Everton 1 v 0 Derby County                        Sat. 15th Dec 2001

K.O. 3.00pm.                                                            Att: 38,615

Everton: Simonsen, Pistone, Stubbs, Weir, Naysmith, Alexandersson, Gemmill , Gravesen, Pembridge, Watson, Radzinski.

Bench: Gerrard, Blomqvist, Unsworth, Gascoigne, Moore.

Subs: Unsworth for Stubbs (15m), Moore for Pistone (46m), Gascoigne for Gravesen (64m)

Predictions from the Tramway pub ranged from the sensible (Paul 1:0 but a poor match, Linda K 0:0) to the ludicrous (Linda G 5:0 but under the influence of a double Brandy and Coke, me mum 0:4 but she is 77 and waiting for her cataracts to be done).
So Walter said he would ring the changes (dull clunk). Well the bellringers must have still been in the fuckin' pub because Watson remained up front and was as effective as Osama bin Ladens PR man. Who remembers Mick Lyons doing the same! ( playing up front not being a fanatics PR man)
We opened well - Derby looked awful. In the first 5 minutes Rads had a deflected cross which nearly looped the keeper who just after did a spot of juggling and nearly presented Watson with a tap in. Tommy then rasped in a 30 yarder. Gemmil was booked on 10 minutes for a pointless lunge.
Watson was brought down in the middle of a good surging run but before the kick we lose Stubbsy for God knows why. Unsworth on! The free kick is, as usual, only of interest to those it might hit in the stand.
On 20 minutes there is some decent build up around the box with Rads and Tommy exchanging passes before Tommy hits one straight at the keeper.
It's all one way at this point and from a corner Pistone rattles the bar. Nick Alex is beginning to come into the game. I am not his greatest fan but this was one of his better games. On 25 minutes Rads flicks the ball on to him and, sadly, the finish will be available on one of Nick Hancock's humorous 'out-take ' videos next Christmas. Rads is involved again after the goalie comes out and is stranded - Watson chips but a defender gets there. At this point Derby seem to be having a pre Christmas joke - can we spend the entire half without knocking a pass to one of our own players. We enter the spirit and join in.
As half time approaches Rads chases a hopeless ball - wins it and lays back for Gary to hit a cracker. From the corner Pistone hits the post again. Gemmil has a great run and shot as the half finishes.
Jo max - who is to play a big part in the second half - comes out to warm up, blinks at the lights, looks lost, runs to the corner flag and has to be directed back to the dugout.

Half Time: 0-0

Despite the superiority we have nothing to show. Pistone is off - apparently injured. Alex has a great run flicking the ball over 2 defenders before hitting the bloody stand again. There were strong shouts for a penalty. We must await Des Lynhams unbiased view to decide. Watson is now doing what he does best - pushing forward from deep - a great cross and Rads brings a save from the keeper.
Again some great build up leads to a shot from Pembridge after Jo Max is involved with a neat pass. Rhino heads over from the corner. Tommy has a great run after a steamroller challenge before crossing it - only for Rads to miss completely - he should have swept it into the net. He is missing a lot but there is clearly a degree of thought and movement from him that is way beyond what we have had recently.

Bloody 'ell - Derby attack (4.15). This is a relief as our necks were getting stiff looking one way.

4.19 - Derby shot on target - a fightback!

Then a disaster. Tommy clashes heads with a Derby player - they would have heard it in Garston. It's clearly serious and we watch as our consistently best player disappears in a neck brace and on a stretcher. Let's hope both players are OK.
The only plus is Gazza comes on and after a wobbly couple of touches begins to look like he's been beamed down from the planet Football. If you listen to the idiots on the Merseyside phone in who said he was crap - they were not at this match.
Jo Max is upended outside the box and the free kick the hits him and creeps just wide. Is this not to be our day?

Then just when you thought we had run out of time - 14 minutes left - Jo Max nips in. It was simple, Watson throw, Weir nod on, Jo Max heads in goal. There, that wasn't so hard was it.

Only two more things to say.

1. Why do we always think we can defend on the edge of our own penalty area as we always try to do after we scored. WE CANT DO IT. WE ARE BAD AT IT. THE OPPOSITION ALWAYS LOOK LIKE THEY ARE GOING TO SCORE. PLEASE DON'T DO IT WALTER. MY BLOOD PRESSURE IS 130/95 - I CAN'T TAKE IT.

2. Gazza had a brilliant bit of skill down by the touchline - left 2 defenders on their backsides before laying it back.

Dinners ready- see you Boxing Day. Now who are we playing?

Guest Reporter: Tony Newman was the Blue Kipper Match Reporter for this game. If you fancy having a go yourself e-mail reporter@bluekipper.com

Quotes

Joe Max Moore says: “It has been a long time coming. It has been the hardest time I have had to go through in my career, not scoring too often and getting a little less playing time than I would have wanted. Obviously when you don’t score you don’t see the field all that much, but that finally changed for me today.”

Walter on Joe-Max: "I am delighted for him. It has been a little bit awkward for him having to accept the fact that Steve Watson, who is a full-back, was selected by myself to play up front rather than him. But he has accepted that well because he is a player with a good attitude and I think everyone would agree he got his reward today. That is the type of goal he has scored for us in the past and I was really pleased for him that he got that and also pleased for the rest of the team that they got the reward for what was really a good performance.”

Jogger says: "All we need now is the shite to loose tomorrow & it'll be a great weekend."

Walter Says: “I don’t think there’s been many home games during my time as manager where we’ve dominated quite so much in terms of possession and opportunities. We hit the bar, hit the post and their keeper made some good saves, so I was pleased when we scored The one thing I’ve always had from the players is a good response. I’m pleased for them today because after a disappointing performance last week, we imposed ourselves on the game from the start. If anything, we must set the players a target of trying to stay in the top half. It’s a tough task because we’ve got a few hard games coming up, but as long as we’re not too badly hit by injury, we’ll look forward to them.”

Monday, a tidal wave of justified Evertonian outrage against Saturday's minority racism started the week off. Telephone calls flew thick, fast and lengthy in an organised effort to crush the evil and poisonous weed before it could grow further. Decent fans were never better, thus demonstrating that spontaneous and justified anger has not been completely eliminated from our culture by an untalented media with no conscience. It demonstrated too that the media need us more than we need them. Modern communication technology makes it so.

While the right wing media and establishment have been stoking their repulsive anti-asylum seekers/anti-ethnics agenda other citizens have not lost their conscience and have acted otherwise. We are fast approaching the stage when we just won't need journalists and their bought-and-paid-for propaganda.

Tuesday, three major things happened. Firstly, the club issued an unequivocal condemnation of our tiny minority of racists and rightly threatened to stop sales of away tickets. Secondly, the official report of race riots in northern former industrial towns was issued. Thirdly, the about-to-be-privatised Post Office said they would be sacking 30,000 staff……… the mining industry and its families were destroyed in much the same way. All of which was a perfect if tragic example of how closely interwoven is any culture, sports included.

The message is not that no man is an island, but that we all live on the same island. If, as the racists and Little Englanders (like the Daily Mail/Sun/Times/Daily Telegraph) insist, western culture is so superior, why do we continue to be racked by this horror? Why is one quarter of our population living in poverty in allegedly the fourth richest country in the world and why does our establishment and media largely ignore it? Couldn't be that it suits them could it? Couldn't be that divide et impera still applies could it?

Everton Football Club are merely the most recent fusible link which tragically gave way. There is nothing special about our or any other club which makes us vulnerable. The focus frequently shifts. There is nothing special which makes our fans, or ANY other fans, better or worse than others. Anybody who claims otherwise is as racist as the idiots who got out of control at Fulham. They haven't been paying attention since this right wing garbage picked up impetus in the mid seventies. What we are seeing is the logical conclusion to a generation of applied misery. Enough of us issued warnings at the time and regularly since. Recently I wrote a Blue Kipper piece on racist hounding of Kevin Campbell weeks before this latest manifestation gathered pace at the Leicester away match. It isn't exactly rocket science.

Our society and football are riddled with racism and have been for a long, long time. The roots are many and dishonourable. Anybody who attacks Everton fans alone is at best uninformed and at worst in need of analytic help. The same kind of thinking applies right across global culture and society. The west has a particular responsibility because it has, as a matter of record, looted the rest of the planet for the last four hundred years. Racism is a part of the worst elements of the side of human nature we rightly try to suppress through democratic laws. Such action can never be wholly successful but that doesn't mean we stand by and let racism survive..

And where footy is concerned we Evertonians must surely clean out our own house first. The club owners can only do so much. In the end, if they don't get enough support through apathy they will be reduced to draconian measures. At which point the game won't be worth having. Events in the unlamented seventies and the awful eighties showed this all too clearly. Ordinary fans have to make a stand or be the ultimate losers. The racists must be identified, arrested and confronted with democratic justice, openly arrived at and openly reported. Anything less is unacceptable. We all have to play our part however painful in the short term. Let justice prevail though the heavens fall.

There will be next to no help from the establishment or their media, both of whom will, as usual, wring their hands in phony "moral" exhortation………and then do precisely nothing except sit back and let it get worse, probably MAKE it worse, as in mass redundancies and more propaganda attacks on any helpless ethnic target they can find. They will only take restrospective action in the wake of tragedy and then claim equally phony "credit." As usual they ignore their role in the ensuing financial mess and sense of enduring helpless despair. For them, it is enough to construct a Britain which in too many places is a litter-strewn authoritarian right wing rat-hole.

Do not think I exaggerate. Witness the words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, right wing American politician in the seventies who urged "benign neglect" of American inner cities. Or our own home grown loony, professor Patrick Minford at Liverpool University (also a member of Thatcher's so-called "think tank") who helped formulate "managed decline." In both cases read: Deliberately increased fear and misery through inflicted poverty. Look around you to see where THAT led. They are condemned out of their own mouths and actions.

It isn't a question of one dimensional zero tolerance, it is a question of the kind of society we want for our kids. And since it is only a few years since we had a prime minister of doubtful sanity who claimed "There is no such thing as society," it can be seen readily just how much ground we have to make up. In the meantime we have a faintly ridiculous grinning prime minister and a reactionary righty government intent on creating more so-called "faith schools" (read: Superstitious mediaeval religious ghettos) and thus even more divide et impera. But that is probably their intent anyway. I show you the times and the times are not good and they are getting worse. Any day now, more useless "moral" exhortation, hence the outdated and unwanted religious schools. Again, the signs are obvious to anyone who wants to use their common sense.

Wednesday, excreta splattered across the fan as the media did its usual half-arsed number on the racism issue. No matter, we the fans got it out into broad daylight. All the media did was follow, as usual. So much for our lousy Fourth Estate. But there's nowhere for the nazis to hide now. Predictably, some members of the Melledrew Tendency (entry qualification: If the cap fits, wear it) bleated it was the wrong thing to do and that it harmed the club's "image." What bollocks. I am not interested in image. I am interested in the substance of getting rid of the small minority of bastards who are undermining our club. And for once, the club got it exactly right at exactly the right time. More power to their elbow. Once it is sorted the media will turn on someone else. They always do. Bullies, everyone of them.

The league Suits also finally buried the idea of Rangers and Celtic parachuting - their word - into English football via a Fish Head League. They also dismissed the idea of Scab League 2, the present one being Scab League 1. Personally I think the Suits are getting scared as Financial Armageddon draws nearer, as well they might. The sooner the penny drops and we form our own TV and radio broadcasting network the better. Then it is goodbye Murdoch, Berlusconi and all the other leeches.

Thursday caused even my world-weary eyebrows to raise when there were two examples of startlingly responsible behaviour by the print media. Firstly someone called Paul Hayward rightly praised EFC for their anti-racist action………in, and I can still hardly believe THIS, the Daily Telegraph. Bet he doesn't last long. Then the sports editor of the Echo did a long overdue number on the Melledrew Tendency's attempts to undermine our Kings Dock bid. Both of these were very welcome honourable exceptions to the media swamp norm. It's luverly seeing the Tendency reduced to a whimper, each of their "arguments" whittled away one by one. Kings Dock success looms and the Tendency's whines recede as fast as a Mersey ebb tide. Nice, winning is always nice. Still, there's a long way to go yet and we aren't home and dry. But when we are, there's going to be one hell of a party down at the dock of the bay. We'll even let the Tendency buy all real Evertonians a drink. Thing is, we won't want that sour urine they seem to drink as part of their diet.

Friday, Smiffy warned everybody that Derby's 5-0 slaughter at the Mancs was, well, a sort of feint to throw us off guard on Saturday. At times like this you want to grasp him firmly by the ear, lead him into any Evertonian pub and introduce him to the long suffering fans. The idea that any of us take anything for granted would be funny along the lines of Welease Woger if it wasn't for the fact that almost everything is long beyond parody. Or is that pawody. There are times when we all feel like thwoing wapscallion Smiffy to the gwound vewy woughly.

Then the week closed out somewhat appropriately when Woodgate of Leeds was found guilty of "affray" (four drunks kicked the bejaysus out of a young Brit Asian student and scarred him for life) but not GBH and Bowyer walked free. There was no hint of racism in the charge despite strong evidence to the contrary. The disgusting thug Suit Ridsdale of Leeds mostly talked of the affect on the players and paid scant apology to the victim and the affected family. Ridsdale: Scab League made manifest. The whole thing stank to high heaven. And this is one of the clubs some of the Tendency say they "admire." Jeez. Then again, these are the same type of people you'll find referring to a set of accounts as "stunning", a word almost all footy fans reserve for a mind boggling goal or crossfield pass. Watching and listening to Ridsdale has you yearning for a hot shower and good, clean soap. Except where people like him are concerned you'd be better off using a wire scouring pad to cleanse yourself of the lingering odour.

At the same time one of the Echo's coprolite samples completely wiped out the previous day's commendable efforts with yet another attack on some of our supporters who had worked their spare time limited socks off to make things better. It could only have been approved by the same sports editor who wrote the previous day's puff-piece. So the Echo yet again made one step forward and two back so far as our club is concerned. The rancid turd who wrote the piece lives in Oxford and now "works" for the BBC, scarcely visits our matches and certainly doesn't have the slightest idea of anything Evertonians do to help out. In short, he's a cheap and nasty tabloid leech looking for a rip-off dollar at someone else's expense. No matter. All it does is bring forward the possibility of an independent organised boycott of the Echo and the Post by Evertonians. If you think you saw some great action over racism, believe me you have seen nothing compared to what could be done to the local rags' circulation. And they will only have themselves to blame. If it happens, so be it. They have had enough warnings.

Friday night, a piece of savage satire on "Have I Got News For You" against the background of the hardly unexpected final collapse of the rag, tag and bobtail Taliban in their pickup trucks. Deayton quoted one of the messages some of the Yanks paint on their bombs: "This'll shine like a diamond up your ass." And then added, "Which is a counter to the message on Taliban missiles, 'Made In America.' " As Ghandi said, an eye for an eye makes everyone blind. But nobody listens to Ghandi's messages anymore. After the creation of tens of thousands of innocent Afghan refugees………more destruction in the mighty threatening fortresses of Sudan, Somalia and Iraq. But hey! It makes good prime time TV.

Saturday morning, a classic moment on Radio Five Live. The station employs individuals with a range of accents in an attempt to avoid notorious English lower middle class petty snobbery. It fails of course. All it does is make it even more blatant at crucial moments. This was one of them. The guy hosting the morning show had a broad brummy accent and interviewed a don't-mess-with-me Yank who indulged himself in something called "free-soloing," which apparently is the sport of climbing without ropes. The brummy, a broadcast-chauvinist Xer (I've Got The Mike And You're Just An Adjunct To Me) to the end and loud with it, just couldn't get through the climber's invincible Californian Hey Man persona. I imagine free-soloing encourages that kind of thing. The first sign of tension came when the brummy said outright that free-soloing "…is silly…" To which the Yank, genuinely puzzled, responded, "Silly? Silly?" So the brummy backtracked to typical English lower middle class diluted diction such as "…dangerous…lethal…but you are brave." Actually of course the climber was a ration short of a full haversack but that's another story. Then the Yank ratcheted up the tension by constant reference to the brummy as, "Dude." Then he sent me rolling under the breakfast table with a straight-faced reference to "crack-climbing," a long recognised, admirable Saturday night coquettish sport in our beloved city. At the end of the interview the brummy sniffed, "I've never been called 'dude' before," thus proving that you don't have to be called Julian or Victoria to be a modernised snob at the Beeb. The English and their accents: A source of irreconcilable social division which mystifies the rest of the planet, dude. Well done that Yank. Love the accents, loathe the English snobs………brummy or otherwise.

Also Saturday morning………a rumour that Ferguson of Rangers wants to leave because of sectarian barracking. More proof, if it were needed, that racism takes many forms and is present everywhere. If Rangers and Celtic want to join the human race it would help if they would take the kind of action the Everton board took over tiny minority racism at Fulham. But don't hold your breath and I further suggest you don't support their efforts to get among the English footy TV money. Let them clean out their own disgusting houses before we even think about it. They have a long, long way to go yet and much to prove to the rest of us. May they burn in the hell their respective back-to-front collared witch doctors threaten everyone else with. Not that I believe in any of that appallingly superstitious shite. Tom Paine had it right in "The Age of Reason" but that was two and a quarter centuries ago and you can safely bet THAT doesn't get into the curriculum in the so-called "faith" schools.

Alas, no time for the Black Horse pre-match. Straight into the ground via Voucher no. 9.

Before the game the club did us proud again and pissed off the Melledrew Tendency with a clear public announcement to the racists: "We don't want you. You are not welcome. Stay away." It couldn't be clearer. Which means some of us will risk a few lost teeth or cracked ribs to identify to the police any of the shitehawks who mouth their muck at Leeds or Sunderland. All Evertonians can be proud it was our own fans who took the first step and that our club immediately took absolutely the right action. Of course this won't suit the Sun etc. because it means we have destroyed their stereotypes before they can even get it underway for the umpteenth time. Whatever happens, fuck YOU Murdoch………and the grubby clerks who work for you without any trace of conscience.

Our team, mercifully, Nic replaced Gazza. Otherwise same as last week. In the Derby team, no Poom or Ravanelli. The latter didn't bother me since I have long felt he's a lot of personality and not much achievement. But Poom has always been a pain in the arse to us. Anyway, he wasn't playing. It looked promising even without SuperKev or The Big Yin. We attacked the Street End in the first half.

We had virtually all the pressure but only flowed in short spells. Derby were absolute unequivocal fish heads and are bound for relegation if this performance is anything to go by. For all that, it took us twenty minutes to manage the first shot, after which it was one way traffic until the latter stages of the game.

Early on, their keeper looked like he was having a male period. He spilled crosses and tame forward balls in a way Poom would never do. So all that time we spent sticking pins in Poom dolls looked like it had finally paid off.

Then Sandro hit the face of their keeper's low right hand post with a strong downward header which reminded me unerringly of one of Dixie's in those flickering black-and-white movies. Then he hit the face of the bar with a backward sideways header from 'tween the penalty spot and goal area. Both of them rebounded past our players to theirs who booted it away to safety with all of us on our feet pleading for the intercession of Wotan. Friends, the air was PURPLE. Our grins at their hapless keeper looked sicklier by the minute. Inevitably, hardened vets exchanged glances and, "Fuck me, looks like one of those days." Which of course conveniently ignored the fact that most of the last five years have been one of those days. Well, you gotta be optimistic or you join the Tendency and go off somewhere quiet and administer a Magnum round through your temple.

Meantime, shots were scuffed, half hit, or maddeningly not hit home at the last minute.

Interestingly though the Stevie-up-front-emergency worked better than at any other time. Maybe it was a training ground tactic. At any rate he played slightly deeper instead of straight target man on the edge of the box. And this seemed to this fan to result in better touches through to The Rad, still like shit off a shovel even in these straitened circumstances. We were inches away from a breakthrough on more than a few occasions. But maybe it was only because Derby's central defence was complete cack. Whatever, footy's strictly existential and that's all there is to it. You can analyse 'till it comes out of your arse. The only thing which matters is how you perform on the day: All the rest is theoretical bollocks, the province of cheap journalism and the reason why most managers regard journos as bum boys who don't know their arse from, well, their bollocks, actually.

Wide right, Nic got loads of the ball and gave his marker a torrid time but his final ball was as lousy as a dingo. He looked like he needed a good shaking. Wide left, Gary's enthusiasm seems to have deserted him………I do hope the boy hasn't got in with the wrong crowd, you know, pissed-up/sycophantic/junky divvies or, worse, another attitood problem. If so, it is a decisive moment for him, the sort all young players face at one time or another. The choice is his. Shape up or ship out.

Centre midfield, Gemmo was useless again, Pembo staccato, and The Gravedigger excellent in his tackling and infuriating in his uneven distribution. Once again, and just as plainly as ever, we needed someone around the edge of the box to deliver the final ball. Stevie's excellent knock-ons weren't sufficient, however tireless and hard working.

The sum total was yet again a procession of chances which came and went without us being really convincing. Like most of this season it was maddeningly incomplete. So don't go getting excited over this win. It was competent and that's all.

Then a dreadful clash of heads on the half way line between, who else, The Gravedigger and one of theirs. Both of them were laid out for a worrying length of time before getting carted off. As The Gravedigger was stretchered off he managed one of those PR thingies he's very good at: He raised his right arm in a clenched fist farewell to the Street End. Ooooooh but they LOVED him for that. And it's worth saying yet again that one of his long distance shots is going to go home one day and when it does I hope it's in the Street End because it will consummate a love affair which is waaay beyond my understanding. I still have grave doubts but it would be churlish to deny that he's had a good season.

Eventually we had three subs. Beloved Lard Arse came on for Stubbsy after ten minutes, and later Gazza came on for The Gravedigger and Joe Max came on for Pistone. Gazza once again distinguished himself by promptly giving the ball away three times in succession. You wanted to strangle him without anaesthetic. But it is almost always because he is trying something which he used to pull off with ease and which, godammit, you WANT to see him do again. Problem is, it hardly ever works these days. But when it does…………

For instance, there was a moment in front of the main stand, half way in their half and into the Park End. He chased the ball wide right, two of their men closing fast. He jinked once and feinted, at which I was out of my seat screaming, "DON'T LOSE THE BALL AGAIN YOU SOFT GEORDIE CUNT!" fully expecting him to do just that, as he had several times before. Except this time he dropped his shoulder and the defenders fell over in a comical heap and he was gone, crowd in ecstatic stitches, orft down the right wing before making a superlative cross which came to nothing because of our gnome-size strike force. That's the way it is with contemporary Gazza, first you want to do him to death, then you want to hug him madly. Schizophrenic, the lot of us, on and off the pitch.

At half time, straw-clutching as usual, we relished the prospect of bombarding their nervy keeper with long range shots and crosses and generally upsetting what little confidence he had left. Great tactic huh?

Wrong.

He made two terrific saves right away and seemed to grow visibly another half metre. He even started not dropping the ball. Oh well. Back to the drawing board, or the Rubik, or even the runes if they did any good. We are pretty good at straw clutching these days.

I was delighted The Little Yank was finally given his chance after waiting so long. For one thing I knew the gutsy little bugger would give absolutely everything he had in the way only can-do Yanks do. For another I wanted him inside the box all the time because I have total confidence in his ability to cause mayhem therein. The only reservation I had was if Smiffy told him to pull back into midfield where he's nowhere near as effective. I haven't a clue why I am the only one who appears to have made this ground breaking discovery.

The team formation change had a centre back partnership of Davey-Unsy. Stevie dropped back to right back, which is by far his best position. Gazza wended his anarchistic way anywhere across the midfield. Mostly it disrupted what little rhythm we had but Derby were so wretched our only worry was a bad stroke of luck, a situation with which we are well acquainted this season. Its biggest success was on the right where Nic's game picked up light years because he had a raiding partner in Stevie………gives him slightly more space and time, see, and that's all a good player needs at this level. And Nic IS a good player. Somehow though he still doesn't look completely match fit.

With a quarter of an hour left we finally got the goal we thoroughly deserved. Somewhat typically of the game I just can't remember the build up, except to say it was down our right where we were causing them palpitations all afternoon. Don't hold me to it but I think it was Nic who banged over a long cross about five metres in from the goal line and somehow it got to the far post without any of their large defenders getting it away. From whence appeared The Little Yank, typically surrounded by large mounds of muscle tissue, all of which appeared intent on enthusiastic decapitation. And he was on it in a flash and butted it home close in with Texas chainsaws and French guillotines on all sides of the goal area. Well done that Yank. He has the physical presence of a lion in the frame of a prairie dog. Potent, when he's allowed to be.

Then their keeper made a couple of stunning saves from The Rad, each time clawing the ball away from close in, quick ground shots. Thus proving that The Canuck CAN play with The Yank………interestingly (in this game at least) The Rad's electrifying pace drew defenders like moths and it left Joe Max to hover in strategic goal space. It worked, whatever Smiffy says about the similarity of their play. Maybe it was because it was Joe Max came on as sub, maybe not. But in the present emergency I would like to see it tried from the beginning, which also means the midfield would have to buck up considerably.

Dunno what's happened to Scott Gemmill's form. He was mostly shite yet again even though he didn't stop running. It was a toss up who gave the ball away most, him, The Gravedigger or Gazza. Much more of this and one of the top teams will turn us over good-style. The sooner we get a functioning Gemmo-Pembo centre midfield again, the better. Beggars can't be choosers. On this occasion The Gravedigger played centre midfield and did mostly well until he tried to weld foreheads with one of theirs.

Based on this display Derby are going down faster than a female employee in The House Of The Rising Sun. You won't be surprised to hear they still strung some good stuff together and these were the bits which bore the style of the great Colin Todd, of whom we saw far too little in a Royal Blue shirt. As the game closed out with an additional five minutes of injury time they got more into it and the word "Bolton" got muttered a lot. It would have been unbearable to drop yet another two points.

But of course we have nobody to blame but ourselves for not being higher. The draws with Tottenham and the Wools and losses to the Skunks and the Sheepshaggers spring readily to mind. But there you are, the league table doesn't lie, not ever, top, middle or bottom. There's nothing arbitrary about it, though some of Smiffy's selections seem like a contribution made by ACAS. As we all know only too well and all too often, a camel is a horse designed by a committee of Archies and Smiffies.

Next up, midweek Leeds and Saturday Sunderland. The former should concentrate minds wonderfully. The latter should provide yet another example of over-policing at its worst, though it will help if any loonies try their racist crap. It is a safe bet that the local bizzies will do next to nothing with the home supporters though. They never do, not while they are quite happy to eject any away fan who even gets to his/her feet. In the meantime nearby home fans are allowed to get away with chauvinist muck of the very worst type. A visit to the north east is no longer the huge pleasure it used to be.

After the match, a visit to the Royal Oak to quaff with the Kipper boys en route to their annual celebration. Sausage and Kipper collared me immediately and took full and unprincipled advantage of my interest in current affairs. It went like this:

"Mickey, the Yanks have caught bin Laden!"

"REALLY???!!!"

"Yeh. A squad of hoo-hah marines surrounded him in his cave and demanded he come out. He came out waving a white flag and the Yanks stuck him against a wall to carry out a summary execution. An officer asked him for a last statement and he said, 'I have a question.' The Yank said, 'OK, ass hole. What is it?' And bin Laden said, "Have Barcelona still got the ball?' "

I spilled me ale all over the floor.

See, even in adversity we can smile. Footy, human nature, don'tcha just LUV it?

Team News

Abel Xavier is still suffering from the Bellfield Bug, although our man on the inside told us he trainined with the rest of the squad at Bellefield this morning. Isn't it funny how he always has a virus every winter. He must be the most unhealthy sportsman on earth.

The injured striking duo, Big Dunc & Super Kev are still ruled out.
Walter had this to say: “We would certainly hope they would be back to a play a part in some of the games over the holiday period. The injuries to both players have been awkward ones and in Kevin’s case especially, he has been a little bit slower to recover. Duncan is back into training and we’re hopeful that within a week or so he will be ready to step it up and return to the first team.” We'll believe it when we see it.

Everton from: Simonsen, Pistone, Weir , Stubbs, Naysmith, Gravesen, Gemmill, Gascoigne, Pembridge, Watson, Radzinski, Gerrard, Unsworth, Tal, Alexandersson, Moore, Chadwick, Blomqvist, Xavier.

Guest Reporter: Tony Newman will be the Blue Kipper Match Reporter for this game. If you fancy having a go yourself e-mail reporter@bluekipper.com