Well it nearly happened last Summer, there were rumours circulating before Christmas that it could happen in the New Year, and last night we all saw it with our own eyes. Yes at last Sausage got a round in, and the whole Bluekipper bar cheered. Oh yes, James Beattie was presented on the pitch before the match aswell.

If Beatts as we shall now call him, has any apprehension of the Blues being a big club they were certainly dispelled last night. Moyesy surprised everyone with his team selection, resting Pisto, Davey Weir and most surprisingly Benty. Joey kept his place, as did Faddy, but with the Big Man suspended in came Super to take the Benty role on. Nuff said.

Faddy started like a house on fire, giving Pompey's Steve Stone a torrid time. Surprisingly Moyesy switched Faddy and Ossie half way through the half, and Faddy faded a bit after that. The game was evenly balanced through the first half. Super had a shot blocked by De Zeeuw, and long shot specialist Berger let one fly, which Dickie did well to parry away. You felt Everton's goal was going to come from a set play, and so it did. Tommy swung a back post corner in, and Stubbsey rose like the proverbial salmon to nod the ball into the bottom corner of the Park End net.

It was just what Everton needed after the trouncing they suffered at the weekend, but the lead was to last seconds. From the re start Everton were caught on the hop, and Yakuba the Pompey powerhouse out muscled Yobo in the Everton defence, and fired an unstoppable shot into Dickie's onion bag. Ecstasy to agony in a minute, the crowd were stunned.

It was a stop start half, which was on the whole was evenly balanced. Everton should have had a cast iron penalty. De Zeuuw went down like a dose of herpes, trying to disguise the fact he was hurt, when the ball had blatantly hit his arm. Honours even at half time.

Half Time: Everton 1 Pompey 1

The expected changes we all thought would happen at half time did not materialise. Pompey threatened first, as Dickie watched a shot fly past his post out of harms way. Everton's best chance of the second period fell to Tiny Tim, who had to watch as his header bounced agonisingly over the bar. Pompey still looked dangerous on the break, and Dickie was tested on a few occasions with long range efforts. At the other end, Hislop looked assured and calm in the Pompey sticks, and the ball seemed to stick to his hands like glue, when crosses rained in on him.

As the half went on, Everton started to play some lovely creative stuff. At the centre of it all again was The Grav, who orchestrated everything on the park. The expected change happened with fifteen left on the clock. Benty came on for Super, and Killa for Faddy, as Moyesy sensed three points. Hislop was forced into a good stop after a fierce drive from Tommy.

Minutes remained and we all had thoughts off two points dropped. The fourth official put up two minutes and the ground started to empty. One last salvo was thrown at Pompey, and in the melee, the ball landed at Ossie's feet in the penalty area. In one swiveling movement he turned a fired an unstoppable shot into the roof of the Street End net. Fan 'fuckin' tastic. Pompey were deflated, Everton were elated as the customary mass piley on took place. Three vital points were gained, as this result was crucial, after our topsy turvy Christmas.

My bluekipper Starman goes to Tommy Grav again. He is without doubt our player of the season up to now, and we would be loathed to lose him to some Spanish crap. Rock on Tommy.

Full Time: Everton 2 Pompey 1

Jimmy Mac Can't Believe it

Stubbs hugs Leon Just A Tad Too Much

Lavo Reports from Goodison Park

Blue Kipper Star Man

Tommy Grav

 

Goal

 

Goal

Rear window, glory hunters and glad handers
By
Mickey Blue Eyes

So the January “transfer window” opens and we sign James Beattie from Southampton. Which, as usual, is enough to send the boring I Know Everythings into an immediate girly catfight with the equally tedious I Know Everything More Than You Dos in every seedy pub or internet message forum. One lot is as bad as the other. Which is why these days I leave message forums to computer nerds and other friendless sadsacks. You have to put the toys away sooner or later. There’s no point to any of them. It’s all rather like watching two fat women mud-wrestle, rolls of fat in flagrante, and just as, er, aesthetically delightful. Only a year ago, similar birdbrains were insisting we had to adopt the on-and-off field methods of now-deep-in-“trouble” Southampton. Meantime, the reported fee is £6.5 millions. Media gossip tells us Rio Ferdinand’s earnings might go as high as £6 millions per YEAR. For the tsunami disaster in Asia the British government has promised £50 millions in aid and the British public has promised £60 millions. Initially, the government promised £15 millions. Go figure priorities.

I have no idea if James Beattie will prove a good buy or a goodbye. Nobody has, including David Moyes and the directors who made the money available. Naturally I hope he proves a change of club will work out for both parties, particularly since we are short of young, quality players in the squad. I certainly back Moyesy’s judgement in the same way as I backed Walter Smith’s and that means almost unequivocally. Actually you don’t have much choice since he’s the manager and you aren’t. In any case he knows what he’s talking about and you don’t. (The only exception I would make at the moment is the possibility of Robbie Savage coming in, an opinion I share with most Evertonians I have talked to. Nobody wants him and his ignorant attitude. Which puts all of us of similar opinion in a bind if Moyesy decides to go for him after all.) But Beattie will have to prove himself in the same way admirable Leon Osman did. If he succeeds as we all want him to – great. If he fails – tough. Next. That is the way of professional sports, always has been, always will be. The coming of the so-called Premier League has merely accentuated it and made everything more cutthroat. Egged on by infoclerk media phony hype, too many fans have become vacuous to the point of invisibility, or – worse – as sourly twisted and opportunist as the footy world they profess to criticise. Nor is there any point asking the guilty parties to get a sense of perspective. You can’t have a reasonable conversation with a brick, somebody simply perverse, or somebody without basic courtesies – the kind of thing nowadays labelled “social skills” but which used to be known more sensibly as merely good manners. When it comes to football, common sense flies out of the window at the added expense of better human qualities.

So, as someone once said to an incoming player at Goodison, “Welcome to the big time.” James Beattie, that is.

Meantime, wouldn’t it be really nice if the police manage to arrest the crazy loons who have telephoned death threats (or should I say “deth threts”) to various people at the club. Then the mad culprits could be settled down after treatment with a nice warm rubber truncheon in a nicely chilled stone cell with a nicely violent hairy hemaphrodite as five years companion. The rest of us can then get on with trying to enjoy what’s left worth viewing of the game. Fans with long memories will recall the lunatic who actually got to the hospital bedside of the late Peter Swales’ (then chairman and owner of Manchester City) ageing, sick mother intending to do her harm before he was caught and locked up. That’s what happens when paranoid minds manufacture hate or deliberately create a disgusting lynch mob mentality. It isn’t only football money and hype that has decayed some inadequate minds. The sooner everyone acknowledges what damage these tiny numbers of madmen do to the sport the better. Actually of course they aren’t fans at all, they are merely sick individuals with a distorted view of the world and their place in it.

Before the Portsmouth match Moyesy was quoted how much better he thought night matches can be as an experience. He has a point, especially when they are played out in chilly lower temperatures with something at stake. Somehow the colours seem brighter and clearer and the crowd more up for it. In this case we had to get a result – the manner didn’t really matter that much – after the débacle at Tottenham. It was important for morale.

Then, swipe me, who turns up but John and son from the east Midlands, son at local uni. And then, and you’ll LIKE this one, Peter senior and Peter junior with daughter back in their seats on my left on half season tickets. Seasonal goodwill immediately disappeared out of the rear window of the row in front, wherein Chris and Dicky Mint launched immediate disgraceful but gleeful personal attacks about “glory hunters and glad handers.” Peter senior maintained a wonderful dignified silence while Peter junior tried to make his excuses and stay. Everything was back to normal when the latter muttered, “I’m just waitin’ for the first stray pass from Gravesen an’ I’ll ‘ave ‘im.” You wonder why we all shook hands, grinning, for the New Year.

The mess at Tottenham was partially cleaned up when Moyesy restored a Stubbsy-Joey central defence. This was tough on Davey, but if Joey was to stay in place there could only be one partner for him in the current squad. Wrighty still in goal, Nace at left back, Leon restored right mid, Jamie retained wide left mid, and SuperKev in place of kicked-to-death-and-badly-in-need-of-some-respite Marcus. The balance looked odd. And so it proved. Mostly, the match was as flat as a pancake until the final twenty minutes or so. Occasional spurts of individuality or movements couldn’t get any consistency of play. Frustrating is the word I am looking for. Which is probably why Moyesy switched Leon and Jamie after a quarter hour, mostly without affect. You could tell it wasn’t much of a match when complaints about the cold began to take precedence.

What excitement there was was confined to conjecture whether Wrighty would drop or palm the ball into someone’s path. Meanwhile Kevin Campbell couldn’t make any headway, though he did have one shot luckily blocked, Jamie tried hard to no affect and Leon was plainly playing himself back to match peak. When The Gravedigger made an inevitable indiiferent pass we all tensed waiting for Peter junior to explode at him. But nothing happened. Shit, but it was disappointing. So was the match. Except for yet another penalty-that-never-was after twenty minutes when their man handled and then collapsed in a comedy shtick as though he’d been knocked cold. It was so good you wondered if he practiced it on the training ground. All around me fans got themselves warm by shouting terrible insults at the culprit.

Ten minutes later we got in front from a corner on our left taken by Tommy Gravesen. I’ll write that again. Ten minutes later we got in front from a corner on our left taken by Tommy Gravesen. It went over in a loop to right of the penalty spot, maybe six or seven metres out, and Stubbsy nodded it almost casually down and inside their left post. To a man, we all turned round to Peter and shouted, “Worra fuckn CORNER. Did yer SEE that Tommy GO?” We were still behaving badly when, bugger me with a stale loaf, Pompey got down our left through a needless hole, Joey failed to muscle Yakubu and it got bladdered in magnificently left footed from an acute angle left of the goal area. Wrighty didn’t even sniff it.

The game flared briefly for a couple of minutes just before half time when their man tried an absolutely superb long range effort centre left mid, maybe twenty-twenty five metres out and it dipped narrowly over the bar. We responded weightily but, alas, we had only false teeth. Kev just can’t do it anymore even though he tries like hell. Veteran legs, see, even with a commendable attitude.

Right after half time you went “Uh oh,” when their man stuck a bullet shot into the side netting. For a moment from the Street End it looked as though it had gone in. But five minutes later a move down our left ended with Tim Cahill diving in right edge of the goal area, winning the header – and bouncing it over the top as unluckily as Roy Keane in the Tottenham match.

But imperceptibly we were beginning to get some rhythm and tempo into the game. One of the features of Moyesy’s superior fitness regime is how the side really turn it on in the closing stages. Once they get going, they don’t stop. By the end of this match the pressure was immense and relentless without creating a lot of chances. It just looked as though Pompey would crack at any second as we swarmed around the penalty area. With a quarter hour left Moyesy brought on Marcus and Killa for Kevin and Jamie and made it even more intense. Like other similar Moyesy subs, it worked a treat though we left the winner precious late.

Corners and long throws came and went with few clear-cut openings. It was a siege that Pompey looked capable of resisting as they congregated thickly in the penalty area and took no prisoners. Until the final minute of added time, when once more the ball ended up in a scramble around the penalty spot and for once there was a little room left as the ball bounced slowly outward. Just enough time it transpired for Leon to take a step back, swivel on his right foot and loop a medium paced shot with his left foot. It curled around in a slow arc and went home, Leon’s top left corner. The referee blew his whistle with players close to exhaustion on both sides. Deservedly, we won a very important three points.

Apart from the closing stages it wasn’t much of a spectacle. But it still held some good things for us. One of them was Jamie McFadden’s continuing efforts to prove himself in the English game. Friends, don’t listen to those Jeremiahs who say he can’t play. His problem isn’t his ability, it is whether he can get his head right. Amongst other things he’s raddled with natural homesickness (if you’ve never suffered from it, don’t knock it) and a resulting lack of confidence. If he can overcome that – and in this match there were occasional glimpses of it – then he can still become an outstanding player. Also, Joey had the kind of game that means we might not have to get worried about Davey lasting the rest of the season. At left back, Nace didn’t put a foot wrong and might, just might, start adjusting himself to better playing discipline. And by the end of the game Leon looked much more like the player who has made his mark this season.

All in all, a very important win that keeps us in fourth place.

Next, the Cup, THE Cup, at Plymouth. Anyone for bowls?