Emails 41

Pissed Off With BBC

WELL THE BEEB HAVE DONE IT AGAIN. 100 YEARS TOP FLIGHT FOOTIE AND WHAT DO
THEY PUT ON THE BOX A PROGRAM ABOUT MAN UTD WHO HAVE ONLY BEEN IN EXISTANCE
FOR 100 BASTARD YEARS. WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO TO GET SOME FUCKNG RECOGNITION?
IF THE RED SHITE OR THE MANCS WERE THE FIRST YOU'D NEVER HERE THE FUCKING END
OF IT. I'M REALLY PISSED OFF NOW. John McC. (28/08/02)

Sunderland Game

Went to the game yesterday to see us finally get 3 points out of them, I’ve been to every game since they moved from Roker Park. Shame my mate Chris Simpson couldn’t make it! I thought all the lads did well, although I would feel more confident with Steve Watson back in at right back? The Rad was finally putting himself about and the midfield did well too. Alan Stubbs is a little slow for me and hopefully we’ll see the “Yobo” come in and claim is place. Keep up the boss site, Chris and I eagerly await the arrival of our BlueKipper T-shirts. Regards. Paul. (28/08/02)

Just The Way You Are

I've been coming to your site for about 5 months now and I must congratulate you! Its an excellent site with up to date info. One thing though - please don't update the layout of the site as tends to happen with most sites these days! I like the layout - simple and to the point! Good on ya, and keep up the hard work! Come on the toffees! Ricki Smith. (26/08/02)

Get rid of the dead wood

When, oh when, are everyone concerned with Everton Football Club, from the very top to the very bottom, going to realise that Duncan Ferguson is possibly the biggest, laziest, over-rated piece of dog shit that has ever pulled on the jersey. The man is the ultimate time-waster, who makes Darren Anderton look superfit. "Big Flunc" should never have been bought in the first place, let alone bought back.

Also, Moyes must be out of his tree to hand him the captaincy of the club, why not give the armaband to David Weir (a man with more pride in his little finger than the pigeon-fancier has in his entire useless body). What is the point in having a club captain that spends his Saturday afternoon's sat on his fucking lazy arse in some Doctor's waiting room, no doubt thinking about how much pigeon food he can buy with his £27k a week?

The only fans who think he is any good are the pot-smoking "little ninjas" in the St.End and a few sad arseholes who sit in the Park End with their Ferguson No.24 replicas on. As far as I am concerned, the club should terminate his contract and fuck him off to some lower-league shite where he can limp out the rest of his "career" Keith Mc (Park End). (26/08/02)

Spurs Game - No Atmosphere

I took my 6 year old son to the game - what a 1st game to go to, full house Everton played quite well and all the celebrations. Rooney doesn't remind me of anyone in particular but like all special players looks to have so much time on the ball. If he is dispossessed it doesn't affect him. I hope Moyes just plays him in the home games, hopefully with a fit Duncan Ferguson and a confident Radzinski (what a goal that was). Moyes is class in that he will change things as soon as they become apparent ie Le Tie & Graveson tiring. 4-3-3 can work as was proved in the 1st half.

Although there was a full house what a terrible atmosphere - it reminded me of visiting Sheff Wed in the 80's, the first stadium I went to that truly had no atmosphere. I know it's been like this for a long time now, gradually getting worse but a full house and you could hear the players. Embarrassing. Why is it? Not bevvied enough, embarrassed about singing or even shouting out opinions (my cousin was slagging Campbell off all game to Vic Reeves like silence when someone eventually stuck up for Campbell - brilliant a bit of an argument ensued which was entertaining). I don't go for the seats taking the atmosphere away - are Sunderland and Newcastle not all seaters. Idon't even go for the kids/women/new trendy fan thing because I reckon it's good Everton fans who take their kids and anyway there's always been kids - how did we start going? Women get just as passionate and Everton just don't attract trendy fly by night fans.....who'd willingly put themselves through (since Kanchelskis, Ferguson, Limpar) watching us unless they were born Everton. Anyway this is getting like a sociology lesson it's just that probably like many of you I love the great atmosphere Goodison still sometimes produces.

My favourite Everton song is one created when Andy King returned to Everton
on a pre season tour.
'Olly Olly Olly
With your balls in a trolley
And your dick tied up with some string
sitting on the grass
with a bugle up your arse
singing Andy is our King'
I think on the playing side this season a top 12 finish is feasible and I have faith in David Moyes who strikes me as a winner. Dave Cooney. (26/08/02)

Listen to All The Fans

One of your correspondents complained about political claptrap. I'm not sure which comments are being referred to. Out here in Australia I like to read as many different comments and viewpoints as possible. I don't have to agree with them, but I'll never learn anything unless I'm exposed to a variety of different viewpoints. Who knows we all might begin to see the world differently. In general the benefit of sites such as Blue Kipper is that we're exposed to viewpoints that we never find in the normal papers. Look at some some other websites to see what I mean. Meanwhile, I enjoyed Jay's drawings and hope that he'll do some more. All the best. James in Sydney (26/08/02)

Why we will win the League Championship ?

Either Everton or Tottenham Hotspur will win the Premier league championship this year !
How can I make such a bold statement as that ?…… well, let me explain.

It all goes back to 1984, Everton were doing rather well in the FA Cup after turning the corner and rescuing their season, and manager, from the drop and chop respectively.
On a cold night in January Inchy had rescued Everton from defeat at lowly Oxford. Oxford were in the Third division, but they would go on to win the league, and in successive seasons end up second division champions and first division contenders.

Howard Kendall appeared on TV saying that it was the Chinese year of the Rat, and he felt Everton could win the cup as they were skippered by Kevin RATcliffe !!……. If people hadn't already noticed he was on the bottle this should have served us notice.
But wait, Everton DID go on to win the FA Cup, and had recently appeared in the Milk cup final. They were also about to embark upon THE most successful year in the club's history….. Maybe there was something in this 'spookiness' after all.

The next season, 1984/85, Everton as FA Cup holders started the season by playing the opening game of the season against Tottenham Hotspur at home.
And despite the heavy defeat Everton went on to win almost everything they entered, including the League Championship, and the first of Howard's Manager of the Year awards.

And this is where it gets spooky again,……. the ONLY other post-war occasion that Everton had played Tottenham on the opening day of the season was in 1960/61. And in case you are not well up on your history of London teams, this was the season Tottenham won the League Championship and FA Cup double, thus becoming the first English team to achieve this feat !!

So, if history does repeat itself, one of the teams at Goodison on Saturday should go on to win the Championship.

Postscript:
If you are looking for any pre-war opening day meets, you will find a few; one each in the 1920's and the 1930's.
But perhaps the strangest meets were during the 1910's.
Everton versus Tottenham was a fixture on no less that 4 out of 5 seasons. And again the sequence is spooky….. they played each other at the start of the 1910,the 1911, and the 1912 seasons !, but not at the start of the 1913 season.
However, they resumed again the very next season by playing each other on the opening day of the 1914 season……………….and who won the league that season ?…………. EVERTON.

I rest my case. SMART ARRIDGE. (26/08/02)

Top Toffee Ale 'ouse

We drink in the St Francis de Sales before the match. Started some years ago when it was taking too long to get served in the Queens on the corner. Not much better in this place on match days, but at least there's more room to stand in line. All Blue on match days, mainly older crowd really(Awl bastards like me!), quite a few with kids.

My abiding memory of the place was a few seasons ago, the last of the really close relegation struggles under Howard (When Farrelly scored). Unusually when we got there half of the people were really pissed and singing their heads off, the rest of us were talking in a subdued way. I think we all felt our luck had finally run out, and this was it! My son, Chris was maybe 9 or 10 at the time, and I suppose couldn't understand the depressed, morose manner of us all around the table. We were talking as though we were on the Titanic, and the water was lapping around our ankles.

"Dad", he said with the wisdom of the innocent,"it's only a game"

I looked at him for a long time, then put an arm around him, stared off into the distance, and tried qietly to explain the way life is.

"No, son, it's more than that. Look around at these men. Lots of them have jobs they hate doing, or houses they hate living in, or wives they hate living with, or maybe all of those things. For some of them, maybe the one thing they've got is coming here on a Saturday, with thirty or more thousand others who feel pretty much the same way as them. It's a huge family with commons goals and dreams. If we get relegated, all that might start to fall apart. They'd have to endure endless ridicule from Kopites who they work with, or live next to. I dunno if I can take it. "

I looked up to see what effect my profound words would have had on my only son, a fourth generation Evertonian. Would it be just like an American film? Would he look up to me, choking back a tear, and say "I love you, dad". Reality kicked back in as I saw he was eating a bag of sweets and staring out of the window, pausing only to pick his nose now and again.

We finished our drinks and stood up. I remember taking a long and wistful look around, as if things would never be the same again.

We started walking up to the ground. As we got outside, although the streets were very busy (Maybe about 2.45pm) there was a deathly hush, as quiet as I ever knew it before a match, nobody even seemed to be talking. We walked on in silence almost all the way to the ground, when a few hundred yards behind a single voice rang out,
"Come on........Gimme an E".....(It was either a very public drugs deal or the start of a chant)

As it rolled up the road, the momentum and volume picked up....E-V-E-R etc etc etc, and it seemed as if thousands were singing.

We sang all the way to the ground, and we still singing as we got in the queues, with some of the old stewards joining in, and many a glassy eye all around. A moment that will live with me all of my life.

The rest of course, is history. As we came out of the ground we passed that old guy crying that the echo got the picture of and labelled 'Boo-hoo boys'. I said to my lad, "There, now do you see what it means?"

He said "yes" whilst rooting in his pocket for more sweets. I recall a few pubs that night, and we sang all night. I think I had a better night that night, than when we last won the cup, although the memory of both is somewhat hazy.

So yes, what the hell? I'll nominate is as a 'top toffee ale 'ouse'. Paul. (22/08/02)

Li Tie

When i heard that we got 2 chinease players with the Kejan deal i fought great 2 more bench wormers.
Couple weeks later i go and watch Rhinos testimonial and Li Tie was playing, at the end of the game i was amazed he was brilliant.
Then at the Tottenham game i thought he was man of the match and then went home to read that David Moyes felt he drifted out of the game.
I think Li Tie was the best player on the park and i question Moyes reason to bring him off.
From Blue nose Del. (22/08/02)

Moyesy

We think that moyes is the real deal this year, and is obviously not afraid to speak his mind when it comes to players ant there mistakes. I would also like to say that although pembo was outstanding yesterday he is still a first division quality player who will not hold down a place under moyses no nonsense approach.I would like to point out that when I am unable to get to the game the match reports are a great help they are in-depth, unbiased and intelligent thanks to the reporters. our favourite is the team of lads who write for the kipper as they install some humour into our sometime gloomy displays. nice one and keep it up. Everton top 10 finish. Smithzone. (22/08/02)

The Spurs Game

I'm not going to dwell on too many of the things that have already been said about the Spurs game, but there is at least one thing that I haven't seen mentioned.That is the fact that a simple tactical mistake cost us the 3-points.

Starting with 4-3-3 was a bold move, and Moyes has explained why he did that. The only time in the first half we looked in any kind of danger was when Spurs won the ball in midfield, they could easily switch the ball to
the flanks where they had a free man - especially as our whole midfield were chasing the ball, and leaving most of the middle of the field vacant.However, as we finished the half fairly well, I can understand why he
didn't change things at half time. For the first 5 or 10 minutes of the second half we had a couple of good situations and could have sewn the game up. But when we didn't make the breakthrough we started to get
over-run in midfield and it really seemed like only a matter of time before Spurs equalised.By the hour mark Moyes should have been looking at switching to 4-4-2 to redress the balance. Campbell needed to come off. Okay, maybe we wanted a target up front to hold the ball up - but Kev wasn't doing that. Gardner seemed a foot taller, and was winning everything in the air. Had we gone to 4-4-2 then, they probably wouldn't have got back into the game. In the end he did make the change, but by then we had already lost control of the game. I think that part of the problem is that there really are some things that a manager cannot see properly from ground level - and it doesn't surprise me that some managers chose to spend part of their time up in the stands. Okay, the result wasn't what we'd hoped for, and there were some things that really could have gone better, but there are a hell of a lot of positive things to come out of the game. Some of the newcomers to the first team really impressed, and the team spirit seems good. With so many new players around, did people really think it would all click into place on the first day? We have a younger team with a lot more
options available to the manager. Initial impressions are that the new signings have been good ones.

More importantly, this is exactly the sort of game that we have walked away from with nothing in the recent past. There's no reason why the team can't build on this first performance. Of course, only getting the one
point does put extra pressure on the Sunderland game - which we must view as another opportunity to pick up 3 points.I don't think we can really judge the team until the end of September. We have a relatively easy start to the season, and we should be looking to get a lot of points in the next 5 or 6 weeks. This should give us the confidence to take on some of the bigger sides and make sure that we are not looking over our shoulders later in the season. We aren't going to win the league this season, and nor should we. I'd settle for year on year improvement. Something that can be built on, rather than just a flash in the pan. Where are Ispwich now?
That's me done I suppose, Chris S. (22/08/02)

Wayne Rooney

Premiership 02-03 season has just started. After the opening game, I have a good view of our new season. Because we were able to notice young star Wayne Rooney is brilliant. Though he is only 16, he is equal to the Premiership football. (I wonder he and I are the same age!) We have looked to Blues to go up higher on the table, therefore we need more goals. However, I am sure that Rooney has a one of clues to make more chances and more goals. I can't help expecting him, and I am really looking forward to seeing Rooney and Ferguson up front. Hope he has a good season. Thank you. Mai (Japanese Everton fan) (22/08/02)