Everton 3 v 2 Aston Villa                                                  Sat. 20th Oct. 2001

Report from last season's game

Everton : Gerrard, Watson, Weir, Xavier, Pistone, Alexandersson, Gravesen , Pembridge, Naysmith, Campbell, Radzinski,

SCORERS:Watson 30, Radzinski 58, Gravesen 61

What a day !! It's great being an Evertonian.

It started at 12.30 in the Blue Brick. We were well received and ale really flowed, so much so that I missed the first 5 minutes. I was informed that I hadn't missed that much. Much of the first half an hour was even steven and the Blues were looking really solid at the back. The scoring got under way after 30 minutes when Niclas Alexandersson crossed from the right for Gary Naysmith to head back across the goal where Steve Watson was waiting to send a header past Schmeichel.

Everton made their first substitution when Scot Gemmill came on for Pembo after 43 minutes. His first contribution was brilliant, he sent a through ball for the Rad on the left hand side who in turn, produced a tremendous cross only for super Kev to blast over from close range.

Half Time 1 - 0

Confusion reigned at half time when Lard and Kipper incredibly both got the ale in! So instead of a swift one we had to have a swift two!!

Everton produced their best football of the season in the first twenty minutes of the second half. Gary Naysmith, who was having a great game, crossed to give the Rad an easy tap in to make it two nil.

Everton were really on top now and deservedly went three goals ahead from a free kick by Mad Dog after 61 minutes. Strange happenings before the free kick, when Pisto and Thomas were fighting for the right to take the kick. Thankfully, Gravesen won, and went balistic when his shot flew into the Villa's net.

Villa got back into the game on 69 minutes when Hadji, who has got the worst haircut in the world, gave Paul Gerrard no chance with a firm header.

With twenty minutes left, Duncan came on for the Rad, who deservedly got a standing ovation. Two minutes later, Gazza came on for Mad Dog - another ovation.

The last two minutes of the game, our hearts were in our mouths, because Schmeichel bizarrely gave Villa a chance of a point when he went up for a corner and volleyed past Gerrard to make it 3-2. The Toffees held out for a well deserved victory.

There were some tremendous performances on the day, but the Blue Kipper star man goes to Papa Smurf who didn't put a foot wrong from start to finish.

I'm sorry this report is late, but I've just got up after very hectic celebrations!

Tommy Grav says: "It is easy for a single player to stick his head out and grab some goals when they are playing in a strong side like I am at the moment. The team did excellent today. It was a difficult start, in the first 15 minutes Villa piled the pressure on, but we got over that and then we were allowed to play our game. It was an important game for us, we had a lot of respect for Aston Villa, but for about an hour of the game we have played tremendous and that is what we have to do in every single game. You have to give a lot of credit to all the team - especially the defence. We kept to the tactics, saw off the difficulties and though it got a bit hectic at the end we deserved to win."

"Of course it was a special goal, but it is a special goal every time I score for Everton and hopefully I can do it more often. Peter made some good saves, not only from me but the rest of the team also, and ultimately it wasn't enough. I think our team developed so much, created so many chances, that he couldn't save them all. We are developing in a good way, but there is still a lot of work to do. We want to be up there and the players are here to do that and we can get where we want to be with the players we have here."

Joe Bowen says: "The music in The Blue Brick is class."

Stevie Waton says: "Villa are a quality side and have a lot of quality players and they always bring passion into games. So it was never going to be an easy stroll at 3-0. It was an important time to score, but I think most people on the pitch would have put that in and it was just a case of being in the right place at the right time. When you are playing well you have the crowd behind you and it is important to put the ball away. We did that and got 3-0 up and against other teams it would be game over."

Versus Villa Virtually Vindicates Vivacious Venesection
by
Mickey Blue Eyes.

Stop what you are doing. Now.

You'll like this a lot.

During the week, Leonard Cohen (yes, he of that well known album, "Music To Slit Your Wrists By") reported: "I credit my poor stomach with preventing me from entering any serious addiction - acid upset my stomach, although I kept on taking it because the PR for it was so prevalent. I took trip after trip, waiting to see god, but generally I ended up with a very bad hangover."

Sounds like us en route to an away match.

So what's all this about acid and PR? I am well aware of the CIA role in deliberately flooding south central LA and elsewhere with their disgusting, socially destabilising muck. But I didn't know they employed Madison Avenue types as easily as loony spooks like the Richard Helms, William Harveys, Howard Hunts, Gordon Liddys and David Atlee Phillips of that murky world. I can't say I have any sympathy at all for Len, though. Anyone who shoves that shite into the finely balanced organism of a human body is asking for it. At least with footy addiction you get out into the open air.

Then there was self-styled socialist John Mortimer, straight-faced on his Harrow schooldays:

"I had a one-boy Communist cell. It was the time of the Hitler-Stalin pact, and I got instructions to slow down production on my factory floor. So I told my fellow pupils to translate Virgil more slowly."

The mind boggles at how this statement would go down with fascist loonies in Texas and ranting righties in MI5 and MI6, the ones who gave you that unfunny sitcom, The Bush Family Dangles Blair's Puppets, design by Raytheon, music performed by Industrial Military Complex from an original composition by Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman. For my part I couldn't help thinking John must've gone to school with our midfield. Sometimes I figure they are as dead as Latin or Rumpole of the Bailey.

Then, just as the stitch in my side was fading came news that Burger King had some of their Yank Suits on a "team building exercise," part of which had them running across red hot coals. Guess what: They had first and second-class burns. On their feet. Well! I don't know about you but I spilled me coffee everywhere at this one. The thought of all those Suits' feet ending up as edible as the product they help sell had me rolling on the floor. Tells you aaall you need to know about Burger King. I only just made it to the lav for some relief.

Now, most of us think of many weird and wonderful things while performing potty. After all, it is our most vulnerable moment. In my case I briefly considered Smiffy's and Archie's alleged training system. Instantly our level of performance was explained: Not enough coal in the bunker, too many baseball bats. Listen up and stoke the fire, Smiffy. Archie must be positively slavering at the prospect.

Meanwhile Chelsea announced their annual results. Losses trebled to £11.2 million while turnover fell £13 million to £93 million. Around £6 million was spent on interest alone. Long term debts have risen to £97.7 million. Their stock market "value" (it isn't real money of course, only what they try to persuade you is real) has fallen badly to £52 million, while the Mancs are on a downhill ski slope from £1 billion to £340 million. Ho hum, yet more of the "well run" clubs and their "efficient" methods……quelle surprise. "Chelsea," said fatso Bates, horrible bloated gut pushing way over his belt, "are second only to Manchester United on all counts." And these are the same people some deluded idiots want us to follow. Frankly I would rather slide down a kilometre long razor blade and use my scrotum as a brake.

Parallel with this six Chelsea players refused to risk their lives on a European match visit to Israel, thus keeping politics in sport, the place it has occupied since the ancient Greeks invented the Olympic Games. How Israel attached itself to Europe is an interesting thought. I await with interest the outcome of, say, Jordan applying for membership of UEFA. And Chelsea lost to two goals in the last five minutes.

Then, just as maybe you convinced yourself that western cloud cuckoo land is in fact reality, the Beeb made a grave Newspeak error and showed archive tape of a beautiful, raven haired, brown-eyed, seventeen years old Afghani girl writhing in physical and psychic agony on a hospital bed. She had been out collecting firewood and trod on a landmine. Both her feet were blown off. No footy for her, then. No husband either, the only chance for a young woman in a tribal society. You wanted to weep with sheer outrage at the interfering, cold-hearted, manipulative, money-mad fucking western establishment who helped cause their civil war in the first place, and the eastern madmen who have reacted against it and made it even worse. Fact, all war is organised murder. These days we can't even say A Plague On All Their Houses since the loonies beat us to it through Postman Pat and the air conditioning system.

Midweek, to Church Road and what used to be known as Walton Conservative Club, adjacent to the Squire's base in our fair city. Well, everyone in provincial England rightly loathes the tories now……so the club is in different hands, to wit, one Ernie. Conservatives just don't exist outside Afrikaaner style redoubts like Godalming and Leatherhead. Looks like everyone finally listened when the great Nye Bevan said:

"No amount of cajolery and social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party."

Nye la, we all know what a rant is……it is when somebody else expresses a view we don't like and does it in forceful terms. Our own words of course are always said out of deep conviction and in carefully measured tones. Actually, the original Ranters, products of the first English Revolution, were idealists of the highest order and hated by the establishment because of it, a bit like the Cynics, sort of, in Ancient Greece. Interesting huh?… No?… Oh well……suit y'self……anyway, my own deeply convinced thoughts are always said in carefully measured tones and I'll punch any cunt who says otherwise.

So I say Nice One, Nye. And one guess as to what he'd think of the present incumbent of Downing Street, the one with the eyes of a sewer rat and the ethics of a skunk. A bit like the local fat MP really, the one who looks and sounds like mad Joe McCarthy from the fifties. All this more than confirmed by their non-reaction to the disgusting little shithouse of a PR Suitette whose memo (actually written while innocents were being slaughtered in the USA) advised everyone to take advantage of the overwhelming breaking news to bury their own "bad" news. Anyone who doubts what these people are capable of should read the memo. If Blair and co. won't do anything about THAT, you can be assured they'll do absolutely zilch when looming redundancies are visited on the homes of thousands of our families everywhere.

Meanwhile, back at Church Road Ernie confirmed he is rabidly Blue, apolitical, and does not open on Saturday afternoons when we are not at home. I concede immediately I like this fine example of risk-taking commercial madness. Pinkies have to be dealt with severely. It is the only thing they understand. There is no reliable way of communicating with a marshmallow.

Sadly, Ernie has an awful long way to go in restoring the building and seemingly not a lot of money to do it with. The distinctly dingy place (reminded me of Charlton Liberal Club) reverberated to sounds of the kind of maudlin C 'n' W you associate with any ol' Okie trying to schmooze Dolly Parton. I don't know which is worse, gawky old age sentimentality or hysterical teen head banging. Oh alright, yes I do. They're as bad as each other. Me, I was too busy watching TV and my favourite "other" team, Ipswich, draw beautiful patterns to absolutely no avail against a gang of marauding muscular Vikings. Ipswich are as beautifully diaphanous as silk and about as strong. But if you love sensuality you have to love the way they play. George Burley is some kinda minor wizard.

Match day dawned. It was as awful as last year. The meteorology was straight out of the that haunting old movie, "Portrait of Jennie." Mist and rain cloyed everywhere and soaked everything in the way much beloved of fatuous Burberry wearing American crooners. Villa weather, you thought glumly, always fucking Villa weather. The game pattern almost always follows the weather, scrappy and miserable. But as the day wore on the clouds gradually retreated to a higher level. Every now and then a streak of sky blue even made a valiant effort to slash through. By match time it was a temperate if overclouded day.

Numbers at the Black Horse fully reflected our ten percent downturn in gates and season tickets, plus the opening of a new Wetherspoon's further down County Road. The regulars were there though. Enthusiasm was undiminished, a miracle I never cease to marvel at. Optimism was to the fore. Nobody, me included, expected us to lose even though Villa were unbeaten and had a satisfactory win at our old ground under their belts, haha.

Someone said Villa are our bogey team.

What!??????

What!?……like Coventry, Spurs, Arsenal, the Mancs, Leeds, Derby, Cup opponents of any stripe, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all? Who isn't, fer chrissakes? Friends, we have had five years of this. Our heads are like ageing Asian carpets. EVERYONE beats us these days. T'ain't no big deal.

Our memory of this fixture last season resonated with Merson's last minute winning goal for the brummies. Who can forget Paul Gerrard's wonderful impression of a pantomime klutz as Merson from the half way line punted a soaring hit-and-hope Gary Owen which could have gone anywhere? It looped into the air like an absent minded Sidewinder with a defective hearing aid. It was Winter. It was raining. It was dark. But the floodlights were on and you could have sliced the bread and shoved it under the grill before the ball arrived at the Park End goal. Instead, it was Paul who was toast. Afterwards, you wanted to set a pack of rabid dogs on him and feed the remnants through a mincer before pissing all over the shreds. I exaggerate out of bad tempered memory of course but you know what I mean.

In this match if Villa won they would go top if all the other results went their way. So maybe we would get more than the usual mediocre midfield argey-bargey. The game held a bit more promise than usual.

I was at the bar getting a round in when I felt a tug at my elbow. It was a pinky I once knew years ago whom I used to goad at will until he bored me and I moved on to more interesting things, such as yawning. Like most pinkies he was depressingly seedy and smelly, looked in fact like he was wearing his interview shell suit. The poor sod has never forgotten or forgiven the verbal goings over he used to get. Weird, these obsessionals. Anyway, he's been trying to get his own back ever since. But it is like being savaged by a rabid moth or thrashed with a two metres length of wet cotton thread. You smile patronisingly, cough politely, fart quietly, and rejoin your friends. Always leave the pinkies staring at themselves in the nearest mirror, wherein all they will see is a wild eyed crackpot with the false glitter of alcohol in his eyes. He was spluttering to himself last time I saw him, "Nyarrgghh! Gaaaaa! Splang! Uuurgh!." For a second I contemplated going back with a straitjacket but that might have pushed him over the edge. I didn't like the look of the white flecks around his mouth or the way his eyeballs whirled in independent elliptical orbits. Then again, most pinkies are like that most of the time. Doesn't do any harm to take an electric cattle prod to them every now and then. I jest of course. Well, only a little.

Thence to Crofts, a move which horrified the two Phils. Once there, I tried and failed badly to convince Kyle that he should use his natural intelligence more than he does and tackle the big footy issues of the day. All I could hear was the echo of my own voice. Oh how times have changed from the days when the young had philosophy and fight left in them. Now, they just look defeated, disinterested, drunk, and on the verge of redundancy. How sad.

Nobody was disinterested inside the ground though. Pity Villa only had three quarters of their allocation sold, probably reflective of all those midlands redundancies……now added to by Rolls Royce. Not that I have much time for the Villa fans. There is a tidy number of them who seem to hate more than they appreciate. I have no idea why this should be so. They make a peculiar noise too. Odd, to say the least.

Team: Our front two were SuperKev-Rad. No Yin. Gravesen back in midfield. On the bench, Gemmo, Gazza and The Big Yin. Villa included only the latter half of the sunni and shia'a singing duo of Kachloul and Hadji. Peter Schmeichel was minding the net for them, an excellent buy by Gregory. Dublin and Ginola were on the bench.

We attacked the Street End in the first half, a misnomer if ever there was one. It took us twenty five minutes to summon a shot on goal. For the first ten minutes Villa looked like they were going to walk away with it. It looked ominous, even allowing for the fact that all games are played in alternating phases. We couldn't get a grip, though Pembo was winning most everything he went in for. Villa looked really tight and tigerish. Mostly this was again down our right, where Stevie has now been finally twigged as a defensive weakness. Still, Paul was dead solid again and caught everything that came his way.

But they couldn't press home their possession and gradually, inevitably, the tide turned. It couldn't go on being so one sided. Fate is pretty unforgiving if you don't score during your phase of play.

Davey-Abel played really well in unison. Abel in particular looks like he is trying to impress so he can get a good contract when he moves on; all afternoon he got in an important tackle or last second touch or made vital short passes to set us off on the attack. I hope he changes his mind and stays. Both Davey and Abel had an interesting tussle all afternoon with Vassell, a gutsy, skillful little player who has no fear of anyone of any size.

Aforesaid first shot came when The Gravedigger got in a piledriver from leftside angle just outside the penalty D but Schmikes caught it like a it was a pesky fly. You wanted to run up to him and yell, "Look, you bastard. That was a HARD SHOT." One-on-ones with him must be like trying to storm the Al Hambra uphill with a pea shooter. One of these days The Gravedigger is going to score with one of these shots and it will be enormously spectacular.

However, once the game swung toward us during the last fifteen minutes of the half it was only ever going one way: Ours. And it all came through the midfield play of The Gravedigger and Pembo, later Gemmo. Once our lot clicked, Villa's midfield was on the collar and couldn't settle. Our task was made a good deal easier by SuperKev-Rad. The latter's work rate and running off the ball was phenomenal and yielded him a well earned goal. He's an unselfish player and was quite ready to make those painful runs which drag opposition defences out of position at vital moments. He didn't stop all afternoon and looks every millimetre a first class acquisition. Seems to me he's a much better all round player than The Ears.

After half an hour Stevie got his own back on the hate mongers amongst the Villa fans. A right wing cross from Nic got headed back from the left by Gary, it bounced, and Stevie was on it in a flash and butted it back across Schmikes just inside his right hand post. Poor Villa looked as though they'd been booted in the balls.

Pembo went off just before half time, having run his heart out and tackled like a little red-headed demon. Gemmo came on and repeated the act to the end. Me, I can't wait until we have the two of them together again in centre midfield. Always assuming they're fit enough of course.

Just before half time came a quite brilliant sweeping movement out of defence which got the ball out to The Rad, wide left. By now Villa were fairly pissed off with him and had two men on him most of the time, but he turned them both, jinked inside, and hit a superb ground cross into the centre edge of the goal area. It took out the entire centre of Villa's defence and left Kev with a tap in. Well, it would have been a tap in if he'd been close enough. As it was, he was about two metres back from it and had to stretch a looong way with his right peg while falling backwards. So he got under it and it zoomed over the bar. Aargh. Given all his recent misses you can't help feeling he's due a hat trick soon.

Second half and Villa got swept away. Am I the only one who thinks, gratefully, that a lot of our players are quite pissed off about last season? We may still be short of skill, particularly in midfield, but so far we can't really complain about effort.

A quarter of an hour into the half Gary tormented the Villa right side defence on the byline and got in one of his hard low specials and The Rad was on it in a flash inside the goal area and couldn't miss. Gary continues to be one of the finds of recent years. He was everywhere in this match and looks to be conquering the leftovers of that awful injury.

A minute later and The Gravedigger got another one. Indirect (why don't they just abolish this fucking pantomime and have done with it?) free kick, acute left side penalty area. Three of them stood over it seemingly arguing about what was going to happen. Slight touch off to the left and The Gravedigger caught Schmikes cold with a bullet drive along the grass inside his right hand post. At which point he took off on a celeb run which looked like it wouldn't stop until he got to Ormskirk. You get the distinct feeling most of the Street End would have gone with him.

Well, I better 'fess up here. I am one of The Gravedigger's biggest critics in our area of me beloved Street End. This leaves me in a minority of one. But you can't be churlish about his last three performances. They have all been good, even allowing for his propensity for giving the ball away at crucial moments. So when the goal went home, Al in the seat in front turned around with a huge grin and yelled at me, "Fuckn eat SHITE!" Which of course I was obliged to do, but not without a glass of beer first. Anyway, a few more performances like this and I might well change my opinion. We'll see.

Villa made two subs just after our second goal and they came on just in time to help kick off after the third. The new shape helped them get one back just over five minutes after our last goal. Hadji headed in a carbon copy of Stevie's. Even two goals ahead it still had alarm bells ringing. We all know why. So ten minutes later Gregory's fifties teddy boy greasy head threatened us with Daveed L'Oreal Hair Spray, where else, down our right side and up against, who else, Stevie. This weakness is getting tedious.

Needless to say the crowd hooted him as mercilessly as the Villa fans hooted Stevie. What goes around comes around. One nonsense replacing another. In our case it went one step even more stupid. On two occasions when he came to take a corner some dickhead in the crowd chucked a plastic container in his direction. I couldn't see if it was L'Oreal or not. To the end he was persecuted with roars of, "YEW fat bastard!" And it's true you know……his girth has expanded, thus completely destroying the aesthete's dream. Too many afternoon tryst lunches avec l'amour. Tsk tsk.

Equally needless to say, his presence did make a difference to the pattern of play and Villa got more into it. Nic had to drop back and try to help out Stevie. To counter this, Smiffy brought on Gazza and The Big Yin. Just stop and think about that for a mo. Yes, Smiffy brought on two attacking players. Did I feel the earth move beneath my feet? Did you, darling?

So it all got a bit nervous for the last ten minutes as Villa tried to build some momentum through a string of corners. In the last minute it paid off for them when a right side corner found its way over to the left and………'ere, fuck me, this can't be right……Schmikes crashed a volley in via Paul and the bar. Brilliant, and he was applauded all the way back to the Park End goal. Helped to dispel some of the sourness inflicted on the game by some of the Villa fans and carried on by some of ours: Dickheads, both.

It was an exciting game, mostly of the battling variety. But we also played some really good, determined stuff in spells. It was very encouraging. It also means Smiffy now has four of the nine points from six games I reckon he needs to get beyond Christmas. If we can beat the Geordies next week that will put him well on target. In our circumstances you have to be existential. Anything less and we and Smiffy are goners together.

A few post match drinks and a short match inquest, then home to sit on the balcony and contemplate a sensational turquoise sunset over north Wales. I kid you not, it was the same colour as the Gulf at noon, which is always the best time to see light reflected off coral. I love this city.

Inside, I adjusted my poster of Fidel embracing Ché and opened the letter from the Cuban embassy. It seems the revolution starts at 9.00 am on Monday. Don't be late.