Forget about the history under other managers. Look at the way the team and the players can play in the modern era — the run of good games last season, when Moyes was the manager; when the team was playing some attractive football and had some self-belief. But it proved to be far too fragile because it could not survive the blow of losing to Fiorentina and they have been crap ever since.

It shouldn't matter how old you are to recognise that THESE players under THIS manager can play far far better football than they are doing right now. That's the real issue — not this misty-eyed nostalgic twaddle.

I know I’m seen as ’a cock-eyed optimist’ but, seriously, Michael, weren’t there at least some signs of ’good football’ returning in the Standard Liege and Newcastle games?

Malcolm, good comment. Our history seems to be useful when it’s used to slag off the current players, manager or chairman but it’s ignored if we’re looking to the future. You can’t win this one and I think you’ll have to get your tin hat on.

You can’t support this club or the manager without getting it in the neck. Far from "misty-eyed nostalgic twaddle" I thought your comment was realistic and very, very far from romanticising the past.

The "support" our club has is embarrassing. Nobody seems to want to give the players a lift anymore. This attitude ("entertain me and I might cheer") stinks.

It’s not just at our club, I’ve seen this negativity at Spurs, Newcastle, Charlton and even Chelsea.

The thing is that every single one of us knows that sometimes a player responds to a kick up the arse and other times they respond to encouragement. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone trying to encourage one of out of form or less skillful players.

It’s a shame because this club will eventually gain a reputation for being a harsh climate for players.

To suggest the Liege game was an example of good passing play is a misnomer... if the opposing team stands off you for 45 minutes, then you are obviously going to have more time to knock it around. We did not accrue this advantage by merit, they gave it to us. And all we really did was pass it backwards and sidewards.

However, I agree with Michael that this team can play a hell of a lot better... but Moyes’s management is certainly not conducive to this at the moment.

A prime example of this is Neville is midfield... and he’ll be there again tommorow.

Great post. I have to agree.

Fully agreed, as you get older, you moan more — I’m noticing it now and I'm only 29. There’s a host of widely reported factors holding this club back and I think our increasingly negative fanbase is becoming one of them. John Gee spot on.

Ste, if we didn’t have such a negative manager, who uses negative tactics, we wouldn’t have an "increasingly negative fanbase". I find it funny that BK and Moyes are never labelled with "holding this club back" — it’s always someone else’s fault; this time the fans get the blame.

Only on 14 occasions in the last 63 seasons (since the war) have Everton finished higher than last term’s fifth — and one of those occasions was under Moyes! Indeed, even the idiot Dodd can claim some justification when you consider that we have finished lower than 10th no less than 30 times.

I don’t think Moyes is the most exciting manager we’ve had in all those years but he’s stopped us being a laughing stock!

Would I be right in assuming that those supporters who attended the Wimbledon game or numerous FA Cup ties, including the famous match against Stoke in '84, no longer attend the matches at Goodison?

Football is an entertainment and the crowd react to what is happening in front of them. Players are professionals and perform regardless of the behaviour of the supporters.

Also quiet stadiums are not new or exclusive to Goodison Park.

The season after we won the FA Cup, Joe Royle’s team often played in front of a silent gallery... until Kanchelskis inevitably scored.

Just because Evertonians don’t have the theatrical presence of some of our rivals don’t dismiss them as being disinterested.

Failing to win at the big stadiums since 1999 and losing most of your games at home to those same opponents so regularly, allied to early exits from Cup competitions, hardly inflames the most passionate supporter does it?

I would think that the Everton fanbase must be one of the most optimistic groups in the country — after all, how many of our rivals would be able to ’attract’ 35,000 most seasons despite not having a cat in hell's chance of winning a trophy?

Well said, young Malcolm! I do admit that some of us old stagers look back with ’rose tinted.’ We certainly lose all perception of time between the successes and only the glory games linger in the memory.

Following Everton post-war has certainly been anything but continual joy and I guess I’ve seen so much crap over the years that I’ve become intolerant of it these days.

Like other veterans, I treasure most the flowing football under Carey and Catterick and just wish it could have always been like that.

Now let me tell you about Alex Young..........

It’s not the silence from the crowd that annoys me, although it does at times, but the willingness to complain. The point someone made about them being professionals and therefore immune from abuse is ridiculous. I’m a professional and, if I had someone shouting abuse at me, I know that I’d struggle to perform to the best of my ability. Why should a footballer be any different? They are still human beings, albeit handsomely remunerated ones.

I’m 48 and take my hat off to you for your well written and accurate post. Many much older than you could learn a lot from your perspective.

I agree we have made progress but I also hold the view we have no right to be top 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10. To shout our motto as some do is silly......... like most mottos, it is a motto of hope. Not one that can allow us to blame anyone and everyone if it doesn’t come true all the time.

Our history is something to discuss, enjoy or lament. But it does not give the players an extra skill, the manager extra insight or BK an extra quid.

Sadly we are not a club with a recent legacy that makes players queue up to play for us nor have we money to re-invent our history like Man Utd (remember: Div2).

We are what we are in 2008 and I hope, like you no doubt, that we can add something to our history that you can enjoy with your kids.

It is tempting at times to rattle off a post on this site slagging off someone or even developing a now semi psychotic stance against the manager.

But from the sense of your e-mail I suspect you won’t do this and this gives me faith in the younger fans... which is rare in older sods like me.

Plus ca change etc.

One of the benefits of being that bit older is to be able to say with a degree of certainty that nothing has changed since the 60s. Royle? A dog of a centre forward. Kendall? Can’t pass to a blue shirt.

And as for the Goodison roar ... sure, at big games at exciting moments. And sometimes not even then: I remember the 71 semi final at Old Trafford when the Everton contingent closely resembled a Derby and Joan outing to a particularly strict library ... till we scored.

Criticism? I’m surely not the only one who remembers cushions hurled on to the pitch in their hundreds after certain games.

Perhaps the truth is that fans identify with the club motto too closely; perhaps the average Evertonian is simply too smart to suffer dross gladly. Whatever ... but certainly nothing has changed that much.

One further thing is for sure. Nothing has ever changed at Everton for the better until the fans have made their voices heard, and if our current crop of fragile players, the manager and Chairman can’t cope with that, tough.

Have to say, even as a Moyes sceptic, I enjoyed your post and it's timely reminder of our less than illustrious post-war history. I think it’s too easy — and slightly deceptive — for the likes of Tony Marsh to give the impression that pre-Moyes it was all flowing football when that’s clearly not so. But most of us would just like a little more creativity more often — it might even bring with it better results!

"Nothing has ever changed at Everton for the better until the fans have made their voices heard."

Examples?

Malcolm, I consider your comments as the reasonable voice of the football fan.
While accepting that there are always exceptions to any rule, I have divided the Everton support base into three age groups.
Group one, under 21
Group two 21-50
Group three over 50

At 70 years of age, I naturally fall into the latter group.
I believe that the most critical supporters are to be found in group two, the oldest of these would have been 8 in 1966; 12 in ’70, 26 in ’84, 27 in ’85, 29 in ’87, and 37 in ’95. The youngest would be 29 years behind them, and the only success they will have witnessed is the ’95 FA Cup win.
It could be argued that they could be expected to be the least patient, because where they lag behind group two, it’s even worse for them when you add the 1963 championship season. I was actually 25 years old when they clinched that title, and 28 when they lifted the FA Cup in ’66, waiting patiently since 1948 [as a 10-year-old.]

I believe that the advancement of years brings with it a tolerance, and I don’t experience the highs and lows in quite the same manner as in my younger days, but as I say there are always exceptions to the rules.

I meant to say that the group one supporters would be the least patient, sorry for any confusion.

Malcolm, you have chosen a very apt title. According to Teletext you will have to be patient. Moyes has said if this team doesn’t get back to playing like they did last season, he will be chasing one half of them, and he will start reassembling his team. It's taken him nearly 7 years to get to this stage, so I can see him asking for an extension to his contract in 2013. God forbid if ever that happens — it's purgatory now, watching him dither away merrily.

It means he will be able to build a new side around Captain Marvel!

Interesting post, Malcolm. I would take issue with your point that we’ve only won 2 FA Cups in that period though. Do you want to try a recount, or let us know which of 1966 and 1984 has slipped your mind?

I have to admit that I overlooked the 1984 Cup win, which was a bit daft in that’s why we were in the European Cup Winners the following season.

Mike McLean, I find your comments strange to say the least. Royle a dog? Kendall can't pass, 100s of cushions? Either you are a wind up or suffer from dementia, Kendall must have been bad as he is often referred to as part of the holy trinity. I remember Joe Royle's debut at Blackpool and saw most of his games... did you?

A quick example: unbeaten Leeds come to Goodison and Joe destroyed Jack Charlton — some dog! As for the cushions, yes, I saw them thrown... but 100s? Behave yourself — and it was ONE game.

At the 71 semi, I could not fault our fans — in fact, in any away game they are first class. Had you said about Goodison fans being quiet, I might have agreed. I think you are a sad man. Oh by the way, I have been a season ticket holder for 50 years in case you think it's someone who is too young to remember.

Why even mention Newcastle in your post?? They have never won any worthwhile trophy!!

Ged Simpson talks a lot of sense and I know we are what we are in 2008 but why should this be? Can we not aspire to greater things?

Tomorrow, if I was the Yak, or Pienaar or Artetea or Lescott or Fellaini, I’d look at that Arsenal team and I’d think, I’m as good as any of them. I’d think this day is never going to come round again so I’m going to fucking well show them.

Football is going to change. If our team play the game properly our turn will come.

Good post and a fairish point..

But, like running the 4-min mile, nobody could; a lot tried and came near... once it was done and the mental barrier broken, everybody and his brother was into it. Pre-Bannister the record went in tenths of secs for years prior; then, from '54 to '56, it went down 4 secs.

The whole point, young ones, is that the oldies HAVE seen it; we KNOW it can be done... AND If we are to be somewhere between 17th and 5th (as may be the case) then let us at least do it playing entertaining football. Rather than this one-dimensional "keep it tight and try and pinch one".

My theory is the whole School of Science thing was a way of convincing ourselves that, except for those very few years when we actually did win something, we were happy to be entertained by watching some very skillful football and it would be our turn next season.

Don’t forget, that football is and always has been a business, but it sits firmly in the entertainment section. There can only be one winner.

There is only one Oscar for best film or actor, but there are plenty of other films and plenty of parts in those films... And every year there are plenty of films worth watching that are crowd pleasers, which never get within a stretch limo of even a sniff of nomination, but the punters come out at the end having ENJOYED the ride — when was the last time we could say that?

At the moment, we are watching one of those Polish films about death in black and white with lots of flash backs, dirge like sound track and subtitles.

Never mind the Neville Brothers, I’ve seen the Charlton Brothers.

And right now I’d settle for the Marx Bros — at least I’d come out having been entertained for 90 mins.

@ Roy

Missing the point of the post. Not unusual on this board. Let me be a little clearer: the point was to note that little has changed: Royle, Kendall and dare I say, even Young came in for some quite pointed criticism during their time. I was never an admirer of Royle, as it happens but couldn’t fathom why sections of the crowd got on his back. Cushions ... yes, in their hudreds and game after game ... largely from the patrons in the main stand.

Evertonians have always whined; we continue to whine. If, and hopefully it doesn’t, the situation gets worse, look forward to declining gates as part two of the scenario unfolds ... true blues voting with their feet.

Tha’s the way it is at Everton as a glance (time consuming I know, but it will help you avoid historical gaffes) at any newspaper archive of the period shows. Memory isn’t always a reliable tool.

The patient Evertonian has just fallen off his hospital trolley and died....

I well remember the long wait of 15 years between the 1970 and 1985 titles. The difference now: under the current ownership the wait will be infinite. I’m (impatiently) awaiting the arrival of a billionaire owner; it’s our only hope.