Aaaargh : SEASON REVIEW 2003-2004
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

Well, we’re all glad THAT one’s out of the way. What a coil of dog turds. Comment is virtually superfluous. The points total speaks mostly for itself as does the league position.

Actually, I chose my words carefully. Anybody can and everybody has chosen something a good deal more colourful to say. Usually it involves the kind of understandable profanity that would even lift the eyebrows of Quentin Tarantino. You can’t blame the swearers, just as you can’t blame anybody who says they won’t renew their season ticket. Madly, I intend to renew mine. Therein lies the dichotomy.

Of course it was all made so much worse by the relative achievements of last season. Nobody of any sense expected us to catch everybody else with their trousers down again this season but hardly anyone was prepared for the near complete collapse of form which marked out the period between August and May, especially in the closing games as it did last season. No question a repeat of this will see us relegated next season. And that could see a virtual terminal effect on the financial condition of the club.

Perhaps it was all summed up the Thursday before the Bolton home game when Moyesy sent the players home early through lack of commitment during training. Many of us want the worst guilty parties sent packing permanently. Given the money they earn we are entitled to at least some form of reasonable effort even in training sessions. Plainly, somehow Moyesy has to find a way to have a cathartic clean out. Needless to say the problem will be how to do it (even if he could) without having to endure the vagaries of a settling-in period. In my opinion if he manages to solve this one he will have achieved a miracle much greater than that of season 2002-2003.

The only relative playing successes were the players transferred inward by Moyes – Nigel Martyn, Joseph Yobo, Jamie McFadden and Kevin Kilbane, plus Wayne Rooney. The rest were largely a waste of space and money, a disgrace to themselves as much as anybody else. Small wonder Moyes was apparently forced into some odd playing choices that proved ineffective at best and counter productive at worst. What real choice did he have apart from near desperation at the bunch of malcontents who doubtless give him nightmares?

In some minor ways it was a reflection of the scant difference between any of the teams lying between fourth from top and fourth from bottom. There was a mere difference of ten goals scored between these two positions and only twenty-one points (seven wins). But this is no consolation and of no use to the future. It is statistics and nothing more.

The season was so bad and performances generally so poor there is next to no point in commenting on runs of form, such as they laughably were. The only outright pleasures were the opportunities to watch Wayne Rooney and Joey Yobo gain experience. Even that was coloured by the knowledge that their maturation is grossly affected by those around them. They wouldn’t be human were it otherwise. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust some of these players in the company of my dog, never mind their affect on England’s most promising talent since David Beckham.

So what now?

The pain of reality, that’s what, something the human species seems singularly incapable of absorbing and learning from. Get this straight:

1. THERE IS NO SUGAR DADDY IN THE WINGS, NOT WITH THE CURRENT CLUB DEBT, THE CATALYST OF WHICH WAS JOHNSON’S YEARS OF OWNERSHIP.

2. THERE IS NO MONEY TO BUY FIRST CLASS ESTABLISHED PLAYERS. LIKELY WE’LL GET STUCK WITH SOMEONE LIKE MUZZY IZZET.

3. THE ENTIRE ADMIN SYSTEM OF THE GAME SINCE 1992 HAS REDUCED IT TO AN INFLATIONARY PROCESS THAT MAY WELL EVENTUALLY DESTROY IT. THE GAME NEEDS SYSTEMIC REORGANISATION, NOT TINKERING AND CERTAINLY NOT ADDED INFLATIONARY INPUT. TAKE A LONG, SLOW LOOK AT WHAT’S HAPPENING IN ITALY.

In these circumstances whimpering and whining will get us precisely nowhere. Even if we change owners and board of directors we’ll still be faced with the same problems, as is everybody else in the division except Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United. Lower down the divisions the situation is only slightly better. No, it’s time for everyone to grow up, and quickly at that. The last thing we need is a bunch of carping clueless loonies spouting mad poison from the sidelines or in the padded cell of an internet message board. The sheer insanity of the situation was never better illustrated than the lunatic hatred directed against Bobby Robson and the pinkies’ unfortunate manager Who?llier, and Chelsea’s apparent determination to get rid of Claudio Ranieri.

The question ever fan of every club needs to ask themselves is this – Who, given the fortune, would bother to inject finance into any club where there is next to no prospect of profit and every prospect of persecution by paranoid fans incapable of understanding the nature of professional sports? Crazily, some of them have even begun to think all you need to do is tidy up the marketing department, change directors or owners, produce a plausible set of accounts and, hey presto! everything’s going to be alright. Well, no it isn’t. How long will it be before it gets through some fans’ heads and virtually all the media dickheads that that is precisely the attitude that got the game into its present state? How long ago is it since some ignorant blockheads were telling us that the “business plans” of Leeds, Ipswich, Sunderland and gawd know whoelse were the way to do it?

With that as background the wonder is that anyone sensible bothers to pay to watch the game at all. You might as well replace it with bear-baiting or a rat-pit.

In other essays I have described various factors which contribute to the present situation and which directly bear on our club’s present sad position. That is, the pattern of ownership, the place of profit, and players’ contracts. To this will have to be added the fans’ understanding and expression of what they want and what they consider to be the general good of the game. If they want more of the same, then you can count me out. I could leave the whole hysterical absurdity and the media leeches behind without batting an eyelid. Everyone will have deserved everyone else and the inevitable all-too-predictable consequences. The professional game simply won’t be worth having.

Where Everton Football Club are concerned there’s no question the future looks bleak from almost every angle. If the present system continues I haven’t a clue how we will extricate ourselves. The truth is, nobody has. Don’t trust anyone who gives you a plausible barrow boy manifesto. The only avenue open to us is to pick away at the problems. For the time being the hope has to be that David Moyes will reassert himself, get rid of the trouble makers and establish the kind of team he has always wanted – young, talented, enthusiastic and determined. After that he has to stand or fall on what transpires, at least those elements within his control. His quoted reaction after the City game hardly needs elaboration though it might well have zoomed straight over the heads of most peons.

Off the field the de facto owners, Paul Gregg and Bill Kenwright will likely go their separate ways after Gregg sells his shares. It is impossible to put a time scale on this but you can safely say Gregg can’t wait to get rid. His “investment” has probably halved in value if the shares prices are anything to go by. (Incidentally, anyone tries to offer you shares, ring a stockbroker and get the current price before agreeing anything. The “market” is full of self-styled spivs and ripoff merchants). Bill Kenwright will probably want to remain unless his other business interests get even more fraught. The rest of the board don’t really matter and never have, except where some of them are indebted to Paul Gregg. A change of ownership would probably push them further into the background or even right out of the door. A new owner would probably want a new CEO too. But whatever happens with ownership it won’t change the fundamental problems the game endures.

Cast your mind back just thirteen months. We were in the position other unlikely clubs are in now near the top. In thirteen months time the positions may be reversed. And if it were, would that make any difference overall, apart from enabling you to deceive your self that Everything’s Alright After All? As I said at the beginning, self-delusion plays a large part in human nature. This applies just as much to the top three as it does to the bottom three. If you listened to the noises coming from the next two at Newcastle and analfield you’d think Robson and Who?llier were some sort of evil cranks, whereas the cranks are really the ones who can’t or won’t understand the nature of sport, let alone professional sport. In an honest game nothing is guaranteed. All money provides is a competitive edge. It doesn’t guarantee success. Which is why I hope Milwall pull off a Cup Final win as unlikely as Wimbledon did over the pinkies twenty years ago.

If there is one man who can radically reverse the present circumstances it is David Moyes. But – FACT – he won’t have any money worth the name to play with. And – FACT – some of the players who have let him and us down so badly will still have their contracts running and thus be immovable. And – FACT – nobody wants to buy us, nobody completely honourable anyway.

Those are the facts of the season just finished. They are also the facts of football life. Deny them at the risk of your own sanity.

Me? I’ll be renewing my season ticket in the full knowledge that next season is likely to be yet again a long hard struggle with maybe the odd chink of light, and a very remote possibility that maybe, just maybe, the guilty players will try to salvage what’s left of their conscience and get us up to mid table. And I certainly won’t be paying any attention to the whining twerps who make things worse, not unless it’s to take the piss out of them. Someone has to do it, and very pleasurable it is too. It might turn out to be the only enjoyment we get next season.

In the meantime, enjoy your Summer and Euro 04. Whatever you do, don’t dress like a Summer Twat. That’s even worse than ending up in seventeenth position. (17/05/04)