Response to Mr C

It’s shame, really, because there are quite a few points in there that we’ve all made ourselves, particularly regarding the lack of investment, etc. And, being an outsider, how is he to truly understand the effect of the Heysel ban on Everton, the chain of events that has unfolded since to get us where we are today, and the enormous advantage his team has just by their geographic location — an advantage, it should not be forgotten, they have yet to really capitalise upon.

The problem is that he couldn’t help himself taking needless jabs at Everton and its fans. What might have been a considered analysis of a fellow ex-Big 5 club descended into, as you say, an ill-thought-out rant.

He may be looking at Spurs through rose tinted glasses, but I think his percpetion of the malaise in Everton’s boardroom is pretty accurate.

For 20 years Everton have not been able to compete at the level they should be (i.e. for the league championship) and have fallen so far behind that coming 6th is considered a decent position.

In the present era, more than ever, you need savvy people running your club and not just your team. Everton just doesn’t have that and hasn’t had it for 20 years.

There’s no doubting Kenwright loves Everton, but it’s obvious he does not have the acumen to lead Everton football club.

A club with Everton’s size, fanbase, history and honours list has all the raw materials to be a vibrant, profitable club competing for the top prizes. Except for the fact we have the wrong guy in charge (Kenwright), whose solution is to lead Everton out of the city (at best a short term solution, not a long term solution).

NSNO.

This Mr C is a liverpool fan in disguise[he used to be on the Everton letters page all the time] not a Spurs fan ,you only have to read it to see it,its just the old propergander red machine .

The comparison with Spurs is irrelevant. The truth is that the ground, boardroom and business future is a basket case. If only Evertonians would face the truth ? we're going nowhere!

MR C smokescreen. Just don’t mention alan sugars reign. Waste of his life to quote him.

Quite true, Spurs don’t register. Never thought of them as our rivals. well just never thought of them.

Rory Brosnen: you're pretty down on old blue bill and his ability to lead the club forward, but many have tried to move us on and failed until dare I say it BK. You could say it's DM or KW doing all the hard work but who employed them? I reckon we haven?t looked so good in the last 20 years mate ? all under BK?s reign. Prove me wrong.

I think mr c has some good points and some bad points. We are a sleeping giant that are being pulled down by our chairman. 24/7 investment my arse. I bet you Moyes does not get anymore than 15 million this season. The players we look at and are linked with are in the range of 3-4 million whereas West Ham, Aston Villa, Spurs, Newcastle and even Wigan can ouspend us. How can these clubs be be more attractive than us. We have more history. We have tradition. We have a good fanbase. Yet we are overlooked. My view is that Kenwright wants to keep us for himself. I think he think maybe moyes can win a trpophy and then he will be a great chairman. Mr C is right about are high ambitions. Does anyone really think we can finish in the top four. Lets be realistic we are not anywhere near the top four. They have bigger stadiums, more money, bigger sqauds and better players.

ah but we have spirit!

In the mid-eighties a team built on a shoe string budget, with a bunch of lower league fighters came out of nowhere and shocked the nation.

So go ahead and buy all the £10 million players you want, there is no team in this countries history that has our fighting spirit.

We know how to win titles, and the difference between us and Spurs is that we can still remember a time when we weren’t afraid to try.

Well, it did have some home truths, but not many! He clearly has a grossly over-inflated opinion of Spurs, their fans, their board, their ground - to the point of being delusional. All that money, capital city club and nothing to show for it! He might like to think they competed with us once upon a time but they’re not in the top four most successful of all time, we are. Also, why the Hell did they try to steal our ’If You Know Your History’ song if they hate us that much - no imagination!

I agree that the comments were meant to provoke, and in an indirect way continue to help him put on rose tinted glasses about Spurs’ performances.

But instead of trying to discredit the whole piece because of his other indiscretions, let take them for what it is.

Yes, we were robbed of Lawton’s brilliance because of the war. Yes, we were robbed of Alan Ball and thus our favourite trio of midfielders when Catterick sold Ball for profit.
Yes, we were robbed through Heysel. But let’s get over it.
The decline started exactly during the glory years of the 80s.

We stopped scouting (how do you explain Fowler, McManaman, Owen etc in the Reds camp despite being toffee fans), we stopped investing in our grounds, being one of the last (if not the last team) to take on black (or non-white) players.

I’m a proud toffee fan for the past 23 years, and that is on the other side of the globe. Some of the comments I hear from our people, trying to make us sound so "working class" is kind of pathetic.

We were the Mersey Millionaires. We were the first ground to have undersoil heating. Goodison didn’t host big games because of its Everton heritage. It hosted big games then because the ground was ahead of its time.
We were the Man Utd and Chelseas of the yester-years. Think of the number of times we had broken transfer records in the past. So to fail to recognise that and gripe about how the Big Four are buying success is being really myopic.
Let’s recognise that we are no longer the Big Five / Four, and accept that it’ll be a short while more before that can happen. Aim for Excellence (NSNO), but be grounded in the present.
Some of our fans act like Man City fans. While teams produce season reviews of great goals, cup runs and wins, league runs, we rant & rave about the 3-0 win over the "dark side".
I am looking forward to the next season to make some more progress. Yes, the Board is probably not helping much and can do loads more, and unless the fans and the supporters’ club can do something to "forcibly" remove the chairman and put someone more decent in place, lets get behind the team.
For all our claims that Everton fans are the best/unique/amazing, I cannot comprehend that we can’t fill our ground (minus the fact of the blocked views). No, I am not suggesting that we be suckers and pay through our nose and watch route one football. People vote with their hard earned $$ and that’s powerful.
I know this comparison is going to rankle and draw flak, but look at Newcastle. They are living a pipe dream; yet they get 50,000 + every home game. That’s hard core, some say stupidity, but hey, when is being a football fan rational and sensible?
As long as we don’t pawn our families for a season ticket, riot & be hooligans...... the real fans are fans for life. Period. Like what some of you have quoted "...eiher you understand it or not" (my paraphrase about being a blue).

1985 Heysel.We were not there but we are still paying for it! With hindsight that was massive to us.

The problem with the article wasn?t so much the content as the tone. Unfortunately Mr. C is right with al ot of his criticisms of the club. I don?t know enough about Spurs to be able to retaliate by the way so I can?t even get my own back.

The tone really is the thing that annoyed me. You don?t mind your mates slagging you in the pub or in work. It?s part and parcel of being a football fan. You throw some good natured abuse back and you get on with it. A fan of another club being that smarmy and condesending about our club?s issues is genuinely grating.

The thing is though, a lot of my mates are Utd fans but are knowledgable enough and open-minded enough about the game not to descend to using superior tones or rubbing it in that their club is more successful. Mr C, while possibly being knowledgable and open-minded about football, doesn?t have the luxury of supporting a successful team. Their pedigree and tradition aren?t more impressive than ours either. His smarminess and condescention just backfires on him.

What was the point of the article? Why is he bothered? Was he expecing BK to read it and think .. ’oh yeah what’s the point I’ll just close the club down’ or was he expecting the to fans go ’fuck, this bloke has a point, I’m going to forget my roots and start supporting spurs’. I never understand why people take the piss out of me for supporting Everton saying ’why do you support them they’re shit?’ ... response ’I don’t care if we’re shit I’ve always supported them and always will, through the good and the bad!’

Mark Stone, You support Everton even though "we?re shit" is because your a supporter. If you followed a team for the reason being they?re not shit, you?d be a fan. Well that's my ascertion.

Keep the faith. Up the Toffees!

Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t it 1984-85 season when we had a title battle with Spurs for most of the season ? And not 1986-87 season as suggested by our Spurs supporting critic. I know that year they got to the FA Cup Final, but lost 2-3 to Coventry.
Who was the last team outside of the so called big 4 to win the FA Cup, that’s right Mr C Everton and even our Cup Final records are better- Chas & Dave that sums Spurs up really they are to the Premiership what Chas & Dave are to music.

Think he is living in Wonderland to even think Spurs have anything like the pedigree EFC have got...I have known a few Spurs fans over the years and they all have the attitude that they are far superiour than other teams...facts and figures my friend...also attendances!

There is no doubt that Everton are the real fallen giants of English football.
The majority of contributors to this forum have no idea just how big a club Everton were.
Everton ceased to be a big club somewhere during the 1970s.
Teams cited by the media now as big clubs such as Newcastle and Chelsea were not in the same department as Everton.
Liverpool were just coming up to Evertons level at that time.
If you take just the core support from the city of Liverpool you will find that Everton are still the best supported club,but as Everton under-achieved in europe over the years and other clubs succeeded so Everton failed to attract the band-waggon jumpers like Liverpool,Manchester United and now Chelsea have.
Everton have just been a badly run football club and their supporters have been badly let down.