Call me Mystic Mac

by Alan McGuffog  |   28/04/2023  1 Comments  [Jump to last]

Climate change has accelerated over the last few years. It's mid-November 2034 and for a Wednesday evening it's a balmy 19 degrees. Perfect conditions for football in north Liverpool.

The expansion of Liverpool Airport has allowed larger and larger passenger planes from throughout Europe and North America to bring more and more supporters to the city. The superb integrated transport system brings thousands of fans from Holland and Denmark, Germany and Ireland to Bramley-Moore Dock in less than half-an-hour. This time will be reduced even further by 2038 when the monorail connecting Speke and Bootle opens. For now, Hans and Patrick can look out on the soon-to-be-connected pylons from their air-conditioned coaches.

It's one of those rare nights when Liverpool and Everton 2025 are both at home. All attention of course will be on the brilliantly illuminated stadium on the banks of the river. It's only recently that the 80,000-seater stadium was granted its safety certificate.  Truly imaginative engineering, and a more than helpful city council, brought the capacity up from 70,000.

It's Week 6 of the European League 2034-35, Barcelona are the visitors and everything is in place. Commentary teams are in position in their own viewpoints, vendors are doing a roaring trade in split scarves, and stewards are placing songsheets on the blood-red seats throughout the New Kop behind the south goal. The game is of course a sell-out.

Moving away from the river, a game of slightly less importance, at least to the neutral, is taking place. In a rare show of neighbourly generosity, Everton 2025 will be running out at Anfield. This is one of the biggest tests that new Everton, as some still call them, have faced since their rebirth.  Tonight, they play Bamber Bridge,  rivals in the National League North but tonight meeting in the preliminary round of the FA Cup.

Liverpool Euro of course play all their fixtures at Bramley-Moore whilst Liverpool Premier are still resident at Anfield. A mixture of police pressure and a degree of patronisation has seen Liverpool allow their neighbours to use this famous old ground.

Walton Hall Park that is shared with the Everton Women's side is deemed too cramped to deal with a major fixture such as this against league leaders Bamber Bridge. There is still bitterness (isn't there always?) amongst Everton's loyal but diminished following that the old stadium in Walton was allowed to be sold off for car parking before the offer from their one-time rival was accepted. Sometimes, that grand old club made poor decisions.

On an optimistic note, Everton have pulled themselves out of the Northern Premier League and have lofty dreams of the National League. In the meantime, the club has attracted an almost cult following among younger supporters. Dare they dream as they listen to the roars wafting up from the waterfront? Maybe, maybe...

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