The Mail Bag
An apology
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Dear fellow Evertonians
I feel I must apologise for ruining your Saturday afternoons, sunday evenings, whatever. The reason for this apology comes from when I realised this weekend, that I am a jinx on Everton.
For many years I've watched Everton lose and play badly either at Goodison, various away grounds or on tv, but never before has my jinx been so profound as our last 2 games.
Living in the Netherlands, I get every single Everton game live on tv and I've watched all our games thus far this season and we've been terrible. Against Man U, I was so demoralised, I turned it off just before we scored.
I turned it back on 10 minutes later to find out we had scored and were all over them. Then, slowly, passes went astray and it was back to the usual hoofball.
I turned off after three-quarters of the match against West Ham in absolute disgust and rage. Turns out that immediately after I had turned off, we scored, and again, and again. I found out the final score on this site afterwards.
So here it is... can I never watch Everton ever again? Do I have to take one for the team? I'm not going to watch our next game as an experiment, it's a stupid suggestion I know, but so is Phil Neville in midfield.
Dean Johnson, Posted 10/11/2008 at 18:03:46
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I sympathise with those who cannot bear to watch our team struggling to string more than two passes together while being put to the sword by teams to whom it comes easy.
Dean Johnson may well believe that his watching is a jinx yet I have a different opinion.
From 12,000 miles away it is my absolute concentration, will power and power of positive prayer that brings our success.
There can be no other way to explain how in recent games we managed to drag victory from the gaping jaws of certain defeat.
Is it a combination of Dean not watching and my white knuckled perseverance that does the trick or does the truth lie with those hardy souls who actually go to the ground?
I do have a question for you:
I?m moving to Amsterdam soon - not sure what kind of TV provider I?ll get. Do you have the Sport1 package, or did you import Sky? And are you happy with the service provided? Of course, other Holland-based toffees are allowed to answer as well!
Cheers Dean!
COYB
My own superstition was that we played well when I wasn’t wearing anything Everton related on match day... but even that doesn’t work now so I’ve got my Everton undies back in action!!!
Thanks for the laugh. Dunc
Then when we got in another rut I looked for something else, now I buy, OJ, two sausage rolls, an eccles cake, The Mirror and don?t wear my Everton shirt to the match any more, but have to wear my Timberland boots, a polo shirt and some jeans, they are all individually lucky.
I have since joined the merchant navy and have a theory that we?re better when I am in the southern hemisphere. I listen to the games on the BBC World Service and have to wear the same outfit to listen to the games, unfortunately I can?t get the same food and drink!
What we need to do is harness your power & use it wisely. On Sunday please watch the game as normal until about the 40 minute mark. By this point the hopeless frustration & terrible rage should be building within you. We had a previous case of something similar with another Evertonian David Banner, during the Smith era but his symptons were more destructive & you wouldn?t like him when he?s angry!
Anyways, I?m digressing here, just before the anger takes hold, switch the TV off & on twice. This should result in a phycological two-nil lead at half-time that Boro? are too shite to come back from, so Job Done!
It's up to you if you watch the second half but personally I wouldn?t bother as Moyes fills midfield with right backs & plays midfielders & strikers out of position, in a negative attempt to hold on.
We will be monitoring your progress closely from our lab? in an attempt to find an antidote to hoofball.
Regards - Professor Williams
This is similar to "...I went to put the kettle on and we scored..." 12 cups of tea later, having disproved the theory, I started on the "...when I went to the toilet we scored..." 12 cups of tea later...
Any chance you could move to Kirkby and see what impact you have there...
Well done...
Sport 1 normally covers all the Prem games; however, on a Saturday it can get a bit tight as they have 8 channels to cover all their games/sports. Occasionally if there's a couple of German games, a big golf/tennis tournament and there is more than 4 games kicking off at 3pm, then 1 or 2 may get bumped but they tend to be West Ham/West Brom ? whoever's name is last on the fixture list basically.
Normally you get English comentary as well, if your bothered. Well worth the 15 euros, when you add Italian and Spanish. Also has all CL games for next season ;0)
Erik - Sport 1 on UPC - I get phone, interweb and all tv and sports (no films) for 86 euros a month. Absolute bargain considering there is wall-to-wall A-team every day!!.
I also agree with the comments about Everton being part of your life. It certainly is, and always will be, but I certainly need to try the trial seperation, just the 1 game mind!
As someone said, maybe I?ll just watch the redshite and get them relegated instead! :-)
COYB!!!!
I started right outside Saint Anne St police station and was just coming up to Walton Lane when a black Maria transit van pulled up alongside me and the copper who was driving asked me why I was running. I told him why (as I continued running) and they sped off laughing but I continued all the way home.
Anyway for those who cannot recall the replay, we won with Kevin Sheedy netting a fantastic twice-taken free-kick. I did not have to do this again back then as we generally beat everyone in sight anyway and I will not be doing it with this present team since that would require more miles than Forrest Gump ran.
I also sacrifice virgins but they are hard to come by in Walton.
I'm not sure if you are the only jinx... the last 2 weekends, I missed the games on TV as I was travelling both times. Had to call and ask a friend about the score. Maybe it's me....
When me and the wife watch the games that are televised, I always sit on the same side of the couch...coz I'm superstitious about it... COYB
I tell you, the amount of wooden spoons she gets through is incredible.
Being the only ?Evertonian in the village?...I usually watch the games accompanied by a gaggle of Manc and Shite supporters..
Putting them through the torture of watching us is usually my lucky charm.... that and my ?85 NEC shirt which I wear like a whale that's swallowed a waterbed!
You must have drank a Micky Finn that day ? cos Sheedy scored his twice-taken free kick in the GP game. I went the replay at Portman Road. Sharpy scored a pen conceded by Russell Osman (I don?t think he?s Leon?s dad!) but anyway a great post. Keep running!
So I put it to all of you. Do you want them to conceivably win or lose with style or win "ugly"?
Got to go. I have to take my medicine now.
But my claim to being a jinx was in respect of Liverpool. My dad, being a red, had a season ticket in the Kemlyn Road stand in the 60s along with his mate who two or three times a season couldn?t make a match because of his shift work at Octel or Odex in Ellesmere Port ? can?t remember which. Anyway, muggins me used to take his ticket to watch the Reds but everyone in the stand knew that I was a Blue. Whenever, I turned up Liverpool either drew or lost ? which even in those days was pretty unusual. I would get some pretty strong (but good natured) abuse because everyone knew something untoward was going to happen when I turned up. The best moment was when Liverpool played Burnley one season. I?m sure that Liverpool were 3-nil up and everyone thought that the jinx had been broken ? but back game Burnley to score 3 times and draw the match! Please some statto confirm when that was ? probably around 1968, I would guess. I was also at Anfield for the famous screened FA Cup Derby when Bally scored the winner at Goodison!
Anyway, eventually the jinx faded in the 70?s and now the only time that I go to Anfield, which is for the Derby, the RS normally win at our expense. Maybe it?s payback time!
And then we scored 3 once I?d stopped.
During our fabulous period of the 80s I had a watch that cost me £1.99 from a petrol station. I loved that watch so much I actually gave it a name, William. I am convinced to this day that our demise started when William stopped working, in the middle of 1987.
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