Season 2011-12
The Mail Bag
Pride of the city?
53 Comments: I thought I would move away from the speculation of the transfer window, and move on to a question I've always wanted to know from fellow Evertonians.
I have lived in Liverpool for 3 years from university. One of my mates, a big fan and a season ticket holder, came up with something interesting. He said that out of the teams to win the league, he would prefer Liverpool, our greatest rivals to win the league, rather than Man Utd. He thought this for the good of the city, rather than just think solely of the football clubs.
I would never think this, because I have not been brought up in Liverpool. I have been brought up by my Dad to hate Liverpool (the club) and always be happy if they are not doing very well.
But I thought this viewpoint from my mate was interesting, and just wondered what fellow Toffeewebbers thought. Is there still pride for Liverpool, the city? Would people rather Liverpool win the league rather than Man Utd, just so Liverpool would get one over Manchester? Or, like me, do we all enjoy Liverpool not doing well?
Ben Jones, Posted 08/07/2011 at 22:58:24
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I could never say I hate Liverpool fans though, as family and friends are supporters of them.
When he was younger, my dad and his mates, a mix of Blues/Reds, used to go to whatever team was playing at home (if they didn't have away tickets). I believe he even went to watch Liverpool at Wembley, because of 'pride for the city'.
One of the greatest moments of my TV football watching life was Michael Thomas clipping the ball past Grobelaar at Anfield for Arsenal to pip them for the title. I've always had a soft spot for Arsenal and Man Ud since those times ? they had a knack of turning the feckers over that we couldn't manage.
Irrational really because I know decent reds and the real problem is how shit we are.
Still, I can't stand the club and wish them nothing but failure.
Let's not forget all that 'Merseypride' nonsense was started by The Echo, when suddenly for a few years we were better than them, so The Echo called for us to join up together and ride on the backs of our glory. The minute they started winning again, suddenly the 'Merseyside' tag vanished.
The odds are about the same, I think.
My mother and her family are from Liverpool, and whilst some of her uncles and cousins etc are reds, I was always told stories of my grandfather sticking blue wreaths and rosettes on their red doors (they lived in the now semi-abandoned areas of Anfield) just to annoy them.
As they say, I support two teams, Everton and whoever is playing Liverpool that week.
They're quick to celebrate RS supporters but there not so quick in admitting guilt, and it wouldn't do the City any good anyway imo, Evertonians would still go the match and RS fans in the main would still need a map to find Anfield.
If there is no benefit to Everton Football Club then there is no benefit.
My Dad did it regularly and I tried it myself a few times, going with my red mates. Yes, you could have them in those days... but now I would rather see a team managed by Hitler, with Ian Brady up front, Myra Hindley on the wing, and Ian Brady in goal win the Prem than that shower of shite.
I have nothing but contempt for that arrogant shower, and hope they fail in whatever they do.
The best time for the city, in football terms, was the mid- to late-80s when both teams dominated English football. The worst time for the city is especially now when both teams are unsuccessful and the Trafford/Manc/London clubs are successful.
Evertonians can be hateful of Liverpool because they have been more successful than us. This is not Liverpool's fault but Everton's fault for not competing with them. Kopites probably hate Evertonians because of the bitterness we show because of our lack of relative success and ambition. The rivalary during the mid-eighties was fierce but with mutual respect.
Yeah, Right.
Read the examples in this topic as to why they are the dregs and add a thousand more.
As for bitter, there's none more bitter than them.
Now obviously we all know that it is bollocks and we (increasingly) despise each other!
Even back when I was a kid (too long ago), every year I would proudly carry my new Everton bag to school in September and within a week some sly redshite knob-ead would've written "are shit" or the like on it! I always narrowed it down to some kid or other that never went to any matches but enjoyed being associated with the RS's greater success in those days.
The point is: most of them are loud-mouthed, smug, footballingly naive gobshites that have tried their best to make many of our lives a misery for years! No wonder relations are becoming strained.
So Ben, to answer your perfectly reasonable question: No, I would rather see anybody else win the Premier League. Can I also add that if they went bust (yes, we were all praying for it earlier in the year) or at least did a River Plate and got relegated, then I can go on record now as saying that I would buy every single one of you a pint (or five)!
Come on you blues... Fuck the red-shite!
It seemed as though whenever we won anything (which, believe it or not, we used to once), it was for the pride of Merseyside... but, when Liverpool won trophies, it was for the pride of the city and the club itself.
You need reminding of a few things:
- Emlyn Hughes and his squeaky Everton are tragic comment;
- Banned from participating from the European Cup because that lot couldn?t behave themselves;
- The fat waiter's comment about us being a 'small club'.
I will never be one of these touchy feely fans that want to embrace my neighbours; football is tribal whether you like it or not. I would never advocate violence towards the fans of another club, but to say that you would like them to be successful for the sake of the city! NEVER!!!
1) When LFC win something, people have to go to work the next day and be around them, or drink with them, or live with them. When MUFC win something, you have to listen to a couple of calls on TalkSport etc about it.
2) When LFC win something, our support and catchment reduces, reducing our income from tickets, shirts etc for the future. Up until the 1960s it was 80% - 20% in Everton's favour regards support in the city; by the 70s it was 60% - 40%; by the 90s it was 50% - 50%. Since a certain night in 2005, I warrant it's about 70% -30% to them.
If United wins something, it has no effect on us.
I'm a Blue, my two little lads are Blue, and the missus is a converted Blue after having no interest in the game till we met in 2000 and she soon realised that John and Everton where linked at the hip.
My sis on the other hand is a redshite, so are her separated husband and her two sons who are named after players.
We have an unwritten rule where we don't discuss football when we meet as we end up going for each other; Derby games are the worst.
Anyway, I've taught my oldest to shout "you stink of poo and wee" at any Redshite who walks up the street and I'm happy to refer to them as "King Kenny's Kunts".
I hate LFC and all it stands for and that will never ever change. If that fucking awful "Walk Alone" song comes on the TV, I exit the room or smash the telly pronto.
They have a pact with Satan ? that's not a good thing...
She is however of that generation that went to Anfield if she couldn't get to our away games. As a kid I watched Northwich Vics or Witton Albion when I couldn't get to an Everton match.
My father-in-law, who is nearly 89, is a lifelong blue but always says that he likes to see Liverpool do well too and will support them against anyone except Everton.
I've supported LFC in European Cup/Champions League finals, but that was because they were the English team (I've supported Manure, Forest, etc for the same reason) rather than because they were from Liverpool. In any other match, I hope that whoever they are playing will hammer them and, like most Blues, I was hoping that they'd go into administration and receive a points deduction last autumn.
My nephew, who has grown up in an era in which to be a Blue was to invite ridicule from the other lot, absolutely loathes them and wants them to lose, whatever the circumstances.
I think it's a generational thing: my father-in-law grew up in a more sporting era (he still says "It's only a game and every club has its turn at the top") when the two clubs were more or less on an equal footing; I grew up during a period when we have, albeit too briefly, sometimes been on top... but my nephew has only known comparative failure. I think this is reflected in our attitudes.
I haven't lived in Liverpool for over forty years now, though my wife and I still have family there ? many of them RS (though comparatively decent and good humoured ones) and, sadly, I can't get to Goodison very often.
We live in the South of England and I sometimes go with my sons-in-law and grandsons to watch Southampton. I can assure you that, whatever the feelings between blues and reds in Liverpool, it's as nothing compared with the hatred between Saints and Pompey fans. Some of you may remember the celebratory pitch invasion staged by Pompey fans a few years ago when their own team's defeat resulted in Saints' relegation from the Premiership. Can you imagine that happening at Goodison or Anfield?
Not for me though, the only footy I watch is Everton and as has been said before I only support 2 teams, Everton and whoever is playing against the RS.
I have been to Anfield though and not to a derby game but to see the greatest player who ever wore a blue shirt in my lifetime after we sold him to Arsenal.
I remember I was sat at the lights on Ormskirk Road by the racecourse when a car full of reds pulled up alongside me... it was a European night. One of them wined the window down and shouted "Can you direct me to Anfield please?" Typical glory hunters I thought, so I directed them to Goodison.
Growing older, you would expect such extreme and admittedly childish actions to now seem stupid... In fact, I have never felt more like repeating it on a regular basis than at any time before!
Not only do we have to still stomach the crap being spouted by neighbours, workmates and the like ? we now have to deal with it coming from Sky, the BBC and the press in general.
Taking 6 points off them in a season would never be enough for me. I want the 6 points of course but would prefer them to be consistently humbled by every team in the land. I want pictures of Gerrard in bed with a labrador and a gallup poll that proves beyond doubt that 64.3% of RS fans are from Scandinavia. I want (fuc)King Kenny arrested for sex-related horrors and their owners implicated in the biggest corruption scandal to ever hit the game.
A bitter blue? You betcha! But they fuckin' started it and show no signs of letting up...
Personally, I share Steve Guy's opinion (21) and suspect that John Audsley (22) may be right re The Prince of Darkness.
They make me happy when they lose. I can't think of any club that I want less to win anything.
Will a photo of Gerrard with a goat suffice?
The very thought of it makes me smile. Bankruptcy would be even better. Just no more redshite.
If I win the Euros I could buy them and just close the doors, knock the ground down and use it as a car park and public convenience.
So, no.
I'm with the majority here, I hate Liverpool, and I want them to suffer. I'd want Utd to win the league over them anyday. But the idea of the post was to see who was still of the "pride of the city" guard. Just a general wondering post really and the responses were great.
I think it's good to think outside of Everton and the transfer policies sometimes.
I went to the funeral 2 weeks ago of one of the best Evertonians I ever met. The Vicar, who was a redshite, went thru all the aspects of the man's life but, when it came to his 55 years of watching the blues home and away, said 'Embarrassingly, he was a staunch Blue and the less said about that, the better' and he moved on.
Half the church refused to talk to hm on the way out. Scum of the highest order... like most of them.
I took a cab to the Sunderland game last season. The cabbie grew up as the only Everton fan in his family and peer group and his mates and family were always trying to convert him ? to make him into a red.
In the end, he told me, he gave in.
He became a Man Utd fan (back when they were winning nothing and were looking like they were never going to).
Strange choice, but ? as he said ? "There's only one football team on Merseyside worth supporting."
I think a few of us have found this thread quite cathartic. Hate is an emotion that I rarely feel and, when I do, it's normally fleeting. I can honestly say that I hate Liverpool FC, 99.99% of their fans and everything that they stand for.
I reckon us all getting that off our chests has just added at least 10 years years to our life expectancies!
I like watching the RS lose almost as much as watching Everton win.
I grew a real soft spot for Blackpool last season when they did the double over those scumbags. Here was a club who chucked a team together for about £3.50, had no undersoil heating and a BYOB chair stadium, and they showed those overpaid red pricks how to play football.
Probably the only time in years I thought "I wish I was at Anfield"
I think my team would beat your Taliban XI (@11)..... as a good guy I'd slip Douglas Bader in, but he'd have to be Defensive mid...I hear his legs have gone.
I'll get me coat...
I REALLY do.
I wish I could say..
"Me, over here, I'M big enough! Big enough to hope that if we don't win I hope they do - for the city".
If I could be that person, I'm sure all sorts of things in my life would be better.
Work, relationships, health - Karma if you like.
But....I can't.
I'm like all of the above.
I'm NOT special or different.
I'm as small-minded as the most small-minded.
Each time they lose, there's a spring in my step.
Every game they've lost in my lifetime has given me a warm glow.
Every defeat for them puts a Springheeled Jack-sized spring in my step.
An Everton win and a defeat for them in the same weekend and I'm Mr (DEAD FUCKING) Happy.
I wish them nothing but pain and misery.
I know this is not a healthy mind-set and ffs, I'm 52.
But......there it is.
Anyway Shaun #20 wanted me to think about 3 points why I really should hate Liverpool: The Emelyn Hughes comment was unnecessary but actually exposed Everton's lack of ambition at the time. Liverpool were all-conquering whilst Everton were getting excited about a shock League Cup final appearance.
It was Uefa's mistake to ban all English clubs from Europe when they should have only banned Liverpool.
Everton are a relatively small club in Premier League terms. We have not won the league for 23 years, cannot compete in the transfer market, have an out-of-date stadium, cannot attract huge investment. A club that can only find a sense of pride from its history is a dying club. The Reds just exposed our dilemma and what we have become.
However, the efforts, as detailed on other threads, to make a change suggest to me that we are not a dying club... and that there is passion that will see off Kenwright and let us live up to that history.
Your attempt at justifying unnecessary small-minded comments by professionals from the red side are currious at best.
I could of course come up with at least a dozen reasons why I wish that club as much success as they wish us. We are well aware of our own problems, but what we don't need is fellow blues telling us that we should wish them well. Good grief ? is this what it has come to?
Something else bothers me. On the Hillsborough anniversary, LFC fans plaster Facebook with tributes. Commendably so. But they also taunt Man.Utd fans on the Munich anniversary,and not a peep comes out of them on the Heysel anniversary,and I hate them for that too.
But on a lighter note,I've compiled a First XI of either confirmed,or rumoured "celebrity Kopites," lifted from one of their own fansites:
* Michael Howard
* Derek Ackorah
* Chris DeBurgh
* Craig Charles
* Saadi Gaddaffi
* Ian Beale
* Robert Kilroy Silk
* Berti Vogts
* Mel Gibson
* Nick Berry
* Mark Owen
Making up the pitiful numbers on the bench were:
*Jimmy "funny for 5 minutes 20 years ago,"Tarbuck.
* Sven "bloodless mercenary sex-pest," Goran Eriksson.
* Rio"brrap-brapp,drug test skipping," Ferdinand.
* Peter "no explanation needed," Johnson.
* Johnny "one-trick pony," Vegas.
* Courtney "train wreck," Love.
* Margie "fucking," Clarke.
Finally,and much to my disdain,they also claim all round good-eggs the late John Peel & Mike Myers.Kopites also reckon they snared Pope John Paul II,and Nelson Mandela to their ignoble cause.
As I said,a plethora of reasons why "computer says No..!"
Eugene (43) spot on mate.
Shaun #20, agree with the points made, that saved me typing them out, with the addition of one more:
Praying for Dixie to die when he was in hospital after his motor bike crash in '26, they were in church on Sundays doing that... Fact.
I work with a kopite and hearing him waxing lyrical about their players makes me sick. I just remind him of some of the greats they've signed in the past. Last year they were all excited about Joe Cole.
He sent me a message at the end of last season "We've finished above you yet again". I replied to him "First is first and second's nowhere but now finishing above a crap Everton team is an achievement is it having spent millions?" He went on about how they hadn't spent millions because they sold Torres. What a prick!
I couldn't count how many players they've bought who were going to be the "missing piece in the jigsaw" and turned out to be shite.
We haven't won the league since 87. They only last won it in 89 yet they're still perceived as being England's finest.
Now they've dropped out of the "big four", the media talk about "the big six".
I hate 'em and always will. There's no better feeling than beating them or a weekend where we win and they lose.
Do I want them to win anything? No, but I am an Everton supporter ? not a Liverpool hater. If some people put as much passion into supporting the Blues as hating the RS, we'd all be better off.
It's hard living next door to a bigger and better known football 'brand' and, sadly for us, it isn't gonna change anytime soon ? we punch above our weight but for how long?
As somebody who watched the Golden Vision, Ball, Harvey and Kendall as a lad it's fuckin hard right now to watch the present lot, but we persevere; otherwise, what's the point?
My RS cousin says if you want to know how Liverpool are doing ask an Evertonian ? sadly more than a grain of truth in that. So get a grip you lot, lashing at at them doesn't actually do anything for us. Treat them with the contempt they deserve and ignore them!
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1 Posted 08/07/2011 at 23:37:12
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The thought of them winning the league makes me feel physically sick. If it's not us winning stuff ? and let's face it, it won't be for years ? I'd have ANYBODY but them win. Anybody. Even fucking Spurs... and, my God, do I hate Spurs.