Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

Love wins over bigotry and hate

The mood of late is certainly sour, and with good reason I feel. However, this isn't an article on the state of the club under "Blue" Bill or David Moyes.

First off, a quick introduction. Born and raised on Merseyside, Evertonian since I was a young lad, no real family ties to Football which still suprises people. I tell them the truth, while I loved Football I didn't really have a "team" until a mate at primary school told me about the Blues. I fell in love and it's been a grand time since. (It never fails to make me smile when I look back; even then, as the nippers we were, we could see the Kopites were obviously complete and utter gobshites.)

I was a season ticket holder for a fair few years and always tried to make away games where I could (had my heart broken at Old Trafford when we went down 3-0 in the last few minutes). Sadly I moved to the Republic of Ireland a few years ago for work (the irony isn't lost on me, the English moving to Ireland to work...) and this means I don't get come home for the games often, if at all.

Now, living in Ireland is interesting. Many of my own, naive in hindsight (I'm coming up to my mid-20s now, so I've still got lots to learn!), imaginations about Ireland were shattered fairly quickly. Being from Merseyside, the accent gets a fair bit of stick the second you set foot outside the region, as most of us have likely dealt with. The usual "hilarious" Harry Enfield comments and the like. Most of it's in good humour, though there have been a few nasty moments such as being spat at and told to "fuck off home, hun!". I suppose, with the history between Ireland and Britain, it's not to be unexpected, but still, makes one think.

Reading the news the last few days, I'd forgotten it was Marching Season in Northern Ireland. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelfth)

Now I know a few Ulster lads and so have been worried with all the trouble there at the moment, the usual riots and clashes with police have been happening but I'd assumed the media were overplaying it, as ever. According to one of my mates from Belfast, the media are actually underplaying it. (There's a first eh?)

Interested in the topic, I had a thought about Liverpool and Sectarianism. I was baptised Church of England but am agnostic and have been for many years. I never had any issues growing up and neither did any of the kids from what I remember. There was a Catholic school near mine but nobody ever used that as an insult to them, the usual school-to-school rival stuff included. Hell, a mate of mine was knocking off one of the lasses from there.

There are also a number of lads from Glasgow in my job and I consider a few of them friends. The comparison is truly frightening. Sectarianism is a way of life in Glasgow it seems, with the Old Firm bringing the worst of it out of people. Make no mistake, I hate the Kopites, but wouldn't ever want to do any of them serious harm (unless in self defense of course) ? in Glasgow, beatings and stabbings are common.

I've really been thinking about the topic a lot over the last week, and did some Googling (as ya do) and found an interesting article on Liverpool and the topic: http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/2828 - I was honestly shocked reading this. Were things really that bad back then? I'm too young to know and me Mam lived over the water during that era.

Overall, I'm truly thankful to be an Evertonian. I've never seen anyone discriminated at our club bar, the occasional racist tosser in the Gwladys Street, is are usually chucked out by the staff sooner or later. I know Catholics, Protestants, blacks, whites ? all united in their love of our club. As it should be. I feel nothing but sympathy for fans of Rangers and Celtic who just want to enjoy their football and show their love for their clubs but are met with nothing but bigotry and hate.

I know some of you might say this isn't something to celebrate, but having seen things on "the other side of the fence", let me tell you folks ? it really is.

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