Everton go from strength to strength with another 1-0 win against a Fulham side who were under orders to frustrate Everton and come for a draw. It surprised me. When you look at the attacking options they have with Malbranque, Cole, Boa Morte and Radzinski. But to play just Cole up front with the other attackers in midfield roles you are just asking for trouble. Incidentally Radzinski was booed every time he got near the ball by the Goodison faithful. Even Tommy Gravesen joined in. Whereas Pembridge was applauded when he took a few corners and acknowledged the crowd. Everton fans a fair bunch.

There were few chances for Fulham. Radzinski headed goal ward, only for the dependable Martyn to save on his 800th club game. The only other chance came in the last few minutes when Radzinski again screwed a shot wide.

Everton had a few openings in the first half. Cahill headed just over. Leon Osman had a goal bound shot tipped over by Crossley.

Half Time: EVERTON 0, Fulham 0

Bent hit a curling shot, which was tipped over. Crossley then saved another Cahill header. The goal came when Everton were really turning the screw. Kilbane, who was having an iffy game headed towards goal, but his effort was pushed away by Crossley to the Ferguson. He had a lot to do and stooped to control a header into the net. The living legend had only been on the pitch for minutes. Moyesy, give him another year!

Martyn, 7. Little to do, but when called upon was sharp.

Hibbert, 8. The confidence is oozing out of Tony. His body language is good. He is tackling as good as ever, and his runs know produce great crosses most of the time.

Weir 7. Solid display again. Doesn't give the attacker a chance. Again confident enough to bring the ball out of defence.

Stubbs 7. The skipper is leading by example. Towering in the air. Some great interceptions.

Pistone 7. Finally this gifted player has realised you have to work your socks off to stay in this team.

Carsley 7. Who would have thought we would be saying: 'We missed Carsley'. But we did. Another good game from the engine room.

Cahill 8. He has been a revelation since he started, and could end up to be Moyesy's best ever buy. Time will tell. Always gets forward and gets on the end of things. It's lovely to watch the one touch passing between him, Osman and Gravesen.

Gravesen 8. Tommy is as fit as a fiddle. His passing lately has been spot on. His appetite for the game is infectious. Whether you like his dramatic antics or not, the player is top class.

Osman 7. Another who has really impressed this season, and deserves his run in the team. Unlucky not to score.

Kilbane 7. Had a few good runs, but has slipped down the standards he set last season.

Bent 8. Showed today he is more than a willing runner. His control was superb at times. Again you can see the confidence in him.

My man of the match could have been for any of the following: Hibbert, Cahill, Gravesen, or Bent. But I've gone for Tommy Gravesen, who never put a foot wrong. Onward and upward.

Full Time: EVERTON 1, Fulham 0.

Leon Shoots

Duncan Scores

Jungle Jim Reports from Goodison Park

Blue Kipper Star Man

Tommy Gravesen

Whatever happened to Heavy Head?
By
Mickey Blue Eyes

In the Bernabeu, Madrid, Sven showed once again that he and the players can’t get it up for these “friendlies.” No grotesque jokes, please. The match itself was grotesque enough. Wayne Rooney showed he still has some way to go to grow up by indulging unimportant minor scuffles (for which he rightly apologised later) and that the employment of slimey Paul Stretford and the Manc move hasn’t helped him at all in that respect, while suddenly all about him were losing their collective head, or trying to kick in someone else’s cranium. Off the pitch, Madrilenos illustrated vividly that Franco’s favourite footy venue still had something to offer his fascist ghost under a massive cross in the Valley of the Fallen, a place built with republican slave labour. Monkey hoots pursued our black players in a manner that made a fool out of the hooters. As if the colour of Ashley Cole’s and Rio Ferdinand’s skin made them any more or less prone to losing it at inappropriate moments. Actually, you can try all manner of anti-racist methods, as I have – confrontation, parody etc. – but in the end only ordinary fans in mass organised action everywhere can put a stop to it. In our case we could make a good start by barring and disowning the tiny number of north Liverpool BNP nazis who have shamed our club in the past and doubtless will do so again. Fat Ron Atkinson also made his own rotten racist contribution via an open microphone to the world. The Madrid experience merely illustrated once again that racism is not peculiar to any group of fans or nationality. In the circumstances nobody gave a shit about losing the match. The long-term losers might well be the Spanish anyway, especially when current Olympic bids are reviewed.

Previously, the club annual accounts had zapped through the rain and plopped into my letterbox. Amongst other things they showed an unsuprisingly-increased debt of £42 millions before the Rooney transfer was taken into the calculation. As expected, this is indeed a very serious matter and not to be dismissed lightly. Then again, it’s a safe bet nobody does dismiss it, however predictable it is after last season’s utter playing débacle and the state of clubs generally. Year-on-year debt gets worse for everybody in and out of football. Cultural and financial self-delusion is endemic until the next inevitable capitalist slump induces a sharp dose of reality. More than likely the level of debt will actually delay Paul Gregg’s departure to development pastures new, largely because nobody can summon the necessary cash or will to buy him out and get shut. Once they can, he’ll be gone like a rodent up the sewer of a Mathew Street PR firm. I reckon I’m on safe ground in saying his sudden discovery last July of affection for matters footy will not be renewed on any other playing field. Anyone got a spare seven or eight mill to speed him on his unlamented way? Thought not. Likely it would also seal off one more of the leaks of half-truths peddled for self-interest. Some of the others have already been blanked. There are a few more yet to go. Which is very bad news indeed for the self-appointed hatemongers, gossipers and neurotic cheap thrill merchants.

Meanwhile the Annual General Meeting has been fixed for early December. I look forward to it with pleasure and will dutifully attend. I hope we haven’t lost the sense of unintentional comedy apparently promoted at the Extraordinary General Meeting, which I missed. We all need a good laugh and might get it if someone has taken a part time correspondence course in self-righteous paranoia. Anyway, if all else fails we can always pay some Suit or part time clerk to compose an impressive looking business plan that isn’t worth a carrot. The “business world” is full of them and so are football clubs. The kinds who, for instance, operate selling-long methods in shares dealings and lie there’s nothing in it. Footy minipolitics really is full of chancers, third-rate seedy spivs, male groupies with halitosis, and unconscious comics. And that’s just amongst some of the more loony fans. Laughter beckons. I hope Bill Kenwright brings his gavel to keep order in Casey’s Court. Nil Satis Nisi Optimum indeed. The bookies are already accepting bets on a repeat of the hilariously stupid circus of an EGM and the clowns and performing elephants who participated therein. If it comes to that it would almost be worth paying an entrance fee. I will produce a report in due course, always assuming I can keep my face straight and my sides unstitched.

Pre-match, much talk of the return of The Rad and his reception after some unwise words in the wake of his transfer to Fulham. There seemed an even split between those who couldn’t care less and those who hate him. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could get it in context? Which is his claim that he got double-crossed by Moyesy. He claims he was told that if he ran his arse off he’d get a good contract extension offer. Which didn’t materialise. Hence his anger. If true, his reaction was understandable. If not – and I can’t see what he would hope to gain by lying – then Moyesy should be ashamed of himself. Moyesy’s a great manager in the making but he’s no saint and he has made some all-too-human serious mistakes. Personally I like The Rad even though he drove me up the wall with his one-on-one misses, and in the modern era I have certainly seen no faster footballer. Which almost guaranteed what would happen if he got a one-on-one in the match………………………………

Matches against Fulham have had a niggling history. Being biased, I naturally think most of the playing fault lies at their door. But there’s no denying the very worst off field incident was the fault of some of our fans, the game a couple of seasons ago at Craven Cottage when some of them indulged the worst home-grown racist behaviour I have seen in recent years. Once again the aforementioned north Liverpool BNP nazis led it. Afterwards, Bill Kenwright was forced to apologise to Fulham after they rightly complained. At various times both sets of players have, for reasons unknown to me, attempted to kick lumps off each other. Therefore, all the more surprising we transferred Mark Pembridge and Tom Radzinski to them and tried to buy Sean Davies. Then Fulham brought in Brian McBride too. Football moves in mysterious, incestuous ways.

Match day was cold and still. Had the air moved at all it would have been an iceberg moving slowly across your face. Fortunately most of the fans had dressed sensibly for the temperature and were wrapped inside scarves, insulated jackets, parkas and the rest of the required paraphenalia. Condensed breath streamed into the air everywhere. Only the stupid and impecunious shivered. Once the game started it was one of those where most fans seemed determined to get additional warmth by roaring encouragement for ours or bellowing outrage at theirs. It got quite fractious at times. Behind me, a pimply adolescent seemed to spend the entire match going, “Boooooo!!! Wheyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!” whenever The Rad got the ball and screwed up. In the row in front, Chris wore a wooly hat that made him look like a Bronx drug dealer, while Dicky Mint was in his work gear, splattered with paint, unshaven, and dying for a pint. We were all set for another day at the office.

We started off reasonably brightly but the game gradually ebbed away to a midfield scuffle with occasional breaks and – just as last week – too many head tennis duels. Fulham packed the centre of the pitch the way we do so it was next to impossible to get through that route. High balls meant their giant centre backs swallowed virtually everything that came their way even though Marcus Bent did his usual admirable and popular run-till-you-drop shtick. There were minor chances at both ends but nobody looked convincing when they snatched at them.

After twenty minutes Leon tricked his way in from wide right, got to the edge of the box and lobbed in a cross which Marcus got onto well but skimmed across the top of the net instead of under the bar. By then bodies were thudding to the floor at regular intervals while the crowd got steadily more irate at inconsistent and shite refereeing by Poll. None of it was outright dirty, merely niggling and irritating in the way it seemingly always is against the Daily Mail team. Actually, a lot of it was unavoidable on account of the midfield queue. Players ran into each other at thirty seconds intervals. Inevitably one of theirs got booked late on in the half.

Almost on the half time whistle Mark Pembridge – applauded whenever he took a corner – got clear on their left and sent over one of his guided missiles to the far post just inside the angle of the goal area. Whence arrived The Rad with a clear header that Nige blocked instinctively and superbly to save the day. Relief was palpable. Behind me, the pimply adolescent was beside himself with delight, “Fuck off Radzinski!” At which we went straight down the other end and Leon got on the end of a volley with “Goal!” written all over it until their ‘keeper made an equally wonderful save.

For a quarter of an hour of the second half things were unchanged but then we stepped up a gear and mostly they were under siege for the remainder of the game. Corners came and went, as did substitutes on the hour mark. Ours was The Big Yin, presumably sent on to scatter the concentration of their defence. It worked. Cahill should have scored with a heading chance, then Marcus banged in a sensational twenty metres howitzer. Their ‘keeper saved them both magnificently. We were full value.

About five minutes after coming on The Yin endorsed Moyesy’s sub tactics with the winner. The Gravedigger nodded one goalwards from the right, Kilbane tried to defelect it in, Crossley saved brilliantly yet again, and there was Ferguson closing, stooping, and nodding it in. Which was ironic considering even he looked small against Fulham’s Zak Knight and the other beanstalks in their defence.

Ten minutes later came one of those comedy episodes when Andy Cole galloped through solo, made a wild hash of a lob over Nige – it went more or less straight up into the air – and a rugby scrum fell on the ball, feet flashing everywhere, and someone booted it out for a corner.

With a minute left, irony of ironies, a good Fulham attack left The Rad with a clear shooting opportunity from right of the penalty spot. He hit it hard enough but it went wide. Well, it wasn’t a one-on-one exactly but it filled the breach. The air filled with expelled breath.

Finally, the whistle went and the crowd steamed out heady with third place and the sheer unexpectedness of it all.

Back in the pub, Portsmouth V Manc City was on the TV. “Fuck that,” said someone, “who’s interested in these midtable clashes?” You had to larf, if only wanly.

Oh yes……………Heavy Head……………Well, that was Lard’s nickname for baldy Barry Hayles (or was it Hayle or Haye or Hayes?) when he played for Fulham and kicked everything that moved, especially if it was in a blue shirt. I understand he plays for Millwall or some other like club these days. I can’t say we missed him one bit but we did miss Lard’s inevitable tirade every time Hayles got mentioned. Believe me, it always added to someone’s vocabulary of profane and delicious insults. Hot damn but it was funny.