The date was 20 May 1995. I had been working but managed to get off early. My dad picked me up and we made a stop-off to buy my first car (still my favourite, a gold Triumph Toledo – something special about that car).
We get home without a moment to spare, my beloved team were competing in the FA Cup Final for the first time in 6 years against the mighty Manchester United. We were big underdogs – Dogs of War ,to be precise – and it wasn’t pretty but we won that final and it heralded a new era of success! Later that year, we would win the Charity Shield which was the last senior trophy this great club has won.
That was 28 years ago. And it’s thinking about those 28 years that has got me in a twist recently to the point where I write my first ever article – something of a cathartic exercise for me and I do apologise if it is fairly useless or pointless.
The truth of all those fruitless years is that the rot had started much earlier; 1995 was a blip rather than expected. We won the First Division in 1987 but a couple of years later had become barely competitive and starting to flirt with relegation. If we exclude the Charity Shield, it is 1 major trophy in 36 years. That compares with 7 major trophies in the previous 36 and countless more as runners-up than the solitary FA Cup Final defeat under David Moyes.
We can argue that the ban of English clubs from European competitions had affected Everton more than any other club — and I used to think that was true, but why? Why would such a thing impact the most successful English club at the time more than any other? How have other clubs recycled and pushed on from hardships way more consistently?
I started to paint a mental picture in my head – a sales pitch if you like:
- Founding member of the Football League
- Unbroken stint in the top flight for 69 years
- More seasons in the top flight than any other club
- 9 times Football League title winners
- Founding member of the Premier League
- One of only 6 clubs to have played every season in the Premier League…
Now if you said all that to someone looking to buy a club and you didn’t mention the name of the club, it’s surely got to make their ears prick up.
So why are we talked about in the same breath as Southampton, Bournemouth, West Brom, etc? No offence to those teams but no other constant member of the Premier League would even have their names spoken in the same breath. So why us? My head starts hurting every time I think about it. Why us?
Let’s look at the other 5 Premier League constants: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man Utd and Tottenham. The first 4 have obviously had far more success – so Tottenham becomes our closest comparator (but they are historically a far less successful club than us, so they should be looking up at us rather than the other way around).
- Tottenham’s average league position in the Premier League is 7th; since 2000 it is 6th
- Everton’s is 11th, since 2000 it is 10th
- Tottenham’s highest finish is 2nd, lowest is 15th (but not since the 1993-94 season)
- Everton’s highest is 4th, lowest 17th (now when was that?)
- Tottenham have finished bottom half 9 times (but not since 2007-08)
- Everton have finished in the bottom half 17 times
So arguably, of the unsuccessfuls, Tottenham are way more successful – particularly when you put European competition participation on the table.
So that question haunts me: “Why?”. No other team has the same sales pitch as us. Not Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal – none of them can make these claims. I battled with it until it hit me, or at least my opinion as to why hit me.
As a club, we are “happy” surviving. Being in the Premier League is success, we are told. Well, why doesn’t it feel like success? Sunderland, Newcastle, Wolves, Bournemouth, Norwich, Leeds, QPR, West Brom, Reading, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Fulham – the list goes on… they have all won the Championship trophy in that time, and I bet they have had happy days doing it.
Because that’s what I was raised believing the point was – winning things. Not simply existing.
But I still haven’t totally answered the question. Yes, we exist, but how can a team which has been in the richest league in the world forever, with a rich history, with plenty of investment, still be struggling so much? Why aren’t we even as good as Tottenham?
I make no apologies about saying I don’t like Sean Dyche as a manager. He’s negative and not up to the job in my opinion, but he highlights the problem – that’s who we are.
Dogs of War, remember? When did the School of Science become Dogs of War and why did we accept it? Dogs of War, from Shakespeare. Theatre – meaning “unleashed chaos and devastation of war, like a pack of wild dogs”, the literal opposite of Science.
David Moyes became manager in 2002 to stabilise the club, he did a great job too. But we accepted negativity for far too long, never ever going to win anything — not even the odd derby. Why was that okay?
When he came in, he called us “The People’s Club”, another beautiful piece of Theatre. Sleight of hand that made us feel that we were better than our neighbours: “Haha, look at us now – not winning a thing, but we are the club of The People. How does that make you feel in the Kop?”
Liverpool don’t care; they are happy winning.
Our fortunes changed in 1989. You can see this based on statistics alone. In 1989, Bill Kenwright became a member of the Board. I think we all know that he has damaged our club, but my realisation is that far more damaging is the physiological changes he has made to every fan, and it is so deeply rooted in the club’s psyche that I fear only super drastic change will ever mend it.
We have been, almost literally, turned into a Shakespeare Tragedy. Bill has used all his theatrical knowledge to slowly change our expectations to the point where we don’t even know what success looks like.
Roberto Martinez came in with a positivity we weren’t used to. Knives to a gunfight? Nah, mate, we’re going to win in places we’ve not won for ages. Now maybe Roberto wasn’t good enough, or maybe he didn’t fit with the narrative – the control – that we have all been under: “How dare you come in here with talk of winning things?” I don’t know, but something made even Carlo Ancelotti seem negative.
I want total change. At the moment, we have an attitude of “We must not lose” – which worked in bringing stability under David Moyes, but that’s not Everton. I’m fed up with being patronised by the likes of Jamie Carragher that “Everton fans want to see fight, win ugly with commitment”. No, that’s what we have been told for the last 34 years, the water torture that has changed our DNA.
I want someone to come in and say “I want to win, and we might get relegated trying, but the end result will be success.” We need to change, we need to accept that survival is not success. Staying up on the last day of the season and celebrating like we’ve won the league? It’s what Southampton do; for me, it’s just embarrassing.
But money talks and no owner is going to risk adventure, jeopardise the riches of the Premier League. I fear, therefore, that we will die but we will die without trying because the final act has already been written.