I’m 35. I became an Everton fan in 1995 (too late, sadly, it was in the autumn). Apologies if this article is long-winded. In many respects, it’s a form of therapy, if only for myself.
The net result, has been watching a club decline. Supporting a club that’s a shadow of itself, in the shadows of two red clubs (supported by most of my immediate family), was a chore. When my siblings could celebrate signings like Cristiano Ronaldo or Xabi Alonso, I had to make do with players seeking a retirement home, like David Ginola, Paul Gascoigne, etc.
While my Manchester United supporting siblings could support home-grown players like the Class of ’92 or, in Liverpool’s case, Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen, Everton fans could support… well, every time we produced anyone half-decent, we sold them. Usually on the cheap.
The beauty of supporting Everton in the nineties and noughties was that you at least grew a thick skin. Because we were shit. It was embarrassing to support us.
Not for my generation, the highs of supporting a Championship winning side, or the odd FA Cup. Instead, we were treated to relegation battles, and the horrors of supporting a club that assembled a squad full of museum pieces that, almost 20 years later, Farhad Moshiri would promise would not be a museum. The nadir of this period was, of course, the 3-0 defeat against Tranmere Rovers in the FA Cup.
Into this, came David Moyes. I’ll admit, this debate has been done to death on here. But I’ll give you the teenager’s perspective on the man. For the first time in my life, Everton weren’t a complete embarrassment to support. Looking back, at the beginning, the football was… functional, occasionally, but tell me that you could do better when your centre-forward was an aging Kevin Campbell, your centre-midfielder was Mark Pembridge, and the average age of your back four was about 384.
But we improved. We beat who we were supposed to beat (in the league, at least). We lost against who we expected to (sometimes, brutally). We were hard to beat, and hard to play against. We were fit, organised. The transfer dealings were savvy (they had to be: the Queen blinked when Bill Kenwright opened his wallet). And, of course, with notable exceptions, we were still, generally, shit in the cup competitions.
The football, especially between 2006 and 2009, was stellar, as we assembled a squad which most of us still yearn for this day – Cahill, Arteta, Fellaini, Baines, Jagielka. Modern day legends, albeit in an era where the word “legend” was bastardised.
Moyes left us in 2013. Many at the time argued he should have left years earlier, failing to recognise it was that the paucity of resources at the club, and not just the man’s conservatism, that had kept him from bringing a trophy, and a win away at the old Sky Four.
Roberto Martinez came in (manager of Wigan Athletic, who had also humbled us 3-0 in the FA Cup – as I said, we’re doomed to be shit in the cup competitions), and at last had a centre-forward to go with the squad assembled by Moyes. The football was sexy, the results were stellar, and we had a positive goal-difference (what a weird feeling).
Alas, even in that first season, the warning signs were there – the Boxing Day defeat against Sunderland, the nightmare against Crystal Palace, and, not unlike the full season under Carlo Ancelotti, a late-season collapse of results that would cost us Champions League football.
What followed were two seasons of some nice-looking but impotent football, the erosion of the team ethic assembled by Moyes, and a transfer policy that saw us eschew the signings of players like Andrew Robertson, Harry Maguire, etc, in favour of the likes of Ramiro Funes Mori. Is it any wonder that playing Football Manager as Everton in the 2010s was such a chore? Everton, that.
Then… we finally had money!!! We were paupers no more. A rich man, as promised by the our great saviour and Chairman, who gave us Destinaton Kirkby – and who gave Wayne Rooney to Manchester United. We hired Ronald Koeman as our new manager, and Steve Walsh as Director of Football.
And they squandered that money on a succession of players who nobody else would bid big money for. There are many canny people on this very website, who warned 5 years ago that this largesse would come back to punish us. But hey, the rich man would continue to finance his toy, right?
For a little while, he did. Right as Bill was about to get the gang back together, bringing back David Moyes, Moshiri stuck his oar in again, bringing us Carlo Ancelotti (I, personally, wanted Steve Cooper, given that, as a Welsh man, I was familiar with the work he was doing at Swansea City).
For a little longer, Moshiri continued to sign cheques. We spent a small fortune on a midfield that we couldn’t afford, and whom we would not be able to sell (does any of this sound familiar?). Like Martinez, his first full season was initially a revelation. The Champions League, and even the league itself, was within reach: we were 2nd in December! But, like Martinez’s first season, this too collapsed.
Two more years of utter calamity followed, Moshiri continuing to hire names rather than working to a plan – this can be seen in the fact that the two hires were so utterly antithetical in both nature and footballing style and philosophy. The cheques, however, were no longer being sent, except to pay for our beautiful new stadium.
Once again, Everton, the second love of my life, were an embarrassment. Once again, we were reduced to signing the old, the feeble, and the unwanted. We were easy to play against, disunited, relying on the brilliance of Richarlison, the heroism of our one-man wall, Jordan Pickford, and the very rare appearances of Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
Almost by accident (at least to my eyes), we stumbled upon Sean Dyche. Many of us championed the man’s hiring, while others had been burned before by Everton hiring the manager of a club that had been relegated the season before.
Rather like the end of the 2001-02 season, the football was… functional, occasionally, but tell me that you could do better when your centre-forward was Neal Maupay, your centre-mids were… well, forgive me for thinking that you’ve already read this. We survived. Again. Like the season before, and like in 2002, we survived.
Over the summer, it was clear that Sean Dyche had prioritised fitness, team spirit, and hard work. Maximum effort was the minimum expectation, right? Except for the start of the season, we have beaten who we were supposed to beat. We have lost against we expected to, except it has generally been unlucky, as opposed to the chastening beatings which we have become far too accustomed to.
We are hard to beat, and hard to play against. We are fit, organised. And rather like they were under David Moyes, the transfer dealings were savvy (they had to be: the King blinked when Everton Football Club opened her wallet).
Once again, we were living hand-to-mouth. Once again, we were relying on the pragmatic skill of a manager who demands hard work and prizes endeavour over élan (as a Welshman who’s spent nearly 16 years watching Warren Gatland do the same for our international rugby team, it’s very familiar).
This time, however, there are differences. Owing to two separate circumstances: (1) the predations of the Premier League, who have used us to try to argue against the need for an independent regulator, and (2) the removal by circumstance of our former and current owners.
We have a new stadium being built. This stadium will be the envy of every club (other than Tottenham) in England, and will finally allow Everton to move away from our museum, and to move forward to a future. The fanbase are united, in opposition to the Premier League, and at long last, in allegiance with a club which has for too long taken us for granted, treated us as an embarrassment, and which, in the spring, sold us out to the media in an attempt to deflect attention from the way which she had been run by both Farhad Moshiri and Bill Kenwright.
What we are seeing at Everton Football Club at the moment is nothing less than the gradual erasure of all the damage done to herself, by herself, by her management and custodians over the past decade.
In 2013, the club welcomed a manager who promised exciting football, and to ease the shackles of a superb, but limited manager who had dragged the club as far as he could.
In 2023, Everton welcomed a superb, but potentially limited manager, replacing a manager who had promised exciting football, but who had ushered the club to the brink of the abyss.
I’d like to see my beloved Everton win something. But, for now, I’ll settle for what I had under David Moyes. A club which spends carefully, which is able to stand up for herself, and which can, from time to time, give the elite a bloody nose.