Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

We All Bleed Blue

By Paul   McAllister  ::  26/08/2011   18 Comments (»Last) The current situation at Everton has supporters split like never before. An increasing amount of fans are voicing their discontent with the job our Board of Directors is doing while many others continue to show support and believe everything they?re told by the club hierarchy (not much).

Tensions are growing between sides and it?s beginning to spill over. I?m a long-term season ticket holder at Goodison Park and have attended well over a 100 matches in the past 7-8 years and I thought I?d experienced every type of atmosphere you could feel at a football game.

Yet, at the QPR match, I felt something I?ve never felt before, possibly the worst atmosphere I?ve ever felt. Fans were angry, anxious and plain and simply down in the dumps after the worst summer in recent memory. This was the first game of the season, supporters were meant to be pumped up and desperate to see some football. But that spark never materialised at any point of the afternoon and the fans left feeling even worse after an embarrassing performance from the team.

Blues are now taking their frustrations out on each other, as revealed by a man writing to the Echo, at the QPR game a fight broke out between groups of fans whose opinions on the Club?s problems differed. For me, what really underlined these tensions was an incident that I myself was involved in shortly after full time...

Whilst waiting for my regular lift home from the game, I was standing opposite Walton Sports Centre, a fellow fan accosted me because he took offence to the protest scarf I was wearing (the blue and yellow one which reads ?No Status No Optimism?). I won?t repeat the majority his colourful language but the gist of what he said is for me to stop being a ?Kopite? and if I wasn?t willing to get behind the club I should ?Go support someone else.? This for me summed up everything that is wrong at Everton and the bad feeling surrounding us right now.

I love Everton and so do the Blue Union and the rest of its supporters and they should not be accused of anything otherwise. The accusation that these fans are nothing but troublemakers who only want to ?stick the boot into Everton Football Club? is grossly unfair. The only reason these fans are speaking out against the current regime is because they care about the club and the future. When you love something and you think you see it suffering, you try to do something to help it.

There are lots of other supporters who feel that protesting and condemning the Board and even in some cases the manager, at games and on the internet, is the wrong way of going about things. I personally respect that view, even though I disagree with it, but EVERY fan should be able to have his or her opinion and be able to voice it if they wish without the fear of being labelled a clueless idiot who?s ?in the minority.? I believe that currently this is not happening.

It?s not right when we Evertonians take our anger and frustrations out on each other. Some of us are angry with the Board, some with the manager, some with the players, some with other the lad in the seat next to us, some with just the whole negativity surrounding the club. Now all this anger appears to have reached boiling point and it?s making the situation and the bad feeling black cloud above Goodison Park worse.

Fans like me should be able to wear a protest scarf and let their dissatisfaction with the bigwigs in the stands be known if they wish too; likewise for the their supporters. I think both sets of fans will agree though that the club itself isn?t helping the situation.

Firstly, old Blue Bill by acting like a child after the transcript of his meeting with Blue Union was made public has only angered his detractors further. David Moyes and Phil Neville by labelling these fans a ?minority? have only succeeded making them even more determined to voice their views and even more aggressively.

As I see it, only one thing will truly unite our great fan base again and that is if the team starts performing like we all know they can. We are badly in need of some positivity, but not in the form of countless players giving countless interviews promising to improve, but by actually getting on the pitch and showing us some improvement.

The club?s off-the-field problems don?t look like they?ll be solved in the near future but, until they are, we need to stop fighting each other and instead help our team fight our opponents on the pitch. Evertonians are great supporters who are famed for our togetherness and team spirit. Let us not ruin it now and respect that the club is as much yours as the man next to you.

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