Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

It's That Time Again

By Kevin   Sparke  ::  24/12/2011   15 Comments (»Last) Season's greetings fellow long suffering Toffees. It?s that time of the year again. The time when the iniquities of extreme free market capitalism are laid bare for all to see. The time when otherwise rational people become quivering babbling wrecks of nerve shredded humanity, with the thousand-yard stare of Vietnam veterans, avoiding conversation and looking for solace in strong drink. The time when little Evertonians all over the World who have been good girls and boys (in the main) await feverishly for gifts from afar and goodies to be unwrapped...

[Waddya mean, ?you like Christmas?? I?m not talking about Christmas ? I?m talking about the transfer window!]

Of all the changes I?ve seen in the game over the last 40 years; the transfer window has to be the worst of the lot. Worse than the demise of the Cup Winners Cup, worse than the invention of the Europa Cup and worse than the bastard offspring of the European Cup ? the Champions League. Worse than ?all seater stadiums?...

Worse than the virtual outlawing of physical contact in the game (unless you?re a shirt pulling defender ? which is okay now apparently but don?t try and make a clean tackle whatever you do, or you?ll find yourself on the end of a 3-match ban)...

Even worse than the plethora of injury-faking wankers who ruin football with their pathetic antics. Injury-faking now seems to be part of the game, coached into players from an early age and is in modern times, not a manifestation of individual ?shithouse? traits. The game suffers for it, and, until they start banning the main culprits, it will go on.

No ? worse than all of the above is the deeply horrible and unfathomable transfer window.

I absolutely hate the transfer window; I hate it with a passion I normally reserve for politicians, celebrity airheads and Kopites ? but I?ve learned how to survive it; so can you ? here?s my 10 point plan:

1. Don?t listen to any rumours ? they?re all lies told by liars who like lying. I had a mate once who swore blind that he?d bumped into Roy Keane in a petrol queue at Burtonwood service station and Keane was hours away from signing for Everton... any minute now eh?
2. Avoid well known rumour mongers ? You know the type I mean; the blokes whose granny?s best mate plays bingo with Kenwright?s window cleaner?s sister. If you see them, cross the road.
3. Don?t buy a paper ? Every one of them will have ?Exclusive? and an unrealistic ?Everton Target? or ?X team?s manager admires Everton player? Which is code for "We can?t make a direct approach" or "We?re in breach of FA rules, get your agent to phone us, Jack."
4. Switch off your TV ? Or if you cannot do that, avoid Sky Sports News at all costs, it's an absolutely barking mad manifestation of manufactured media hysteria. Shakespeare summed up Sky Sports News 400 years ago in Macbeth: "Like a tale told by an idiot ? full of sound and fury... but signifying nothing." It?s idiot TV, made for idiots, by idiots for the enjoyment of idiots. (personally, I can?t switch it off!)
5. Switch off your mobile ? I had half-a-dozen texts one transfer window from Kopite chums gleefully telling me that Arteta was signing for Arsenal... 3 seasons before he did. Don?t take calls from unknown numbers; don?t read texts; delete all news feeds...
6. Don?t speak to anyone for the period of the transfer window ? Not even the wife, who breathlessly told me last year that she?d just heard that "We have signed a player called Gosling." We? WE? (She?s a non-football supporting Geordie and got confused between Everton and Newcastle Utd). After my use of profanities that would shame a trooper, she stopped speaking to me for a week ? which is a ?win -win? situation in my book!
7. Don?t log onto ToffeeWeb or any other fan site (Sorry Ed!) ? All you?ll read is supporters' hopes being dashed as a previously unknown youngster from the non-league chooses a team like Hartlepool Utd over Everton as they can pay him more money and offer a more realistic chance of European football... (Well, they?re closer to the ferry terminal at Tynemouth.)
8. Emigrate to somewhere without the internet ? Not easy these days as the World Wide Web is, um... Worldwide. In any case, it?s an exercise in futility because Sod's Law dictates that you?ll be walking the ?Inca Trail? in Machu Piccu or halfway up the North Face of the Matterhorn and you?ll bump into that Kopite you?re always trying to avoid, who will fill you in on our latest bargain transfer to Manchester United / Manchester City / Chelsea in the ongoing Everton ?fire sale?.
9. "We?re Everton, we?re not going to sign anyone world class... ever!" ? Go into the transfer window with that knowledge firmly embossed in your frontal lobes and you?ll not be disappointed when we sign a Faroe Island youth international for £500 and a couple of tickets for ?Blood Brothers?, who is feted by the club media machine as ?better than Wayne Rooney at his age? and who you never hear of again.
10. Develop a sense of perspective ? When you think about it, it all means toss all anyway. We start the season these days with a feverish bout of "Who will we sell to keep treading water?" and end it wondering if next season will be the one when it all breaks and we plummet to where our spending power should naturally have us (Mid Championship). Unless Bill Gates or a conglomerate of Texas oil magnates discover that they?re secret Evertonians and buy Blue Bill out and furnish us with the World?s best players, mediocrity seems destined to be our natural state.

So, on that sad note, tainted with a dose of healthy realism, I wish you all the best for Christmas and New Year. Keep your mental health intact throughout the transfer window and remember: when you signed up to be a blue, you never signed a sanity clause... come to think of it ? for Evertonians, there is no such thing as sanity clause.

Best wishes!

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