A lot has to do with taking your kids to the games. If you just leave it to them watching the telly they will undoubtedly be influenced by Sky and we all know how much Sky love those Sky 4 and Citeh. Everton get treated very much like an afterthought. If your kids go to Goodison with their dad then it will be in their blood. I have always been an Evertonian but I didn’t know what it meant as a kid until I went to my first game.

Hi Chris, I agree with you - I think the problem is called Sky.
Anyway, was your lad at FJSC? — mine started a few weeks back as well and is loving it.

I think Alan has hit the nail on the head. Kids today are spoilt for choice via media - be it live matches, internet sites, magazines etc. Naturally, the media will focus on the clubs who generate the most interest and thus influence those watching/reading.

Whether we like it or not, and whether it is correct or not, the media will choose to focus on a team who have spent hundreds of millions on high profile, ready made superstars rather than focus on a team slowly building year on year by spending within their means.

The important thing for me is the calibre of fans that this generates. I was brought up in a family of blues to love Everton. As such, no matter who plays in the team, which league we play in, etc, I will passionately support Everton. It is an unbreakable bond.

Can you say the same for those people who "support" Chelsea, Man City as a result of their spending? How many Leeds and Newcastle fans do you hear about these days?

One Evertonian..........

Chris, it’s annoying when kids don’t know what they like, this is because they get fed larger clips of the big 4 (& now City probably) & Spurs — the media love them, they were the commentary yesterday on both ’Talksport’ & ’5 Live’... I ask you.

Typical example of us being ’fed’ again was last night’s Match of the Day, who just HAD TO SHOW an immensely edited account (due to Sky having it live no doubt) of the Man U/Sunderland game FIRST on the programme.

Last week the live League Cup game was again Utd v Wolves when there was plenty other more interesting games to choose from, not least the planners could have taken a chance on Hull with home advantage perhaps knocking us out.

It’s the nature of the beast I’m afraid, but still very annoying. I don’t even make an effort with the big 4 fanzine ’football focus’ these days. COYB.

Not being funny here, but your lad, at 4-years old, is just parroting you. No kid of his age even has the concept of what it is to be a football supporter, he was just trying to please you. If you were a Liverpool supporter, your kid would have said the same thing about Liverpool. Wait until he’s seven or so and then come back with a post about how proud you are.

And that is why one blue is worth 20 of the other lot :). Actually all my family are reds,and I became a blue when dad used to make me watch the derby games on tv trying to get me to support Liverpool.

Give him his due, when he realised what a special little boy he had, he decked me out in Everton kit and wallpapered my room with EFC and went out and bought me an Everton duvet... ah the memories!

I just asked my little girl whos 4 and she said Everton... my lad who's 6 says he supports the one who drives the vodafone car (Lewis Hamilton) — his mum works for them!! Clearly brainwashed... I've some work to do with him yet.
COYB today!!

I think a lot of the younger generation (7-10) are just neutral football fans nowadays and that irks me big time especially when I see the kids in Barcelona, Real Madrid and spain kits playing football in the parks even though they have no family who supports or links to those teams.

I’ve always been a blue and I didn’t need my dad taking me to games to convince me. I was in love with Everton well before my first match. They are my family team and I will always spend hundreds of pounds on season tickets and shirts. Sadly, I think less children are feeling that way about their local teams nowadays and see football as a brand which they collect different kits for.

I think a lot of it will have something to do with the latest football computer games such as FIFA and Pro evo soccer.

The computer manufacturers get carried away and will have the big money signings as superstars with the best stats. The likes of Lescotte and Barry will suddenly become twice as good as they were on last year's game just because they have gone for big money.

Young kids playing their mates will want to win and have the best team and so they will pick the team with the 5 star rating, no doubt Chelsea and probably even Man City will have the best stats in the newest editions of the games, if he didn't even know the name of Man City then it is likely he is playing Pro Evo Soccer because I don't think they have the rights to have the real names of the teams on the game.

The kids are too young to realise that just because a team looks good on paper, that doesn't mean that they are a good team in real life.

When I was a kid the only teams I knew about were Everton and Liverpool. Maybe that’s because these were the two teams that won everything though (as well as them being my local teams)!

This post has got me thinking about one of my very first memories.

Both clubs did an open-top bus tour of the city on the same day — must have been 1984 — so I’d have been 3! We booed Liverpool and cheered Everton! It’s really hazy this... I’ve no idea where we watched them but based on what I think it looked like it must have been Camp Hill.

Can anyone confim this / rejog my memory. Did they do the tours on the same day in ’84 ... and did it go through Camp Hill?

It’s because:-

a) They’re wools
b) They’re from families who aren’t really into football


Anyone can have an Everton trackie or kit — doesn’t necessarily make them a supporter (there are lots of kids who have Milan, Inter trackies etc.)

Just because a father supports one team doesn’t necessarily mean the son has to support the same team.

My parents are from Cheshire. When I eventually got into football, I supported Everton in the 85 Cup Final because my late grandfather was a succesful Man City player and my dad was a Man U supporter. My brother went from supporting Liverpool, to Tottenham to Man City and my two younger half brothers support Newcastle and Fulham.

I expect my dad might enjoy the football more if one of his 4 sons supported Man U but he’s happy that we all love the game and he gives us much banter as all 4 of us :)

A link about the kids - brilliant - which means we can all get subjective and irrational (again) , excellent - I think the one thing about seeing kids at any match outside a ’big four’ game is that they are following their own deep traditions of their own clubs and their families. I love going to away games at Stoke or Portsmouth (and even non league matches) and seeing kids proudly wearing their shirts. Living in Brighton, my kids have been proud to be the only blue noses in their schools and have slowly developed their rebukes to the sky supportes they are surrounded by. Starting sixth form college my daughters latest is as follows:- " they were laughing at me when I said i supported Everton. So I said to each of them, ’how long have you been supporting (Manure, Chelski, Gonners, shite) and they would say ’ since I was 8, or since I was 10’. So I says, ’I’ve been supporting Everton since 1878 when my great great grandad went to watch them at anfield and then my great grandad and then my dad and now me and my brother - so we were born blue, its in our genes. Now go away and do some homework and when you have something proper to say come and speak to me about football, nob’eds".
How cool is she ...

I believe I am a true advertisement for statement about us Evertonians being ’born’.

I started out my life, god forbid, as a supporter of Liverpool... sorry, dad, I mean the Shite. My dad came from a strong blue heritage, he was an Evertonian as was his dad, he even attended Gwladys St Primary School. I was born and, as you can imagine, he wanted to pass on his love for the Blues but unfortunately came unstuck.

With complete respect and admiration, I can say that he not only allowed this insult to play out before his very eyes but also encouraged it, and I know now that he did not worry that my ’blue blood’ would one day out. He took me to Anfield, dressed in a Liverpool strip, holding my hand and no doubt having a little giggle to himself inside at the thought that this was somewhere I would one day come to detest.

Then, one day after my grandad being quite un-well for a long period of time, he asked me if I would attend a game at Goodison Park with them. I went... and well, the rest is history.

I shouted from start until the finish, with some of the older Evertonians whispering words of encouragement and telling me the things to shout, the look of pride beaming from their faces even though I wasn’t their son but you see, I was, well maybe not 'son' but certainly extended family.

This is the point, we are a family and I felt right at home straight away. The first thing I did when I got home was to bin my Liverpool kit, much to my mum's obvious consternation (my dad was smiling and telling her it was the right thing for me to do) and I was marching around the house singing as much as my horse little voice would allow.

I know for definite that we truly are born... so a word for John Dyvbad, no matter what age the little boy is, if he says he loves the blues then you can bet your bollocks that he means it, 100%.
COYB’s

Gareth H - no it was Redgate Rovers. I actually played for both when I was younger so it was a toss up between the two.

John Dybvard - bollocks mate. I was a blue from birth and expect my kids to be so too. My lads favourite player is Fellaini, he ain’t mine and I actually like the away kit, sadly enough. So clearly my son wasn’t parroting me.

Mark Stone — it was 85-86. It was after the shite did the double over us and it was pre-arrranged beforehand. Reidy wouldn’t go on it as he was so pissed off. I actually also had to travel back from Wembley that year with a load of gobshites and that was pure hell.

Andrew McLean — I suggest that your family get mental help mate!!

I have 3 sons. The eldest isn't into football at all and calls it "the F-word", which gets me into trouble with the mother in law from time to time (Daddy keeps using the F-word granma!).

The youngest one supports Chelsea and Brazil — the first because his school mates do and the second cos he has their kit from a holiday.

The middle lad is a madder blue than I am. He’s 10 and plays football very well. All his mates are Chelsea, Man U or RS but he was chosen, after a brief flirtation with Panathanaikos (see Brazil kit above) when he was around 6. I told him he could support any team he liked but would have to sleep in the shed if he chose the RS but he never even paused to think about it. He is proud to be blue and knows more about the team than I do (apart from ridiculously claiming that Cahill should be dropped for Fellaini, humph!).

We live in West Sussex so the tempation to support "more successful" teams is there but he is a real Blue and, I’m confident, always will be!

Being brought up in Wallasey, the first thing I remember about football was being given an Everton Strip when I was about 7 or 8, (around 1960) and then being taken to Goodison for my first match, which was against West Brom, we won 4 - 2 and that was it! I can always remember the crowd and the atmosphere, it was amazing!

My family weren’t football people at all though and the only reason my dad bought the blue strip instead of the red one was cos he liked the blue better!! Lucky escape or wot!!

Alan Clarke is spot on... until I was taken to my first game (aged 7), I was just a kid who wore the blue shirt given to me at Christmas!

My 13-year-old is the only Evertonian in a school full of Wolves and Villa supporters. He had a formal "de-merit" today for entertaining his classmates with a fully choreographed rendition of Knock Kneed Chicken.