Tales From Beyond The Dock Wall

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Chris Axon

Everton vs. Chelsea : 21 March 2026.

The trip to see Chelsea’s first ever game at Everton’s new stadium was our first journey to Merseyside since December 2024. There were no visits in 2025. Sometimes it works out like that. I can’t deny it; I had been relishing this game since we heard of the fixture list back in the summer. A new stadium, a new experience, a new routine; just beautiful.

Despite the chances of others attending, it boiled down to just the three of us. I collected Paul at 8am and Lordy at 8.30am, and we were soon on our way via the usual stop at Melksham for a quick breakfast.

I had worked out the logistics for the day, and I had given myself more than ample time to travel up to Liverpool, meet friends, relax a little, but also spend time checking out the Hill Dickinson Stadium on the banks of the River Mersey. I know that naming rights are “the thing” these days, but what an ugly name. Still, I suppose beggars can’t be choosers in such circumstances. I have heard that some Evertonians have already dubbed it “The Dixie” in lieu of Dixie Dean, and there has already been the typically English abbreviated version of “Hill Dicko”, which just sounds too Scouse, and too ridiculous. I think it will take me a long time to stop calling it Bramley Moore Dock.

However, on multiple occasions during the build-up to this trip, I found myself mentioning the stadium as Goodison, by mistake, so entwined has Everton Football Club been with its old home.

So, that’s the pre-amble, the entrée, and there has been no mention of the actual game. On this occasion, I was suffering from a strong case of stadiumitis and – to be blunt – after our previous showing against PSG, it was probably just as well that I had something else to occupy my mind. The football would take care of itself. And I was hoping that it wouldn’t spoil a good day out.

The weather was grand as we headed north. The skies were clear of rain, with little hint of clouds. I ate up the miles. My first port of call was to be “Ye Old Hole In Ye Wall”, allegedly the oldest pub in Liverpool, a favourite pub among many favourite pubs in Liverpool’s historic city centre, and where we dived in for a pre-match drink on the two previous visits to Anfield at both ends of 2024. The aim was to get there around 1pm.

I was soon heading into the city from the M62, that oh-so familiar route in. I am prone to chatting to Paul and Parky about the sights that we encounter on these football trips, and if I am honest, I am never sure if they take too much notice of my wittering. I was genuinely amazed that when we approached the huge art deco building that used to house the Littlewoods Pools company, and which I have chatted about a few times, PD wondered if the rebuilding – it is set to become a film studio – had started yet.

I wanted to stop and grab his little cheeks and shower him with praise.

“Bloody hell, you do listen.”

Dropping down into the city by car is one of the great moments on my travels, like some sort of modern-day footballing Pevsner, around This Football Land and it didn’t disappoint on this pristine Spring Day. The two cathedrals, the Radio City Tower, the Liver Building and even a glimpse of the river came into view.

I dropped the lads close to “Ye Old Hole In The Wall” at about 1.15pm. It had been about a five-hour drive; I tend not to speed these days. I can’t afford getting more points. I said that I would be back at around 2.30pm.

I then headed up towards the stadium.

There is no doubt that one of the main problems with the placement of the stadium on the river is a lack of close match day parking, and access routes to and from the venue.

Logistics.

Thankfully, I had lucked out. A friend’s daughter lives in an apartment about a twenty-minute walk from the stadium, and I was able to park – for free – in one of the visitor spaces outside. I had to swear blind that I was visiting her to the poor bugger that manned the entrance hut, and who noted some personal details, but I suspect that he knew I wasn’t being honest. I am sure that the visitors’ car park is full to bursting on Everton home games yet not used on other days. Oh well. I was parked up, job done.

I grabbed hold of my SLR and marched north. It was ridiculously warm and I wished that I had not chosen one of the warmer jackets that I keep in the boot of my car.

I briefly looked south and spotted the Liver Bird a mile or so away, facing out to the river, perhaps unwilling to acknowledge the shiny new stadium to the north.

I was soon appreciating the historical nature of the setting. Waterloo Road became Regent Road, and there were red-bricked buildings to my right, and these no doubt acted as warehouses when the docks to my left were in full usage. I started to see that a few of these old warehouses, industrial premises and houses had been turned into watering holes for the area’s new clientele.

It was around 1.45pm, just under four hours until kick-off, but there were supporters already heading up to the stadium. I walked past a couple more bars, including “The Dock Wall” where I would be meeting up with friends later. Just after, I walked over an antiquated iron bridge that links Collingwood Dock and Stanley Dock and couldn’t resist a few photos. The Titanic Hotel, where Chelsea and other teams stay, was to my right. Then, the huge hulk of a former tobacco warehouse, a truly impressive sight, now turned into apartments.

Whereas Goodison was locked into the terraced streets of Walton a couple of miles away, this new stadium is placed in an area that reeks of the city’s sea-faring past, and it already has an amazing sense of place.

In the distance was the stadium and, against a clear blue sky, it looked stunning.

I noticed that at every break in the Dock Wall, which runs all the way from where I was parked to the south past the stadium to the north, there is a rounded tower, and these are not too dissimilar to the Everton “lock-up” Tower, dating from 1787, featured on their badge.

A nice little synergy, there.

I was soon outside the stadium. I had driven past it on the way to Anfield in 2024, and I had visited it by foot on the first day of the season in 2022. On that occasion the stadium was just being started, with a couple of stands creeping into the sky, but it was mainly a construction site full of cranes.

I include the link to that match report – and photos – later.

My first thoughts?

It’s a stunning piece of architecture, but I find the two distinct parts to the exterior a little jarring.

First there is the red brick façade that houses the stands, the offices, the corporate area, the function rooms, that obviously references the city’s industrial heritage, the nearby warehouses, even the red-bricked terraced streets around Goodison Park. It gives the stadium some solidity, and that’s fine.

Then we have the space-age curves of the roof, that floats above the under structure, and it almost seems that the two different halves of the stadium are too different to completely work as one.

But you have to say, especially on a sunny day when the sunlight is dancing on the steel curves, it’s a physically stunning piece of architecture.

I think I read somewhere that the architect wanted the stadium to have two distinct parts; the lower part grounded in Everton’s local history, but the upper part a reflection of the club’s desire to fly off into unchartered territory as it faces a bold and exciting future.

If that’s the desire, it’s mission accomplished.

There’s just something about it that grates a little.

I guess it’s a typical post-modern stadium.

It just doesn’t look like it ought to.

I took a bundle of photos, and I include some here.

One of Goodison’s trademarks was the criss-cross design on the Archibald Leitch balconies, and while there was to be no permanent mirror of that inside the new stadium, I heard that there would be a section on the outside, on the brickwork, that echoed this. I didn’t see anything. Maybe that’s a task for my next visit. I did, however, spot the famous design atop the fence that marks the southern boundary of the stadium.

I hoped that wasn’t it.

I absolutely loved the mooring bollards that have been left in situ, weather-beaten and rusting. There is also a tower just inside the premises that – I believe – houses an Everton information centre.

I walked under the roof on the South Side and along to the western edge but annoyingly seemed unable to advance any further. It seemed to me that the West Stand, overlooking the River Mersey, was accessible only via a turnstile, somewhere. This was a shame, since I wanted to take photos from the river, looking back at the stadium. Maybe I can make that a goal next time; maybe I missed a secret entrance. I am usually good at the powers of persuasion. I will try my luck next time.

I really wanted to have a little moment to myself, looking out at the river and the surprisingly high land of Birkenhead over the water, and remember my great great grandparents who set off on the SS City Of Philadelphia from Liverpool in the August of 1854, heading out to a new life in the USA. I wanted to stand still and remember them. On 7 September the ship was wrecked off the coast of Newfoundland at Cape Race, but thankfully nobody was killed. It was, unnervingly, its maiden voyage. They went on to live around five years in Philadelphia before returning home.

Maybe I can remember them at that place on a later visit.

Instead, I took some panoramic shots of the sweeping scene to the south, with the Liver Birds still visible if you knew where to look.

At the southern side there are paving stones featuring some Everton greats. These are surrounded by the names of fans on smaller slabs, a familiar feature these days at stadia. I wondered if the Dixie Dean memorial and the Holy Trinity will one day migrate to the new stadium from their current homes outside Goodison.

At about 1.15pm, I hopped into an Uber outside the Bramley Moore pub on Regent Road and I soon joined up with my two mates at the same table that we used in 2024. On that day we were joined by Josh from Minneapolis and Courtney from Chicago. On this occasion, Brian and Kev from South Gloucestershire wandered in and sat at our rather cramped table. Another Chelsea fan – face familiar, name unknown – sat close by too, with his daughter. We chatted to the friendly locals, who were virtually all Evertonians and heading up to the match, and were “made up” that Liverpool had lost in the early kick-off.

At about 3.45pm, we caught an Uber north. At that moment, all the pubs in the city centre were overflowing with punters. This seemed like the first day of Spring. People were everywhere. They couldn’t be all going to the game. However, the new stadium is closer to the city centre than Goodison, so maybe a new switch has been taking place for Evertonians. A lifetime of drinking close to Goodison is in the past. A new regime of drinks in the city centre awaits.

Up, up and away.

I was dropped off where my car was parked and swapped my SLR for a smaller camera – I wasn’t ready to risk it at the new stadium, despite never ever being stopped at Goodison – and swapped my warm coat for a light rain jacket. While the other two were taken closer to the stadium, I retraced my steps and headed to The Dock Wall.

From “Ye Old Hole In Ye Wall” to “The Dock Wall.”

The crowds on Regent Road had thickened now, and a huge number of the locals were wearing blue. I wondered what the local scallies back in the late ‘seventies and early ‘eighties would have reckoned to that.

The Dock Wall was packed. Luckily, I soon found the two sets of mates that I needed to see. First up, just outside at the rear by a small car park, were Deano and Dave. They had travelled down from near Lancaster and were happy that I had been able to sort out tickets for them. Deano has just returned from Sri Lanka. Dave told me a very interesting piece of information about the previously mentioned dock wall, that runs the length of stadium to the east. Apparently, it is a grade 2 listed building and so cannot be dismantled and removed.

I also met up with the Brothers Grimm, Tommie and Chris, along with Tommie’s son and daughter. I had met up with Tommie at Wrexham. I was reminded of the fact on the way up that it is not very often that I get to visit two new stadia in consecutive away games.

I have been lucky this season.

Chris is a life-long Evertonian and season ticket holder. He used to have a seat near the half-way line in the Upper Bullens at Goodison. His new home is in the corner of the Upper Tier where the West Stand meets the South Stand. It was Chris who recommended this boozer.

“I came down here a few years back and there was just one pub. Now there are bars appearing all the way down here. But I like this one because they serve the ale in glass pints not plastic.”

It was rammed. I decided against queuing up for a drink. I had a good natter with both sets of mates. Like me, Chris loves Stiff Little Fingers, and I had to comment on the two little badges he had on his lapel.

“SLF” and “UTFT”.

As one we said the same thing.

Chris : “My life.”

Chris : “Your life.”

We laughed.

Chris instigated the famous old Everton fanzine “When Skies Are Grey” back in the mid-to-late ‘eighties, and Tommie has done plenty of work with the Welsh-speaking media channels in his homeland. They are an interesting set of brothers.

I excused myself and headed out. It was about 4.45pm. I was bloody parched though, so imagine my joy when I was handed a small can of Coke by some young’uns on a promotion on Regent Road.

There were discarded remains of blue flares littering the pavement. The local ultras had obviously been putting on a show, presumably on a march to the stadium. I could just about detect the lingering aroma of sulphur.

I am glad Chelsea’s younger element don’t go for this “dress in black, walk to stadium, wave flags” nonsense that doesn’t seem to fit our club. Just have a drink in the pub and sing your hearts out inside.

Simple.

I made my way over the iron bridge again and walked to the final of four gaps in the dock wall that was the designated place for us away fans to enter. This, of course, was the busiest of the four. I walked through a full-size metal detector with my pub camera clenched in my fist and there were no bleeps. I walked on. There was another small queue in the north-east corner, and I was patted down, but no hold-ups and I was in.

I had a seat in Row 6 of the lower tier, but everyone needs to climb a few flights of stairs to access the two tiers of the seating bowl. Both tiers are served with a mid-level concourse. It seemed pretty airy, and decent, a long way from the cramped area at Goodison. I didn’t hang around and soon found my place adjacent to John. Alas, no Gary or Alan on this occasion.

First thoughts?

Steep.

The two tiers are super steep.

It used to be the case that, to save space, tiers used to sit on top of one another, with the lower tier covered by the overhang of the upper. Goodison used to be like this. The North Bank at Highbury used to be like this. The Matthew Harding Stand at Chelsea is like this. I suppose there is a slight overhang in the lower tier at Arsenal. But not at Anfield, in any stand. In these new stadia, with more room, there are tiers in name only. They simply sit higher but are not really attacked.

Therefore, the Everton architect helped with sightlines by making the rake the steepest in the United Kingdom.

But I wasn’t particularly blown away by the interior and found it a little bland. There are no quirky bits, no features that make the place unique. The northern end, to my right, is slightly different in that the upper deck is cut away to enable a large section of glass to be placed at the rear, presumably to aid the growth of the grass on the pitch.

Above, there are a million metal beams holding the roof up. I tried not to dwell too much on that. It’s a really ugly sight.

Chelsea had three thousand fans located in three sections in the north-west corner; all in the Lower Tier.

I was in 118 along the side, 119 was by the corner, 120 was behind the goal-line.

The players, in green, went through their shuttle runs, and I soon spotted my photographer mate David, who was seated behind the advertising boards to my right. I met David at Goodison a few years back as he caught me taking some photos outside. He came over for a nice little chat, and I knew there would be a few candid photos of yours truly coming my way later.

I momentarily had to focus on the game. Bollocks.

Our team?

Robert Sanchez

Malo Gusto – Wesley Fofana – Jorrel Hato – Marc Cucurella

Moises Caicedo – Romeo Lavia

Cole Palmer – Enzo Fernandez – Pedro Neto

Joao Pedro

With about five minutes to kick-off, I was dismayed to see cheerleaders to my left doing whatever it is cheerleaders do. What a load of old crap.

I noticed that on a couple of occasions the advertising boards flashed with some Evertonian phrases and chants :

“The People’s Club.”

“Up The Toffees.”

“Come On The Blues.”

And also, the LED version of the Leitch crosshatch.

Oh, that looked lovely, combining old with new faultlessly. I had heard whispers of this a few months ago. I hoped that it would reappear many times during the game.

“It’s A Grand Old Team To Play For” was bellowed by the home fans as it came on the PA.

Then, the big moment.

The sirens, then the drums…I captured “Z Cars” on my phone and immediately shared it on “Facebook.”

I looked up to where Chris would be sitting, way up to my right, and momentarily Goodison Park entered my head.

It’s the only stadium that my Dad visited before I came along, and jolted his life with my love and football, and Chelsea, and Chelsea games.

Goodison will always be a part of me.

Back to the game.

At 5.30pm, it kicked-off.

Everton were attacking our end, Chelsea the South Side. The early afternoon heat had subsided, and I needed my rain jacket to keep warm. The first ten minutes or so didn’t amount to much on the pitch, and I spent a few moments eying up the various parts of the new stadium and wondering if the home fans would ever get going. The atmosphere wasn’t brilliant. I spotted a fair few empty seats opposite in what looked like a corporate zone. I had heard rumours that this was the case at the new stadium, and that Evertonians were far from happy that seats were appearing on third party sites way too easily. Sound familiar?

There was another in the long line of Sanchez mishaps after ten minutes as made an absolute balls-up of ushering the ball to a colleague, but thankfully, he was able to scramble the ball clear before Beto could cause the ultimate embarrassment. The away end howled their derision.

We were playing our usual slow build-up in which the two central defenders touched the ball more than our more creative players. I moaned to John that “football has got right up its own arse the past few years” and I hope we – somehow – return to a looser style of play.

With twenty minutes on the clock, and with just a lazy shot from Caicedo that had drifted wide to our name, it was all Everton. They were sharper on the ball and sharper off it. A shot from James Garner, whoever he is, was cleared by Gusto.

A voice behind me, booming out so that everyone could hear him, was winding me up. His voice was loud and boorish. He was calling several Chelsea players the most hideous of names. I bit my lip until I could bite it no more. I turned around.

“Listen mate, I admire your passion, but you can’t say that word here.”

It was a word that I had not heard on the football terraces ever before, nor outside of football – in polite society or not – for decades. My comment had riled him, and he then used several other unpleasant words over the next fifteen minutes or so with the sole intention of winding me up. I did not turn around. I did not react.

I was tempted to get out of the stadium, defeated. But I stayed, resolutely. I didn’t want this person to win.

Our play then improved a little for a few minutes, and we managed to conjure up a flurry of shots from a variety of players, all of which were blocked on their path to goal.

Sadly, on thirty-three minutes, out of nowhere, a lightning break caught us flat-footed at the back, and we all sensed danger. Garner sent the ball through for Beto, who had out-raced and out-thought Fofana, and he dinked the ball perfectly over Sanchez. It was a gut-wrenching sight to see the ball end up in the net with thousands of Evertonians behind the goal cheering along.

Fackinell.

Everton 1 Chelsea 0.

We hadn’t created too much from open play, and our best chance came soon after the Everton goal when Neto floated a corner in from the far corner, but Jordan Pickford flapped. The ball fell nicely for Enzo to smack the ball goalwards. However, Pickford threw up an arm and managed to palm the ball over. It was an amazing recovery and a fine save.

A chance fell for Lavia, from an Enzo cross, towards the closing moments but his header went wide.

By now, the bloke behind me had disappeared.

At half-time, I spoke to a woman in front, who was watching with her young son, and I mentioned to her that it was the look of pure disgust on her face that had prompted my words. She mentioned that the woman in front of her had reported the bloke to the stewards. He didn’t return for the second half.

A bloke to my left had a little word about the two goalkeepers.

“Imagine if we had Pickford in goal. Not Sanchez. The calm it would create in the defence.”

I had to agree.

At half-time, there was more Leich “criss-cross” being flashed on the advertising areas, but there had been nothing during the game, which was a shame from my perspective. Why not display this famous design a few times for a few minutes each half?

Liam Rosenior replaced Malo Gusto with Alejandro Garnacho and it took me and the bloke to my right a few moments to work it all out.

“Who has gone off” he asked.

“Looks like Gusto. Caicedo to right back” I replied.

That didn’t feel quite right to me, shades of Michael Essien filling in at right back in 2008. But it also meant Enzo sitting deeper and Palmer coming inside.

Everton still looked hungrier, with more energy, while we looked lazy and lethargic, a horrible combination. Chances were at a premium.

On fifty-seven minutes, Andrey Santos replaced Lavia, who still hasn’t got close to a full game for us.

Well, for a while we improved slightly and Enzo conjured a shot on goal, a curler that Pickford saved well.

Then, on sixty-two minutes, another quick break after Idrissa Gueye picked up a loose ball. He played the ball into the path of Beto – this had “goal” written all over it, that footballing sixth sense – and he sped away before slamming a low shot at goal. From a hundred yards away, we saw the ball emerge past Sanchez, and there was a futile attempt to hack it away. But the line had already been crossed.

Everton 2 Chelsea 0.

The replay was shown on the big screen, and there were howls from the away end as we saw the ball squirm under Sanchez.

Fackinell.

The noise, that had been simmering all afternoon, now took over the steep-sided stadium.

“Everton. Everton. Everton. Everton.”

It was loud as hell.

Chelsea carved out a rare chance after a neat Enzo one-two with Joao Pedro, but his lifted effort was well-saved by Pickford again.

The manager changed things again. On seventy-minutes, Estevao replaced Neto. His brightness down in front of the away support brought an up-turn in our noise, though in all honesty it felt that the game was well gone by this stage. He certainly added some zip to our play. One corner that he whipped in came crashing down onto the bar with Pickford for once well beaten. There are few players in this squad that I have a rapport with, but Estevao is one of them. His smiles are refreshing, his skills are lovely, his whole demeanour is of a “nice kid.”

A second corner was whipped-in, and that caused a problem too.

I chirped to John that “Estevao our best player and he’s only been on the pitch for five minutes.”

Alas, with fifteen minutes remaining, Everton moved the ball to Beto, who passed it on to Iliman Ndiaye. Bizarrely, I found myself leaning forward to get a good look at his approach on goal. I might have preferred, perhaps, to look away, or to move back. I saw the player curve a magnificent shot past Sanchez. I watched it every bit of the way.

Ugh.

Everton 3 Chelsea 0.

There followed more incredible noise from the Everton faithful. I would read a few days after the game that many Everton fans thought that the new stadium “came of age” against us. Some even said that it was on a par with some of the noisiest days at Goodison Park, notably the ECWC semi-final against Bayern Munich.

It might be the only honour we get this season.

Our section then thinned out steadily for the remaining minutes. On seventy-eight minutes, two more substitutions.

Tosin Adarabioyo for Moises Caicedo.

Liam Delap for Joao Pedro.

Yep, proof that Rosenior has a sense of humour.

At the end of the game, only around 20% of the 3,000 Chelsea supporters were still in the stadium. I must be a glutton for punishment as I was one of them. I stayed to see the reaction by the players to the supporters and from the supporters to the players.

It was grim stuff really. I think I momentarily clapped for a few seconds. The players faces were stern. At least they didn’t all sprint off down the tunnel. Rosenior clapped us, and I didn’t know what to think. But I do think that it was important that they stared down our bleak expressions.

If that miserable moment helps them understand our pain, then so be it.

The tide has turned against Rosenior. There are no more “Liam” chants at games. It seems that the bloke is out of his depth. He did relatively well in France at Strasbourg, but that is a relatively weak league where one team dominates and a few lesser protagonists jostle for scraps. I suspect that Madame Cholet could successfully manage a team in France.

I met up with the lads, and we took the lift down to ground level. Everyone around us was irritable and fed-up. We slowly walked out towards the exits, and we eventually shuffled through one of the four exit gates. Four exit gates for 52,500 seems crazy; the place needs more. We then began the – very – slow walk south. The walk back to the car took the best part of an hour. I suppose we pulled out of my parking spot at around 9pm.

To be fair, the car journey through the city and out to the M62 and then the M6 was surprisingly quick. We stopped off in Kensington, unlike the London version, a very low rent part of the city, and wolfed down some burgers and a kebab. Then, the long road south.

I eventually made it home at 2am.

Gallery

Staring Us Down

Goodbye

Hello

2022

Tales From Difficult Shapes And Passive Rhythms

Smiles Before Kick-Off

We Will Be Back

Tales From The Grand Old Lady

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Chris Axon

Everton vs. Chelsea : 22 December 2024.

Last season, the Everton away game was again just before Christmas, on Sunday 10 December, and at the time it was to be our last-ever visit to the Grand Old Lady on Goodison Road. I went into that game expecting it to be so and took tons of photos to commemorate my last-ever visit. Yet, between the time of the game and the day of posting my match report, five days later, it was announced by Everton Football Club that they would be staying one more year at the revered old stadium and would move into Bramley Moore Dock in August 2025.

Ironically, another recent visit had the feel of a potential “last-ever” game too, the match in May 2022, when Everton were deep in the relegation mire. On that day, Frank Lampard’s Everton squeaked home 1-0 and lived to fight again.

It seems like Everton, or rather Goodison, has been messing about with my brain for a few years now. God knows what actual Everton fans have been experiencing.

I was pretty happy with the 105 photos that I posted for last season’s match and I had a feeling that I might well match this high figure on this occasion.

Goodison Park and I go back a long way, to a match that was shown on ITV “live” on Sunday 16 March 1986, but many fans of my generation first experienced Goodison on Saturday 22 December 1984 – forty years ago to the day – and it is the one game that I wish that I had seen. The visit in 2024 would be my twenty-fourth Chelsea game at Goodison, but the game on that Saturday forty years ago was arguably our best performance there in the past four decades.

At the time, I was so annoyed that I was not able to attend the game at Goodison in 1984. I had returned home the previous weekend from my college town of Stoke, and would be listening-in on the portable radio as I did a shift in my father’s menswear shop in Frome’s town centre. I occasionally helped out at Xmas time when things got a little busier. But I was so annoyed that I was back in Somerset. It would have been easy to travel up by train from Stoke to Liverpool had I still been in The Potteries.

My diary from 1984 explains “the saga” at Goodison Park, and how I “went wild” every time we scored, especially when a score of Everton 3 Chelsea 1 was corrected to 2-2. We won the game 4-3, with Gordon Davies getting a hat-trick and Colin Pates getting one. Graeme Sharp scored two for the home team and Paul Bracewell scored the other. I had predicted a gate of 24,000 so was very happy with the attendance of 29,800. I went out in Frome later that night and had way too much to drink. It was our first away win in the league in 1984/85 though. These things have to be celebrated surely. Those that went to the match in 1984 often tell the story of all sorts of missiles being launched at the tightly packed Chelsea terrace and the seats high above the goal from the home enclosure in front of the main stand; pool balls, flares, golf balls with nails. Friendly bunch, Everton.

For the game in 2024 we set off early. I collected PD and his son Scott at 6am and Parky at 6.30pm. We breakfasted at a deadly quiet Strensham between 7.30am and 8am. I was parked up at the usual Stanley Park car park at 10.30am – a £13 fee – but as we made our way north to Goodison, the wind howled, and the rain fell. In Almaty there was no wind chill and there was no dampness in the air, and I coped OK. After a minute of being exposed to the bitter chill of Stanley Park, I was shivering like a fool. The rain seemed to seep into my bones. I was reminded of Turf Moor in 2017. We came off the vast expanse of the park and walked alongside more sheltered and tree-lined roads.

While the others went off to find shelter in “The Abbey” pub on Walton Lane, I met up briefly with a photographer pal of mine, David. We had bumped into each other at last season’s game and had kept in touch ever since. He often takes photos pitch side at the four grounds in Liverpool and Manchester. He was queuing up, hiding from the rain, underneath the towering main stand that rises dramatically from the pavement on Goodison Road like no other stand in England. Only Ibrox come close in the entire UK. He was after a good “speck” – Scouse slang for “spot” – behind the Park End goal. We had planned for him to take a few photos of my pals and I during the game.

As I made my way to the pub, I spotted a former Everton player from my early years, Mike Lyons.

“Hello Mike.”

No answer.

That’s because I quickly realised it was Martin Dobson.

Fackinell.

I dodged the rain and made my way inside the pub that was surprisingly quiet. We stayed inside from 11pm to 1pm, and the small, thin, cosy pub soon became rammed. We were made welcome, though. I chatted to some Evertonians from Aberdare in South Wales who were staying over. Jimmy the Greek, Nick the Greek and Doncaster Pail had joined us, and Ian then arrived with two random Evertonians he had met on the train and who had subsequently shared a cab together from Lime Street.

They are a lot more friendlier in 2024 than in 1984.

If anything, the inter-city rivalry between Merseyside’s blues and reds has heightened and intensified and turned nasty since 1984. I joked with Jimmy and commented that Evertonians hark on about Liverpool’s fan base now residing in Norway, and Liverpool bite back by saying that Everton’s global reach now goes as far as North Wales.

David, the photographer arrived with a programme for me, but reported that his “speck” was in front of the Gwladys Street, so no candid photos of us on this day.

Tommie and Chris – the brothers Grim, Tommie Chelsea and Chris Everton – arrived in the rain and I passed over spares. Then, I got drenched on the short walk to the ground, where I was serenaded by a “Town Called Malice” – an odd choice so far north – by a band playing in the fan park behind the impressive Dixie Dean statue.

There was time for one final, sad, circumnavigation of The Grand Old Lady.

The Winslow Hotel, where I popped in with my mate Francis for a drink before a game at Anfield in 1994, and if my fictional piece from 2012 is to be believed, where my father visited on his one visit to Goodison Park in around 1942, mid RAF training on The Wirral.

To the left, Jock spotted the frosted glass windows of a local hostelry. Without any words being exchanged, Jock quickly headed inside, his two friends left outside in his wake.

“A quick pint, Half Pint?” asked Hank to Reg. “It appears our Scottish friend is in need of liquid refreshment.”

They spotted Jock dart in the bar to the right of the main entrance of The Winslow Hotel and they quickly followed suit.

“Jock’s at the bar, Half Pint – this is a rare sight indeed. Let’s hope he doesn’t forget us.”

The cavernous bar was incredibly noisy and the three pals struggled to hear themselves be heard above the din of orders being taken, jokes being shared, vulgar belly laughs, shouts and groans. A young lad strode through the bar, bedecked in Everton favours – the blue and white standing out against the dismal colours of wartime England – and attempted to sell match programmes. He was not faring well. The locals were more intent on drinking. An elderly gent, with glasses and a pencil thin moustache, spoke engagingly to Reg about Dixie Dean, the great Everton centre-forward, who once scored 60 goals in a 42 game season.

As his knowledge of football wasn’t great, Reg wasn’t sure if this was the same Dixie Dean who had been ridiculed in the schoolboy poem of his youth –

“Dixie Dean from Aberdeen.
He tried to score a goal.
He missed his chance.
And pee’d his paints.
And now he’s on the dole.”

Talk of the imminent football match was minimal, though. It seemed that just being in an alien environment, so different from each of their hometowns, was amusement enough. Hank looked at his watch and signalled to the others to finish their drinks. Outside, the rain had started to fall. The three friends quickly rushed across to the stand and did not notice that the narrow street, darkened under the shadow of the structure, was busy with an array of match day activity; grizzly old men selling programmes, young boys selling cheap paper rosettes, wise-cracking spivs selling roasted chestnuts and cigarettes and young girls selling newspapers.

The main stand, and the elevator that I took to watch a game from the top balcony with my mate Pete in 1992 when Robert Fleck scored. The church of St. Luke the Evangelist, with its café and memorabilia shop that I visited in 2022.

The huge images of Dean, Sharp, Latchford, Royle, Young and Hickson towering over rooftops.

The Holy Trinity statue.

The pavement alongside where some local scallies had eyed me up and down on my second visit in late 1986 and sneered “that jacket is so fookin’ red” and I thought I might be in for a hiding.

Gwladys Street, where I walked with Josh and Courtney in October and where Courtney took a photo of two lads, in red and blue, playing football outside two houses with red and blue doors, a perfect image.

A turn into Bullens Road and the away end. Memories of a beautiful visit with my then girlfriend Judy’s young football-mad son James, aged just ten, his first-ever game in 1998, and then a repeat in 2006 with him, the 3-2 cracker.

The rain was bucketing down and the stewards just wanted us inside, so there was no camera search.

For one last time, I was in.

The familiar steps, the crowded concourse, the wooden floorboards of the Archibald Leitch Stand, our seats in Row B, effectively the front row.

I love Goodison. It’s obvious, right? But some hate it. I thought of them when I realised that a roof support was right in front of my seat, blocking a good deal of the pitch.

Fackinell.

I was lined up with Alan, John and Gary to my left and with Eck and Steely from Glasgow to my right. After being given a word of warning about using my SLR by both the chief steward and an over-zealous ambulance woman (!), I played cat and mouse with them all game long, and Eck was able to step in front of me to avoid me being seen. I am pretty sure I relied on Eck for this superb defensive partnership against prying eyes last season too.

Like Nesta and Cannavaro in their prime.

Eck and I found ourselves lip-syncing to “If You Know Your History”, it’s easily done.

Then, the big big moment…the sirens and “Z Cars” for one last time at Goodison.

Chills.

There is nothing better.

I have no doubt that Everton will keep this tune as a key part of their match-day routine at Bramley Moore. I am sure when it is played at the first-ever game, it will seem like the torch has been handed on.

Incidentally, the new stadium :

I love the location.

I am a little worried about parking and traffic flow.

The outside looks fantastic.

The inside seating bowl looks rather bland.

But I like the steepness of the rake of the terraces.

I like that – at the moment – the blue seats are not spoiled with sponsors names or other silliness.

How I wish that a few Leitch cross struts could be repositioned at key places on the balcony wall at the new digs.

With the kick-off time approaching, I checked our team.

Sanchez

Disasi – Colwill – Tosin – Gusto

Caicedo – Enzo

Neto – Palmer – Sancho

Jackson

Everton were a mixture of footballers and former footballers, some familiar, some not and how on Earth is Ashley Young still playing?

Both teams wore white shorts. Brian Moore would be turning in his grave.

Everybody standing, the rain starting to get worse, the game began.

Whisper it, but a win at Goodison would send us top, if only for a few hours.

We began the livelier and attacked the deep-sitting Everton lines in front of the Gwladys Street. There was a shot, wide, from Cole Palmer, and a couple of attacking half-chances involving Nicolas Jackson and Pedro Neto.

The rain was heavier now and seemed to be aimed right at us in the Bullens Upper. I sheltered behind Eck. The wind was blustery and seemed to change direction at will. Playing conditions, although not treacherous, were difficult, and it made for periods of messy football. The Everton crowd, not exactly buoyed by the news of the latest take-over, soon quietened down.

Neto had began the game as our liveliest player on the right and, after good play by Moises Caicedo, he fed in Palmer, and there was a low cross towards Jackson, but Jordan Pickford saved well.

We played well in short spells, and from a corner, Jackson smacked the post from close range and Pickford closed angles before Malo Gusto could attack the rebound.

Everton had been very defensive and offered very little. It was so noticeable that the Everton support were cheering defensive clearances.

“God, I know everyone loves their clubs and their teams, but imagine turning up to watch this every two weeks?”

At last, an effort on our goal; someone called Orel Mangala forcing a very fine stop from Robert Sanchez. Just after, another Everton effort, and Sanchez thwarted Jack Harrison from close range.

It had been a poor first-half and was met with moans and grumbles by the Chelsea faithful at the break.

Neto had been my favourite, and we loved the audacious piece of skill when he controlled the ball by knocking it back over his shoulder to fox his marker. Caicedo was strong. Sancho had a lot of the ball but was finding it difficult to get the best of Old Man Young. Disasi touched the ball so many times it honestly felt like he was our main playmaker. We cried out for a little more urgency.

Just before the second half began, Eck, Steely and I were now lip-syncing to “True Faith” by New Order and we hoped our faith would be truly rewarded.

“That’s the price that we all pay.
And the value of destiny comes to nothing.
I can’t tell you where we’re going.
I guess there was just no way of knowing.”

The weather was still wild. There were hints of a blue sky and sun, but only fleeting. At times the sky over the huge main stand roof took on a lavender hue. This was Goodison Park in the depths of winter, in the depths of Liverpool, in its unique setting. The wind grew stronger and the rain came again.

Football. There is something about it, in these old weather-beaten stadia, that absolutely stirs the soul.

Bizarrely, to me at least, it was Everton who created more chances of note in an increasingly worrisome second-half. On fifty minutes, a huge jolt to our confidence as Everton really should have scored. At last the home crowd made some noise that the old ground deserved.

Although Sancho looked a little more lively down below us – in an area of the Goodison Park pitch that always invokes of Eden Hazard twisting and turning – as the second-half continued, our link-up play was poor. Palmer was having a very average game, and this seemed to affect our confidence.

Some substitutions on seventy-five minutes.

Christopher Nkunku for Jackson.

Noni Madueke for Neto.

Everton attacked down our left, and a shot from Martin Gore lookalike Jesper Lindstrom was expertly stopped by Sanchez, but the block on the follow-up effort from Tosin was exceptional.

It was at this stage that we all began thinking that we would be happy with a 0-0, a point, and consolidation of a second place finish.

There were minimal minutes added on at the end of the ninety. It was if the referee Chris Kavanagh was happy to save us any more pain.

It ended 0-0.

As the legions of home and away fans departed, I loitered with my camera and tried my best to capture a few haunting images of my final ten minutes in a stadium that I have so enjoyed visiting over the past thirty-eight years.

My final Everton vs. Chelsea record at Goodison Park :

Played : 24

Won : 8

Drew : 7

Lost : 9

For : 23

Against : 26

I took some inevitable shots of the trademark Leitch cross struts on the balcony wall, and I was reminded of when I pinned my “VINCI PER NOI” banner on this section for our last great game at Goodison, the 3-0 triumph late in 2016/17. My words illustrate the joy of that day.

At the final whistle, a triumphal roar, and then my eyes were focussed on Antonio Conte. He hugged all of the Chelsea players, and slowly walked over to join his men down below us, only a few yards away from the touchline. With just four games remaining, and our lead back to seven points, the joy among the team and supporters was palpable. Conte screamed and shouted, his eyes bulging. He jumped on the back of Thibaut Courtois. His smiles and enthusiasm were so endearing.

Altogether now – “phew.”

The songs continued as we slowly made our way out into the street. A message came through from my good friend Steve in Philadelphia –

“Chris, the image that just flashed on my screen was beautiful. A shot of a cheering Antonio Conte, cheering the away fans, with the Vinci banner in the background. Absolutely perfect shot.”

There was time for one last photo of me with the Gwladys Street in the background, and then one last shot of the exit gate in the Bullens Upper, a photo that I had taken just over twelve months earlier.

But now, it was final.

Thanks Goodison, for the memories, from Reg Axon in around 1942 and from me from 1986 to 2024.

Tales From The Burger Van

Posted on May 6, 2022 by Chris Axon

Everton vs. Chelsea : 1 May 2022.

Well, that was a bloody long way to go for a curry.

I had always thought that our match at Goodison Park would be a very tough fixture. In fact, leading up to it, I was telling everyone that was interested to know my opinion, and maybe some who weren’t, that I thought that we would lose at Everton. It was set up for it. A notoriously difficult place for us to get results of late, the Frank Lampard thing, an absolutely red-hot atmosphere, the fact that it would be “typical Chelsea”, the entire works. Coming out of Old Trafford on the Thursday, I said to the boys :

“Yeah, we’ve done really well tonight, but it will be much harder at Everton on Sunday.”

Everton harder than Manchester United? An away game against a team in the bottom three would be harder than one chasing a European place?

Oh yeah. Oh definitely.

There was a very early start to my Sunday. The alarm rang at 5am and I picked up PD at 6am and Parky at 6.30am. I planned in a little more slack than usual because, damn it, I was flashed on the way home from Old Trafford on Thursday evening. After years and years of no speeding offences, I was now looking at six points in around four months.

Three after Villa on Boxing Day.

Three – I presumed – after United.

Six points. Ugh. I would need to slow things down for a long time now.

At just after 9am, I navigated my way through the streets of Stafford to make an additional stop. Through my network of mates at Chelsea, an extra ticket in the Chelsea section had become available. It belonged to Alex, a Londoner who I often see in “The Eight Bells” but who has been residing in Stafford for around thirty years. When I heard about the spare, I quickly put two and two together. My pal Burger – aka Glenn – has himself been living in Stafford for almost twelve years since his arrival, with his wife Julie, from Toronto in the summer of 2010. I got to know the two of them on the US tours in 2007 and 2009 and we have become good friends over the years. A couple of texts were exchanged and, yes, Burger was in. I left it to Alex and Burger to sort out the ticket in due course.

I collected passenger number three and immediately called “The Chuckle Bus” an alternative name.

For one day only it was “The Burger Van.”

Lo and behold, there was quite a tale involved in the extra ticket. Burger and Alex had chatted and had arranged to meet up in a local pub. For years I have told Burger about Alex and Alex about Burger.

“You must know him. There can’t be too many Chelsea in Stafford.”

Well, it became apparent that the two of them used to drink – and probably still do – in another Stafford pub. After European aways, Burger would always bring home a friendship scarf from his travels at the behest of the barman. And Alex would always spot that a new scarf had appeared behind the bar and would ask the barman where it came from.

“Oh, from that bloke I told you about. You sure you don’t know him?”

They must have missed each other drinking in that pub on many occasions. They were like shadows haunting the pubs of Stafford. They even lived in the same area for a while. And all along, I had pestered both of them with tales of each other’s existence. Well, at last they had met, and I took a little pride that it had eventually been through me. They were only going to meet up to pass over the ticket over a single drink but they stayed for four.

Proper Chelsea.

On the drive north, we chatted how you never see club colours on show in cars on match days – or any other days for that matter – in England anymore. Tensions have generally cooled since the mad old days and yet you don’t even see a mini-kit on display. Those were all the rage thirty years ago. On this trip, covering almost five hours, I didn’t see one Chelsea nor Everton favour.

PD : “My old car used to be a shrine. By the rear window. Scarves. Cushions. Rosettes.”

It’s an odd one alright.

I was parked up in Stanley Park at around 10.30am with memories of the last league game of 2010/11 at Goodison when I had travelled up with Parky, Burger and Julie. That ended terribly, with Carlo Ancelotti getting the “Spanish fiddler” in the tunnel after the game. I wonder whatever happened to him?

While the three of them headed off to “The Thomas Frost” I began a little wander of my own. My friend Chris – the brother of Chelsea fan Tommie – is an Evertonian from North Wales who now lives near Newcastle. We had been talking about meeting up for a pint before the game in a pub called “St. Hilda’s” which is just a couple of hundred yards from “Thomas Frost”. Chris – and Tommie – gave me invaluable advice for my Buenos Aires trip in early 2020, and we owed each other a meet up. During the week, it dawned on me that this could be my last ever visit to Goodison Park, what with the threat of relegation and a new stadium by the river, and so I was determined to wring every ounce of football out of it. I asked Chris if the church that abuts the ground, St. Luke the Evangelist, was open on match days. I was told that the church hall next to it has an upstairs room devoted to Everton memorabilia. That would be perfect. I even had a working title for the blog worked out.

“Tales From St. Luke’s, St, Hilda’s And The School Of Science.”

The trouble was that Chris was currently waylaid on his cross-Pennine trek, courtesy of inefficiencies of the British rail network. Not to worry, I walked along Goodison Road, underneath the towering blue of the main stand, a path that my dear father may well have chosen on his visit to Goodison for a war-time friendly in around 1942 or so. It would be his only football game before Chelsea in 1974. I reached St’ Luke’s at around 11am and approached a couple of ladies that were seemingly guarding the entrance to the church hall, but were actually pedalling match programmes from a small table. It soon transpired that I had caught the both of them at a bad moment.

“You’ve got a bad mental attitude.”

“No, you have.”

“Let’s go outside.”

I could hardly believe my ears. These frail women were having a proper go at each other. It made me chuckle.

With hindsight, it set the tone of aggression that would mark the entire afternoon in and around Goodison Park.

After the dust settled, I was told that the room upstairs would only be open at 11.30am. I had twenty minutes to kill and so set off for Kirkdale train station? Why? My good friend Alan – another aficionado of Archibald Leitch, the architect of so many iconic football stands and stadia – had noticed a little homage to Leitch’s cross-hatch balcony walls at that station when he caught a train to Southport a few years ago after a game in Liverpool. I owed it to myself to go and take a visit myself.

The only problem was that there was a little drizzle in the air. I zipped up my Paul & Shark rain jacket, flipped the hood and set off. My mind wandered too.

In November 1986, on my second visit to Goodison – my second visit of 1986 in fact – at around that exact same spot where I crossed Goodison Road, a gang of around four scallies – early teens, no more – had begun talking to me well before the game began. They had soon sussed I was Chelsea and started to ask me a few questions. I was, it is true to say, a little wary. However, I must have a non-aggressive demeanour because the lads – after my initial reluctance to engage in a conversation – just seemed football-daft and chatted to me for a while. Thankfully they posed no threat. These weren’t spotters leading me to danger and a confrontation with older lads. We chatted about the game and all other associated topics.

“Where you from mate?”

“Is Nevin playing today?”

“What’s Chelsea’s firm called?”

“You going in the seats at the Park End?”

I remembered that they were from Kirkdale, just a twenty-minute walk from Goodison. I also remembered that these lads were on the prowl for free tickets which, a surprise to me, were sometimes handed out to local lads by Everton officials. A nice gesture.

Yes, I thought of those young lads. They’d be in their late ‘forties by now.

Bizarrely, we played at Anfield in December 1986 and, walking along the Walton Breck Road behind The Kop before the game, the same lads spotted me again and we had a little catch up. I never did find out if they were red or blue, or maybe a mixture of both.

I crossed County Road. This wide road inspired the name of one of Everton’s earliest gangs – “The County Road Cutters” – and the rain got worse as I crossed it. Would I regret this little pilgrimage to Kirkdale in the rain this Sunday morning? I wondered if my father had taken the train to Kirkdale all those years ago and if I was treading on hallowed ground.

I reached the station and headed down to the platform where “The Blue Garden” – sadly looking a little shabby and needing a makeover – was placed. The rain still fell. I took a few photographs.

I retraced my steps. I passed “The Melrose Abbey” pub, itself sadly looking a little shabby and needing a makeover. I was tempted to dive in – I saw a huge pile of sandwich rolls stacked on the bar ahead of the football rush – but decided against it. I was lucky in 1986 with some lads from Kirkdale and although time has moved on, I didn’t want to push my luck thirty-six years later.

On the walk back to Goodson the hulk of the main stand at Anfield could easily be seen despite the misty rain over Stanley Park. I approached Goodison again, a fantastic spectacle, wedged in among the tightly terraced streets of Walton. Ahead, things were getting noisy and getting busy. In the forty-five minutes that I had been away, the area beneath the main stand had become packed full of noisy Evertonians. Some were letting off blue flares. We had heard how some fireworks had been let off outside the Chelsea hotel. And now this. The natives were gearing up for a loud and confrontational day. I guessed that they were lying in wait for the Chelsea coach. I sent an image of the blue flares outside The Holy Trinity statue to Chris, still battling away in Rochdale. His reply suggested he wasn’t impressed.

“Kopite behaviour.”

Pungent sulphurous fumes filled my nostrils. Ex-player Alan Stubbs walked through to the main entrance. The atmosphere was electric blue. I hadn’t experienced anything like this at a game in the UK before apart from a European night or two at the top of Stanley Park. I was hearing Everton songs that I had never ever heard before. The home support was going for broke.

I must admit that it felt so surreal to hear Scousers singing “Super Frank.”

I entered the football exhibition at St’ Luke’s and was met by a black and white photo of Tommy Lawton. He would sign for us after the Second World War. It still baffles me that we bought two of the greatest strikers of the immediate pre and post-war era in Hughie Gallacher and Tommy Lawton yet didn’t challenge in the First Division at all.

Typical Chelsea.

Of course, the greatest of all was William Dean, or simply Dixie. He must have been some player. I snapped a few items featuring him. His statue welcomes visitors to Goodison on match days. I always used to love that he scored sixty goals in the 1927/28 season, just after the other sporting hero of that era Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs for the New York Yankees in 1927. That Dixie Dean should die at Goodison Park during a Merseyside derby just seems, in some ways – as odd as it sounds – just right.

Proper Everton.

I could – and should – have stayed longer in that attic at St. Luke’s but I needed to move on. I sadly realised that I wouldn’t be meeting Chris, not even for a pre-match handshake, so I headed away from the ground again. I battled the crowds outside. There was a line of police – Bizzies – guarding the main stand and it took me forever to squeeze through. I may or may not have said “scuse me mate” with a slight Scouse twang a few times. The songs boomed in my ears.

“The boys from the royal blue Mersey.”

Eventually I was free and raced over to “The Thomas Frost”, one of my least favourite football pubs. There was, according to the steward, no room at the main entrance. I simply walked over to a corner door, chatted to Darren from Crewe, and went in there. I eventually met up with PD, Parky, Burger but also Deano and Dave. The Old Firm match was on. There were plenty of Scottish accents in the crowd and I supposed they were ‘Gers fans down for the game.

Shouts above the noise of a frantically busy pub, pints being consumed, everything so boisterous.

This football life.

Chelsea songs too. To be fair, both sets of fans – Everton and Chelsea – were drinking cheek by jowl with no nastiness. Chelsea tend to side with Rangers. Everton tend to side with Celtic. I had noticed a box of Celtic programmes at St. Luke’s – but no Rangers ones – as if no further proof were needed. A potential tinderbox – Everton, Chelsea, Rangers, Celtic – was passing with no trouble at all.

We left for the ground. I remembered seeing Burger with his father outside Goodison for the away game in early 2015/16, another loss. I had travelled up with just Deano for that one. All these lives intertwined.

I was inside in good time. Yet again our viewing position was awful, shunted way behind the goal line. Since our last visit in December 2019 – guess what, we lost – a mesh had been erected between the two sets of fans between the Bullens Road and the Park End. Everton certainly missed a trick in around 1994 when the simple single tier of the Park End replaced the older two-tiered stand. There is a lot of space behind that stand. It could have been much grander. But I bloody love Goodison and I will be so sad when it is no more.

It’s the antithesis of the old Stamford Bridge, the first ground I fell in love with. Our home was wild and rambling, spread-out, away from the road, a land of its own, a land of undulating terraces, inside and out, of shrubs and trees, of turnstiles, of forecourts, of differing stands, of corrugated iron, of floodlight pylons, of vast stretches of green, of views of Brompton Cemetery, of Earls Court, of London.

Goodison was – and is – cramped, rectangular, uniform, encased and with only St. Luke’s church of the outside world visible from inside.

I loved and love both.

We were at the very front of the top tier.

We waited.

The noise increased.

“And if you know your history.”

It seemed that the whole day was about Everton. Yes, we were chasing a third place but it was all about them. And that was what scared me. I envisioned them fighting for everything, the dogs of war of the Joe Royle team of around 995 revisited.

“Z-Cars.”

Spine-chilling stuff. I closed my eyes and breathed it in.

As the teams entered the pitch from different entrances, flags and banners took over, and the heavy smell of the flares hit my senses once again. I spotted a flag in the Gwladys.

“We Are The Goodison Gang.”

What on earth was that? It sounded like a ‘seventies children’s TV programme.

Thomas Tuchel had chosen an eleven against Frank Lampard’s Everton.

Mendy

Rudiger – Silva – Azpilicueta

Alonso – Loftus-Cheek – Jorginho – James

Mount

Werner – Havertz

Alan : “Not the most mobile of midfield twos.”

There was a mixture of new and old names for Everton. I had heard good stuff about Anthony Gordon.

As for Seamus Coleman, wasn’t it time he retired and fucked off to run a pub in Cork?

Borussia Chelsea in yellow and black. Everton in old-style white socks, la.

I would later learn that Chris got in with five minutes to spare. He works in logistics too.

It was fifty-fifty for much of the first-half and although the Everton fans seemed noisy as hell in the first segment of the game, the noise fell away as the game progressed. I noticed that for virtually the entire first period, the denizens of the Park End to our left were seated.

“Just not good enough. Must do better.”

A save from Edouard Mendy from Demarai Gray was followed by a dipping shot from Mason Mount and this indicated a bright start. But thrills were rare. On eighteen minutes we witnessed an amazing piece of skill from Mount, juggling on the run, flipping the ball up, and bringing it out of defence. Sublime stuff. Just after, sublime play of a different kind when Antonio Rudiger recovered well to make a magnificent run to cover the right-wing thrusts from Everton with a great tackle.

I could not understand the chants from our end for Frank Lampard. We love the bloke, of course, but I thought all that was silly and miss-guided. We were struggling on the pitch. I was not sure how a song about Dennis Wise in Milan was helping the cause either.

Parky was annoyed too : “Is he playing?”

Another shot from Gordon, just wide.

This was dreary stuff.

Only a lovely run from deep from Ruben Loftus-Cheek enlivened the team and the fans. With each stride, he seemed to grow in confidence. It was a graceful piece of play, but one that begged the question “why doesn’t he do it more fucking often?”

There was a fine block from Thiago Silva late on in the half, but – honestly – was that it?

It was.

For the second-half, Tuchel replaced Jorginho with Mateo Kovacic and we hoped for better things.

Alas, we imploded after just two bloody minutes.

Oh Dave.

Our captain dithered and Richarlison pounced.

Everton 1 Chelsea 0.

Bollocks.

A little voice inside my head : “yep.”

Howls from the Chelsea sections of the Bullens Road. Yet again a moment of huge indecision in our defence had cost us dearly. When Tuchel came in last season, our defensive errors seemed to magically disappear. The current trend is so worrying.

Just after, Everton really should have been two goals to the good but Vitalii Mykolenko shot high and wide at the Gwladys Street.

We tried to get back into the game but the movement upfront was negligible. But, to be honest, there was more room on the Goodison Road at 12.30pm than there was in the Everton final third. We were met with block after block, tackle after tackle. They harried and chased like their lives depended on it. Which they probably did.

There seemed to be more than normal amounts of time-wasting. Richarlison went down for cramp twice, as did others. The away fans howled some more.

On the hour, we howled again as a Marcos Alonso cross picked out Havertz who did well to head on to Mount. His shot not only hit both posts but the follow up from Dave was saved – magnificently, I cannot lie – by Pickford.

From the resulting corner, a header was knocked on and Rudiger raced in to smash the ball goal wards but the ball hit Pickford’s face.

Fucksake.

The Evertonians seemed to relish a new-found love of England.

“England’s Number One, England’s, England’s Number One.”

We kept going, but I wasn’t convinced that we’d break them down. Two headers in quick succession from Kai and Timo amounted to nothing.

Tuchel made some substitutions.

Christian Pulisic for Dave.

Hakim Ziyech for Werner.

There was a little injection of skill from Pulisic, wriggling away and getting past a few challenges but there was no end product. We enjoyed another barnstorming run from Ruben, even better than the one in the first, but we lacked invention. Everton appeared to take time-wasting to a new level. A scally in the paddock on the far side simply shoved a ball up his jumper rather than give it back.

A hopeful but hapless blooter from Rudiger.

A rising shot from Ruben after a neat run again.

A shot from Gray was smashed just over the bar up the other end. I envisioned seeing the net bulge on that one.

The noise was loud now alright.

Seven minutes of extra time were played but we could have played all night long without getting a goal.

A scuffler from Kovacic proved to be our last effort but Pickford collapsed easily at the near post to smother.

The home crowd erupted at the final whistle and we shuffled out along the wooden floorboards.

Everton are still not safe.

I wonder if I will ever return to Goodison Park?

We met up outside and I summed up the game and the season.

“No cutting edge.”

I overheard an Evertonian from South Wales talking, rather exuberantly, to a friend as we walked back to the car.

“Best game I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been to a few.”

He was about the same age as me too, maybe a tad younger.

Bloody hell, mate.

I made good time getting out of Stanley Park, Queens Drive, then onto the motorways. I dropped Burger home and then headed, once more, to “The Vine” at West Bromwich. We were joined by Michelle, Dane, Frances and Steve, Chelsea supporters all.

I had honey and chilli chicken, chilli chips and a peswari naan.

It was indeed a bloody long way to go for a curry.

Next up, Wolves at home.

See you there.

This Is Goodison.

The Blue Garden.

Flags And Flares.

History, La.

Pre-Match.

The Game.

Tales From Dixie Land

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Everton : 7 December 2019.

Not long in to the long drive north for our game at Everton, I admitted to PD and Parky about my thoughts :

“Of course, we can’t really be sure how this one is going to go.”

Despite Chelsea sitting in a pretty decent fourth place, and with Everton having just sacked their manager Marco Silva, Goodison Park has been a tough place for us over the last decade. Additionally, we have been limping along of late and have struggled to find consistency. Everton, under caretaker manager Duncan Ferguson, would be fired up. It was, in my mind anyway, a difficult result to predict.

The journey from rural Somerset to urban Merseyside was completed in a very good time; a little under four-and-a-half hours. At just after 10.30am, I was at the large car-park in Stanley Park, a quarter of a mile from the towering main stand at Anfield, where the league title looks increasingly like residing in May. We walked through the park, and I found it difficult to believe that we were last in this particular part of the world almost two years ago, just before Christmas, when we ended-up walking back to my car in the same car-park after a dismal 0-0 draw. Last season – last March, St. Patrick’s Day, a 0-2 loss – we had travelled to and from our hotel near Lime Street via cabs.

It would be my twentieth visit to Goodison Park, and as many know, this particular stadium at the northern end of Stanley Park is easily my favourite away venue in domestic football. While PD – Bullens Road, Lower – and LP – Bullens Road, Upper – made the short walk to the away turnstiles, I had a little time to kill before kick-off, so had a customary wander. For certain, I was in no need of alcohol since I wanted to remain fresh for the return journey later that day. I had been awake well before the 5am alarm. The day, for me anyway, was all about staying alert for the demands of the road.

I soon found myself at the Dixie Dean statue. It is a formidable structure and depicts the legendary Evertonian as a strong and determined individual, his eyes focussed and with a fist clenched. His record of 349 league goals in just 399 league games for Everton is one of the greatest records in English football. Growing up as a boy, my father – who was not a football fan at all, really – would often talk of Dixie Dean. He was the superstar of the inter-war years. I always liked the fact that his haul of 60 league goals in 1927/28 was matched by Babe Ruth’s haul of 60 home runs in 1927 for the New York Yankees. Both were the superstars of their eras. And I thought that both records would never ever be beaten. The Ruth record has been surpassed, but Dixie Dean’s sixty will surely stand forever. I took a few photographs of the area, which is backed by plaques commemorating the seven Everton players who were killed in the two World Wars. There were bouquets of flowers at the base of the statue, and it was the focus for many of the match-going fans.

I disappeared off, past the Everton club shop, and headed over to Walton Road where I hoped to meet up with a Chelsea mate of mine and his Everton-supporting brother, but they were delayed en route. Instead, I made my way back to Goodison, passing the Everton Community School, which has enjoyed much success in the local area in recent years. I spotted a long-haired lad knocking a ball against an end of terrace brick wall, the outline of a goal white-washed against it. These sort of scenes are rare in England these days. Ball games are usually not allowed. It was a pleasing sight. I almost wanted to join in. It brought back memories of me endlessly kicking a tennis ball against the large expanse of wall opposite my house in my home village, honing my timing, my technique – and my silent commentary.

“Hollins, outside to Cooke. To Osgood. Goal!”

As always, I circumnavigated Goodison Park, and was very pleased to spot a new addition since my last visit. On a wide pavement outside the famous church of St. Luke The Evangelist stood statues of Howard Kendall, Colin Harvey and Alan Ball, Everton’s “Holy Trinity.” It is sensational. I love that it might resemble three fans heading along Goodison Road from a distance, but once close, it becomes apparent that the figures are footballers.

I took some photographs. It was again the focus of much attention from Evertonians.

I remembered how, on my second visit to Goodison Park in the winter of 1986/87, I had walked not more than ten yards away, along the pavement, alone, and had immediately regretted my choice of jacket. A little group of scallies had scuttled past me and one hissed :

“That jacket is so fuckin’ red.”

I thought I was in for some grief, but nothing came of it. Just a little later, some younger lads started talking to me – much to my annoyance, I thought they were spotters – but I managed to avoid any trouble. I remember they spoke about getting in at Everton under the turnstiles, or by often using some free tickets that someone at the club gave them. They were at first an irritating gaggle of kids – they must have been around fourteen or fifteen – but as I chatted to them, they were just keen to talk to me about football, despite me being on guard.

“What’s your firm called?” I remember one kid asking me.

I pleaded ignorance. I didn’t fancy getting slapped by his elder brother, possibly lurking around a corner.

Later that season, a month or so later, I bumped into the very same group of four or five kids at Anfield for the away game against Liverpool. One of them recognised me.

“Alright, mate?”

I smiled but kept my head down.

Merseyside in 1986 was a tough gig.

The welcome from Evertonians in 2019 was a lot cheerier.

A chap in his ‘sixties moved so I could take a photograph of Alan Ball. I thanked him and said “great statue, that.”

He replied :

“We could do with them today.”

We both smiled.

I had timed my ritualistic pre-amble to perfection and was inside the historic Bullens Road stand with about a quarter of an hour to spare. I could not resist some photographs of the blue and white interior. Once up in the Upper Tier, the wooden floorboards hint at its antiquity. It is a magical place, a great perch from which the full glory of Goodison Park is visible down below.

Those Chelsea supporters who boorishly talk about Goodison Park being a “shit hole” can never, ever, be true friends of mine.

Opposite, the main stand, a double-decked behemoth, acted as a quick reminder of my childhood when its towering presence used to enthral me as I watched the Everton players on TV. In those days – “oh bollocks, here he goes again” – I used to love the idiosyncratic nature of many football grounds. Each one imbued its own personality on the clubs. In fact, the two were one of the same.

Everton was Goodison.

United was Old Trafford.

Arsenal was Highbury.

I thought back on the variety of stands opposite the TV gantries.

The multi-span roof at Molineux.

The trim art deco stylings of the East Stand on Avenell Road at Highbury.

The low pitched roof of the Kemlyn Road Stand, with its line of floodlights above, at Anfield.

The low, small stand at Filbert Street.

The huge and brooding Kippax terrace – a rarity in itself – along the side of the pitch at Manchester City.

The structured modernity at Old Trafford; terrace at front, seats in the middle, executive boxes at the rear.

The tightness of the small structure at The Dell.

It is such a shame that these individualistic beauties have, by and large, been replaced by tiers of seating in lookalike rebuilds. Thankfully, Goodison Park remains (but not for too much longer) and its two Archibald Leitch stands became the early focus of my attention as the game progressed.

Kick-off time approached. Time for one of the highlights of modern day Chelsea away days.

“Z Cars.”

I love it. I fucking love it.

I beamed a very wide smile.

Chelsea were unchanged from the Aston Villa game on the previous Wednesday.

Arrizabalaga

James – Christensen – Zouma – Azpilicueta

Kante

Kovacic – Mount

Willian – Abraham – Pulisic

Chelsea in black, black, bright orange.

There were more than a few empty seats in the Upper Tier. Everyone was stood.

The game began.

In the very first few minutes, a couple of loose passes from Dave had a few supporters mumbling and grumbling. But Mason Mount looked busy and involved, running into pockets of space. As a ball was worked out to our right and a pull-back followed, I imagined an Ivanovic or a Costa thumping the ball in for an early lead. It was a promising start. But then, a full scale calamity. We gave up possession way too easily and Everton were all over us like a rash. They moved the ball quickly and purposefully, and we were – cliché warning – chasing shadows. The ball reached their right wing, under the towering double-decker, and Djibril Sidibe punched a fine cross into our box and it was met by the free leap of Richarlison. Our centre-backs were absent without leave.

Only five minutes had been played.

“Oh for fuck sake.”

Chelsea tended to dominate possession, but with little danger to Jordan Pickford in the Everton goal. Everton seemed a little more dangerous on the rare occasions they had the chance to hurt us. There was more space in our defensive third than theirs. A cross from Walcott just evaded Richarlison and there was a save from Kepa from an Everton shot on goal. But we had moments when we looked half-decent. In the middle of the first-half – if not mirroring the purple patch against Villa, perhaps a lavender or violet patch – we started to build a little momentum. Willian managed a few forceful dribbles out of our half, and there was some reasonable linking together of passes. One textbook breakaway down our right came to nothing, and on more than one occasion it felt that we were too frightened to pull the trigger on goal.

Pulisic was on the periphery. I heard a million voices in the US shout the exact same thing :

“Shoot the ball!”

The highlights of the first-half involved our two best players.

N’Golo Kante stretching, but able to cushion a ball into the path of a team mate with just the correct amount of weight. Just perfection.

Mateo Kovacic fighting like a demon for the ball as he kept possession during an extended dribble, even after running into defenders, showing great spirit and determination. It was like something from another era.

As the second-half began, I admitted to Gary “it’s strange not seeing Hazard down below us at this ground, twisting and turning.”

After just two minutes of the half, further catastrophe. I had commented to Gary that it was good to hear the Evertonians applaud Kurt Zouma’s defensive clearance in the first few seconds of the half. He was well-liked at Goodison last season. And yet it was his far-from-convincing hoof into the air which caused panic in the heart of our defence. Christensen and Zouma took it in turns to fall over themselves as the ball fortuitously fell at the feet of Dominic Calvert-Lewin (more a bespectacled member of the clergy than a footballer) and we watched, horrified, as he thumped the ball in from close range.

It felt like we had shot ourselves in the foot yet again. Two goals in the first five minutes of each half.

Bollocks.

No way back from this?

It certainly felt that way.

And yet just a short period of time followed – three minutes – and we were miraculously back in it. A raiding Kante touched the ball to Azpilicueta. His intended pass to Willian was cleared, but it reached Kovacic some twenty-five yards out. His low shot was supremely well-placed. It nestled in the bottom corner with Pickford well beaten.

Game on.

There had been a VAR check for both second-half goals, but both stood.

“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”

We continued to dominate the game, and I think it would be safe to say that most of us expected an equaliser at some stage. But we just lacked the final touch. And the noise in our section wasn’t great to be honest. Theo Walcott’s pace had the beating of Kante on one occasion, but then our little prince fared better in a second duel.

But Alan wasn’t impressed.

“Walcott’s had more dribbles than Stephen Hawking.”

There were efforts from Kovacic, from Mount, a drive from outside the box from Christensen. As the game continued, our exasperation increased. Another shot from Mount, a flash from Azpilicueta that was finger tipped over by Pickford.

On seventy minutes, Callum Hudson-Odoi replaced Willian.

On eighty-two minutes, Michy Batshuayi replaced Reece James.

Frank played with two up top.

Sadly, the game was decided with eighty-four minutes on the clock. Kepa tried to find Zouma but his long pass was poor. Theo Walcott collected it, and found Calvert-Lewin. I immediately growled. This looked dangerous. A back-heel from him found Tom Davies, a substitute, and as he stumbled Calvert-Lewin pounced to stab home the loose ball.

Everton 3 Chelsea 1.

Fackinell.

Despite a day of rainbow flags, rainbow armbands and rainbow laces, the Park End then sang about rent boys.

Original, eh?

The game ended.

The home crowd roared “Duncan, Duncan Ferguson” and I thought back to the “dogs of war” team of his era when players like Barry Horne, Dave Watson and Paul Rideout showed no mercy in every game they played. It was a similar performance from the home team on this occasion.

There was the shaking of heads and the pursing of lips in the Bullens Road. It was another strange one. A game of defensive lapses, and a game of goal-shy forwards. Pulisic was lightweight and had a shocker. The defensive four were individually poor and collectively worse. Kante and Kovacic shone like beacons. The game passed Tammy by. And our support wasn’t great.

I spoke to a couple of mates.

“Didn’t seem like a 3-1 game.”

And it didn’t. We weren’t too far away from a draw, but a loss was sadly predictable. We have now lost three of the last four league games. And we play Lille at home in the Champions League on Tuesday, a game that might well affect our self-confidence over the next three months.

We walked back to the car, a little downbeat, but a little pragmatic too.

“Frank is still testing his ideas, testing his thoughts on the best formations, the best mix of players. It’s still a work in progress.”

The escape route out of Stanley Park, down Utting Avenue, past the Liverpool pennants on the lamp posts, and onto Queens Drive was the quickest ever. Maybe the Evertonians were still ensconced in Goodison celebrating their surprising win.

I made good time on the way home, yet I missed a turning from the M6 and down onto the M5. I found myself driving past Villa Park – on the day that their former boss Ron Saunders passed away – but still had time to head over to “The Vine” at West Bromwich which is one of the most famous football pubs in the UK.

Chicken jalfrezi, mushroom rice, peshwari naan.

It took my mind of the football. Just.

I reached home at about 8.30pm, but found myself falling asleep during the “MOTD” coverage of our game. It was probably just as well.

Later, I looked at the record of my twenty visits to Goodison Park. It made for sobering viewing.

The first ten games : 1986 to 2011.

Won 5

Drew 5

Lost 0

The last ten games : 2011 to 2019

Won 2

Drew 1

Lost 7

It has become, ridiculously, a huge bogey ground for us.

Right.

Tuesday.

Lille.

See you there.

Tales From The Banks Of The Royal Blue Mersey

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Chris Axon

Everton vs. Chelsea : 14 September 2013.

At last the universally despised international break was over and I had my sight set on a Chelsea away day. Over the last few seasons, I have eventually concluded that a trip to Everton’s Goodison Park is my favourite of them all. As increasing numbers of stadia that I grew up with fall by the wayside – The Dell, The Baseball Ground, Highfield Road, Maine Road, The Victoria Ground, Highbury, Ninian Park – or become modernised, and sanitised – Upton Park, Villa Park, White Hart Lane, St. Andrews – there is one old school stadium that defies logic and continues to shine. I have shared my love of Goodison Park on many occasions before, so without going over old ground – no pun intended – I will only say at this stage that Goodison Park, or as the Old Lady as Evertonians refer to it, was dominating my thoughts as the build-up to our first league game in almost three weeks drew nearer.

In addition to seeing the boys play – oh, how I have missed them – I would be wallowing in my own particular and personal slice of football history once again.

The 5.30pm kick-off allowed me plenty of time to plan my day. The intention was to park-up near the Pier Head, where ferries departed in decades past, and amble around the Albert Dock area. I’ve visited both the Maritime Museum and Tate Liverpool on previous football expeditions to Merseyside; I was hoping for a relaxing pint in a pub or bar overlooking the revamped riverside, rather than the usual pint of fizzy lager in a plastic glass in “The Arkles” opposite Anfield, which is my usual routine for Everton.

At just after 10.30am, I was on my way; on the royal blue highway once more. This would be my thirteenth visit to the stadium at the bottom of the gentle slope of Stanley Park. I missed last season’s encounter. In 2011-2012, it was a terrible performance under Villas-Boas. The defeat on the last day of 2010-2011 was remembered for the brutal sacking of Ancelotti.

At 11am, I collected Lord Parky. It was a lovely moment – and long overdue. For all of last season, my away trips were solitary affairs. Apart from the pre-season friendly at Brighton and the Community Shield game at Villa Park, the last time Parky accompanied me to a standard away game was in April 2012 at Arsenal.

Back in the days when England’s capital city had no European Cup to its name.

This would only be my fourth trip the north-west during season 2013-2014. In recent years, the area was very well represented; Premier League regulars Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic were augmented by single-season stays from Burnley and Blackpool. It seemed that I was heading north on the M6 every month in those days. Now, only the big hitters from Manchester and Liverpool remain. In fact, during this season, there is perhaps the largest spread of cities for decades within the top flight; Swansea and Cardiff to the West, Liverpool and Everton to the North West, Newcastle and Sunderland to the North East, Hull and Norwich to the East and Southampton to the South. We only need Plymouth Argyle and Carlisle United to join us and all extremities within the football landscape will be covered.

I backtracked through Bradford-on-Avon, skirted Bath and then headed north. It was brilliant to be back on the road alongside His Lordship once again. However, once on the M4, we were held up for a good thirty minutes as the traffic was reduced to a crawl. After stopping for a coffee at Strensham, and with signs on the M5 warning of even more delays on the M6, I soon realised that our trip down to the banks of The Mersey before the match were probably needing to be curtailed. This was a shame, but there is always next year…and the year after.

Throughout the previous week, one song kept bouncing around my head. It had acted like a constant reminder of where I would be on Saturday, a football metronome, ticking away, keeping me focussed. Let me explain. After a New York Yankees game last summer, I got chatting to three Evertonians in my favourite bar on River Avenue in The Bronx. It was my last night in NYC, my beloved Yankees had walloped the Red Sox and I was in no mood to retire to bed. The beers were flowing and the chat soon turned from baseball in the US to footy in England. The father had been living in Manhattan for twenty years and his two sons were over to visit him. The youngest lad was typically wearing a Lacoste polo. After a while, it was decided to continue the drinking session in a bar down on East 23^rd Street, way down in Manhattan. We hopped into a cab – there were five of us in total, including a bemused local, struggling to understand our quick-fire conversations in unfamiliar accents – and the chat turned to football songs. I made the point – as politely as I could – that Everton were not known for their wide and varied songbook. I remember serenading them with “The Shed Looked Up” and they responded; I was expecting “It’s A Grand Old Team To Play For.”

Instead, the father belted out a song which was completely new to me, and the two sons joined in with gusto.

“Oh we hate Bill Shankly and we hate St.John.

But most of all we hate big Ron.

And we’ll hang those Kopites, one by one, on the banks of the royal blue Mersey.

To hell with Liverpool and Rangers too.

And we’ll throw them all in the Mersey.

And we’ll fight, fight, fight, with all our might for the boys in the royal blue jersey.”

This was rounded off, nicely, with a rousing –

“Kopites are gobshites, Kopites are gobshites!”

I approved. As the drinking continued, we spoke continually about our two favoured teams, buoyed by beer and a mutual dislike of Liverpool. The big moment in the lives of the two sons was the 1995 F.A.Cup win versus the equally despised Manchester United. I sensed a tone of jealousy in their voices when they heard me talk of our recent successes, but I kept telling them – probably to the point of exhaustion – that there really was “no need to be jealous of others. Your team is your team. Relish every goal, every win.” It was a lovely night. One more thing; the father kept referring to me as “Chris, la” which I found to be particularly endearing and authentic. They were good people.

After turning off Queens Drive and up Utting Avenue, with the bright stands of Anfield at the top of the hill, I deposited £8 in the hands of a local at the official car park in Stanley Park. It was 3.45pm. The journey north had taken me over five hours. We avoided “Arkles” and headed towards Goodison. Lord Parky soon disappeared inside for a few beers and to his seat in the lower tier of the Bullens Road.

With my trusty camera at the ready, I had other ideas.

I took a leisurely hour to slowly circumnavigate the four stands of Goodison Park. I was in my element. The sun was out, the sky perfect. The clamour of a match day gave the late afternoon a buzz all of its own.

Goodison Park. So, why do I love it?

Firstly, the location; surrounded by terraced houses, a proper football locale. Secondly, the history; Everton have played here, since uplifting from Anfield, from 1892. Thirdly, the gargantuan main stand; when I first spotted it in 1986, I could hardly believe its scale, towering over the other three edifices. Next, Archibald Leitch; the venerable stadium architect was responsible for the design and construction of three of the original four stands, two of which – the Gwladys Street and the Bullens Road – remain to this day. The signature Leitch cross-trusses at Goodison, which are still on show on the balcony wall of the Bullens Road, are only present at two other stadia. The others are at Fratton Park and Ibrox. Yep, you’ve guessed – two of my other favourite grounds. Next, my imagination; my late father’s first ever football match took place here at Goodison Park, during the grey years of World War Two while he was stationed on The Wirrall. Lastly, another first game; I took football-mad James, then an eleven year old boy, to his first ever football game at Goodison in 1998.

So, yes, Goodison Park ticks a lot of boxes.

My tour began behind the new Park Lane stand; constructed in 1994, it is a banal and insipid single-tiered structure which adds nothing to the overall feel to the stadium. I noted that the statue of Dixie Dean had been moved from its original location; maybe it has been moved inside the stadium. Dean was an Everton legend who once amassed a Babe Ruth-like haul of 60 goals in season 1927-1928, and who died, at Goodison, during the 1980 derby. A “fan zone” was in operation behind the Park Lane stand; I avoided it like the plague. I noted a six-piece samba band, dressed in Brazilian yellow and green, parading outside on Goodison Avenue, which was met by blank stares from the locals. It was as incongruous a sight as you will see. I shook my head, tut-tutted and moved on.

On Goodison Avenue, my senses were going into overdrive. Unlike at Anfield, Everton have made a conscious effort to spruce up the walls of the stadium’s once grim exterior. Long banners depicting current players adorn the main stand, which now looks bright and welcoming. The “Everton timeline” wraps itself around 75% of the current stadium, beginning above the away entrance on the Bullens Road in 1878 and ending on the southern side of the main stand in 2013. It depicts key events, photos of record buys, famous games and Everton trivia. As I found myself walking clockwise around the stadium, I found myself going back in time.

Quite apt.

Opposite the main stand, towering high, were a couple of basic cafes. One sight saddened me though; The Winslow Hotel, which my father may well have entered around 1942, was boarded-up and empty. The sign depicting Dixie Dean had faded. How sad. I once drank at this pub in 1994, when I parked outside the stands of Goodison before walking up the hill for a Chelsea game at Anfield. There is always something rather spooky about being outside a stadium with no match taking place; the ghosts of thousands of supporters, the silence, the stillness.

I once watched a game from the upper tier of the main stand; season 1992-1993, front row, brilliant view, awful retro collars with red laces, Robert Fleck scored, we won 1-0, shortest match review ever.

As I took a selection of photographs of the bustling street scene below the vertiginous structure, I noted Romelu Lukaku being driven slowly towards the main reception. At first, the locals were unaware of who the young man in the passenger seat was. Eventually it dawned on them. With the car halted, the window lowered and the Everton loanee kindly signed a few photographs for a few youngsters. I took a few photographs of his smiling face and then seized my moment. I leaned in and shook his hand.

“Have a great season here. Then come back to us next season. God bless you.”

Romelu smiled.

I hated to see look of pure desolation on his face after his nervy penalty miss in Prague. I also hated to see some puerile comments on the internet by some Chelsea fans immediately after. Oh boy.

The red-brick St. Luke’s church sits right on the junction of Goodison Avenue and Gwladys Street. Back in the ‘eighties, it was still possible to see the whole of this modest place of worship from inside the stadium. It has since been hidden by extra cladding on the Gwladys Street stand and the addition of a large TV screen. Like the cottage at Fulham, it adds to the sense of place that makes Goodison so unique. Still the photographs continued; a turnstile, the angle of two stands joining, a streetside café, Tommy Lawton on the timeline.

There is a rather patronising TV advertisement for Barclay’s at the moment; thanking us match-going fans for our continued presence at games. It strongly features a smiling pensioner, possibly photographed at Goodison, certainly wearing Everton blue; his knowing eyes telling a thousand stories, his slight smile indicating past glories and hope for the future. As I walked behind the Bullens Road – getting close to the formidable Chelsea presence outside the away gates now – I spotted his female equivalent. A lady in her ‘eighties – tight perm, blue and white scarf – was being driven in to her personal parking space in a small car park. The sight of this spritely Evertonian made me smile. For those who bemoan the negative aspects of football – the richly-paid players, the out of touch directors, the price of tickets, the occasional presence of racism and loutish behaviour, the commercialisation, the deadening of atmosphere – here was a reminder of what the game means to a lot of people. She must have thousands of great memories from her time supporting her team.

I wonder if she remembers Tommy Lawton, his hair Brylcreamed, leaping high at the far post, or that dashing young man in his RAF uniform at Goodison Park during the Second World War…

I chatted to a few friends outside the away turnstiles. We had heard that Samuel Eto’o was to start. There was confused talk of how Lukaku had been loaned out – again – when most of us supporters would have preferred to see him in Chelsea blue throughout this season. I guess we will never know the full story of the club’s decision to keep Torres and Ba, though I presume that the former’s wage demands have played a part in possible thoughts of moving him on.

At least Juan Mata was starting.

I looked up and spotted Burger, the erstwhile Toronto native now transplanted into the heart of England. He quickly introduced me to his father – his first visit to these shores, his first football match, his first Chelsea match. I repeated my father’s story about Everton and he smiled. Burger Junior and Burger Senior had been drinking, with Cathy and others, since 10am and I was impressed. I wished them well and hurriedly took my place alongside Alan, Gary and 1,500 others in the Bullens Road upper tier. There were a similar number down below us.

The Farm’s “All Together Now” was on the PA as I scanned the scene around me. Goodison’s capacity is 40,000 now and I spotted a few empty seats, namely those behind the roof supports in the Gwladys Street. Another Goodison favourite – “Z Cars” – was played as the teams entered. Chelsea were in black once more.

Cech – Brana, JT, Luiz, Ash – Mikel, Rambo – Mata, Schurrle, Hazard – Eto’o.

The game began brightly enough. Ramires was full of energy and we dominated the early few minutes. All eyes were on our new striker though; as he moved around the pitch, my mind played tricks on me. I imagined Eto’o to be taller. He seemed willing, but his first few efforts were poor. One header over with Tim Howard untested and another which ballooned into the top tier. At least he was getting in to position. Gary, standing alongside me and already “venting,” made me chuckle with his pronunciation of our new striker’s surname.

Only a Londoner could attempt to pronounce Eto’o without sounding the letter T.

“Cam on E’o’o.”

Oh boy.

The best chance of the first-half came when Howard fluffed a clearance and Andrea Schurrle pounced. He played the ball into the path of the advancing Eto’o and the 3,000 Chelsea away fans inhaled a breath of expectation. Out of nowhere, a leg from an Everton player – Gareth Barry – blocked the shot. We were in disbelief.

On the subs bench, Fernando Torres was heard to utter “even I could have missed that.”

Our support was OK. The home fans, though, resorted to type and hardly spoke, let alone sang. Everton rarely threatened; Naismith shot wide, but chances were rare down below us. At the other end, Mikel and Schurrle shot over. Our chances were being squandered and the away support grew frustrated. During the closing minutes of the first-half, Everton turned the screw. During one attack, two Everton players were completely unmarked at the far post and we were lucky to escape unpunished. Right on half-time, sloppy defending allowed a cross to be headed back across the goal by Jelavic to allow Naismith to leap unhindered and nod home from a yard out.

At half-time, I chatted briefly to Tim from Dublin.

“We should have been three up.”

Straight after the whistle, Andrea Schurrle was played in and inexplicably missed from an angle. It took me a few, puzzling seconds to realise that he hadn’t scored. Eto’o lunged at a cross and failed to make contact. At least he was getting into the right positions. Right?

Jose Mourinho then surprised us all and made a double substitution, taking off Mata and Schurrle. On came Oscar and Frank Lampard. In truth, neither player produced in the remainder of the match. A Ramires toe-poke went wide. The general consensus was that we wouldn’t score even if the game continued until November. In reality, such was our mood, we expected Everton to increase their lead on their rare forays into our half. Luiz was lucky to stay on after a tangle on the half-way line. We were riding our luck. Then, the last throw of the dice; Ashley Cole off, Torres on, three at the back, but with Mikel playing very deep alongside Lamps. Where other players were faltering, Mikel was having a great game…reading attacks, breaking-up play, turning, playing it simple. Top marks.

Two last chances summed our day up. Firstly, an attempted flick from Eto’o from close in, but he missed the ball completely. Secondly, a poor shot from Torres’ weak left foot which looked as ugly as it gets and meekly spun off for a goal-kick. Thankfully, Leighton Baines clipped the junction of post and bar at the other end from a free-kick on ninety minutes. Although it was a far from adequate performance – too many personal errors – we barely deserved to lose.

At the final whistle, we shuffled out as the Evertonians – at last – made some noise. I glanced at Tim, but his face was disconsolate. No words were needed. I glowered back.

On the walk back to the car, Parky and I caught up with Chopper, Jokka, Neil and Jonesy. There were a few mumbles and grumbles and this was to be expected. However, it was a difficult game to summarise. Everton weren’t that great. They did enough. If our players had played 10% better – maybe just 5% better – we would have won 3-0. Our play suffered with just too many silly errors at key times. I spoke with Jokka and offered some home-spun philosophy.

“Maybe another set of supporters would have been quite content with that sort of performance – we created a few chances, we weren’t dire – but us Chelsea fans have higher expectations. High expectations make for bad losers.”

On Wednesday, we have the chance to make amends when our European campaign kicks off.

Let’s go.

Tales From Then And Now

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Chris Axon

Everton vs. Chelsea : 11 February 2012.

It was 1942. The storms of war had been blowing throughout Europe for three years. On The Wirral, the three Royal Air Force recruits had been thrown together; young men from disparate parts of the British Isles, conscripted to fight the threat of the Nazis, unsure of their futures. The physical training camp at West Kirby would be their home for three months; they were both excited and scared in equal measure. Hank, the large-framed butcher from Welling, was the leader. He strode into the red bricked train station and asked for three return tickets to Liverpool Lime Street. Jock, from a small town in the Scottish lowlands, his hair glistening with Brylcream, a slight figure, cigarette in hand, checked the tattered poster on the wall which detailed train times. Lastly, Reg, a placid and quiet shop assistant from Somerset, returned from the newspaper stall with a crisp copy of the local paper.

There was not long to wait. After only five minutes, the three newly-acquainted friends were sat in the smoking carriage of the 10.25am local service to Lime Street. Hank, the gregarious joker, was rattling off a few one-liners and his two pals were soon rolling their eyes towards the cigarette-stained roof of the snug train compartment. The puns were awful, of course, but both Jock and Reg were happy that Hank was there, taking the lead, creating conversations and negating the burden of silence in that small confined space. The three youngsters, all aged nineteen, had only arrived on The Wirral the previous month. Within the first few weeks of training at the RAF camp, solid friendships were made and the ever-present worry of the uncertainty of what lay ahead was significantly eased.

For Reg, this train trip was vastly different from the previous one just a month earlier. On that occasion, he had set off from his home town on the Somerset and Wiltshire border, his parents waving him goodbye from the platform, and had travelled alone to the north of England. At Crewe station, he had to change trains. In the middle of a cold January night, he had waited for four long hours, pacing up and down the otherwise empty platform. At no time in his life before it, nor at any time after it, would he feel more alone.

But now, on his way to a new city with two friends – Hank’s jokes getting worse and worse – he felt a lot more relaxed and at ease. After four weeks of rigorous training, this represented his first day of leave and he was relishing the chance to spend time with his two new pals in the famous busy port city by the banks of the River Mersey. The plan had been to grab a bite to eat, flit around the shops and head down to the river and see the frantic activity of the ships around the dock area. Then, a couple of pints of bitter in a pub close to the station before catching the 8pm train back to camp.

“Give me the paper, Half Pint”, Hank said to Reg. “Wonder what language these Scousers use, up here. Blimey it’s in English, there’s a surprise.”

The two young girls sitting opposite were the ones rolling their eyes now. They had been sitting quietly, sharing a bag of sweets, trying not to stare too hard at the three young men in their immaculate RAF uniforms, each with accents far different than their own.

“I see Everton are playing a game at Goodison Park at two o’clock. Fancy it? Won’t be too expensive. It’s not Charlton, but it’ll do.”

Hank had made up the minds of both himself and the others before either Jock or Reg could answer.

The afternoon’s entertainment had been decided. The train did not take too long to sweep under the River Mersey and the three young friends soon found themselves at the ridiculously busy and congested train terminal. Outside, the Saturday morning air was damp. On the walk tothea tram stop, the grim realities of conflict grabbed at Reg’s senses. The German Luftwaffe had deposited many tons of bombs on the city during the previous two years and great tracts of the immediate city centre had been laid waste. The scene which greeted him shocked him to the core; suddenly, the war had become all the more vivid. There were hundreds of buildings – shops, workhouses, factories, offices – now reduced to piles of rubble. He found it odd how chimney stacks had remained. He thought it bizarre that the interiors of upstairs bedrooms – with wallpaper on show – were still able to be seen. He pondered the hundreds of lives which had been torn apart so brutally.

As the three of the young friends waited at the tram stop, they surveyed the desolation all around them. They were deeply shocked.

They stood in silence. Not a word was spoken, but much was said.

The crowded tram slowly wended its way through the city centre streets; past St. George’s Hall and the art gallery, past the shops full of Saturday bargain hunters, along Scotland Road and up the hill towards the football ground. The three friends were stood at the rear of the tram, hands in pockets, keeping warm. They were jostled from side to side with every slight change in direction. Busy local women nudged past them, their hands full of shopping, their hair in curlers, cigarettes lilting in the corners of mouths. Young boys, in tattered shorts and leather boots, ran alongside the tram, cheerily waving at the passengers. Dockers, with flat caps and white silk neckties, hopped on the bus at Kirkdale. With accents as thick as the fog which enveloped the grey city, these locals spoke quickly and it seemed that every word was spat, not spoken. The three young men looked on at the gnarled faces of these tough locals, with fading tattoos on their forearms, and soon realized that their home comforts seemed far away. Reg and Jock whispered to each other under their breath, not wishing to be heard. What they said to each other is not known.

As the tram suddenly veered to the left, Hank – the taller of the three – soon spotted the dark silhouette of the main stand of Goodison Park in the distance. At the next stop, the three friends stepped off the tram, trying to avoid the murky puddles of rain by the side of the cobbled streets. Out of nowhere, hundreds of men bustled past. It was obvious that they were headed for the game, too. Hank, Jock and Reg – without realizing it – increased their walking speed in order to avoid getting pushed aside. At the end of the street, lined with painted and polished doorsteps – the handiwork of proud Liverpudlian housewives – the gargantuan stand on Goodison Road stood waiting for them. Hank had been to see Charlton play at the Valley on a few occasions, but the vast bowl of that stadium was different. The Valley was a sprawling mess of a football ground. Here, at Goodison, the stand stood right on the pavement. It seemed neater and much more impressive. Neither Jock nor Reg were football fans. Jock was not a sportsman, but studied the horses. Reg’s prowess was in the swimming pool. But all three stood still, in awe, at the enormity of the structure which greeted them.

To the left, Jock spotted the frosted glass windows of a local hostelry. Without any words being exchanged, Jock quickly headed inside, his two friends left outside in his wake.

“A quick pint, Half Pint?” asked Hank to Reg. “It appears our Scottish friend is in need of liquid refreshment.”

They spotted Jock dart in the bar to the right of the main entrance of The Winslow Hotel and they quickly followed suit.

“Jock’s at the bar, Half Pint – this is a rare sight indeed. Let’s hope he doesn’t forget us.”

As his knowledge of football wasn’t great, Reg wasn’t sure if this was the same Dixie Dean who had been ridiculed in the schoolboy poem of his youth –

“Dixie Dean from Aberdeen.
He tried to score a goal.
He missed his chance.
And pee’d his paints.
And now he’s on the dole.”

Talk of the imminent football match was minimal, though. It seemed that just being in an alien environment, so different from each of their home towns, was amusement enough. Hank looked at his watch and signaled to the others to finish their drinks. Outside, the rain had started to fall. The three friends quickly rushed across to the stand and did not notice that the narrow street, darkened under the shadow of the structure, was busy with an array of match day activity; grizzly old men selling programmes, young boys selling cheap paper rosettes, wise-cracking spivs selling roasted chestnuts and cigarettes and young girls selling newspapers.

The three friends stood together, three amongst thousands packed into the terraced area at the front of the main stand. Thankfully, the rain soon subsided. The game began; the blue of Everton and the red of the visitors. But the match almost seemed a minor attraction. The three friends gazed in wonder at the modern stands on all sides of the ground. Each one had an area for spectators to stand. Above, in the upper tiers, were wooden seats, though these were not particularly well occupied. In between the two tiers was the dark green of the balcony wall; the metal cross struts at the front of the wooden panels gave the stands a unique appearance. Reg turned around and looked up behind him at the towering upper tier of the main stand. This metalwork was continued around on the main stand too. Above, right at the top, a gable was perched on the very apex of the roof and Reg could hardly believe how high it was.

The football match was played out before them. The shouts of the players could often be heard above the quiet murmurings of the crowd. The boisterous behaviour in the pub before the game had been replaced with an almost muted reverence. In the corner, Jock spotted a church which abutted the lower terrace.

“Hope you’ve been a good boy, Reggie. You’re off to see the priest after the game.”

As the temperatures fell and the noise from the spectators grew quieter still, the three young men became mesmerized by the movement and physical strength of the footballers. Everton scored early and played the more-flowing football. The diminutive wingers hugged the touchlines and sent over cross after cross into the muddied goal mouths.

Further goals followed for the home side and the Everton fans were happy.

Towards the end of the game, the sun had set and the darkening winter evening was making life difficult for spectators and players alike. At the final whistle, there was a ripple of gentle applause from the Evertonians.

“Back to the pub for one more, boys?” asked Hank and the two pals concurred.

Inside the warm saloon bar of the pub opposite, the locals looked cheered. There was a buzz of appreciation that the local team had won. The daily worries of their mundane lives, further threatened by the menace of conflict, had been put to one side for ninety minutes. Football had been an escape for them, just like it had been for Hank, Jock and Reg.

After a few moments, the old pensioner with the glasses spotted Reg and chirped –

“Nice goal from Lawton.”

Reg thought to himself “yes it was – and unlike Dixie Dean, he didn’t have to change his shorts at half-time, either.”

It is 2012. The trip north from Somerset to Merseyside had started so perfectly as to be difficult for me to describe sufficiently. There had been an overnight frost and the trees and hedgerows were encased in hoarfrost. Snow remained on many of the fields. The skies overhead were of pure blue. I collected Parky at around 9am and we headed north on the Fosseway for a change. As we drove past Malmesbury, with its abbey high on the hill to my left, and then on to the old Roman town of Cirencester, I found it hard to believe how magnificent the Gloucestershire countryside looked.

It was a real treat. A joy to be alive. All this and Chelsea too. What lucky people we are.

As we descended the eastern edge of The Cotswolds at Birdlip and drove down into the Severn Vale, the snow soon disappeared. Our little winter wonderland had ended and we were now back on the M5; the road we seem to take every month on our travels up north to see the team play. It was an easy trip with little traffic. Maybe many had been scared off by the rumours of further snow. I strangely didn’t see any Chelsea colours on the 200 mile journey up the M5 and M6 to Meresyside, but I knew that we would be up at Goodison in force.

On this occasion, I avoided the usual route into the city and I headed east on the M56. I had a specially-planned detour to attend to. Deep in the heart of The Wirral, I broke off the northbound motorway and drove along the oddly named Saughall Massie Road.

My car quickly came to a stop and I pulled into a lay-by. There was a gate – closed – with what looked like a farm track beyond. But I knew better. From 1940 to 1957, that overgrown farm track once lead to RAF West Kirby; the very same camp that my father had attended during the very first month of his World War Two campaign. I had a moment to myself.

I looked around. I noted the hedgerows, the slight undulations of the countryside, the church steeple and the woodlands.

There is no doubt that my dear father, who I sadly lost in 1993, would have walked out of this very same track on that winter day, all those years ago, on his day trip to the city of Liverpool. My father had often spoken about his wartime visit to Goodison Park from his temporary home on The Wirral. It would be his only visit to a football stadium until he accompanied me to my first ever game at Stamford Bridge in 1974.

To the left, there is a stone memorial, neatly attended.

There is a large slab of local rock, with an airplane propeller attached.

There is a simple plaque –

“To commemorate all those who served,trained and worked at RAF West Kirby between 1940-1957.”

Parky took a few photographs of me alongside the memorial. It was a wonderful personal moment. Fantastic.

We hopped back in the car and – I guess – retraced the route that my father took on that day around sixty years previously. I drove through Birkenhead, then through the Wallasey Tunnel. I was soon in the heart of Liverpool, crossing over Scotland Road and heading up the hill. At 1.45pm, we were parked up outside not Goodison, but Anfield. Many Chelsea fans head for The Arkles, no more than two hundred yards from Anfield, when we play both Liverpool and Everton. This familiar pub was packed full of Chelsea and I spotted a few faces. All eyes were on the “Hate Derby” of Manchester United and Liverpool. A pint of Becks Vier each and we were good. We met up with that man Jesus once again, this time with two other Americans, all three of them on the same internship programme in London. Elaine was from Pittsburgh and Megan was from Cleveland. We welcomed them to the Chelsea family. I first met Jesus outside this very pub before that awful game – Carlo’s last – in May. We hoped for no repeat.

I was well aware that on the four and half mile journey, though, Parky and I had not mentioned the day’s game once.

Not once.

I also chatted with Paul, from Poole on the Dorset coast. He had an even longer drive than us; he had left Poole, the home of my father’s mother in fact, at 6.30am and had been in the pub since 11am. The pub was full of Chelsea, but there was a little band of young Liverpool fans; perched on small stools, faces gaunt, with old-fashioned haircuts, grey trackie bottoms – much loved by Scousers – and who were agonizingly watching the game on the TV. They howled with joy when Suarez made it 2-1.

It was 2.30pm and we needed to move. Jesus and the girls were outside on the pavement, trying to drink lager from the plastic glasses with one hand and eat chips from a small polystyrene tray with the other. I’m not sure if the three Americans were taking advantage of their perceived view of our relaxed drinking laws, but they had taken the beer glasses with them and were supping at the lager as we walked away from the pub. Fair play to them – I could see they were enjoying themselves. Jesus had even taught them the words to “Celery” in the boozer. The girls were giggly but Jesus just wanted to get to Goodison Park. However, we stopped for a moment or so at the Hillsborough memorial outside Anfield and I quickly tried my best to explain what had happened on that horrific Saturday in April twenty-three years ago. We walked on.

The winter air was chilling us all. At the bottom of Anfield Road, the main stand at Goodison was able to be seen just a few hundred yards away. The Archibald Leitch stand of the pre-war years – it was dubbed the Mauretania Stand as it was so huge – was partially demolished in around 1970 with the current stand taking its place on Goodison Road. We walked along Walton Lane; no time to waste now, the clock was ticking.

I got to my seat in the front row of the upper tier of the Bullens Road stand just as the “Z Cars” theme was ending and the players were in the centre-circle, waving to the four corners of the classic Goodison stadium. We stood the entire game and were in good voice at the start.

https://www.facebook.com/video/video…50659166577658

If the last game of the 2010-2011 season was bad enough…and it was, believe me…then this game was even worse. It was quite simply the laziest and inept performance by a Chelsea team that I can remember for some time. We were 1-0 down after just five minutes when a bouncing ball caused paralysis in our defence and the returning Steven Pienaar pounced to slam the ball past Cech.

Oh great.

Here we go again.

It was the same old sad story in the first-half; lots of Chelsea possession but no real threat. Two shots from Daniel Sturridge and Frank Lampard were the only real chances that I can remember. Our threat was so poor that Everton hardly had to put in a shift. I lost count of the number of times that ball was played back along the defenders. Our midfielders were not worthy of the name.

Upfront Sturridge hid but Mata flitted around and tried his best. Torres was Torres.

There were gaps in our three-thousand seats. The singing wasn’t great. It soon subsided. A few fans in the back rows of the upper tier began singing the turgid and tedious “Ten German Bombers.” What that particular song has to do with Chelsea, or how it can inspire our team, is lost on me. RAF or not, I don’t think my Dad would have approved, either.

It was more of the same after the break. High balls into Torres; great. Whose idea was that?

Our midfield were playing so deep and our only threat seemed to involving a succession of nicely-weighted balls from Juan Mata out to Ashley Cole. But then – a woeful cross and you know the rest. Luiz was, again, the only player who appeared to be playing with anything near the level of passion required.

I am sad to say that the highlight of the match was an amazing shimmy from Pienaar over on the far side in front of the dug outs.

And yet, the Evertonians were so quiet. I have always said that they are the quietest fans by some mile…and hardly have a large repertoire, either. Torres was getting the “ladyboy” treatment from them. Even worse were the Chelsea fans that howled like wolves at the manager as he replaced Essien with Malouda. In an Arsenalesque moment, some Chelsea supporters regaled him with –

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

OK – replacing a crowd favourite with a crowd pariah was never going to go down well, but this sort of behavior by our fans makes me sick. We should be above that. These ninety minutes where we have the opportunity to bond with our players should be full of positive noise only. We have the car trips home, the pubs, the offices and the internet chat rooms to dissect our team’s foibles and to berate them if necessary. But, for those ninety minutes, we should support The Boys In Blue From Division Two.

Everton scored a second after a tackle on Ashley Cole left gaping gaps in our left flank which Everton nimbly exploited. Stracqualursi rifled past Cech and it was game over. Quite a few Chelsea departed. Sigh. At last Everton sang a different song. It was a good day for the blue half of Merseyside.

“I’ve never felt more like singing the blues.
When Everton win and Liverpool lose.
Oh Everton – you’ve got me singing the blues.”

Our few attacking thrusts were easily dealt with by Distin and Heitinga. Tim Howard was virtually untroubled the entire game; only a block from the substitute Lukaku sticks in my mind.

This was a completely flat performance by manager, players and fans alike.

I, as with others, was numb at the end.

Andy from Nuneaton sidled over and succinctly said “he’s gotta go, mate.”

I sighed again.

I met up with Parky outside the old stand. There were no positives to take from the game. The post mortem had begun. We walked back through Stanley Park, past The Arkles and up to a fish and chip shop. A shared portion of chips warmed us up as I headed out of the tight terraced streets around Anfield. I was back on the M6 at 6pm and it was a reasonably good drive home in the circumstances. We stopped off at the Air Balloon pub at wintry Birdlip at around 8.30pm and enjoyed a quick pint, a roaring wood burning stove warming us up nicely. It was minus eight outside.

I eventually reached home at 10.30pm, almost fourteen hours since I had left in the morning.

Parky and I always – without fail – enjoy ourselves on these trips, but the agonizingly poor performance of the team detracted from this day out on Merseyside. Andre Villas-Boas, lauded by everyone at the start of his Chelsea managerial career, is quickly finding out how fickle football fans can be. I have no fool proof answers to our current problems. I’m not an expert. I just hope and pray we can override this period of substandard play. Rumours of player power, new managers being touted, injuries to key personnel and under-performing players are the over-riding negatives that continue to eat away at us. I can’t guarantee that Villas-Boas is the answer. I just honestly feel that we would be foolish to dispense of his services when he has clearly been tasked with the onerous job of clearing away the old guard, bring in his own team and yet win trophies at the same time.

Sounds like an impossible task to me.

Birmingham City at home next Saturday.

Let’s go.

* Dedicated to the memory of Hank Brooks and Jock Inglis – my father’s two closest friends during the Second World War – who may or may not have been present at Goodison on that day in the ‘forties and my father Reg Axon, who certainly was.

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