent "Will they, won't they be allowed to defend the tropy?" nonsense.

This weekend brought it home to me what it's like to be an Evertonian and how far removed I am from that status. How every second week over 30,000 people give up their time to watch Everton play is a huge testament to Everton supporters. I simply couldn't do it and it is people that do who are the true supporters. Hats off to you who do: six games with no win makes a quiet weekend in windy and wet Isle of Man will less grim.
Brendan Fitzgerald


Responses:
 

Having read Brendan Fitzgerald's piece on what it means to support Everton, I'd like to offer a viewpoint from someone who lives a lot farther away than the Isle of Man. Born and raised in Canada, I became an Everton fan in 1970 after my beloved grandfather told me of his life in Liverpool. He played for Marine and, so I was told, spent a brief spell with the Everton reserves. The Toffees were his team and, therefore, mine as well.

I've been to the shrine that is Goodison just once — in October 1990 — and cried as I touched its walls. I was 28 at the time.

I would kill to be able to watch my Blues on a regular basis at Goodison. But, until the advent of the Internet, all I could do was compile scores as they appeared in my local newspaper.

I'm sorry Brendan started following our team during one of its lowest periods in its long and illustrious history. I'm easily old enough to remember both the lean times of the 1970s and the halcyon days of the mid-1980s. I was on the phone celebrating with relatives in Crosby as Dave Watson hoisted the 1995 FA Cup. And I remain convinced those glory days will return, sooner rather than later.

Being an Evertonian, to me, means any one of a number of things. It means agonizing over every loss and revelling in every win. It means naming your first dog Goodison. It means having EFC on your license plate of your Everton blue car — and being more than willing to take stick for it. It means loathing ANY team wearing red — with the exception of Canada! It means never giving up, no matter how bleak things seem to be.

But more than that, it means being a part of something truly special — something I wouldn't trade for all the gold in the world. Everton is in my blood and always will be.
Steve Green, London, Ontario, Canada (5/4/06)

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