Last ever Merseyside derby at the Grand Old Lady

I suspect that John and his ilk are as fucked off by the tourist 'Red till I die' twats, the Fenlands scouse reds, and the Scandinavian lemmings, as we are.

Hard to explain that to the generations that have followed, but I guess it will be just a footnote in football history, when banter was king!

Although in fairness, I remember getting a hand up over a small wall from a Red on the way up Wembley Way for a Charity Shield that we won owing to Ablett wellying off the goal line into Grobelbum's back, as he lay on the floor.

I sat with him in the away end for the Goodison derby in 1993, upper tier of the old Park End was all we could get but it was better than nothing. We sat with the Liverpool fans and cheered our victory and laughed at the famous bust-up between Grobbelaar and McManaman and never, not once, did this 12-year-old remotely scared or threatened.

There were a few choice comments from both sides (a few other Blues were sat around us) but nothing that felt like violence was imminent.

I do think it would still be possible to sit together if we'd not fallen away from the top for so long, there is bitterness and maybe even hatred now and we're clearly the 'poor relations' in football terms.

But, funny things happen in football and one day we may return to being genuine rivals to the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, etc. Although, if or when that does happen, I can imagine the Liverpool fans of today would be far from happy about it.

Maybe a few of the old school like John would be but not none of the younger generation, who think they are superior to us in every way, would be able to handle it if we did to them what Man City have done to Man Utd.

Thanks for posting John's memories of days gone by and the way we were, the majority of fans were like that, there have always been nutcases, crackpots and divvies, now there are more of them.

The banter has long gone and bitterness, loathing and hatred has taken over, it reflects life as it is today in many aspects, it's not a very pleasant place wherever you are, is it?

Will it get better? I think it will for Everton on the field – not sure about the terraces… well, actually I am: it will get worse as this world gets worse – and it's in a very bad place at the present time!

My Dad somehow always managed to obtain tickets for matches. He was a wholesale florist in the old market in Queen Square, a place where footballers and pop stars, wheelers and dealers mingled. He looked after everyone well, calling in favours when tickets were needed, and would help out his Liverpool supporting mates despite his disdain for their team.

His contacts were widespread, so it would be quite common for him to say to me and my brother “You'll have to go in amongst the Nottingham Forest supporters, or in the Stretford End, just don't be daft, you'll be okay, and I'll see you after the game”.

We always were okay. Coming out of Old Trafford after Joe Royle had scored a late winner in the Cup quarter-final in 1969, I had my blue and white scarf pulled from around my neck, a trick of the time. The culprit was immediately pincered by Mancunians and Scousers who persuaded him rather forcibly to return it to me.

As Dave says, times have changed for the worse, but not totally. After the disappointment of the postponement yesterday, I spent a very pleasant afternoon in the Volunteer Canteen in Waterloo sitting with Blues and Reds, with nothing to fall out over!

A bygone age that sadly will never return. I, like Dave and many others our age, went to Goodison one week then Anfield the next with our mates. There was banter between the two sets of fans back then and each always acknowledged the talent in the respective teams.

I remember in the late '50s and early '60s going to away games with my dad and brother, long before segregation or Match of the Day, you could stand next to opposing fans and discuss the merits of each other's players.

I remember one game at Turf Moor and I think it was one if not the first time Ray Veal played, he was up against Alex Elder, a top international full-back, and Ray tore him to bits, and the Burnley fans were asking "Where did you get him from?" There wasn't wall-to-wall coverage then of teams. That couldn't happen today.

Many fans wouldn't know that both Liverpool and Everton didn't have Z-Cars or You'll Never Walk Alone played. Players came out 2 minutes before kick-off, not 25 minutes of warm up like they do today.

I am sure many Blues will remember Roy Vernon coming out the tunnel and discarding his cigarette after taking his last puff.

Thankfully the hooliganism that was rife in the 70s is no longer applicable these days, so I am not suggesting everything was great back in the day. The game has moved on but not always for the better.Certainly we got by without VAR and yes there were mistakes by refs but now the wait for a VAR decision is ruining the game – and even after all the deliberations, they still get things wrong.

I'm from a different generation, but I remember with my blue and red mates going to derbies together. If we weren't stood in the same end, we'd meet at St Luke's after the match and travel home together.

At Goodison, a strong Liverpool contingent at the front of the Gwladys Street from where I stood just behind the ledge.

And then a third of the Kop packed with Evertonians, along with others smattered around the stadium.

It has changed. I can't help that this Police controlled gathering and marching both sets of away supporters to Goodison or Anfield doesn't help.

We will all be in town in the same pubs after the match, so I don't see the need.

Yes, times have changed, the relationship has changed. But it's hardly like it's going to kick off in our home city.

I was at the North Korea - Portugal game. After that game, Eusebio became my idol.

I'd saved up from my paper round money. How many 13-year-olds have a paper round now?

I think I went to every World Cup game bar one at Goodison, they murdered Pele but I always remember Eusebio.

Not sure when it changed, maybe Heysel, but Hillsborough made them bitter to everyone, with justification, and I don't think that club has ever been the same and nor will it.

The arrogance and bile towards all and sundry, but especially blue, is unwarranted but now met with like in return, a spiral to the bottom of the barrel.

Instead, all of English football suffered from something they hadn't done, Everton being the most impacted at the time, just as we were on the cusp of having a great team competing with the best.

I try not to talk about it with relatives.

Hillsborough brought us together. They can jibe us with the bitter blue label, but no other club stood by them like we did.

Rather than keep their heads down and show a bit of humility and respect for the dead they saw the ban as a chance to take the piss out of us because of it.

The Steaua Bucharest flag/s being one example.

Even after the awful events of Hillsborough they continued their disgraceful behaviour and actually stole tickets from their own fans at the Champions League final in Athens.

You can't talk about it to any of them Danny let alone relatives.

When I've tried I've been shouted down and ridiculed and that's by so called mates and threatened by others.

Bitterness flows both ways.

Each fan now defends his/her own club, sometimes at the expense of the greater good of the game. This has also impacted many of the governing bodies who react to some fans' pressure rather like politicians do to some high-profile pressure groups.

We'll probably never see the camaraderie between fans that existed prior to the new century. Danny and his ilk, such as the Brentford supporter who posts on here from time to time, try to foster good relations between rival clubs' supporters and that is to be applauded, but sadly, that's a rarity in today's 'win at all costs' mentality that has permeated through all levels of the game.

Before Heysel, there was a bit of a change not helped by fuckwits with the “Liverpool are magic, Everton are tragic” shit. Heysel was the body blow. Out of Europe when we were so on top.

Then segregation. Then the Premier League money machine with massive foreign investment and supporters.

I meet up with my mates, half red half blue. We've been going since the 1959-60 season – and some before. My red mates have followed them all over the World, never mind Europe, but not one of them have been to Anfield for years. Can't get tickets and can't afford the Thomas Cook prices.

A guy I am friendly with lives in Dundee, him and his son go every home game with Thomas Cook or whoever and it costs him a fortune.

My respect for my mates in unlimited, they'd do anything for me and vice versa. As for the rest of them…

I'd like to think “proper reds” are decent but this isn't evident from the shite in the Echo comments on any Everton thread or from the gobs of the taxi drivers from Lime Sreet to County Road.

They're gobshites, every fucking one of them, even little baby ones. Every trophy they have is tainted and if they were the only team in the North I still wouldn't support them.

Heysel was a crime and there are murderers amongst them who got away with it. Cunts.

The only real answer to that is they fear us. Like a bully, they can't take what they give, but they can see the day the table will turn.

Your post returns us back to today, where both sets have an increasingly large block of fans who hate the other lot. I confess my tolerance for them has gone, because tribal rivalry has turned into arrogance and entitlement.

I have absolutely no idea why on earth they choose to ridicule with the bile of hatred, perhaps a good shrink could tell me, but as Dave and others have said, it's a reflection of society in general where hatred and intolerance towards any group you care to mention, has been allowed, tolerated or even invented in order to meet another agenda.

It is the staple diet of politicians, media, religions and we are encouraged to hate without rationality. Banter has become a dead word in the dictionary replaced by bile. The reality is that banter still exists but in little patches where friends still remember respect. But such respect has to flow both ways – an ideal as rare as hens' teeth today.

I always respond by asking why they are all so obsessed with "The Ev" as they like to call us. Cracking team, bulging trophy cabinet, darlings of the media (I see the Red Echo is regurgitating some aul bollocks about St Virgil not forgiving Pickford).

I think it's this... in the '70s, Don McLean had a song..." Everybody Loves Me, Baby, What's the Matter With You?" That lot cannot fathom how a basket case like "The Ev" can inspire so much love and loyalty from half of the city...

"How can you support that lot when you can singalong with Jamie Webster in your pub of choice on match days?"

But we carry on following the blues and it's like a bloody big stone in their collective malodorous trainer.

On Friday, I visited my brother, dad and grandad in the cemetery. I, my son and his son were due to go to the match. Will such family loyalty survive the cost of becoming consumers at our new house of Mammon?

Don't get me wrong, change was needed, stand still and you get left behind and all that. And the stadium is magnificent. But I look at the looming cost of tickets, the desire for the Club to have us eating their food, drinking their beer, the clamour from tourists for an experience, and there is a grave danger that much will be lost.

Most people of a certain age I have spoken with have said “I'll give it a year, see how it goes”.

There's something nice about seeing a row of old-timers sitting against a wall.

I was working with a red last week and we were talking in general about Everton. He was fascinated that I try and get to every game and I am far from being alone. The discussion was generally pretty healthy until I mentioned Jordan Pickford.

He went off on one about the challenge on St Virgil and was perplexed how the lad from Brentford got a red card when JP did not. Cheating bastard he was saying, I pointed out that St Virgil should not have been on the pitch due to earlier fouls that went unpunished.

Totally irrelevant he claimed! I asked which bit is irrelevant “the fact that Van Dyke should have walked earlier or that JPs challenge on him later was accidental?”. He went off on on, ranting and raving and telling me how shit JP is. I just smiled.

It brought home to me how much bitterness is there and, as people have already mentioned above, why? The arrogance and entitlement is unbelievable

I used to go to Anfield with red mates also and although they knew I wanted them to lose, there was always respect between us.

Times have certainly changed. I wonder if the reds know how much they are disliked by other fans? I talk with a lot of fans from other clubs throughout the season and the vast majority all say they much prefer us blues to that lot. Maybe we are simply more humble, will we stay that way if the new stadium and owners bring success?

I still don't think it was a foul. Pickford closed the ground to get to the far post and "spread himself" as most keepers do and they collided. Unfortunate for him but these things happen.

Their rage seems to come more from the fact that VAR didn't get involved, than from the initial challenge.

I still recall the overwhelming delight of Borussia Dortmund beating them 2-1 in the UEFA cup in 1966?? and it's been that way ever since for me and the boys.

Stood on the kop for derby games because tickets for Annie Rd were nigh on impossible to get due to demand and when they scored they'd let you have it.

Went to Anfield on reconnaissance in the 70s to see why they were winners and we losers for about 10 games straight and it was a simple as they worked harder. But you kept schtum about being blue for fear of getting into one.

I think what happened is the clubs used to be far closer in ability and you couldn't rip into each other because "they" might upstage you next season. But once they shot into orbit and we descended to the gutter that self regulation vanished.

It's probably me but when I read posters saying "just ignore them" I find it incredulous. But I think if brought up in Liverpool it's just the way it is.

You want find this image on the internet but I kept it to call it as it was when they try to make out Pickford was the offender. One question - whose stretching for the ball here?

Van Dijk on Pickford

Barry, I share your sentiments. My dad (God rest his soul) called them the “scabbyheads”. That was when they came out of the Second Division in 1962. The animosity goes way way back.