Double action window: hail and farewell
By
Mickey Blue Eyes

At the time of writing (just after the drawn away match at Boro) James Beattie has arrived, and Kevin Campbell and Tommy Gravesen have left. It is common for untalented tabloid hacks (that is, virtually all of them) to refer to this as a “revolving door.” Well, no, it isn’t. It is a double action window frame that opens inwards and outwards after adjustment. I like to get the architecture right and in context.

When it comes to this kind of thing I suggest you remember too that David Moyes knows considerably more about football business, abilities and personalities than you do. He won’t get everything right but it is a safe bet he’ll get comfortably more right than any number of fans will. Especially those who tell him what to pay and who to pay it to. That’s why he is manager of Everton Football Club and you earn a relative pittance doing whatever mundane thing it is you do. Uninformed opinions are one thing, the reality of business dealings quite another. Which is why all transfer gossip is simply a waste of time. The vast majority of it consists of shawled-up obsessed fishwives bickering over a garden fence between Melledrew Terrace and Melledrew House. Small wonder a sensible fan walks away from that hysterical nonsense shaking his head.

So, as fans, we are left with the part-time hobby of assessing what is gained and what is lost. And I have to say most fans I talk to are quite good at it, after their own fashion. Only a tiny number are members of the loony Melledrew Tendency and its odd paranoias.

In this case, according to David Moyes, it will be next season before we see the best of Beattie. Having viewed him in two games – admittedly both on TV – this makes sense. Obviously he doesn’t look fully match fit. We’ll see what he’s like after a lot more sessions of Moyesy’s training regime.

As we all know, Kevin Campbell’s goals helped save us from relegation a few seasons back and for that we will all remember him fondly. Quite rightly, most fans wanted him signed immediately on a long-term contract. Which happened. Then he got a serious ligament injury that almost finished his career but certainly succeeded in taking that important extra metre of speed off him. Which drastically affected his form. Which let in a half dozen or so north Liverpool BNP racist nazis and their hate-filled, disgusting farrago of poison, enough to encourage the more impressionable and stupid of our fans into racist barracking. As I have pointed out in previous opinion pieces, the code word is “lazy” for “nigger,” something that came to be confirmed much later by an unwitting hapless Ron Atkinson over an open microphone on TV. There’s no question the barracking affected Kevin’s form too. As his form fell away misery-mongers leeched on to it and attacked the very deal they had supported when Kevin was at the top of his form. Which meant they could attack virtually anybody at the club. There’s no logic or decency to any of it but, sadly, that is the way of some inadequate personalities. It was a shameful episode in our club’s history. The hoped-for partnership with Duncan Ferguson never transpired, probably for the same reason the Ferguson partnership with Alan Shearer at Newcastle never transpired. Me, I prefer to remember the Kevin Campbell who gave one hundred percent in everything, our first black captain, who scored vital goals at a time when we needed them badly. But of course once Moyesy arrived his days were numbered because of the stated need for younger players and his ever-decreasing pace on the ball. I will miss him greatly, and always think wistfully, “What if………”

And then The Gravedigger was gone as well, after five years, and in the middle of his best ever season for us. That’s a relative term of course. You could never be sure where you stood with Tommy Gravesen, except that he would confound you one way or another. He was just as capable of being absolute excreta as he was of a brilliant dribble, dead ball situation, or imaginative pass. From a fan’s perspective I doubt if I have ever seen a more infuriating player. Yet this season he has been a revelation when at his best, and quite inspirational with it. It isn’t too much to say he has been pivotal. And I never thought I would ever say that.

Now, of course all of this has necessarilly entailed a rethink of the team formation on Moyesy’s part. If more players come in it will mean even more of a rethink. The disruption might prove more decisive than our squad size. On the (slim) evidence of the Boro game it will mean that when we exercise pressure during our dominant spells, the lack of The Gravedigger might mean we lose points we might have won had he been in place. There’s a lot of “mights” in there and none of them are worth a shit. We have to deal with what we have, just as we did when Wayne Rooney opted to go elsewhere. If you want to mope and whinge in these circumstances for gawd’s sake stay away from my company. It’s a safe bet Moyesy would turn on his heel as quickly as I would.

The January “transfer window” is a double-edged sword. I am not at all sure it has many benefits beyond restriction of transfer activity by Chelsea and Manchester United as the season wears on. So it is a bit like the substitution laws. They could both do with a good overhaul, but there isn’t much point doing it piecemeal if the rest of the game’s organisation remains untouched.

Meanwhile, as I have said countless times in the past, the fans will have to get used to the realities of players’ freedom of contract. It means there is no such thing as “loyalty.” By ANYONE, period. Those who witter on about “loyalty” fail to grasp the realities of the society around them. Whether or not it is “desirable” is virtually immaterial. The reality is an employer-employee relationship and the necessarilly rough dealing it takes for either side to get what they want, or, more like, what they will settle for. If you want to return to the old retain-and-transfer situation I suggest you have a word with any professional player……………………and stand well clear of the reaction. One guess what it would be.

So the “transfer window” has opened. But has it wafted in any fresh air?

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