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Things Are Happening. Enjoy This Storied Everton Era

The Toffees are on a good track. This could just be the start and you’ll have a story to tell

Remember these days. Enjoy them.

From ending the 21-year Anfield hoodoo and winning an FA Cup thriller 5-4 to supporting an Everton side managed by one of the all-time greats and witnessing one of the most gifted players on the planet in the Royal Blue, these are the days you’ll talk about. Whether the 2020s are filled with silverware or not, these are storied times for Everton Football Club.

Think back to all those dark days walking back across Stanley Park after another no-show in the Anfield derby. The robberies and the sheer bad luck. The inept displays and the day since we last beat the enemy on their own turf getting further and further away.

We’ve all reached major life milestones since Super Kev Campbell put the ball in the Reds' net. We’ve left school, college, university; even got married, changed jobs or moved countries and returned again. Two decades. It’s over though. Finished, done. No more need to mention 'mentality' or being beaten before a ball is kicked.

Then there is the Tottenham FA Cup clash. Those games and instances haven’t fallen for Everton in a very long time. Think of Fiorentina, a glorious defeat, or 2014, when the Toffees got a points tally which would ordinarily secure Champions League football but not that year. Or the time we did qualify, we drew a top Villarreal side and saw a perfect goal ruled out. If the pendulum is going to swing in Everton’s favour, it usually swings back at the last minute. But not against Spurs as the ball fell perfectly for Bernard to rifle home. It was a change of fate for the better. Finally.

Remember too, the times we would struggle to land a David Dunn or Sean Davis. When we would lose out to Blackburn, Bolton and Fulham. When the top managers went to other clubs, not Everton. That’s the past. Now, we boast a three-time Champions League winner on the touchline who has worked with the game’s biggest talents. James Rodriguez wows every game with a sumptuous piece of skill or trickery. The Brazil No 9 scores goals for us too. Not in our wildest dreams could we have foreseen that back when we couldn’t gather the funds for Brian McBride. Times are great. Not perfect, but great.

So many things we have desired for decades are slowly coming true. Embarrassing records smashed to smithereens, world-class talents signed and even an iconic new stadium on the Mersey waterfront is in the pipeline. Titles and competing in Europe’s top competition aren’t on the horizon yet but the progress is there. Everton are moving forward. Farhad Moshiri, Carlo Ancelotti, Marcel Brands are all playing a starring role.

James Rodriguez excites like Andrei Kanchelskis did while Ben Godfrey battles like the ferocious Dogs of War. Allan bites, barks and patrols the turf like Peter Reid. We love our heroes, our history, and can see it all in the present.

This team haven’t achieved anything yet but something is happening. You can feel it. It feels good to follow the Blues again. Matchday is fun and there is reason for serious optimism.

Imagine Everton as a grand old house in need of repair and Ancelotti the man to bring it back to life. If winning at Tottenham on the opening day was fixing a leaky roof and a 94th-minute leveller at Old Trafford was giving the place a lick of paint, then going to Anfield was like contending with a giant sinkhole in the front garden. But Ancelotti fixed it. It’s no longer an eyesore and we can enjoy the view.

Duncan Ferguson’s emotional reaction to the full-time whistle at Anfield was all of us. He has been there through everything and feels for Everton like we all do. It’s been a slog; 21 years of the same rhetoric, the same outcome, the same old scorelines. No more.

As he led the Blues to victory over Chelsea in his role as caretaker manager, the fact Big Dunc wore a watch that belonged to Howard Kendall, this club’s greatest manager and Dunc’s mentor, the man who made him captain, was intrinsically Everton. So too is the fact Ferguson is a massive part of this new era. He is in partnership with Carlo Ancelotti in a beautiful double act which just fits so perfectly. It all makes for an enjoyable narrative which everybody can feel.

They are slowly changing the mentality. Dread has been replaced by belief. Fear replaced by fight. For every setback, Everton have shown up again, shown character. Of course, they’ve posed questions with some bafflingly insipid home performances but always come back with an answer. The more answers they provide over the course of this season, the less questions and Goodison defeats we’ll endure next term. This team is learning from the master.

When Everton enjoyed massive success under Kendall in the Eighties, many claim Kevin Brock’s backpass which Adrian Heath latched onto to score against Oxford was the catalyst. Our Kevin Brock moment could be weeks away, or maybe it happened recently and we just don’t know it yet… but it’s coming.

Remember these days, how you feel and all of the finer details. Even Fulham, even Newcastle, memorise it because there is a chance you may just have to regale these days in the future. When your grandkids ask about the time Everton returned to the top you want to remember it all. Something is happening and it feels great. It’s hard not to have a spring in your step right now.

The Toffees are on a good track. This could just be the start and you’ll have a story to tell.

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