GIVE ‘EM THE OLD RAZZLE DAZZLE…
RAZZLE DAZZLE ‘EM…
AND THEY’LL BEG YOU FOR MOOOOORE…
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

“It’s just a noisy hall
Where there’s a nightly brawl
……………And all that jazz
…
Right up here
Is where I store the juice
……………And all that jazz

CHICAGO – “Velma’s” opening number, “All That Jazz.”

Gosh, wasn’t THAT an exciting fortnight after the derby débacle? Players out, players in, internationals, The Duke playing Liechtenstein on his own…………

And all that jazz………………

You could almost see and hear the tap dancing out of the media puppets.

Sunday after the derby game Pembo transferred out to Fulham, probably as a deposit for Davis if and when he arrives in January. So, farewell, then, Mark Pembridge and good luck in your future life. Then he was followed quickly by Nic on his way to West Ham.

Without getting sentimental it was a poignant example of the ins and outs of professional football. Mark was never a great player but he was an intrinsic part of our club during one of its most difficult periods. He never let us down through lack of effort. It is all too easy to jeer at players like Pembo and equate his level of ability with our miserable years. But who’s to say how he would have performed had he been with better players or (earlier) a better manager? After all, his play improved as much as anyone’s after Moyesy’s arrival, perhaps better than all of them. The game is full of players who achieved things through a combination of doggedness and luck. Nor should we easily dismiss his later improvement at dead ball situations. Early last season it brought a brief flurry of goals via Kevin Campbell. But once a certain type of fans mentality gets resentment of a particular player into its head there isn’t too much you can do about it except tell the thickos just how stupid they are. Then again, it has to be said that Pembo wasn’t treated as harshly as, say, Unsy during a poor spell. You don’t get dubbed “Pembinho” for nothing.

Nic went out pretty much the same way as he played virtually all of the time – without leaving a mark. It was all a bit like firing a bullet through marshmallow – it goes right through and leaves no hole. I can’t say I ever understood his performances. Apart from maybe two or three really good games he actually did nothing at all, as we all know. Baffling is the only word. Despite the fact that he scored against England in Japorea he too goes with best wishes. But you can’t really say thanks when there’s bugger all to be grateful for.

Then Monday arrived and so did four new players. This completely nonplussed the whiners who were girding their loins because of lack of signings – as if we hadn’t learned anything from previous signings for signing’s sake. The difference this time is that there was a genuine sense of Moyes rationale behind the signings. McFadden – new Jock young superstar, Martyn – much needed experienced ‘keeper, Jeffers – maybe, just maybe, a prodigal who might prove the opposite of “never go back,” and Kilbane – basic replacement for Pembo. You couldn’t fault any of the signings given our dire finances. In fact it was another case of Moyesy plaiting sawdust and doing it rather well.

At least it partly abated the whines and some of the tiny minority loonies amongst the Shareholders Association who ludicrously – I shit you not – wanted to press for an EGM because of lack of signings. Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas, this was turkeys wringing their own necks. No wonder you listen to some people “talk” about football and you end up just shaking your head, as you do at the bubblebrains who want to sell The Rad. (Of course the latter might still happen if The Ears delivers, and then you can almost hear the droolies and, “I was always in favour, you know.” It never crosses their minds the only reason The Rad might go is because we need the money.) So we came out of the transfer merry go round a good deal more healthily than did some others who spent zillions. And we still have some left over to complete the Davis deal if it goes ahead.

Two England Euro group matches brought two Duke goals, one against Macedonia away and the other V Liechtenstein home. You had to wonder what the ‘keeper was doing for the first one apart from an unconvincing fall to his left, but Wayne still had it all to do running from deep and he did it well nigh perfectly. Next up, as you would expect, he ran rings around the Ruritanian part timers and came off yet again to a standing ovation. I’m sorry, but I can’t think of Liechtenstein without conjuring images of Peter Sellers’ movie, “The Mouse That Roared.” Still, as Kipper observed to me, none of the rest of the England team managed to raise their game against amateur opposition. On BBC TV the whole team in the commentary box and “experts” in the booth used the occasion to justify their fees by overhyping to the point where hyperbole and metaphor collided in quick step razzledazzle time. You wanted to bang all their heads together and wait for the echo but the reverberation time would have been excessive.

Of course the REAL test (see below) will come in the match in Turkey, currently The Sick Man of European Footy. Then you recall how he ran rings around the Turks in the home game at Sunderland. If England perform to their full abilities then we’ll get the necessary qualification point at least and Wayne Rooney will do even more damage. All of which is guaranteed to piss of the small number of Plastic Paddies (that is, not REAL Paddies) amongst us.

The great thing about him is how he keeps confounding the Melledrew Tendency and pinkies maddened with envy. It is almost a mathematical progression. It goes something like this –

“Ah but he has to PROVE himself in the Premier League.” So he did, at sixteen, leaving a trail of damaged egos on and off the field.

“Ah but he has to SCORE in the Prem.” So he did, an astonishing last minute winner against then the best club team on the planet. In fact he scored nine league and cup goals.

“Ah but he has to PLAY for England.” So he did, and ran rings around said Turks.

“Ah but he has to SCORE for England.” So he did. Twice.

“Ah but he has to keep it UP.” So he did, ending up last season with eight first team starts as the season closed.

This season he has only just attained full match fitness. The mind boggles at what he is capable of in due course. He just keeps knocking over the dominos in his own special way. And he’s an Evertonian through and through and he plays for us. Well, we are overdue some reasonable good fortune. Enjoy it while it lasts, friends. It is only a matter of time before someone comes in with a bid our finances will find difficult if not impossible to resist. Some valuations – not scientific, always a matter of opinion, particularly when you are buying and selling – claim he’s already worth more than the club. In the circumstances there can be only one logical conclusion. Fortunately, logic has no bearing on tribal loyalty and that is the straw we will cling to, that he and his family won’t be overwhelmed by the money and the fame. While all this is going on it is very necessary to remember he is still only seventeen, at least for a few more weeks.

That was the background to the match against The Skunks.

An absolutely glorious day, a Royal Blue Mersey, joggers and strollers along the riverside, yachts and dinghies tacking and weaving briskly out in the middle. And warm, as I found out to my cost after donning the wrong coat. A grinning taxi driver said, “Bet you feel a bit of a soft cunt, coming out in that.” It was a beautifully calculated remark, made half way to GP and with the prospect of lots more mazoomas if we turned back so I could change. I swallowed it. Taxi drivers worldwide are the font of all knowledge, sharp practice and world-weariness.

Prematch, a reconstituted Blue Kipper team assembled at a Top Toffee Ale House for libation, photographs and discussion of forthcoming additions and changes to the site. Regulars will know it goes from strength to strength and the hits just keeeeep on a-comin’. Lavington Spa is the latest addition. Watch out for a choice and novel use of the English language. Nobody fucks with Lavo, so to speak.

Nobody has yet calculated the full impact on the internet on western culture, except to note the obvious, that it is huge. Nobody has yet worked out – not publicly anyway – a way of making it even more socially useful. They will of course. But in the meantime we had another example of Blue Kipper’s popularity when a wonderful Swedish family appeared at the designated venue. You can view the photographs when Kipper posts them.

Roy was there, proudly en famille, and insisting that he isn’t a twerp, but that Yours Truly definitely is. Well, yes, okay, Roy. The ale’s still on you next time we launch another assault on the White Star in town.

Everyone was still a bit shell shocked from the derby result. This particularly applied to Edam Phil, who viewed the game on TV while on holiday in Spain. Needless to say, virtually all of the pinkies who formed part of the audience were from local areas such as Luton and Cornwall tin mining districts. Yes, I know that’s bitchy. The long term problem for the pinkies – and they know it – is that it is also all too true. Yes, I know too that is pathetic straw clutching after the derby disaster. It gets you that way, doesn’t it? Friends, beware of so-called “objective fans” when it comes to this subject. Never give a pinky an even break. They wouldn’t know what to do with it except offer it for sale in Scandinavia or in their trashy overpriced club shop full of useless bricabrac. Gosh, that feels better!

Uncle Bobby Robson loomed with The Skunks, accompanied by their very fat fans with shaved heads, earrings, Skunk striped shirts and the general appearance of a collection of washed up deck chairs. Poor Bobby has had a lousy start to the season, not made any better with the signing of the disgusting Leeds racist duo of Woodgate and Bowyer. Frankly, I’m glad. This is not a statement against Robson, but purely a shove-it remark to the north east police who make every visiting fan’s life a misery. Which is why I won’t be going to Middlesbrough next week, or anywhere in the north east except for a cup match. Footy wise, it’s a waste of space. Which is why I smiled with cheap childish satisfaction at the constant chorus of, “You’ve Never Won Fuck All” aimed at The Skunks fans in the away section. I know it’s a tautology but who gives a shit? It found its mark.

Teams: for us, wholesale changes. Tony in at right back, Nace in at left back and Kilbane in at wide left. On the bench, Nige (he’s One Of Us now so the name’s appropriate), The Ears, The Big Yin, Unsy and Davey. Common sense tells you you can’t change a quarter of the team without some form of playing disruption. And so it proved. For them, Shearer, Bellamy, Dyer and a collection of nobodies. It all looked fractious and that’s how it played out from start to finish.

Regulars will know I try usually to describe the pattern of play, outstanding or querky moments or individuals and lace it with occasional attempts at humour. For once I can’t do it. And the reason is the way Newcastle came into this game. In my mind there’s no question a desperate Uncle Bobby must bear a lot of responsibility. His team were a disgraceful, niggling, elbowing, tripping, shirt-pulling collection of low level football thugs. We are well used to this sort of nonsense from the ageing Shearer and the ugly brawler Bellamy, and it was just about understandable if not acceptable if limited thereto. It is after all a body contact sport. When virtually their entire team indulge themselves the game goes beyond the pale. It isn’t worth the proverbial carrot. Football is replaced by the kind of crap you expect as normal in ice hockey or American grid-iron. Rightly, a huge majority of the world’s sports fans elect not to watch or take part in either of the latter two. The spectacle is reduced to superficial “excitement” or “incident,” not to genuine sports achievement. Yeuk.

No real surprise then when the Frenchman (yes, another one) Bernard deliberately crocked Wayne Rooney after half an hour. You could tell it was bad because of the way The Duke went down and stayed down. Usually he’s up immediately trying to get back into the game. At the time of writing I don’t know what the actual damage is. Nor do I believe the protestations of innocence, anymore than I would believe the head-kicker Bowyer. Bernard stamped on Rooney’s ankle and he did it quite deliberately to put him out of the game. Up to then the Duke had been his usual tormenting self and looked like he was almost at full match fitness. He tried to carry on but he was plainly in great pain and had to be substituted by The Ears. Who immediately hooked a couple of shots just over and wide.

Nige came on for Wrighty after he somehow injured himself without having to do anything at all.

Five minutes before the interval the Frenchman (yes, yet another one) Robert was sent off for an appalling “tackle” on Toby. By that time the temper of the match had been set. Robert had already been booked for kicking Stevie. It was easy to see why Newcastle are in deep trouble. Lack of ability is substituted by the kind of approach learned at a Waffen SS training school. They really were there for the taking but our own lack of ability failed to force the issue.

For what it was worth, we were the better team in the first half. Kilbane had made a useful if unspectacular debut wide left and made a couple of runs which promise a reasonable long term contribution. Then again, it might not. On one occasion he weaved his way through three tackles through sheer pace, got felled in the penalty area and was refused a penalty. I’ll come to the referee later.

Newcastle were no different in the second half. Long balls were booted up to the ageing Shearer for him to arm wrestle everyone in the vicinity, or try to push someone over, anything rather than try to play football. It simply isn’t my idea of a football spectacle, no matter what the pros tell you. Ironically, when he finally did the right thing it led to a breakaway goal a quarter of an hour into the second half. A through ball on the right side of the penalty area had Dyer chasing it and Nace brought him down, got redcarded for his trouble, and Shearer scored from the penalty. They hadn’t been any sort of a threat. In fact The Rad should have put us ahead after a minute’s play in the half but he was one-on-one with the ‘keeper and we all know he doesn’t do those.

Five minutes after the goal the Yin came on for Stevie. It made all the difference. Plainly the Newcastle defence was terrified of him. Two of them wrestled him to the ground at every opportunity. Three minutes after he came on we were level. Play switched from our left to the right, a penalty was again refused as bodies crashed everywhere and eventually the ball came back to our left, where stood an isolated Rad at the eye of the storm, eight metres out, and he clipped it in.

We came at them unconvincingly, a receding tide washing back and forth – but you know it is a reducing force. Our midfield just doesn’t have enough nous. By this time we were playing exactly the same as them, hoof the ball up front for the big man, except we had more of the play and they just kept on fouling in desperation. In the end, so did The Yin. Newcastle just kept hacking the ball away and weren’t particular if someone got in the way.

Then with eight minutes left of course they go and get another breakaway and another penalty after a dive by a Skunk which would have qualified him for the Olympics.

But we weren’t finished. We kept raiding down our left, their obvious weakness, where The Rad’s pace was doing its usual fearful damage. With a minute left he skinned their defence for the umpteenth time, left side penalty area, and got downed. Penalty. The Big Yin nearly stuck it through the net and all the way to John o’ Groats. After which he peeled away to the main stand to bare his Everton bicep tattoo.

And that was it. We threw away two points against a team who have a lot of problems and who we would have destroyed had we played to our best. We can only hope the new players stitch in quickly because this kind of performance was an uncomfortable reminder of Walter Smith’s days. I am confident Moyes will get them back on course. The question is how long it will take.

Usually I try to avoid criticising referees, odd comment apart. By and large I believe we have a good standard of refereeing in this country. Gawd knows, it’s a difficult enough job. Nor should any of us use poor refereeing to disguise our own playing faults. But there are limits. Our last two home games have breached those limits. Referee Riley (already possessor of the kind of reputation you wouldn’t pin on a distemper-ridden dog) was truly dreadful in the derby game. Incredibly, Styles was ten times worse. Each of them gave the kind of performance I thought impossible in an English referee. Each of them brought incapability and inconsistency almost to an art form. There really is no point in listing incidents of this in the Newcastle game because they were so maddeningly numerous. While Shearer was getting away with his usual brand of over-the-hill thuggery at one end, Styles couldn’t wait to blow the whistle on Ferguson. At one point The Yin literally laughed in Styles’ face as he was booked. Normally I would condemn that kind of behaviour unequivocally but in this case you could only agree.

I would go further. Both Riley and Styles should be removed from the Referee’s List forthwith and never referee another game, not even at parks level. If a professional man in any capacity performed in such a way he would leave himself open to a duty of care legal suit. They really were that bad. Get rid. Now.

And all that jazz.

Quotes

David Moyes: "When they went down to ten men, we didn’t do enough. We should have done better than we did do and that was the period in which I think we lost the game. We didn’t take the initiative. We have to do better. In the end I was happy with a point. We did not do enough to win the game.

On the ref Moyesy said: "I am trying this season not to get into trouble for the things I say. All I would say is that maybe we should start questioning the people who appoint officials rather than the referees themselves."

On Big Dunc, Myesy says: "We needed him. We had to change the game around. We needed to hit him with the ball to provide the presence we hadn't seen previously. Duncan did well for us."

Sausage :" I would do time for that Bellamy"

Off The Ball

* Full marks to the ground staff, who had the playing surface looking like a bowling green. A nice touch was all the swirls in the corners, & the concentric circles made by the lawn mower from the centre spot.

* It was a laugh when the 4th official tried to usher Moyesy from the pitch side to the confines of the little white box. Moyesy was on the pitch shouting instructions to the players. The fourth officials arm having no effect whatsoever.