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When Skies are Grey The Evertonian Fanzine since 1988 Contact us at whenskiesaregrey@btinternet.com

Blue here is a shell for you Inside you’ll hear a sigh A foggy lullaby There is your song from me

It's over.

Finally it's over. Welcome to When Skies are Grey as we pick over the bones of the season just gone.

This issue was always planned as an end of season special, and so it is. But unlike twelve months ago, I don't think you'll enjoy poring over the views of dozens of readers. It's not pretty, but it's necessary.

And then to top it all we had the shock news of the death of Andy King. I know loads of Blues who were completely floored by the news - maybe we're all of a similar age.

Thankfully though, we are tied to overly long print deadlines or a limit to the number of pages we can do so at the last minute we've been able to pull together what is hopefully a worthy tribute.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this issue, we think it's probably the most we've ever had. Ever.

Needless to say, we're very proud of this issue. There are some great pieces in it and given the many different writers you'll find a wide range of opinion from all aspects of our support.

And isn't that just how it should be?

WSAG has always been an open forum for Evertonians to talk about our club.

It's what we do.

Remember there's an open invitation to get involved in WSAG. Just get in touch.

It's as simple as that.

You are WSAG. Up the Toffees Graham & Phil

Roberto Martinez - for some the corner has been turned. Needs to start well next season Kevin Mirallas - is it too hard to keep your mouth shut?

Steven Gerrard - that went well didn't it? Some party.

FA Cup Final - come on be honest, when did you last watch it? BBC's coverage was well planned this year.

Steven Pienaar - have a good rest and let's see you back next season.

IT WAS A BAD MONTH FOR IT WAS A GOOD MONTH FOR John Stones - many people's player of the season. Well done.

Brendan Galloway - great start to what will hopefully be a long Goodison career.

Sylvain Distin - so long, farewell.

Played well for most of his 6 years at the club Romelu Lukaku - 20 goals, you can't knock it. Imagine how many he would have got if we'd have had a good season.

Leon Osman - great goal at West Ham. Would have been on constant repeat had it been scored by one of the more glamorous players.

SEASON OF THE WITCH Well thank God that is over. 2014/15 was our worst season position and points wise since 2005/06 and like that campaign what was even more disappointing was that there was such expectation amongst Evertonians before it began based upon the previous term’s excellence and some of the signings that Martinez had made during the pre season period. In truth it has been a turd of a season with only some enjoyable European sojourns to look back on with any warmth.

As we know with Everton however, nothing is ever as it seems and so it proved with eleventh place probably being a fair reflection in terms of where we stood capability wise during the past nine months vis a vis the other teams in the league. To be honest given our league form over Christmas and up until early March I was seriously concerned that we looked relegation bound so I would have bitten your hand off had you offered me eleventh back then. The bottom line however is that it isn’t good enough for that group of players and it isn’t good enough for Everton FC. In fact as seasons go it illustrates how spoilt we were under Moyes as despite his regular post transfer deadline titty lips and the impact that seemed to have on morale around the place, apart from the afore mentioned 05/06 and 03/04, we enjoyed some really great campaigns under the red headed one.

If anything this season has illustrated how much shite was spoken when internet ‘experts’ perpetually spoke about the need for a manager to take us to the mythical ‘next level.’ In addition given that we have the same multinationals at the top of the league yet again and given that even Spurs and Liverpool have spent millions only to finish where we used to finish under Moyes, it highlights how well we did during those years particularly in the late noughties.

I am sure this issue is packed full with contributors’ assessments on where things went wrong and what are the areas of improvement needed.

I’ve highlighted a number of these throughout the season such as the need for a solid shape, our defensive discipline, our fitness levels and the predictable pace that we play at and I’m sure others have listed quite a few more.

The big question however is whether Roberto Martinez recognises these and critically whether he has the leadership to galvanise his team to adapt, to evolve and to become the winning team we all want Everton to be. Our league form turnaround during March and April seemed to suggest that he has but the last two home games against Sunderland and Spurs leave me still

concerned for next season and I suspect that many of us feel the same way.

In particular, what has surprised me is some of the things that Leighton Baines has said concerning preparation which given the closeness of the margins that exist in top level professional football you would have thought would have been pre-requisites in this day and age.

Certainly none of us would want Everton to be some obsessively drilled unit that were robotic in their use of set pieces (both attacking and defensively) but for Baines to admit when on ITV in the Kiev match that things like who went on goal posts wasn’t nailed down by Martinez or the coaching staff and to witness the shambolic nature of penalty taking duties not once but twice is deeply worrying. In addition I read a couple of days ago that Baines didn’t know in advance that he would be playing in midfield v Newcastle and whilst maybe that was down to a last minute decision, it does suggest that preparation and thorough planning may be suspect?

One thing that is certain is that our summer signings will be critical. We all know that an ability to get great value for money in the transfer market was a clear strength of David Moyes and as good as our performances were in 2013/14, it was largely Moyes’ signings with a few loan exceptions. There have been many reports that highlighted the total professionalism and thoroughness that went into Everton’s scouting set up under Moyes, a set up that has now been largely dismantled and is now led by Kevin Reeves. As the transfer committee across the park have shown, it is easy to spunk brewsters on professional footballers these days and Martinez’s challenge is that (like Moyes) he does not have brewsters to spunk.

I’m not convinced that he can’t judge a player and for me James McCarthy is a fantastic signing and he will hopefully be the next Everton captain and the catalyst for some overdue success but if this close season the signings turn out to be more Alcaraz, Kone and McGeady than McCarthy, Barry and Lukaku then Martinez will be on borrowed time as there is no way that Kenwright will continue to support him if the mood at Goodison continues in the manner it has been on into next season.

This ability in the transfer market will be all the more needed because of the age of several of our players and there are three in particular that I would highlight here namely Tim Howard, Steven Pienaar and Leon Osman. Firstly let me say that I love all three of these and they have been fantastic contributors to Everton FC over

the last 10 years or so. Howard for me has been a great keeper and although he has never been the best in the league and has cost us goals particularly from long shots in some key matches, he has also kept us in loads of games and his save against Southampton was an illustration of how we could have done a lot worse particularly when you compare him against the succession of keepers we had post Southall and pre Martyn like Myhre, Gerrard and Wright. He is getting to that point where we will need to replace him and whilst Robles could be the answer I was by no means convinced by his spell in goal despite his three clean sheets in league matches.

That will be a big call for Martinez as Mingolet again across the Park illustrates the dearth of top keepers around these days.

Steven Pienaar we missed massively this season.

To be honest Baines has never been the same player without him ahead of him in midfield as illustrated by the months he spent at Spurs and also this season.

Without Pienaar we lacked shape, we lacked guile and trickery and we lacked that ability for someone to hold onto the ball in important areas before setting up a chance on goal. It doesn’t look good from an injury perspective for the God bothering South African and given that he has been so critical for us in recent years, again how Martinez replaces him is extremely important.

And so finally to Ossie. I have to say that I fuckin love Leon Osman and the more I think about it, he has been my favourite Everton player of the last few years. I was off work with flu a couple of months back and too tired to read or concentrate on films, I just did what I always do when on the few occasions I have been off sick and watch continuous Everton videos be on You Tube or on DVD’s. This time I worked my way through the 1001 Premier League goals compilation and a couple of things struck me. Firstly that so much of my life of the last 20 or so years can be traced through watching that DVD and that I started remembering things I had done just by knowing what had happened the day or the week-end of whatever match was shown. The second was how certain key players made vital contributions to Everton during those years through their assists or their goals because as watching it the same names kept coming up when it mattered – like Tony Cottee (yes) like Paul Rideout, like Duncan Ferguson, like Tim Cahill, like Mikel

Arteta, like Piennar, like Bainesy and oh boy certainly like Leon Osman.

It was remarkable how many critical contributions Ossie has made over the last 12 years since he made his first team debut and it was noticeable to me how much we missed him this season when he was injured for a big chunk of it. Despite this I witnessed one arlarse in the Main Stand against Sunderland spend the whole time berating him for not having the pace of Usain Bolt and over the years it has been the same thing over and over again, namely a massive under appreciation of Leon amongst certain match going supporters. Maybe it’s that old tradition that certain Evertonians love to berate their own, i.e. those who have come up through the ranks or maybe because he doesn’t look like a big grock and goes round booting people but Leon Osman for me has been a brilliant footballer for Everton FC and his class, his touch and his elegance made an immediate

difference when he came back from injury.

Hopefully he can keep injury free as we will need him fit next season but he is now 34 and whilst you can imagine someone like him for whom pace is not an integral part of his game going onto 36 or 37, how he is replaced is another massive challenge for our Spanish supremo.

So there you go, a nice easy close season for Roberto then! Whatever the case we will be there in August hopefully suitably refreshed and ready for another season but hopefully a season that we can remember for the right reasons. I love the summers with no international tournaments as it means the new season is awaited with added glee but also it’s a time to do other things than watch international football matches on big screens like mow the lawn, go the garden centre or wash the car…..er….roll on August….

Kieron

2014/15

Season(s) In The Abyss by Slayer A review of the season just gone in the form of song titles from my iPod; read and reminisce or simply pour scorn on my musical taste.

Leicester (a) 2-2 (Beginning Of What's About To Happen) HWY 74 by Kyuss.

An inauspicious start to a season that promises much.

Krasnodar (a) 1-1 Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home by Mogwai.

About 2000 miles away actually.

Arsenal (h) 2-2 I'm So Tired by The Beatles.

Having been in control for 82 minutes, fatigue sets in and another two points is meekly surrendered.

Man Utd (a) 1-2 Ballad Of A Thin Man by Bob Dylan.

The lanky streak of piss in ManUre's goal denies us a probable win.

Chelsea (h) 3-6 Barmy by The Fall.

A quite ridiculous game of football.

Aston Villa (h) 3-0 Blast Off! by The Birthday Party.

First home league win of the campaign, could this kick start a stuttering season?

WBA (a) 2-0 Back To The Old House by The Smiths.

A return to a former haunt for Lukaku and he scores a cracker.

Wolfsburg (h) 4-1 The Wolf At The Door by Radiohead.

The blues take their chances to sweep aside a much vaunted Bundesliga team.

Crystal Palace (h) 2-3 Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before by The Smiths.

We have heard it before, just last year in fact.

Swansea (a) 0-3 Brother, My Cup Is Empty by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

Our League Cup participation is over at the first hurdle.

Liverpool (a) 1-1 Good Morning, Captain by Slint or Thunderstruck by AC/DC. Any injury time rocket into the Kop end deserves two songs.

Lille (a) 0-0 Hate The Police by Mudhoney.

An ode to the French gendarmerie.

Burnley (a) 3-1 The Wizard by Black Sabbath.

A double by the four-time African player of the year, Samuel Eto'o.

Swansea (h) 0-0 The Wall Of Yawn by Sleep.

A truly awful game.

Lille (h) 3-0 Safe European Home by The Clash.

An easy win over what was supposed to be a decent French team.

Wolfsburg (a) 2-0 Helden (Heroes) by David Bowie.

Perfect away display against the Bundesliga's second placed side.

Spurs (a) 1-2 Downer by Nirvana.

After the great win in Germany comes the almost inevitable White Hart Lane loss comedown.

Hull (h)1-1 Something In The Air by David Bowie.

Boooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Man City (a) 0-1 Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

by Iron Maiden.

After an inept refereeing display, it should really be Crimes of the Andre Marriner...

Krasnodar (h) 0-1 Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.

Debuts for a number of teenagers.

QPR (h) 3-1 Disorder by Joy Division.

Three points not enough to stop the return of the boos.

Southampton (a) 0-3 Super Bad by James Brown.

A performance of 'super bad' proportions.

Sunderland (a) 1-1 Drawing Lines by Girls Names.

Our fifth draw from eleven league games.

Stoke (h) 0-1 Snowblind by Black Sabbath.

A poor refereeing performance on a winter's day.

West Ham (h) 2-1 English Civil War by The Clash.

Several hefty skirmishes later, the blues are triumphant.

Newcastle (a) 2-3 The Art of Self-Defense by The Jesus Lizard.

Defending being an art the blues appear to have forgotten.

Hull (a) 0-2 New Dawn Fades by Joy Division.

2015 starts as 2014 finished.

West Ham (h) 1-1 Loving Cup by The Rolling Stones.

An injury time equaliser averts a fifth successive defeat.

Man City (h) 1-1 Working Class Hero by John Lennon.

Friend of the homeless and unemployed, Steven Naismith equalises against Citeh's expensively assembled team of birthday cake-demanding prima-donnas.

Leicester (h) 2-2 I'm So Bored With The USA by The Clash.

Nothing personal, Tim. Young Boys (h) 3-1 Happiness Is A Warm Gun by The Beatles.

Still struggling in the league, but firing on all cylinders in Europe, 7-2 on aggregate.

Arsenal (a) 0-2 Doubts Even Here by New Order.

Safety first display which was doomed to fail as soon as Arsenal got the first goal. My faith with Martinez is wilting fast.

West Ham (a) 2-2 (8-9p) Second Chance by Codeine.

Hugely exciting cup replay ends with an unfortunate penalty loss.

Stoke (a) 0-2 Live At The Witch Trials by The Fall After performing foul deeds on a hill in Staffordshire, Bobby and the boys are denounced and pelted with verbal rotten fruits.

West Brom (h) 0-0 How To Disappear Completely

by Radiohead.

After 'penaltygate', Kevin Mirallas vanishes at half time.

Dynamo Kiev (h) 2-1 Turnaround by Nirvana.

An awful first half hour is followed by a great last sixty minutes.

Crystal Palace (a) 1-0 Pressure Drop by The Clash.

Our first win for a month and a half.

Newcastle (h) 3-0 Shoot To Thrill by AC/DC. Two wins in a row for the first time since November.

Liverpool (h) 0-0 Neighborhood Threat by Iggy Pop. Despite the fears of Merseyside Police, a late kick-off for the derby doesn't bring about an end to civilisation; just an incredibly dull game.

Dynamo Kiev (a) 2-5 Disintegration by The Cure.

An undignified end to our Europa dream and any hope of my being able to use Warsaw

by Joy Division later in this piece.

Chelsea (a) 0-1 Feel The Pain by The Damned.

Having defended solidly and spurned a couple of good chances the blues fall to a deflected goal only minutes from time.

Young Boys (a) 4-1 Fantastic Voyage by David Bowie.

Another successful European away game.

QPR (a) 2-1 Stealing People's Mail

by Dead Kennedys.

As QPR squander a host of chances to add three points to their survival mission, the blues take theirs and run off with the spoils.

Southampton (h) 1-0 Sun Is Shining by

Bob Marley & Lee "Scratch" Perry.

The sun is back as Everton make it three league wins in a row.

Swansea (a) 1-1 Hand Of Doom by Black Sabbath.

Seamus' penalty shame.

Burnley (h) 1-0 Wheels Of Confusion by Black Sabbath.

'Penaltygate' part two as Ross fluffs his spot kick, whilst Leighton looks on.

Man Utd (h) 3-0 Now My Heart Is Full by Morrissey.

Everton, you glorious bastards!

Aston Villa (a) 2-3 Goodbye (Hair) by Pissed Jeans.

Bobby's new haircut is a bit severe; as is his hair loss.

Sunderland (h) 0-2 You Can't Always Get What You Want by Rolling Stones.

Plenty of possession and shots on goal come to nothing as two deflected goals give the Wearsiders the points.

West Ham (a) 2-1 Never Stop by Echo & The Bunnymen.

The blues claim the winner in the third minute of injury time.

Spurs (h) 0-1 Glad To See You Go by The Ramones.

Be gone 2014/15, you thoroughly outstayed your welcome.

Nick Brown

Sitting off with Roberto When Skies are Grey, alongside other Everton fans websites and groups were recently invited to Finch Farm to take part in a question and answers session with Roberto Martinez. We'd attended a couple of these last season and enjoyed them but this was the first time any of us had been invited back this season.

Maybe they thought there wasn't much to talk about until now.

First things first, I do not intend to give a blow by blow account of the discussion with Roberto.

That's because, simply, thanks to our friends at Toffee TV you can listen to it yourself.

Click this link: http://toffeetv.net/toffee-tvthe-roberto-martinezinterview-2015/ Instead, I want to take some time reflect on the meeting and to respond to some of the queries raised by other supporters afterwards.

To start with, background.

a

bit

of

You might be wondering how these meetings come about. If you know anything about WSAG, you'll know that we've never had that great a relationship with the Club and its officials. (Remind me to tell you the story about the exPromotions Manager throwing a copy of WSAG on the floor in disgust.) But that's fine, we've never really sought any favours or better links. We've always seen ourselves as a supporters magazine, not a club magazine.

We have tried to interview a couple of players in the past but the resultant interviews have been dull beyond belief as players have (understandably) pussyfooted around any topic which might get them into trouble.

Then last approached

year, we got via the Club's

media department and asked if we'd like to take part in a meeting alongside other independent supporter groups with Roberto.

At that point, we all had a bit of a man-crush on Roberto so we didn't take long to say yes.

Added to this, friends who were involved with Wigan fanzines had met him and said he was great, really open so it seemed like a good opportunity.

And so it was.

We attended two such sessions last season and in each of them found Roberto to be open and engaging. He answered every question asked and there was little, if any, interference from the Club's official media bods who all sat around watching.

This

season,

communication

between the independent groups and the Club has been sparse. We get regular emails when they want something pushing but there's been no 'involvement' or views sought.

Again, that's fine. We weren't pushing for stuff. Although it did make you think that they were happy to engage when everything was going well last season but now things were a little more challenging the shutters were coming down.

Anyway, this is a ridiculously long pre-amble. A week before the end of the season, another email dropped saying a new Q&A was being arranged.

Accordingly, three days before the last game of the season we gathered in the foyer of Finch Farm.

When I say we... Steve from Blue Kipper, Si from NSNO,

Neil and Joe from SOS1878, Paul from Toffeeweb, Barry from Toffee TV and Ped from Followtonians. And me.

You can see how handsome we all look in the picture on the preceding page. I'm the only one in a suit as I'd come straight from work.

We get walked through the training complex which is always full of people and taken to the first team canteen. A circle of chairs is arranged Roberto doesn't like tables and tea, coffee and biscuits are provided.

Roberto enters the room shortly after and greets us all warmly, shaking hands and looking you in eye.

"I remember you" he says.

In the background various Everton media types stand around. A bit later Robert Elstone enters too but quietly takes a seat at the back. I've no idea if they are nervous about what is about to be asked of the manager or worried about what he might say in response but no one has ever jumped in and said you can't ask that or don't answer that.

All in all the meeting have been a very laid back. Roberto is completely at ease. He doesn't fidget or look uncomfortable. He listens to each question and answers it, looking straight back at you.

There is some suggestion that those who attend these meetings are a little in awe of Martinez and maybe a bit frightened of upsetting him so no difficult questions are put. I don't think that's true. Well, maybe partly. Certainly last season we were all a bit like giggly schoolgirls meeting a member of One Direction but I don't think that stopped anyone asking the questions they wanted to ask.

I know I asked questions I wanted to. The format of the meeting means that everyone will only get to ask about three questions and I know others had whole lists of things they wanted to ask but we all knew that we'd only get roughly an hour (we actually got about 90 minutes) so it was up to each one of us to choose carefully.

I think the other thing which perhaps gets forgotten when analysing these discussions is that Roberto is conversing in a foreign language to him.

Again, he is well-skilled in doing so but it must still present challenges.

For that reason, I don't believe it's right for anyone to overanalyse the actual words he uses. (Yes, he used the word phenomenal once and yes there was a little snigger.)

differently or chose to interpret them one way or another. As I said at the start, listen to the full interview yourself and make your own mind up.

There were things he said which were unequivocal. He did say, the Club hasn't got ÂŁ28 Million to spend this summer.

He was also very clear on the players he needed to bring in and in what position.

He also, perhaps more subtly said that Luke Garbutt may well be leaving but certainly that the uncertainty about his future was a key factor in him not playing the last two games.

There has been a mini internet storm about what he said about Alcaraz. Some people suggested that Martinez accused Evertonians are being racist towards the Paraguayan.

Finally, I think there's one thing that gets overlooked.

Here we have the manager of a Premier League team sitting down with a group of supporters to answer their questions. Not just that, he is prepared to explain, in detail the successes and failures of the past season.

I don't think he did. I don't think anyone in the room thought he did. I think he was joking, perhaps trying to say something else which was lost in translation.

Now, you might think it's all a bit of PR but I don't see any other current managers doing it. No previous Everton has ever engaged in such a way either.

Ultimately though, there are people who hear things

For that, applauded.

he

should

be

Losing my faith in you

by Paddy Howlin (@PaddyH1976) I don’t think I will be alone in ranking 2014/15 as one of the most disappointing seasons in recent times. After the relative highs of the previous season when Roberto Martinez arguably exceed all expectations and came close to qualifying for the Champions League with a record points total in the Premier League era, came what can only be described in my time in supporting the club as a typical Everton ‘bounce’.

Another in a long series of false dawns that I’ve come accustomed to in following Everton Football Club in the past 30 years. This time and for the very first time in my Evertonian life, I don’t see when or how Everton are going to be successful again in my life time. I also fear that the ten years preceding this season will in years to come be looked upon as our most successful period in our Premier League history, not to be repeated or matched again.

Despite the changes in the football landscape circa 1992 with the advent of the Premier League and our club’s inability throughout this period to get any of the basic fundamentals right off the pitch to compete with football’s new order, I always remained steadfast in my belief that football is cyclical (particularly for the traditional big clubs like ours) and Everton Football Club would have its day again and at some point we would turn a corner and be back competing for Titles and Cups.

Either we would finally be bought out by somebody who could see the potential our great old club has, or (and probably more realistic in my mind), the arse would drop out of the Premier League and the likes of Sheikh Mansour, Roman Abramovich, the Glazer Family and Fenway Sports Group would pull their money and interest out of football and a level playing field would once again emerge in the English game.

Even when things got as bad as the final day relegation survival clashes in 1994 and 1998, or during the darkest of days watching the ghost of a team representing Everton under Walter Smith, I always had the hope and belief that things could and would get better. After all, even when things were at their darkest, there would be a chink of light to grab at.

After Wimbledon 1994, came the FA Cup win the following season. After the dismal Smith years, came the respectability of David Moyes managing to make Everton a competitive Premier League side once more and who would finish in the top half for seven consecutive seasons before moving to Manchester United. Despite never breaking the glass ceiling, we came tantalisingly close on a couple of occasions to ending our trophy drought under our former manager.

Depending on your view, Moyes either lacked the bottle in the big matches when he needed to be more expansive or he was not given the financial backing at key times to push us on. I personally think it was a combination of the two, not helped

by Moyes and Kenwright being as thick as thieves and neither wanting to push the other in fear of what it would expose.

When Roberto Martinez came to Everton in June 2013, I wasn’t convinced and felt it was a huge gamble taking on a manager who had just taken his side to relegation after years of beating the drop and finishing no higher than 15th in the Premier League.

I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt though, given he would have far better players at his disposal and he was generally well respected and admired within the game. That alongside a list of other far less compelling candidates at the time (Stubbs, Weir, Neville, Mackay, Lennon and Rangnick), probably made him the only viable choice.

In hindsight, Bill Kenwright staged managed this process remarkably well and went for the easy option, an available manager from down the road who had also just won an FA Cup. I doubt any of those candidates had any chance of getting the job and Kenwright’s mind was made up on who he would bring in as our new manager following our FA Cup Quarter-Final defeat to Wigan in March that year, when Martinez tactically out manoeuvred his beloved David Moyes.

After a slow start, Martinez got Everton

playing with a style and purpose once he put his own stamp on the team with the deadline day signings of McCarthy, Lukaku and Barry. Whilst I’ve never fully bought in to the fact that the Martinez style was any more expansive than what David Moyes offered, he was a welcome antidote for many in terms of having the belief and courage in his team to go to places like Old Trafford and the Emirates and take games to his opponents.

When it worked, it was fantastic as shown in the amazing back to back performances in December 2013 at Man United and Arsenal. However when things didn’t work, it would often go spectacularly wrong as witnessed in a heavy defeat at Anfield in January 2014 and a dismal end to the 2013/14 season, when at the time most of us felt we had just ran out of steam, rather than our Manager being tactically found out.

Despite breaking our transfer record in the summer of 2014 with the permanent signing of Romelu Lukaku and arguably having our best squad of players in a generation, we went in to the 2014/15 season underprepared in terms of having the foresight to invest in to key areas of the team that needed bolstering for a dual campaign both domestically and in Europe (i.e. a goalkeeper, a central defender and left/right sided attacking midfielder).

In terms of our fitness we were way below par of our Premier League rivals, often looking done after an hour or so of a game, right through until after Christmas. Tactically we were rigid and the School of Science brand of football that Martinez was credited of bringing back, had transpired in to a bland, slow paced, one dimensional, uninspiring game plan not too dissimilar to what was served up by Walter Smith in his later years in charge. Defensively we were a complete shambles, often a set piece or an unenforced error away from a defeat in every game. It appeared all of the good things that David Moyes had embedded in to our club over a decade where quickly being stripped away, piece by piece.

Christmas 2014 was my nadir in supporting Everton Football Club. I’d sat through bad spells before (Gabriel 1993, Walker 1994, Royle 1997, Kendall 1997/98, Smith 1998/99, 2001/02 and Moyes 2003/04), however traveling as far south as Southampton, as north to Newcastle and as east as Hull that festive period took me to the brink. Not even the pride of my son leading out the team at Newcastle as mascot could disguise the loss of faith I had in the club following a dismal run of form. The performances, the tactical ineptitude, fitness levels resembling a

pub team and general lack of belief of everyone involved with the club from players to fans was something I’ve not felt before in all my time in supporting the Blues.

I don’t think I’ve recovered since and apart from a spirited performance against a Manchester United side in transition and a last minute winner at West Ham, I’ve struggled to recapture my Everton mojo.

Looking back, my love and enthusiasm for the game had been wavering anyway over the past couple of years, with the catalyst probably being the disappointment of losing the 2012 FA Cup Semi Final. I was finding it hard to get excited about watching a sterile Premier League, with the leading clubs doped up to the eye balls financially in comparison to ‘plucky’ Everton.

Despite this resentment and lack of interest in the Premier League as a whole, my love and interest for Everton remained, until that horrible Christmas period and the questions and doubts started filling my head.

Over the past few months, I’ve spent many a night wondering where it has gone wrong for me and why with each match, I feel that I’m losing my belief and passion for Everton Football Club, something if you had asked me 12 months ago, I would have laughed in your face at. I don’t know if after 30 years the cumulative effect of false dawns and the realisation that we are never going to win the Premier League or have a similar spell of success like we had between 1984 and 1987 in my life-time has finally hit home or if it is just a blip brought about by a really disappointing season where the quality of football and entertainment on offer has been poor.

Sitting in my seat in the Lower Gwladys Street this season has been a sombre and dull experience for the majority of games. The brand

of football served up has unquestionably impacted on the atmosphere at Goodison Park this season and the amount of games where we have failed to get a shot on target to even test the opposition keeper, never mind score, has been frightening.

It got so bad, I found myself in the Sunderland game reading the programme cover to back in the first-half, such was the poor entertainment on show on the pitch from both sides. For the first time in my Evertonian life, I could think of 2 or 3 other places where I’d rather be than Goodison Park on a match day.

Even going to the away matches this season (Wolfsburg aside) has been dull and insipid. I was fortunate to see all but one of Everton’s away wins on the road this season, however despite this there was very little in terms of entertainment and excitement.

Even a last minute Jagielka equaliser at the Kop could do much to get me really excited. It was still going to be at least 16 years since tasting a win at Anfield, a statistic almost as bad as not winning a trophy for two decades. If anything, coming away from these away games often brought more questions than answers in my mind to ‘what is the point’?

After travelling to London for the West Ham game recently, I seriously contemplated staying in the pub in Central London that I was drinking in before the game, rather than jumping the Tube to Upton Park. I turned up 5 minutes in to the game.

Those who know me, know that this just isn’t me.

So where has this sudden loss of faith and interest come from I ask myself? Like all deep rooted things in life, there is never a single or easy answer. It’s multifaceted and I doubt I really know what is going on in my own head at the moment. Falling out of love with football in general is one thing, but losing my faith in Everton, that is completely something else.

As much as I’d probably like to, I can’t really blame Roberto Martinez for my current Everton malaise. The man comes across as a decent bloke who may well have thought the Everton job was going to be a lot easier than it really was after a good first 6 months at Goodsion.

I personally think the Everton job is far too big for him and I have serious doubts after what I’ve seen this season if he has the ability or will to adapt his philosophy and I have to question if he is the right man to take the club forward. Time will tell if he will swim or sink.

Personally I’d give him until Christmas to prove his worth, because we should really know after two and a half seasons in charge if a manager is going to cut it or take you down. This isn’t a modern day phenomenon, the most you typically got in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s at a top club was three years.

My fear is next season will be another uninspiring mediocre mid-table campaign where we will be lucky to avoid a relegation battle, if we don’t invest in key areas of the team and replace aging players in the squad such as Osman, Piennar, Howard and the departing Distin. The signs are currently we won’t do this to any great extent this summer, which indicates to me that the Board may already have their own doubts about the current manager and his ability to spend the little cash we have wisely.

I don’t really want to turn this in to a piece blaming Bill Kenwright or the other faceless people in the background he has bought to the club to enable him to stay in control either, as this is a debate for another day and by far more knowledgeable contributors than myself.

However the way the club has been ran (and to be fair to Kenwright not just during his 16 year tenure, it goes way back to the John Moores era), does play a significant part Everton being unable to compete for honours such as the League title and being successful on the pitch and why I seriously question where the club is going.

I’m certainly no pro-Kenwright apologist in any shape or form, but I can see both points of view when it comes to our Chairman. Kenwright is an Evertonian through and through and is running the club with the very best of intentions and teams like Leeds and Blackburn (both sides who have won the league since us) would give anything for. However there is also the argument that I’m probably more in tune with, that believes Kenwright is slowly killing the club as a top flight force, by holding it back and we are absolutely no further forward in terms of having any sort of credible business plan or vision to

Soccer Saturday etc, it had an innocence and was of its time – before Murdoch’s money and corporate hospitality took over our game like a cancer. Granted, it was far from innocent on the crumbling terraces and outside the Stadiums at the time and there was a reason gates where at an all-time low across the country, however the game felt like it was ours and anything was possible if you could put together a team of eleven good players.

Looking back at rose tinted glasses of that period of my life, when I’d go to Goodison and then rush home on the 26 bus to see Granada Goals Extra with Bob Greaves, probably has had a lot to do with my current state of mind. take the club forward than when he bought out Peter Johnson in December 1999.

Be careful what you wish for by all means (particularly when there is no apparent interest from elsewhere, though you also have to question why given the money involved in the Premier League today), however stagnating and holding our head just above water without any plan, ambition and most importantly of all the actual means to move us forward is equally as dangerous, particularly when there are no assets other than players left to trade in.

Perhaps I’ve just come to an age when I’ve realised there is perhaps more to life than modern day Sky financed football? When on a recent holiday with my family in Ibiza, I introduced the excellent BBC Match of the 70’s and 80’s series to my 9 year old son. Granted, there was always a team dominating proceedings (unfortunately for us it was predominately them lot from across the Park), however there was always a chance that a club like Derby, Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa, Southampton, Ipswich, Watford or Everton could challenge or actually win the title when they had a good squad and it was ‘their year’.

There have always been wealthier and larger clubs since the foundation of the Football League, but the playing field was fairly equal and you could break the ceiling if you had a talented homegrown side, unlike today.

I also introduced my son to old clips of Saint & Greavsie. It was really difficult to get across to him that when I was his age growing up in the mid to late 1980’s that this was all we had each week to catch up on the football world. As amateurish as it now looks today compared to the likes of Football Focus, Match of the Day 2 Extra,

Perhaps it’s the 20 year anniversary of not actually winning a trophy that has finally pushed me over the edge? For a club of our size, stature and fan base to go so long without a major honour is a scandal. The wait between 1987 and 1995 seemed massive at the time, however the latest drought is pure agony and there is no sign of it ending anytime soon. Worryingly there is a generation of our fans who do not know what it tastes like to win a trophy and think a top 6 finish is the best we should hope for.

The fact that the Liverpool Echo decided to call an inquest in to Liverpool not winning anything for 3 years after their Cup Semi Final defeat to Aston Villa, but continually chose to turn the other direction when it comes to actively challenge how Everton is run following our trophy drought, spoke volumes and symbolised everything currently wrong with our game. It’s not about reporting the facts on your local football team anymore, it’s all about what stories can get higher ‘click rates’ for their online version of the paper. Everton are no longer a story or of significant interest to waste the time and effort on. That said, when Goodison Park is sold out for 13 of its 19 Premier League games and even

after a horrible 2014/15 season they still manage to sell 25,000 season tickets for next year, the Echo can perhaps defend themselves and say ’well what is the story guys?’.

The more I think about it, perhaps it is the apparent apathy and acceptance of mediocrity from my fellow Evertonians is the reason why I think I’m losing my faith in Everton.

Don’t get me wrong, I class myself as equally as guilty of this. Despite falling out of love with the game as well as being generally pissed off with Everton Football Club and what it currently stands for, I renewed my season ticket without question for next season for my son and I. So why did I renew? Well underneath it all Everton is more than a football club to me and as I’ve got older its more about the people intrinsically linked to my match going experience over the past 30 years, than the men running round in Royal Blue who will arrive in one transfer window and quite often be gone in the next one.

Going to the match is about sharing an experience with my family and close friends at least once every fortnight, regardless of what is being served up on the pitch by players and a manager who are just passing through our club.

As long as these people in my life still go the game, then Everton are probably safe getting my season ticket renew cash each year. As for going to away games every fortnight, that is perhaps becoming more questionable, given the effort, time and money (plus arguments with Mrs H on priorities in life) that is required for very little in return. I’m getting to the stage in life where I get more enjoyment and fun in watching my son play on a Saturday, than anything Everton Football Club can provide. Maybe I’m just getting some much needed perspective in life at long last?

Perhaps after a summer break to recharge my batteries and we make a few new signings, I may feel different. However, as I’ve got more disillusioned as the season wore on and spoke to others, I know I’m not the only one thinking like this and without genuine ambition and hope for what the future may bring, then there may well be more people walking away from Goodison Park and from their regular match going habit over the coming years as they feel even more disenchanted and removed from what is going on at Everton.

After the length of time I’ve actively followed Everton, I’d

like to think that I’m no glory hunter. I’m not saying that if we suddenly started winning trophy after trophy my apathy for the game would diminish completely. It would certainly help to win at least one trophy and taste some demonstrable success with my son. That much I can’t deny. Nor am I saying that we should embark on a period of reckless spending ala Ridsdale at Leeds or what Portsmouth did in the late noughties to help get the likes of me interested again. I do think a good starting point however, would be for the club to make a fundamental decision on its long term future, which unlike fleeting spells of glory it can control and can influence.

The starting point to me is simple and it was a question first muted in 1996 ‘Goodison Park or a move elsewhere’. This debacle has gone on for almost 20 years now, without any significant investment in our current home or a realistic alternative venue being found. Is it any surprise we find ourselves in perennial limbo and can’t attract any investment with this issue being allowed to hang over the club for so long? A decision needs to be taken and then a plan needs to be drawn up and actually executed. This way we can then all move forward and have something to buy in to, rather than waiting and hoping. If there was something tangible I could genuinely believe and trust in, rather than false hope and unrealistic pipe-dreams, then maybe my faith in the club won’t be lost and I’m just having a mid-life crisis in my ‘relationship’ with Everton.

Without any genuine or real hope or aspiration however, I really do fear that Everton Football Club will continue to fade out of my life, season by season as the gap widens even more between us and the Sky top four. When you reach the age of 38 and something you have religiously followed and invested in for so long in your life, then that is a truly sad and scary thought.

WSAG T Shirts We've got loads of t-shirts in our shop including the new Brigate Blu one above as well as the Roberto Soul, the School of Science and a couple of old favourites like the 'no al razzismo' and Saint Domingo ones.

You can see them all here by clicking the link: http://whenskiesaregrey.spreadshirt.co.uk/ They are dead easy to buy online and Spreadshirt arrange all the production, delivery and customer services for us. Orders are send out within a few days so there's no arsing around We can also do any of the designs featured in most sizes from kids, to womens, to Slimfit to 3XL.

A new beginning for the Old Lady?

by Terry Smith

Now that the season is over, and another fictionalised stadium move has bitten the dust, what is in store for the Old Lady? It depends how you look at it.

Too often we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. But life is all about perspective and perception. Perspective is a point of view; perception is what you interpret. What we see is often really what we’re looking for.

Look to the left of this picture and you see the beautiful promise of youth. Look to the right and you see the ghost of Old Mother Noblett, an old hag mourning her past, regretting the failures and the neglect of her fading years, staring forlornly at her empty cupboard with only memories….

In those days the screen was huge. Trophies brought from London and Rotterdam; trophies that said we were the best in the land and across Europe too.

Those were the days before cruel European exclusion. 30 years of fate; a lifetime of hate.

Glory days when Goodison life was good and the Old Lady rocked long into the night.

Then 20 years ago, sipping from the cup one final time before Sky’s infatuation with the de facto European Elite League killed our dreams of glory.

If you know your history, it’s enough to make your heart break.

Walton Hall Park: a white elephant.

Goodison Park: the elephant in the room When Robert Elstone made his most recent incompetent PR faux pas - tantamount to admitting defeat on yet another stadium debacle - he was trying to manage expectations, to prepare us for the consequences of yet another act of folly and fallacy. With fingers crossed

behind his back, he announced that progress was very slow whilst also admitting that "We would need to think very carefully about a new stadium that adds the burden of significant debt on the club".

As I said, it is folly and fallacy.

There is no new stadium. It’s a mirage.

The only way you can interpret this pre-emptive strike is that the only logical possible plan is that we are staying and instead of putting lipstick on a corpse, the Old Lady needs major reconstructive surgery. It is plan by default but a plan nonetheless.

But maybe Elstone did us a favour by giving us perspective.

Some supporters, myself included, have been duped. Either he is a liar, incompetent or negligent, but those phoney ‘words of caution’ printed in the season’s final programme proved that we have crossed the Rubicon.

It is an inadvertent acknowledgement that if we haven’t got a rich foreign benefactor to fund our future (or a willing local one in the shape of Joe Anderson’s City Council) there isn’t a feasible plan at all.

But one thing Elstone is right about is when he says that the situation at Goodison is different to other clubs in the Premier League. It’s correct to say that we don't have season ticket and hospitality waiting lists and we're not turning away thousands of fans every week” or that

“we're not based just up the road from the richest square mile in the country”.

It is a statement of indisputable fact that the economics for Everton are less clear-cut and the investment in a new stadium is more marginal and more risky.

In a Premier League landscape populated by oligarchs, oil barons and various foolish foreign investors, we’ll always be the poor relations.

In an economy of austerity and southernbias, we are always going to be cut adrift from the future.

The new stadium is an illusion and pretending we are part of a European elite is a delusion. It is now obvious that we must admit who and where we are.

As I said, it is folly and fallacy. There is no new stadium. It’s a mirage.

Even with imaginary funding, it is obvious that Walton Hall Park would be a white elephant and Goodison Park is the elephant in the room.

Maybe the Board knew this all along. Maybe what we see is really what we’re been looking for all along: we need to rebuild Goodison in order to rebuild our dreams.

The only way you can interpret this pre-emptive strike is that the only logical possible plan is that we are staying and instead of putting lipstick on a corpse, the Old Lady needs major reconstructive surgery. It is plan by default but a plan nonetheless.

Who are yer? Who are yer?

Who are we? If it is our club, who are we and what do we stand for? Identity and ownership are inextricably linked. Identity and ownership and strategy are inextricably linked. And of course strategy, achieving objectives and positioning are all inextricably linked.

But positioning is not just what you do in the marketplace; positioning is what you do to the minds of your target audience. It's mainly about perception.

Positioning can focus minds on strategy (like which segments and competition to attack) as well as tactics (what service, pricing, relationship marketing, causal charity efforts, sponsorship, and so on). Positioning can be seen as an insular mind-set, but it can also become a clarion call, a mission statement.

Positioning, both inside and outside organisation, is about symbolic identity.

an

There are plenty of classic examples of 'challenger brand' positioning which have galvanised organisations, given ownership, captured the imagination of the target audience and created a distinctive, moral, ethical space between the competition and changed perceptions.

AVIS made an advertising slogan 'We Try Harder' into an all-pervasive all-conquering mission statement.

When we talk about Everton in terms of what we are not, that's positioning. We’re not global.

We’re not a rich man’s play thing or a foreign franchise. We’re don’t see life through an ‘I want’ Kopite lens. We are not; therefore we are.

Everton’s current positioning is confusing.

In marketing terms, there are various positioning options you can go for: parity (aka 'Me Too’ imitation); differentiation (providing the same category offer but with a distinctive difference); and niche (offering a unique proposition similar but radically different to the rest of the competition).

Who are we kidding? We’re not the Mersey Millionaires any more. Somebody has stolen those clothes.

We can’t attempt parity positioning following the model of the elite. We can only offer a unique proposition similar but not radically differentiated from the rest of the competition.

In the post-‘no new stadium’ apocalypse, does ‘Nils Satis Nisi Optimum’ positioning really have any meaning?

Is the ‘People’s positioning parochial?

positioning decision we could take is admitting that we are the new Avis, we must try harder, we will win on our own terms and we will be stronger because of it.

accidental Club’ too

Is it exactly what we are: a poor, provincial club? Is it restrictive and does it resonate with international markets?

Is it possible to be community-oriented and at the same time appeal to a broader franchise of Evertonians?

Can we compete with the elite or contest with the rest? If ‘Nils Satis Nisi Optimum’ means ‘doing the absolute best you can’ and ‘The People’s Club’ means ‘a local and world-wide caring community’, then maybe we could re-position our club more appropriately.

We have a fantastic name for bone fide community work which goes beyond tactical ‘causal marketing’ and is now embedded in the core values of our club – Everton In The Community.

Building a local/global positioning already has an authentic pedigree.

therefore

The relationship marketing the club does with the fans is embryonic but could be developed with greater input from representative fan opinion leaders spreading positive word of mouth.

Although there is encouraging international linkages with supporters around the world, it is not anywhere near on the same scale as the global brands.

Some catastrophic marketing opportunities have been missed in spreading the Everton franchise by not capitalising on opportunities in expanding Asian markets such as China.

In addition, in terms of pricing, could we ever really be able to increase prices of season tickets to Arsenal or even Liverpool levels? Could we reinvent our fan-base and attract a more lucrative but less local patronage?

But before any direction of travel is argued, any realistic plan has to start with a fundamental strategic question: where are we now?

That involves a critical analysis of achievements, finance, resources, strengths and weaknesses. It also implies which way we are facing. One

Sometimes, when all parties know where they’re going, the journey can be much more enjoyable and the objectives more easily achievable.

But everybody has to be onboard.

Everton: not the new Chelsea, the new Avis. I can see it now!

You say you want a Revolution? We’d all love to see the plan If you want money for people with minds that hate, all I can tell you is brother you’ll have to wait.

You say you want a Revolution? We’d all love to see the plan.

We’ve seen lots of ‘plans’ lately but change has to be accompanied by alternatives. Ousting the Board is a precursor not an answer.

The danger with demanding the impossible is that it undermines the possible.

Building a proper competitive European team and organisation by selling to a rich benefactor is just not going to happen. And are we really sure that we know whether it would destroy the fabric of the club?

Goodison Park is still an old school, working class environment. Is it feasible to build a Theme Park visitor attraction like Anfield? Could we fill a 50,000+ new stadium and populate it with big brand corporate hospitality?

The ‘sticker-gate’ pressure to sell season tickets is an indication of the club’s panic regarding income.

Their clumsy recruitment tactics may have backfired but if the club can’t even blackmail people into committing to a season ticket, who are we kidding? And why are all the selfrighteous ‘Everton That’ Anti-Everything Everton brigade not recognising that fact?

As I’ve stated previously, to me the most realistic option would be to evolve gradually growing cumulatively year on year through performances on the field.

Why do we resist the notion that we are a player factory which buys and develops youthful potential and rebuilds organically?

The Sky TV funding should buy us breathing space to become more solvent, invest in building on the strengths of the squad, and gradually cement our position as ‘the best of the rest’.

We are not (and never will be) an elite European club, but a strategy of evolution not revolution arresting atrophy and focusing on a trophy could turn us into a regular Top 6 club, winning a trophy a year for the next five years and trying to secure some sort of regular European involvement in between times.

Never waste a good crisis It is clear to me that we have to acknowledge: the irreparable damage done to our club by European exclusion; the severe erosion of our brand equity as a result; the restrictive partnerships; the naïve commercial activities; and the nonsensical strategy of chasing unfunded £200m castles in the air that this Board has pursued without check or cheque.

Without a sustainable business plan in the future our history really will be history. It really could be apocalyptic.

Incidentally, the word ‘apocalypse’ has two interpretations: devastation after a disaster and ‘a disclosure of knowledge or revelation’.

Elstone’s gaff is a tacit acknowledgement of incompetency and limited corporate vision. It is a lifting of the veil.

It has brought our future into sharp focus. The apocalypse is now. There is no new stadium on the horizon. There is no mirage money. There is no revolution. This is the time for another plan.

Mr. Elstone, thank you for the gaff that gave us this gift.

If we are to look to a bright new future formed in the image of youth, we must change. And if we need a catalyst for change, we need look no further than our current CEO’s ill-conceived programme note as the first line of our manifesto.

Regarding the offensive claim of ‘24/7 search for investment’ (or Gift Aid as it should be known), why don’t we just admit it: if we haven’t found a buyer in our current state we need to either (a) give up looking or (b) build up the brand equity until we have a real asset to sell?

We can’t lose this opportunity. As a Clinton aid once said: “Never waste a good crisis”.

But we can’t let factions get in the way of the facts. It must be a unified, inclusive, properly organised conversation aimed at the broad Everton franchise.

The organisation, dogged commitment and mature objective case that KEIOC gave to countering the Operation Kirkby plan is a testament to what can be done if protest is channeled properly.

So join the evolution and let’s try harder.

As they say, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”.

Tell the Old Lady we’re staying and we have a plan for building a better Everton.

We know who we are.

We know where we belong.

Everton are here to stay. @terry__smith

#wsagdiary Phil Redmond concludes his WSAG diary for this season.

Starting where we left off last time...

The only players missing will be Steven Pienaar, who’s still suffering from muscle fatigue and metatarsal victims Darron Gibson and Bryan Oviedo who are both out for the season.

May 08 May 03 Martinez is unhappy with the team’s performance in the first half yesterday. He says it was well below the standards needed.

In other news, Everton Ladies dip 0-3 in their women’s FA cup semi against Notts County.

Amusing goings on over the park as some reds fly a Manc style “Rodgers out, Rafa in” plane over Anfield before yesterday’s game. It won’t have been them though.

May 04 The under 21’s lose again, this time 1-0 against Sunderland.

May 05 The transfer rumours are starting to hot up. This time, it’s Coleman and Stones to Chelsea in a £50 million package.

Tottenham apparently want £9 million for Aaron Lennon. Yeah right. There’s going to be an awful lot of shite flying about over the coming months. I love the summer.

May 06 Loanees Chris Long and Gethin Jones are remaining away for the play offs. Long at Brentford and Jones at Plymouth.

May 07 Everton have no new injury concerns for Saturday’s interesting looking clash against relegation haunted Sunderland.

Apparently the Blues have a chance of qualifying for the Europa via the fair play league.

I’m not sure about that. Apart from the fact that our season would have to start on July 1st and would probably lead to another crap league season, it’s a pretty bollocks way of qualifying. However, it is Europe and I must admit I love watching us against weird teams from mad countries. Let’s wait and see.

Tomorrow sees Sunderland come to Goodison, desperate for points, with the Blues needing to show a lot more desire than they did last week at Villa. The Mackems will be looking to steal a march on their rivals at the bottom and with a crap early kick off and a crap atmosphere, it’s easy to see Sunderland starting fast against a drowsy Everton and Jermaine Defoe slotting in the 11th minute.

can’t see us winning. I’m going for a late Everton come back and a 2-2 draw.

In other news, Leighton Baines has revealed that he let Romelu Lukaku take over penalty taking duties in January to help build his confidence and boost his goals tally. That still doesn’t explain the Mirallas and Barkley debacles of late.

May 09 If ever you wanted an illustration on how to throw away three points then Everton 0 Sunderland 2 was the perfect example.

In truth, Everton have played a lot worse and got points in games at Goodison.

Up to the box we were patient but incisive and I lost count of how many times we got in behind the Sunderland back 10.

If Everton are on their game, we should have more than enough to see off a team who are in the bottom three for a reason.

However, all too often the final ball or shot was wayward, with only 4 of our 22 shots hitting the target. The other problem was that whilst most of the team played quite well, two important players in Romelu Lukaku and John Stones stunk. Lukaku seemed to have his mind on other things whilst Stones, all too often let that absolute dog Danny Graham, knock him about.

For the reasons above though, I

For

their

part,

the

Mackems

At the end of the day, it’ll be all about what Aaron Lennon wants and all the signs point to him wanting to stay at Goodison.

We’ll see.

May 13 Everton will face Stoke and Arsenal in Singapore for the pre season Asia cup in mid July.

were clearly up for the fight and all 11 put their necks on the line.

They were however, absolute shite and should’ve been put to the sword long before their two spawny goals.

At the end of the day though, possession, control of the game and shots at goal mean fuck all if you can’t score and give soft goals to the opposition.

Taken on its own, it’s easy to dismiss today as “one of those days”, unfortunately we’ve had plenty of those this season and it’s understandable that some punters have had enough.

May 1003 Leighton Baines limped off yesterday with an ankle injury and will be assessed over the coming days. It is likely though, that the foppish left back might be out for what remains of this decidedly shit season.

It’ll also be a chance to give some game time to Luke Garbutt who looks like he might be on his way in the summer.

May 11 Baines is due to see a specialist tomorrow to assess his ankle.

It’s been a weird season for Leighton. His assist tally is still up there with the best, but we’ve had all that penalty

nonsense and defensively he’s been poor at times.

To be honest, on occasion he’s looked like he still wakes up in the middle of the night wishing he was at Old Trafford.

Maybe a good break this summer will see him back to his best next season.

May 12 Roberto has made it clear that we won’t be getting in a bidding war over Aaron Lennon and right he is to. As we said a few days ago Spurs have been making noises in the press about wanting £9 million, given the pacy wide man’s form in the past few months. With 12 months on his contract, they won’t get it.

The Premier League, meanwhile have announced that next season starts on the weekend of August 8th, which means the close season will be negligible this year.

May 14 It has been confirmed that Leighton Baines will miss the season’s final two games after undergoing a small operation on his ankle yesterday. Apparently he’s been playing with a problem for a number of weeks, which might explain his sometimes ropey form. He is expected back for pre season training.

May 15 The Blues travel to West Ham tomorrow for their last away game of the season. Upton Park is a ground where the Blues have a great record, indeed I’m struggling to remember the last time we lost there.

the reappearance of a Kenwright Out flag in the away end.

Martinez who was thrilled with the performance of the team and Galloway in particular, reckons that his selection was nothing to do with Luke Garbutt’s contract situation.

He’s fooling no one.

Overall, The Hammers have had a decent season, though their form has slipped of late. Their fans seem to have a Tottenham style sense of entitlement and as a result Big Sam has been on a hiding to nothing from the minute he got there.

This has been taken by just about everyone as a sign that Luke Garbutt’s on his way and it certainly looks like it.

Apparently they’re in talks with Slaven Bilic who they apparently want to take over before the potentially game changing move to the Olympic stadium next year.

Over the park, the complete wet fart of a farewell for StevieG continued hilariously as Crystal Palace took them apart on his big Anfield farewell.

For all that, Allardyce will be determined to ensure his team sign off their home season with a positive result and that’s why I expect us to dip as it appears that our season finished with Kevin Mirallas’ classy finish against the Mancs last month.

Like me, it appears that everyone at the club is dying for this decidedly shit season to end.

May 16 West Ham 1 Everton 2 was therefore, a welcome surprise.

The Blues marked their last away performance of the season with a decent performance and were well worth the three points.

The big surprise came in the selection of Brendan Galloway who, in the absence of Leighton Baines, came in at left back.

Anyway Galloway fully contributed and looks a decent prospect.

In other news, the under 18’s blew their league by dipping 1-0 at Man City and just miss out on retaining the title they won last year.

May 17 The big talking points from yesterday centred around the omission of Luke Garbutt and

To be honest though, if Luke Garbutt thinks his career is best served elsewhere, then so what.

He’s looked decent enough on his irregular appearances in the first team but has in no way earned the right to a regular first team place.

The flags meanwhile are a reality of the modern game. We were boss last season so there were no protests. We’ve had a shit season, so it must be someone’s fault.

Some will blame the manager, some will blame the owner, some will blame both. At the end of the day, there’s far more examples of failed takeovers than successful and that’s the crux of the majority of fans reluctance to jump on Bill’s back.

Obviously Kenwright is not perfect and he’s undoubtedly failed when it comes to ground moves/improvements.

However he’s undoubtedly provided a stable environment that has enabled his managers to manage.

The facts are the world brand we share a city with have struggled to find appropriate new owners.

There hardly appears to be a queue forming to buy us.

Some people go on about things like the Kitbag deal and the clubs perceived failure to maximise none TV related income.

In the same breath they then say that 20’s plenty. You can’t have it both ways.

Maximising off field revenue generally means us putting our hands even deeper into our pockets.

At the end of the day, our owners either can’t or in some cases won’t put any more money into the club and no minty flags will change that. It is what it is.

May 18 Apparently Everton won’t be looking to keep Christian Atsu beyond the end of his loan from Chelsea. It's also highly unlikely that either Antolin Alcaraz or Sylvain Distin will be retained next season.

More earth shattering new as we have it.

May 19 The under 21’s finished their season with a 3-1 win against

Spurs.

Chris Long (back from a loan spell at Brentford), Sam Ryan and Jonjo Kenny scored the Everton goals.

In other news, the final first team game on Sunday, again against Spurs is a sell out. This is the 12th full house of the season, certainly in terms of numbers our support has been brilliant this season.

May 20

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Blues last trophy when we deservedly beat Man United 1-0 in the Wembley final.

The long wait for a trophy seems to be the main driver for the current wave of protests against our board.

I can understand the frustration felt by many because it’s terrifying to think that only lads in their late 20’s will clearly remember that glorious day against the Mancs.

I remember feeling hard done to when I was 18 and hadn’t seen a trophy.

Sadly the main reason we haven’t won anything for so long isn’t because of managers or

chairmen, it’s the simple reason that the monsters of rock with all the dough have basically bought the rights to the majority of available gongs.

When you hear Liverpool and Man United for fucks sake, pleading poverty and saying they can’t compete with Chelsea and City’s spending power, it’s easy to see why we haven’t won anything lately.

At the moment it’s difficult to see how this is going to change in the short term.

Still, at the end of the day, we’re Evertonians, we go the game, that’s what we do, as the slogan goes.

May 21 It was the club's awards night last night with Phil Jagielka winning the player of the season whilst John Stones got the young players award.

In a dodgy season, both choices were just about right. Jagielka came back from a horrid start and in the last few months seemed right back to his best.

He also chipped in with a number of goals not least his blammer in injury time at Anfield.

Stones meanwhile, missed a big chunk of the season through injury but continued his development by generally

May 23 Robert Elstone is quoted in his programme notes for tomorrow's game saying that the club are struggling to raise funds for the proposed new stadium at Walton Park.

They really don't do themselves any favours sometimes.

(Assuming Graham has written something...)

May 24 The Blues close the season with a performance in keeping with this shit season. Everton 0 Spurs 1 was as big a pile of cobblers as we've seen this season.

Most punters fully understand the environment the club is working in these days but sometimes they're best saying nothing.

Spurs strolled to victory against a team for whom only Brendan Galloway on his home debut and John Stones showed up.

In my view no announcement about any new ground should've been made until everything was in place.

The failings of the team have been well and truly shown up this season and Martinez faces a massive summer.

Jagielka along with Ross Barkley are in the England squad for their forthcoming internationals.

This just gives those who seemingly want the current regime to fail more ammunition.

John Stones, meanwhile is in the provisional 27 man squad for the under 21’s for the forthcoming European championships. He is joined by Luke Garbutt who may or may not be an Everton player for much longer.

Meantime, at Finch Farm, Roberto is interviewed by representatives of fans magazines and websites, including When Skies are Grey.

You will find a fuller report on this elsewhere in this issue.

Anyway like the players this column has got its flip flops on and will be playing golf in Dubai with Big Sam for the next couple of weeks...

looking a class apart.

In other news, the new kit is out and quite nice it is as well, if you’re into that sort of thing.

May 22

(And in doing so has left me with a dirty, big space to fill which can only mean one thing... a dirty big picture) Continues next season

Summer things o

Endless transfer rumours o Rain o Annoying Euro hits o Inner city riots o Shit music festivals featuring the now dull Purple Aki flag o Wasps o Shit sports like Formula One and Tennis all over the telly o Having to creosote the bastard fence o BBQ’s o Having to clean the fucker o Stones/Barkley/Coleman Lukaku to whoever stories o Getting the bike out and going for a ride. Once. o People crying like fuck on the net when that swoop for the Portuguese second division midfielder who no one's ever heard of, falls through. o Getting excited about pre season kick-abouts o Everyone moaning about the late date of the new kit launch o The new kit being sold out of kids shorts by 2PM on launch day o DIY o Day trips to Llandudno o People getting increasingly desperate as August arrives with no new signings o Boring the kids with tales of bursting tar bubbles on the road o Buying ice-cream every night from the van o Burning your head o Enjoying the city centre sights o 2 Weeks all inclusive to Corfu o Your missus trying to get matey with couple from Tipton who you’re next to by the pool. o The husband always being a closet Kopite o Fellas with manky toenails in flipflops o Hose pipe bans o Spending a bastard fortune when the kids are off school. o The Buzz when your new season ticket turns up in the post

#WSAGmatch sunderland home #WSAGmatch continues with match reports from Lee Molton alongside comments posted by you on WSAG's twitter and Facebook following the match. Get involved look out for the #wsagmatch Everton welcomed Sunderland to a very sunny Goodison Park with the visitors in desperate need for three points and it showed. The Blues looked lethargic in the afternoon sun. Osman had a chance after eight minutes, but slipped when trying to shoot. Coleman then had a cut-back blocked by Coates and Barkley shot but the goalie saved with his legs. Everton were having a few chances now with Osman going close with a low shot but it was deflected and the goalie made a save. Sunderland were defending well.

The second half started with the Blues on top again and Lukaku nodded over the bar and also flicked a header just wide. Sunderland then hit the front when a Larsson corner was cleared by Barry but Gomez's shot deflected off Graham to go past Howard. Everton tried to get back level and Coleman had a shot wide. Mirallas also blazed over the bar. With six minutes to go, Sunderland doubled their lead when Johnson’s shot was blocked by Coleman to deflect on to Defoe and into the net off possibly his hand for 2-0 and the game was over.

Everton were left to rue missed chances but few of these were on target, there was a lack of quality today and another poor result at home followed. The visitors got a much needed three points to help in their survival.

A disappointing performance today against a struggling Sunderland side with very few good performances but my star man goes to Seamus Coleman who never gave up in trying to get forward and supply crosses to get Everton a goal.

@JB_1964 I'll be glad when the season's over mainly for the fact I won't have to listen to Evertonians cry arsing every week @NeilMorris18 what happened to the 9 cup finals ? Martinez Out #fraud EFC LOYAL @ecwc85 fucking shithouses, too many can't be arsed @PaulHoskisson I hope this is the last time we see McGeady at Goodison in blue Richard Osborne Seeing as they have all summer off, no International shit to deal with and the fact they've fucked off on holidays a few weeks early, it will be interesting to see how they start next season. Darron Gibson will probably come back like 'the Thing' from Fantastic 4.

Mark Ellis Parking ticket too. #merseysidepoliceyourenothelping.

Andy Ormesher Can't break down these shit sides who put eleven behind the ball and hit us on the break...aided by another shit referee who allowed them to kick lumps out of us..A decent attacking midfielder is needed. ..Barkley is not the answer. .another poor performance from him. ..In my view take the first decent offer in the summer. ..

Ryan Holroyd Isn't a coach supposed to make players better? Because the Spanish fraud makes ours worse Scott Campbell Playing with Barkley is like playing with 10 men. Massively over-hyped!

Tony Rogers no criticism for Lukaku's sitters?.

If we can find a buyer for him I would personally drive him.

Ken Pickard We have to persevere playing Barkley as it is now or never but fuck me, he's frustrating.

@bigwin11 don't want to go on about it but yesterday's game was a prime example of why we need the paper WSAG back. @seanrostron anyone who cares about Everton results for the rest of the season. #peoplewhoneedagoodhiding @tfeditor1892 you lot are 'kin well off the Christmas card list like. @SockCouncil thanks VERY much for today lads :-|

#WSAGmatch west ham united away #WSAGmatch continue with match reports from Lee Molton alongside comments posted by you on WSAG's twitter and Facebook following the match. Get involved look out for the #wsagmatch Everton travelled down to the Capital for their last away game of the season to play West Ham. The game started with much of the first half being played like an end of season affair with less intensity from both sides. The biggest cheer in the crowd was when either team got a yellow card with both sides high in the Fair Play and with a possibility of going into Europe through the back door.

Osman had an early chance but his shot was saved by Adrian. Everton were creating the better chances and Lukaku had a great chance when Lennon played it into the box but Lukaku turned and shot over the crossbar. The home side did have one chance before half time, but a Downing shot was well saved by Howard.

The second half was a better affair and Lukaku almost scored from a free-kick but it was just past the post. It was the home side who opened the scoring though, Song played a through ball to Downing who cut inside and curled past Howard.

It stirred Everton and they responded within five minutes when Lukaku put a great cross in for Osman to control and half-volley into the net.

Could they go and win the game now? Barkley went close a minute later but he fired over, it was all Everton now. Lukaku went close twice from a header and shot but he couldn’t get the winner.

With the game edging to a 1-1 draw, a great cross from the substitute McGeady and Lukaku dived in with a header for 2-1 in the last seconds of injury time to send the travelling Evertonians wild. It was Lukaku’s 20th goal of the season and a timely goal to win the game.

It was not the best performance today from the Blues with few good performances from Jaglieka, Coleman and McCarthy but my Star Man goes to John Stones who had a good game in defence.

@ecwc85 I fucking love going to West Ham

@DentonToffee Thought McGeady did well when he came on, solid debut from Galloway and 3 pts away. @jellythemosher not great but 3pts. Better than last week. Why oh why does Martinez keep playing Barry? Stones class & Galloway played well @RichGordon2160 Someone make this season stop David Mcmullen Lukaku magic. Well I was slagging him off for the first half, now he needs praising Mark Ellis Always nice beating one of fat Sam's teams.

Steve Grimes Wish we could play all our games at Upton Park, Be gutted when they move.

Pete Walton Beauty from Ossie, great stuff by Lukaku. COYB! Anthony Stafford Made one, scored one.

Antony Green We owe them that for the Cup game.

And not strictly after our game, but after the farewell party @robbrine73 "tell me mar me mar, I don't want no tea no tea, we're all laughing at Steve G, tell me mar me mar" #coyb !! @JB_1964 I doubt my keks will ever dry

NIL SATIS DISNEY OPTIMUM I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. Walt Disney

As a kid I so looked forward to the release of the end of season videos. Not just the Everton ones, although I think I bought each one for at least ten years consecutively, and we are talking 1989-1999 so not many classics. I also used to get the league ones, narrated by Jim Rosenthal or Elton Welsby, such as GOALS GALORE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XTiL2EJtus which is bizarrely from the last time the shite won the league, and then the World Cup compilations which featured every goal scored in the tournament.

I think the last one I got was from five years ago, because it was given away free when ordering something off the website, and I still have some now, though don't watch them, I suppose I'm just trying to cling on to a youth that is slowly slipping away.

Maybe one day, if we still have VHS I can sit down with my daughter and educate her on some of the names featured on them, once she tires of the Disney fairy tales.

Talking of which, this season has just ended, with a twist: no happy ending for a few clubs and individuals, meaning an uncomfortable interval

before the next instalment.

If the season was a Disney film, the only similarity I can see is with the seven dwarves.

Not many people know that the characters’ names are all apparently the varying effects of cocaine use. Now, I don't know much about that, but I would suggest that the different behaviours mirrored Everton’s 2014-15 in terms of a few happy moments, grumpy fans and players, medical issues and issues with the docs, some sleepy performances, some players almost bashful in and around the penalty area... You get the picture.

I wrote last time of my single most enjoyable moment of the season, and even though I only managed one league game all season, I guess many of my esteemed fellow contributors will share this sentiment as there wasn't much else to shout about.

In some respects, this game saw many of us restoring our faith in our silver tongued, brown shoed Prince Charming after some months of questioning whether or not said shoes were the right fit, especially after a few bad potions or at least miscalculations of ingredients when it really mattered.

I suppose the worst moment of the season for me was one such performance, away in Kiev, and it's more relevant today after last night’s Europa League final. I'm not sure we would have got much further in the tournament, though would like to think we had a chance not just of progression but also for the fans whose jobs, wallets and or dedication allowed them the chance to travel away to the likes of Lille, Wolfsburg and Berne, one more trip at least.

As it was, I could reference the statues in Hunchback of Notre Dame when discussing Alcaraz’s defending that night, or liken the strange looking bunch of Eastern Europeans

the first time in years, and tried to play it cool but just wished him well and thanked him for all is efforts. He was fine with that and it was a nice moment that reminded me of what it's like to have heroes, whether cartoon figures on screen or in blue and white on the pitch.

who blew us away that night, to the perhaps even more stranger looking guards from Maleficent's castle, but all I'll say is that is one 90 minute cartoon I wouldn't want to sit through again, however much B might nag me to put it on or if it somehow became Disneyfied.

People with a dark sense of humour will have found much to laugh at in our mixture of comical defending, bad luck and general bad play for large parts of the season, especially in the two games which succeeded the United game, versus Sunderland and Villa.

Others will have found events across the park – Balotelli’s laughable efforts, Sterling’s laughing gas or contract travails, Gerrard’s demise and Crystanbul II, the semi final defeats, Dejan Lovren’s penalty, the Stoke debacle, the Dubai song...

But I don't want to give the shower any discussion after a season in which they seemed to dominate the media’s attention so than they did last year when they actually good.

more have more were

For me, there was little to smile about until the season was actually over, and even then it wasn't funny ha ha just funny strange.

On a bit of a downer about the Spurs game and the season in general, plus a summer with little to look forward to, we decided to take a little trip to Formby and whilst my wife – who looks a lot like Mother Gothel from Tangled - browsed some gift shop or other, I stood on the pavement with a sleeping beauty of my own in the pushchair. Then, who should be hopping towards us on crutches but Leighton Baines with his sons and I felt like a star struck schoolboy again, for

That feeling was exacerbated a few minutes later when we took advantage of the peaceful hour and nipped into a wine bar for a pre lunch drink. Who should be sat at the end of the bar, sipping a few glasses of rosé cava but a certain ex manager of ours and club legend. Not wanting to interrupt his own drinking regime, especially as he had signed an autobiography for B last season, I kept my distance despite the Estrella.

We went on for a nice meal, during which I spotted Graham Stuart at a cashpoint, and started to think, I had just seen three icons of the previous three decades and it made me all nostalgic for the Everton I love, regardless of the changes that are afoot, that idea of heroes – of Princes Charming – who arrive on their white horses to save the day, normally during desperate times.

And all this, the day before the untimely death of Andy King, who was before my time but I knew to be a legend if only because I watched the footage of the policeman’s gentle ushering “off the pitch” thousands of times as a child from its inclusion on the official history video, but grew to know through the pages and swipes of WSAG. It’s a difficult question when asked, who was my player of the season?

Osman, Stones, McCarthy all had their moments but I can’t look past Jagielka as the fans couldn’t at the end of season awards dinner.

He’s like the Olaf character in Frozen, who somehow makes good in the end against all odds and despite a bad start.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season? The West Ham FA Cup replay can for me, be summed up with this song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d0JUiBCakg

but missed chances, poor defending, having ten men and then ultimately failing on pens made me feel very proud of the team but disappointed overall, especially as West Ham went on to do nothing in the cup plus the already frustrating McGeady made a stupid and fatal mistake.

He would of course be a potential answer to the question of, what was your biggest disappointment? I still like him, for his propensity for a decent cross like against Leicester and West Ham, but too many have already made up their mind, akin to Claude Frollo…

Others might suggest different squad members, such as Barry, Alcaraz and Howard, but for me the ultimate Hans, the Frozen prince who turned out to be an imposter and not quite whom he said he was simply Samuel Eto’o.

I’ve written earlier in the season about how excited I was to see him in a blue shirt, and to be honest I tried but was gutted it never worked out and that’s probably a personal thing because if rumours about his and Distin’s views are to be believed, he was a good riddance.

So, what are my hopes for next season?

Obviously, a happier ending, maybe even a fairy tale. That topless guy who used to roam town with a loudspeaker frequently used to tell me that Everton were like Jesus, always on the up.

Optimism and pragmatism are probably the two most useful traits when following this grand old team of ours, so we live in hope that after generally good and bad seasons, things will either level themselves out or the inconsistencies of old will mean it's the turn of another good one?

I'd like to think a league cup run is at least possible, some of the teams that have gone far in the competition over the last few years is frankly an embarrassment to us.

It'd be nice to actually win a derby for the first time in years, especially as a certain someone won't be playing, every Disney villain going, but who knows what to

expect with Everton?

I'm actually writing this sat at Formby Tesco petrol station and he has just driven past, hopefully the last I see of him…

Back to the future, and I'm sure that whatever happens will follow the trend of so called fractured fairy tales, which retell the old tales from a different perspective or with a different ending, Maleficent’s dark themes compared to the lighter and cheerier Sleeping Beauty, if you will, a bit like looking at this season compared to last.

Finally, we think about what one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for me, and it would be easy to list Disney classics such as ‘once upon a dream’, ‘trust in me’ and ‘one last hope’ based on what I have previously discussed but if I’m honest at the minute, it’s more like the 90s classics by Mansun, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEWFigyE8R0

Morrissey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mjKg9SElnU

And the Cranberries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YS95L8UeU8

which doesn’t bode well for the future.

I hope I’m wrong…

I need to Disneyfy the end of this post, so here we go!

WALTER ELIAS DISNEY

#WSAGmatch tottenham hotspur home #WSAGmatch continues with match reports from Lee Molton alongside comments posted by you on WSAG's twitter and Facebook following the match. Get involved look out for the #wsagmatch The last game of the season saw Spurs come to town in what has been a poor season. The visitors started the brighter and took the game to Everton. Everton struggled to get going, Lamela went close for Spurs twice but Howard saved.

Mirallas went down the other end and had two good chances to score with his first shot tamely at Lloris and then his second effort was fired just over the crossbar.

Tottenham opened the scoring when an Eric Dier cross was headed in by the unmarked Harry Kane, the defending was poor. Kane almost scored again but Stones blocked well. Just before half-time, Mirallas went close again but after going round the goalkeeper, chipped on to the roof of the net.

Everton started the second half with a bit more attacking intent, Galloway burst into the box but Lloris came out to smother. Besic had a chance but fired over the bar. Spurs were still having chances though and Kane headed wide when unmarked. Chadli also had a deflected shot over the bar.

Sylvain Distin came on for the last few minutes to a great ovation to thank him for six superb years service, what a servant Sylvain has been for Everton. Naismith fired over with an overhead kick and Everton could not find an equaliser.

Spurs went home with the win and it was a disappointing way for Everton to end the season and they have limped through the last four games with three defeats and end the season in a disappointing 11th place.

@rickyoll9 absolute shite, bored me to death, give my season ticket up @DirkdeLuxe1 no comment. *turns off tape* @sounddave1981 like the players I can't be arsed, see you in August @_Sho_Nuff I'm off to try and board the 3 queens. The queens of county road that us. @gjevans70 I actually did think Barkley must have been wearing his flip flops, he was that bad @Mattyblag poor season, poor match, poor support. Galloway looks the business Rob Fearnley Season summed up in a nutshell Richard Osborne No excuses next year, Roberto lid. Fuck up again and you'll be getting chased quicker than your hairline.

Shaun Fendley Thank fuck for that.

Tim Calder No comment.

John Finnan Stinchcomb I've seen worse Derek Sullivan Turgid one paced shite, summed up the season.

Debbie Whitehead Martinez is horrendous x Andrew McEgan Lacklustre. Enough of the booing though, it doesn't help.

Ian O'Callaghan One word, fuckingloadofshite @11kerrypmd @wsagfanzine Happy Birthday Ruby

It was not a very good performance today from the Blues and a poor way to end the season with few good performances, but Galloway had a good home debut and my Star Man goes to John Stones who defended very well.

@KevinJCPL Simply not acceptable, no longer any feeling of unity between players, management and fans. Change needed. @DentonToffee We were shite. Looked like we were playing in flip flops. That young left back we brought on at the end looked handy #signhimup

The perfect shape to pass back tamely to the keeper

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That Was The Season That Was WELCOME to WSAG's review of the season. We asked readers a series of questions and the answers flooded in. So, sit back over the next 16 pages as we relive the lows and occasional highs of 2014/15. As one contributor said, it was much more fun doing this last year.

David Dodds Single most enjoyable moment of the season Not a huge amount to choose from but the 3-0 performance against United, the Young Boys away game, and Jagielka's thunderbolt at the Kop. Worst Moment of the season Chelsea away leaving when they 'scored' returning when the goal was disallowed, leaving a minute later when they scored.

Funniest moment of the season Stoke 6-1.

Player of the season John Stones What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Kiev away. The hope when Lukaku equalised quickly followed by a total defensive capitulation.

Biggest disappointment The whole season. Seeing Roberto's fall from grace with the fans. Ross Barkley.

Seamus Coleman. Lille away.

What are your hopes for next season With no Thursday night European football I expect a top 6 finish.

A better transfer window and the realisation of some of our young prodigies. I want

Roberto to be loved again but do fear for him and us.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Heaven knows I'm miserable now - The Smiths.

Andrew Skinner Single most enjoyable moment of the season Jagielka 91st minute Kop end, just wish it could have been the winner.

Worst Moment of the season Hull away, after the

Southampton away game I didn't think it could get worse.

This spineless performance blew that out of the water and what the fuck was the line up all about. Martinez must have been shitfaced to pick that team.

Funniest moment of the season One of the lads being asked if he was a tranny while walking up to Wolfsburg's ground.

Player of the season One of the hardest decisions as noone really had a consistently good season, but Jagielka was probably the only one who came close.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season The last day defeat by Spurs, laboured around without creating many chances then the manager made strange substitutions.

Biggest disappointment Kiev, it was there for the taking and we fucked it up.

What are your hopes for next season To win something but I wouldn't put any money on it.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? You're my

first my last my everything Barry White.

Claire Sanders Single most enjoyable moment of the season Not as many to choose from but the home victory against Utd was probably the best.

Worst Moment of the season Mirallas missing the pen against West Brom when we were desperate for points.

It summed up total lack of organisation.

Funniest moment of the season Bitter I know but Stoke 6 Liverpool 1 on Stevie G's last game!

Player of the season John Stones, there are occasions when I think just put it in row z! But on the whole a fantastic ball playing defender who is continually improving.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season The shoot out against West Ham, very stressful and just not quite doing enough to win.

Biggest disappointment John Stones on the bench in Kiev. Why on earth did Alcaraz start? We'd worked so hard to qualify for The Europa League last season, sacrificed league form and the domestic cups to throw it all away by not playing our strongest side. Surely even Distin would've been a better option than Alcaraz.

What are your hopes for next season I hope Martinez has learnt a lot this year, we need to be organised and not change the team so more much.

His signings this close season must be spot on.

We have some great players, Stones, McCarthy, Lukaku but we still need to add to the squad especially to replace older players Pienaar Osman etc; As always I'd love a good cup run.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? After the defeat at Stoke I was really wanting Martinez to be sacked, but a felt uncomfortable about it. It's not very Evertonian-like to call for the manager's head. But this song - You Make Me Feel Better (Let's Stay Together) by Alex Adair came on the radio as I was driving to work, just as I was passing Goodison.

Anyway it made me change my mind, but for how long? I don't know.

Kieran Bell Single most enjoyable moment of the season Finding out about Jags’ equaliser in the derby when on holiday in Spain, thinking that it was over and that we had

lost.

Worst Moment of the season Defeat in Kiev… haven’t been that annoyed in a long, long time.

Funniest moment of the season When I saw the RS were 5 down at half time on Sunday Player of the season James McCarthy What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Being shite at football for most of it.

Biggest disappointment Ill-prepared pre-season which set the tone for 1st half of season.

What are your hopes for next season Proper preseason, more variety of play, hold on to better players, get some new good ones in!

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Not intended to be shameless arsekissing, but “you are my sunshine, my only sunshine” Paul Burdett Single most enjoyable moment of the season Seeing the BBC goal update finally appear on my phone, which had a real ropey signal, for Jagielka's goal v Liverpool, whilst sat on a train from Lockerbie to Edinburgh with my RS mate, and then just casually mentioning it across

the table. We were on our way to Edinburgh to watch the Ryder Cup and had watched the first 85 mins of the Derby in a pub right next to Lockerbie station, but then had to leave with 5 mins to go to catch one of the few trains per day that run from there to Edinburgh, needless to say I wasn't feeling too positive when we left the pub, but just a few minutes later...

Worst Moment of the season Sat in an Indian restaurant in Runcorn and seeing the BBC goal updates from the Ukraine.

Funniest moment of the season 1-6 was good, but struggling otherwise. Although not exactly a moment but enjoyed a great trip to Lille (French policing apart) Player of the season Jagielka, just for his consistency What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Difficult to choose a player of the season, even with a 20 goal striker in the team Biggest disappointment The league form around the turn of the year and the somewhat slow style of play that we have at times What are your hopes for next season Getting the ball moving quicker, and that includes going forwards. Oh and a much better return in the league What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? The Darkness - One Way to Ticket to Hell (And Back)

Mike Murphy Single most enjoyable moment of the season The last two minutes of the Anfield derby. This year the derby fell on the weekend my family get together to commemorate my mum's anniversary, so the house is full of reds and a few blues. Sitting resignedly while the familial reds were giving it the full on 'we're not even playing and we're still walking home', and the Jagielka 'FUGGINGERRIN' was perfect.

If that back-heel effort from Barry had snuck in just after I'd have been straight through the window and into town forever.

Worst Moment of the season The QPR home match.

It's been a pretty disquieting season, but booing a team winning 3-1 with five to go, keeping possession? School of Science my arse.

Funniest moment of the season Krasnodar's goal at Goodison. Sometimes you've just got to laugh.

Player of the season Probably Lukaku. He's got a long way to go, but scoring 20+ in a side not playing that well? Marcus Bent-channelrunning fetishists can nominate their own.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season The massive Martinez mural that adorned the Main Stand back in August.

It's a small detail, and in the grand scheme of things didn't amount to any points, money wasted or even a terrible news cycle. But ultimately, it showed we were all getting way ahead of ourselves after last year.

Biggest disappointment Last season everyone was really surprised that Moyes' triers were able to play incisive, controlling, 'proper' football. This season most of the same players seemed to be intent on proving those surprised parties right.

What are your hopes for next season That Martinez can take the spine of a good young team (Stones-McCarthyBarkley-Lukaku) off to a running start, and that Evertonians can get behind them and be patient. All pulling together, Everton aren't a bad prospect, but when it's less than the sum of its parts, it's a stuttering club grasping for a life raft while the big ships thunder on.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Going to go for Summer Dreaming by Tea Street Band, no link to the season or anything like that, more that album managed to get in my shuffle more often than not this last year. And it makes me look all zeitgeist and that as well.

Daniel Hughes Single most enjoyable moment of the season Getting to my first away in Europe I know everyone went to Lille well this time so did I not a great game travelling over on the the Eurostar hearing all sorts of stories of Lille ultras turning our lads over. Then turning up an realising there no way there trying it now. Our hotel being double booked an subsequently

getting a blag address for a sister hotel which didn't exist and after the match when there was no room at any inn thinking we may have to rough it in a car park, walking around Lille at three in the morning when the boozer kicked us out and Chinese restaurants wouldn't let us kip on their floor. All seemed lost then the fella on the Novotel reception let us sleep in the lobby with other blues who shared our fate as long as we were gone before his boss came in at 6:30 great result! All in all it should have been the worst trip I've ever had in truth I loved every minute of it it's one of those memories that only following Everton can give you 8-10 thousand travelling for a Europa group game plucky little Everton we are not!

Worst Moment of the season Realising after about 6 games this isn't the Everton of last season real worst moment after the Christmas thinking we're back to the Mike Walker days frightened the life out of me. You forget how far we've come since those dark days of relegation scraps. Just not good enough all season.

Faith in Roberto all gone, back to when he first arrived in my mind set and thinking he wasn't the man for the job.

Proved me wrong last season would love him to prove me wrong next season but I'm not for blind faith in him he's got a lot to do too bring me back to believing in him at the minute.

I can't bear listening to him PLEASE PROVE ME WRONG ROBERTO! If this season continues as last did then I am afraid he can go for me. He's got till November for me an if we look like we have this year get rid.

Funniest moment of the season Collecting the bet money of redshite mates who bet me they'd win the league how I laughed.

Player of the season For me was John Stones - the lad looks like he can go all the way in the game.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Beating Manchester United 3-0 then losing nearly every game till the end of the season it had all the hallmarks of Wigan under Roberto.

Biggest disappointment was the club going backwards.

It was such a shame. I really believed Roberto was continuing the good work left

by Moyes but we looked like we'd gone 2-3 steps back after last season's step forward.

What are your hopes for next season that I can read what I'm writhing now and think what was I so worried about?

There has got to be

silverware. I'm not arsed if it's the league cup, young lads need to see us winning stuff or we really are going to become a Stoke or any other mid table no mark. The board and these fans who think mid table and a cup run is acceptable it's not were Everton and we should be winning things if you know your history?

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

I know you said one and mine was Nothing Lasts Forever by the Bunnymen. Bad luck, no trophies, winning at Anfield, the party lines from Kenwright and Co we can't continue this way. So with that the one that springs to mind is the Manic Street Preachers If We Tolerate This Then (sadly) Our Children Will Be Next.

Come on Everton these are shite!

Paul Bennett Single most enjoyable moment of the season probably the Man Utd game at Goodison for obvious reasons but it just left you with a feeling of why haven't we been playing like this every week.

The away trips in Europe weren't bad either!

Worst Moment of the season Hull away. The performance of players and staff was abysmal. However, what made it worse were Martinez's post match comments; delusional. That is

the day he should have lost his job. Unacceptable for Everton Football Club.

Funniest moment of the season Listening to Saint Roberto's post-match interviews. He watches a different game to everyone else. I have already mentioned Hull away but my goodness the post-Stoke ones were phenomenal! How he gets away with it is beyond me both from supporters and the local and national press. And to think we used to laugh at RS' managers; not anymore, it is everyone else laughing at our manager.

Player of the season I don't believe that we had a player of the season because not one player performed consistently well enough over course of the whole season. However, honourable mentions to Stones, Jagielka and Osman.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season The final game summed up Everton's season for me. Poor tactics, poor team selection, no width on the pitch, players playing out of position, poor substitutions, play being slow and predictable, Howard rooted to his line, losing 1-0 and bringing on another centre back (I'd prefer not to lose rather than giving someone a

'send off' personally) after bringing on another defensive midfielder at half time (8 defensive players on the pitch for the second half in a game when we were losing 1-0 at home) and then the post match interview...apparently we were great in the second half! Have I already used delusional?

Biggest disappointment was the fans' interview with Martinez. Talk about giving the manager an easy ride; a PR exercise for fan sites and great for the club because 'we are engaging with the fans'. For supporters who want answers a complete and utter waste of time. But hey, isn't Roberto great wanting to meet the fans and being so honest and humble... I have heard some of those involved saying that if we had asked any difficult questions then he wouldn't have answered them. Oh dear.

Silence, refusal and avoidance would have been an answer in its own right and would have spoken volumes compared to the love-in that resulted. I can't believe that the 'questioners' allowed him to call Evertonians xenophobic and get away with it with regards Alcaraz. Unbelievable.

I await the apology from all concerned including the manager and football club.

What are your hopes for next season it looks like St Roberto the fraud will be staying as we have no one actually running our club to question him and hold him to account; it just exists day to day. I would prefer Mark Hughes.

There is no strategic plan for the short, medium or long term future of Everton Football Club. I hope that we actually have a pre-season his time around; that we are prepared for the season; we are fit; the manager is present for pre-season rather than on some egotrip at a tournament somewhere. I hope that we sign a top keeper, a right back, that the real Coleman comes back, Stones stays, we sign right and left sided midfielders, a box to box centre midfielder and another striker. I hope that we perform with pace, power and heart; we play football that entertains the supporters rather than boring them senseless-the little atmosphere we had at Goodison his negative football has completely killed. I hope we find a new owner with a plan who actually invests time and money into the whole club; I hope that we take the cups seriously and perform consistently well in the league aiming for the Euro places. I hope we win a trophy....but then you asked for hopes rather than dreams-sorry! I hope the fans reclaim their football club.

Believe it or not, I hope that St Roberto comes good, I really do and there will be no one happier than me and I will take back all that I have said about him...apart from the wanted apology for being called a xenophobe. I don't want to see us sacking managers as though we are Leeds. However, he must adapt; he must listen; he must be more open to change and flexibility (despite the garbage he spouted in the 'interview'

about us being so flexible) and he must learn from his mistakes. He should also be banned from using words like special and phenomenal all the time.

Finally (thank God I hear you say), I hope that the local and national press start to question the running of Everton Football Club and its lack of leadership and strategic plan. In particular, I hope that the local press start to treat the leadership of our club including the manager, like they do the other lot across the park.

Questions must be asked; real questions; searching questions and if they aren't answered they write an article anyway asking those same questions and they keep asking them. So what if they are banned from Finch Farm? So what if they are banned from awards evenings? So what if they lose the so called 'special relationship' with the club-whatever that is because they never get exclusives anyway-no selfrespecting Evertonian would be the LFC Echo or LFC match programme. Perhaps if they did, we would read the echo.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

I won't give a song for Everton. I will say that we are like the UK in Eurovision.

Plucky, receive the sympathy vote from the nation, will never challenge the 'big guns', no big names want to be involved, there is no strategic plan, those in charge talk a good game but will never really do anything and no one really questions why or actually is that bothered nationally in truth. Or maybe Talking Heads and Road to Nowhere!

Andrew McEgan Single most enjoyable moment of the season Probably the first hour against Arsenal. We absolutely dominated them and looked like we did the year before. We made chances, controlled the play and there wasn’t a hint of the difficult times ahead.

Worst Moment of the season QPR at home. To boo a side that was three nil up is something I don’t want to see at Goodison again. I don’t like booing anyone in a blue shirt to be honest, it doesn’t help a player play better, quite the opposite. In all fairness though, I think people were afraid and disappointed.

Expectations were so high at the start of the season and we knew around that stage of the season that we weren’t going to get there. The way the side was playing at that time

pointed towards a relegation battle and the fear of that contributed to the poisonous atmosphere at Goodison.

Funniest moment of the season Schadenfreude with them lot and the ending they gave Stevie squarehead. A loss to their bogie team at home, then a 6 1 defeat by the hills have eyes FC. Stoke even game him a testimonial goal to score.

Otherwise, Duncan’s celebration when we scored against United where he wanted to climb on his seat but thought better of it made me laugh.

Player of the season I think the way Jagielka responded to the barracking he got from the media after the World Cup last year. It still took him a few games to get going but as the season progressed, he was really consistent and put in some proper Captains performances. Stones ran him close and is going to be some footballer.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Probably the away game at Kiev. After Lukaku had given us the advantage, I thought that if we played sensibly we could have gone through. Unfortunately we shot ourselves in the foot with some terrible defending (as a team) and only had a consolation from Jagielka at the end to show for it. A microcosm of our season really.

Biggest disappointment The league cup performance against Swansea.

What are your hopes for next season That Jon Moss wins the lottery and doesn’t spoil another football game with his shitty headteacher on the pitch routine.

Evertonwise, 1.A player or two of real craft and intelligence who can unlock defences for us. 2. Barkley to find his mojo and be given the support that a local player should have at Everton. We want him to succeed probably

season, and lets hit the floor running from the off.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

Guy Mitchell, never felt more like singing the blues, you know the rest, and hope to drunkenly sing it more next season! more than anyone else at the club so bellowing when he makes mistakes don’t help the kid, especially when you can visibly see what it does to his confidence. 3. A trophy or in the worst case, to be challenging for Europe again.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Shout to the Top by the Style Council.

K Pickett Single most enjoyable moment of the season Watching the smug smiley faces on the plazzy kopite gobshites I work with disappear as Zico Van Jagielka's rocket tore into the kop end goal Worst Moment of the season Got to be the disappointing collapse at dynamo Kiev Funniest moment of the season The hilarity as everyone's phone was tuned to the red shite pen shoot out in Istanbul, mucho arfage Player of the season Would have to be John Stones despite his time out injured, the lad's going to be immense, as long as keep him of course What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Once again, after last year's season, they build us up, and let us down again Biggest disappointment We always prided ourselves on our fitness, and ability to see out games. This season we've too often looked knackered after 70 mins, it needs sorting What are your hopes for next season I'm sure lots will say this, but a good solid pre

Nick GMX Single most enjoyable moment of the season The United win. Or any of the good EL aways.

Worst Moment of the season Everything else but defeats against mid to low ranking sides hurt us.

Funniest moment of the season Kop reaction to Jag's goal.

Player of the season Jagielka because he played most games. McCarthy post injury.

Lukaku for his goals. Imagine if he was playing well....

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Beating United and then shortly after losing to both Villa and Sunderland.

Inconsistency.

Biggest disappointment Martinez. His press conferences have become a joke and for the first part of the season his adherence to one approach to matches was stupefying. If we hadn't had

that tidy run post exit from EL I genuinely think we'd have been dragged into the relegation battle.

What are your hopes for next season Two fold. That we upgrade the squad in key areas (CB, creative midfielder.

Another forward) and that Martinez takes a long hard look at his task in hand. There won't be big money so he'll have to spend wisely.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? None specifically but relating to musical theme, Martinez and Everton just experienced that difficult second album.

Gwladys Single most enjoyable moment of the season The demolition of Manchester United at Goodison Worst Moment of the season Too many to mention.

Funniest moment of the season Probably Liverpool losing 1-6 to the Rose & Crown Player of the season Phil Jagielka What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season The witless, gutless defeat to Spurs on the final day. No pride, no fight.

Biggest disappointment The whole season What are your hopes for next season Playing a full strength team in a cup game

and trying to WIN A TROPHY!!

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

Oops, I said it again (by Britney Spears I think) Martinez & Jones NEED to start next season well. If they don't it could turn into a winter of discontent at Goodison. We are gambling with our Premier League status by giving this pair another season at the helm. WE cannot defend and teams that cannot defend ultimately get relegated. I really hope they prove me wrong but I am not optimistic.

Being out of Europe may help us a bit, but not if we field mickey mouse teams in domestic cup competitions that we should be winning occasionally.

Wes Coles (Melbourne) Single most enjoyable moment of the season Beating Man Utd so comprehensively.

Worst Moment of the season Alcaraz and the Dynamo Kiev away.

Funniest moment of the season Jagielka's howitzer against the shite.

Player of the season Osman. He has rolled his sleeves up and put in 100%, while still surprising people with his quality.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Other teams letting us have the ball and us

faffing around for too long with it.

Biggest disappointment Martinez no plan b. (Apart from Man U game) What are your hopes for next season Same players kept, dead wood gone.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? I Can't Get no Satisfaction Nevmog Single most enjoyable moment of the season Jags' last minute thunderbastard in front of the KOP. A terrible game, heading towards a depressing defeat...then...we all know the rest. I can't stop smiling every time I think about it!

Worst Moment of the season Hull away and Stoke away...thinking we are back to

the bad old days of relegation battles. Kiev away...ending any hope of a decent season.

Funniest moment of the season Watching the Young Boys fans at Goodison rather than watching the game. They were having such a good time.

We were all very jealous!!

Player of the season Has to be Alcaraz...for all the wrong reasons.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season We had been worked out but couldn't do anything about it.

Biggest disappointment Such a letdown after last year.

And the suicidal football we played in Kiev.

What are your hopes for next season That we learn from our lessons. We must go for the cups (especially the League Cup) What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

The Interrupters: 'Family' (a bit cheesy but I couldn't think of anything else quickly) TommyBoy Single most enjoyable moment of the season That split second between the ball leaving Jags boot and those Norwegians on the Kop ducking in anticipation of it ripping through the back of the

TWAT IT! net.

Worst Moment of the season Southampton away.

90 of them.

Funniest moment of the season https://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=HyTK2JLmwFE Player of the season John Stones for me. I know he made some errors, but the promise is there.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season The destruction of the Mancs followed by the noshow against Villa.

Biggest disappointment Really thought we were off to Warsaw.

What are your hopes for next season I’m an Evertonian. I hope we win the league… and the cup… and the league cup… and the Ladies competitions…and the under 15’s…etc., etc. But if we don’t I won’t be booing. I won’t be demanding sackings. And I naively hope other Blues won’t either.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Pogues.

Rainy Night in Soho (Walton).

Oscar_ Single most enjoyable moment of the season John Stones headed goal against Manchester United. His first senior goal for Everton, in a game in which he was imperious at the back. In the

words of our manager "a phenomenal moment" for him.

Worst Moment of the season Southampton away.

An awful performance devoid of passion and any sense of purpose from the players or real tactics from the manager.

It may have been December but until then I thought Everton would turn it around and push for a top seven place.

It was the realisation that we were going to be in for a long and wasted season.

Funniest moment of the season Anyone who doesn’t say it’s the Slippy/Stampy G sending off against Manchester Utd is a swiveled eyed kopite. I still laugh at the mock heat map of his performance that appeared all over Twitter.

Player of the season Jagielka. He and the team had

HE TWATTED IT!

a very poor first half of the season but in the second half of the season he was one of a few who seemed to roll up their sleeves and give it a good go. He showed good leadership and some excellent performances at the back. So he would be my player of the (second) half of the season.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Mo Besic and his back heel vs Chelsea. The start of a season of unforced errors all over the show.

Biggest disappointment Fans who are all too quick to get on the back of the manager; who was lauded last season yet people seemed to have forgotten that over the course of this season. Was his fifth place finish down to Moyes? A number of players have come in for severe criticism this season as well, notably Barkley and Lukaku.

How Lukaku can be criticised when he’s only twenty-two and scored twenty goals this season, I don’t know. Would they sooner watch the likes of Bent, run a lot, but never in the box to score and when he is, normally miss?

What are your hopes for next season Less moaning, angry heads getting on the back of manager and players.

Oh and one of those shiny things that are given out, that we’ve not had for twenty

years‌ a trophy. So, in that sense, I’d like us to take the League Cup seriously.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Beautiful by Shack Mark Ellis Single most enjoyable moment of the season The win over Man Utd and Jags' equalizer.

Worst Moment of the season Being at Upton Park when we went out of the cup and knowing our season was over and it was January.

Funniest moment of the season Sadly it's probably them signing Balotelli.

Player of the season Jagielka and Stones. Jags struggled until Stones came back.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season The home defeats to Sunderland and Stoke. Lack of passion and tactical nous from the manager when we fell behind. Crowd knowing we wouldn't get anything out of the game too.

Biggest disappointment Not having Pienaar fit and the constant dropping/substituting of Mirallas.

What are your hopes for next season Buy a forward to relieve Lukaku burden, sign Lennon and Garbutt. Get rid of the following, Alcaraz, Hibbert, Kone, Barry and McGeady. Oh and get Pienaar fit. Finally I'm hoping the manager plays a well balanced young attacking team and doesn't rotate and play with no left winger all season. And stop being positive all the time, just when we are good.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? The Story of the Blues - Wah. Great song but always makes me feel like crying. @sterushton Single most enjoyable moment of the season

Beating Manchester United 30, probably the best I've seen an Everton team play against United since the late 80s Worst Moment of the season lots of competition for this, but I think the cup defeat at Swansea was hard to take, weakened team and a weak performance. Not fun.

Funniest moment of the season Phil Jagielka's goal at Anfield, so brilliant and yet so undeserved.

Player of the season I think only Stones, McCarthy and to a lesser extent Lukaku can feel happy with how they've achieved over the whole season.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Beating United with ease and then dipping to Aston Villa with just as much ease.

Biggest disappointment The Supporters, Goodison has always been a hostile place for both Everton and the opposition, but this season it has been poisonous, there has been very little support from the stands and the knives were out as early as October.

What are your hopes for next season We need pace in the side, I'd like us to buy a player like Ross Barkley, the good Ross Barkley, not the shell that he has become this season. We need to move the ball quicker, the football we can play is so brilliant, yet so often pedestrian.

Scott Cookson Single most enjoyable moment of the season The hours after the Wolfsburg game in a Wolfsburg Irish bar, the name of which I can't remember! (we've got a diamond called Ross Barkley.......)

Worst Moment of the season The Kiev debacle.

Funniest moment of the season Gerrard's 'farewell' the sending off against united, villa semi, palace 3-1 with the stoke result providing the cherry on top. All of which averted a Princess Diana-esque ourpouring of media sentiment.

Player of the season Let's not forget that Rom still got 20 goals despite being off the pace for certain parts of the season. McCarthy played his part when fit, especially against United. However I think the club got it right with Jags.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Villa away, just as things appeared to be improving we put in one of worst performances of the season.

Biggest disappointment The early cup exits.

What are your hopes for next season To keep the core of young players (Stones, Coleman, Garbutt (unlikely!), Besic, McCarthy, Barkley & Rom) and build a team around them with some astute additions. And for the word

'phenomenal' to be banned from all press conferences.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

Foals - Bad Habit Dom Ashton Single most enjoyable moment of the season Without doubt Jags silencing the Kop with that equalizing strike in the derby. Was on a high for days off that.

Worst Moment of the season Losing to Hull on New Year. I had a shit end-of-year holiday this year in no small part due to Everton.

Funniest moment of the season Sorry to bring them up but the Gerrard red card was pretty funny.

Player of the season John Stones the stand out although not without his mistakes.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Those freak goals conceded against Sunderland at home. Do those go in against any other team??

Biggest disappointment Kiev What are your hopes for next season Change in ownership. Some savvy suited types to come in and recognize the "value" of keeping the family/community orientated and traditional feel of the club (i.e. Not pissing around with team colours or names or badges) while at the same time having a plan and the energy

and will to move us forward both on and off the pitch.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Sorry but right now it's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division. I'm sure it'll be more "Somewhere over the Rainbow" by Isreal Kawa what's-his-name come August though....

Paul Greensmith Single most enjoyable moment of the season The one prevailing memory for me this season has been the misery. Miserable football, miserable crowds (why boo?) miserable weather and miserable results. It'll probably get worse before it gets better as well. I've renewed but it was close. Anyway the best moment of the season for me was Jagielka's equaliser at Anfield. The shitehawks thought they'd conned a win out of us until that moment.

Ballotelli had dived around like a kid in a holiday swimming pool. Howard contrived to fail to stop a very stoppable free kick from every body's favourite boyhood Evertonian.

It looked like we had surrendered rather meekly and then... Up stepped the club captain and the rest was almost heaven. Redmen TV was almost worth a subscription as the Kopites went into meltdown afterwards. 'It could have gone anywhere mate.' said one

expert.

Worst Moment of the season Apart from our failure to 'push on', it has been that the only pleasure we seemed to derive was from the Kopite's tribulations and failures. It's indicative of how poor our season was that the biggest cheer on the last day of the season was for the result from the Brittania Stadium. As a Blue I think it's a shame that that's all we had to hang on to.

I did feel a warm glow though when the Sky farewell to Stevie bandwagon tour went wrong at every turn.

Funniest moment of the season Would be Speedo man getting his kit off at games.

Fair play to you lad, it was cold when you were stripping down to your budgie smugglers and that can't have been easy.

Honourable mention to Kevin Mirallas too. Champions League? You are having a laugh.

Player of the season Very hard to pick a player of the season. Last season there were about 5 or 6 candidates, this season there are none for me. Lukaku has had a good season. Looked the part in patches, but only patches. I would give it to him though just ahead of John Stones, who has become one of those 'first name on the team sheet' players for me. Despite Martinez's attempts to play without him, we couldn't.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Going to get a pie at the Tottenham game. I wanted cheese & onion but they had none. I ended up with a bag of crisps. The crisps were cheaper and weren't what I wanted. It was the 'we thought we'd have enough' attitude for me. The idea that somebody thinks that's how to do it is just beyond me. It just summed up the whole present situation which has developed over the last 20 years. The kit launch was an embarrassment to all concerned. No kids socks on launch day . It was October

before my kids had theirs . The situation with Walton Hall Park etc. etc.

What are your hopes for next season No hopes for next season. Let's see what happens now. But a cup would be nice.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Stop Me by The Smiths would be my song for Everton or Would I Lie To You, by the Eurythmics. Both for the Board and the double talk that comes out of there at regular intervals. They look more and more like they make it up on the hoof every time.

I'll be there next season. sash Single most enjoyable moment of the season Jag's last minute goal at the tin mine!!!!

Worst Moment of the season Stoke City away an absolute disgrace of a performance.

Funniest moment of the season The faces on the kop when Jags scored in the last minute. priceless!!!!

Player of the season John Stones a beacon in a shite season.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Not good enough.

Poor performances from the

whole team and boring to watch at times.

Biggest disappointment Not building on last year's good work. Not scoring or creating enough chances!

What are your hopes for next season Some silverware please and a top 6 finish.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? The Smiths.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now. Phil Rathe Single most enjoyable moment of the season Jagielka screamer at the Kop end.

Worst Moment of the season Too many to mention, but 1-0 down to Spurs, 10 minutes to go, no wide men on the pitch and then Distin gets brought on for the sake of it a draw would have meant 10th place and more dosh for transfers next season- nice one Bobby!!

Funniest moment of the season Not really bitter honest, but RS losing to Palace after all the hype about the captain's last game at Anfield.

Player of the season Until the last 3-4 games I would have said McCarthy,

but probably Jagielka with an honourable mention to Ossie.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Free kick on half way line more likely to be played back to Howard rather than Lukaku.

Biggest disappointment Kiev away and lack of apparent effort in League Cup. What are your hopes for next season Barry retirement, Howard playing in America, Deulofeu returns, a bit of pace in our game, a Plan B. Contract for Garbutt.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Getting away with it (all messed up) by James.

Steve Murphy Single most enjoyable moment of the season In a bar in Lille watching my 21 year old daughter laughing her head off on her first European trip while seeing the RS getting battered by Madrid Worst Moment of the season Losing to Kyiv; thought that if we could sneak past them then we actually had a chance of getting to Warsaw Funniest moment of the season Fabian Delph’s winner at Wembley‌until Stoke intervened. Or maybe this clip which has anyone watching it in tears of laughter: https://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=-ruhCO1KDp8 Player of the season Not an easy one as nobody has been consistent enough. Probably

Jags but he really does need to be a more assertive captain, especially around penalties What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Getting battered by the very poor Aston Villa after turning over Man Utd Biggest disappointment The cups and how we went out of each of the so feebly. I know we had a go in the Europa and tried to put out our best team, but the annual debacle that is our League Cup exit when it is the easiest trophy to actually try to win frustrates me no end What are your hopes for next season I fear we will be mid-table again so my hope is to win a cup. I’m not interested in a “good cup run” – we have to win a trophy What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? I’d love to be able to put in a cool reference to some obscure band that would have the WSAG crew nodding sagely and smiling knowingly, but I know cack-all about music so instead I’ll go for Things Can

Only Get Better by D:Ream (not very original, I’ll admit) Phil Murphy Single most enjoyable moment of the season Trip to Lille Worst Moment of the season Hull away – honestly thought we were going down after that game Funniest moment of the season Don’t know about funniest – happiest was probably scoring the 3rd against Man Utd (Not sure anyone else would understand London Midland’s Train Supervisor Angie thanking us for a pork pie on the way to West Ham) Player of the season James McCarthy What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Sunderland home game – losing at home (again) to a poor team Biggest disappointment The manager…bored of hearing how “phenomenal” we played during another defeat What are your hopes for next season To be given

some hope, like we were last season. We have to win a trophy – any trophy – soon.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Is there a band or song called “The Frustration” ? (Ed. Yes. Frustration by Purple Hearts) Gav Single most enjoyable moment of the season I had a lovely tapas after United away but watching us thrash Young Boys (never gets old) just about sneaks it.

Worst Moment of the season A German girl smearing a Maccies ice-cream in my kite was a pretty low moment.

Funniest moment of the season Stoke snotting the Reds on Gerrard's farewell.

Player of the season Errr....Jagielka.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Conceding 5 when a clean sheet would've seen us through against Kiev.

Biggest disappointment Eto'o doing a dusty after 6 months.

What are your hopes for next season I hope Pienaar does a Benjamin Button and gets younger and fitter.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Warsaw Joy Division

Greg Single most enjoyable moment of the season Wolfsburg at home. A superb performance roared on by a fever pitch Goodison.

Worst Moment of the season So many to choose from but the 3-6 v Chelsea indicated to me that Everton were entering Wigan territory.

Funniest moment of the season Steven Gerrard’s protracted farewell, where everything that could go

Everton for you? After All The Frank & Walters. "When I'm far from home and lonely, And I think about my life, I think about you, And all the little things that you do, And I'm glad you're mine" https://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=pjYat5b7hYY

wrong, did. As beautiful as a rock in a cop’s face etc.

Player of the season John Stones What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Any Martinez post match press conference – poor excuses for poor performances Biggest disappointment Pretty well everything bar Europe.

What are your hopes for next season A good start to the season to get the momentum going early on.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? This season: - I See A Darkness by Bonnie Prince Billy. Generally: - It’s a Grand Old Team by a rocking Goodison.

Harvey Weewax Single most enjoyable moment of the season Jagielka’s stunner in front of the Kop, he just needed to flick them the V’s and it would have been perfect!

Worst Moment of the season Crystal Palace at home, the start of a long season of one dimensional football.

Funniest moment of the season Kiev away, comedy defending at its best.

Player of the season No one stands out, pretty poor season for everyone.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for

you this season Lots of possession but no penetration.

You don’t win games by passing it (poorly) across the back four.

Biggest disappointment Tough choice between Kiev away, losing to West Ham in the FA cup or Swansea in the hocky-cocky cup. When are we going to take the domestic cups seriously?

What are your hopes for next season Without the distraction of the Europa League a return to winning ways and attractive football with a top four challenge that falls short at the final hurdle. A good cup run (but I always say that!), Barkley as Young Player of the year, a midfielder to replace Barry and few goals spread across the team. So not much then.

What one song by a singer/band sums up

Stu from Aintree Single most enjoyable moment of the season The relief when it ended.

Worst Moment of the season Boxing Day. Couldn't be arsed being there anyway but the result and performance just topped it off.

Funniest moment of the season Stoke 6 Liverpool 1 Player of the season Stones.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Inconsistency of team selections. This confused fans, led to disharmony, undermined player confidence and affected results.

Biggest disappointment Ross Barkley.

What are your hopes for next season A few early signings in key positions (hoping they have no Wigan links), a good start results wise, confidence building and a European placing, with a couple of cup runs thrown in to boot. I also hope for some honesty rather than blind positivity from the manager.

He'd get more respect.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

Disappointment. Cranberries.

Gary Evans Single most enjoyable moment of the season Off the pitch I had a drink with Graeme Sharp (high point) when he told me he didn’t see us winning another game (low point - this was in January!) – on the pitch it is probably Wolfsburg away – I really did think we were going to win the Europa League Worst Moment of the season Arsenal’s equaliser at Goodison – it all went wrong after that!

Funniest moment of the season When the Isco on loan rumours started Player of the season For me it is Romelu Lukaku – in spite of the stick he gets every game from people near me (even when he has scored) I just think one day we will look back and think, ‘bloody hell, he was an Everton striker!’

People moaned about his first touch and he has improved it.

People moaned about his hold up play and he improved it.

Oh and he scores 20 goals in a very mediocre season. He is the player we need and I hope he stays with us for years. A legend in the making. I want him to prove the doubters wrong – especially the idiot who was behind me this season.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season The way we went out of the cups. I am fed up with plucky Everton. Why wait 80 minutes to play well – just play well from the start!

Biggest disappointment Where do I start? For me it has to be the way we went out in Kiev. When Lukaku equalised I just felt we were going through. Some kamikaze defending later we were out. The season was over.

What are your hopes for next season I always hope for the best outcomes so a league and cup double is deffo on the cards for me. However, in the real world I would just love to win a Cup and get top 4. I really do believe we have a

strong spine to the team. We need to add real quality and hit the ground running in August.

We have to finish above teams like Southampton, Stoke, Palace, and the Shite.

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday – Morrissey. It just has to.

Redmond Single most enjoyable moment of the season The most enjoyable moments for me were either Jagielka’s goal at Anfield or the performances against Wolfsberg in Germany and Man United at Goodison, both of which offered brief flashbacks to the previous season.

Worst Moment of the season The worst moment was watching Alcaraz falling all over the place in Kiev and realising the Euro dream was over.

Funniest moment of the season The funniest moment was the huge anti climax which was Steven Gerrard’s farewell

season at Anfield. A special mention also for Raheem Sterling’s agent and his wonderful description of Jamie Carragher.

Player of the season I’d probably give it to Lukaku. At the end of the day he’s played up front on his own all season and at times hasn’t played well but he’s kept going and scored 20 goals. The best striker we’ve had in years.

What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season All that penalty bollocks summed up Everton.

Samuel Eto’o was clearly an accident waiting to happen also.

Biggest disappointment The whole season was a major let down and reminded me of Moyes’ difficult second season in 2003-04 when the whole

squad seemed to down tools at the end. The sometimes toxic atmosphere at Goodison was horrible.

What are your hopes for next season My hopes for next season are that we keep hold of our best players this summer, make a few additions to the squad and come out firing again in August. Hopefully Martinez can learn from his mistakes over the past 12 months and hopefully we can challenge again next season.

Ofcourse the others will probably spend big but they did last summer as well.

Seriously are Man United, Liverpool and Spurs that much better than us?

What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you? Hope by Wah. A bittersweet love song…..

Tim Calder Single most enjoyable moment of the season PostUtd match, fleeting glimpses of possibilities Worst Moment of the season Suffering the guy

behind us in the Family Enclosure with his constant shouts of "Snap him!"

Funniest moment of the season A season of underperformance and 5 yrs of the Tories? Nothing to laugh about...

Player of the season Stones for quality, McCarthy for industry; both for potential What was the thing that summed up Everton for you this season Man Utd; performance, tactics, teamwork, commitment, work rate, sadly all rarely seen happening together this season Biggest disappointment Suffering the guy in the Family Enclosure...

What are your hopes for next season That the guy in the Family Enclosure moves seats/doesn't renew/emigrates What one song by a singer/band sums up Everton for you?

Misty In Roots "Poor & Needy"

Hope that draws a line under the season...

Random Thoughts…

I Wanna Be Adored….

Is it just me or is anyone else sick to death of this wankfest that is Steven Gerrard's (non) retirement?

Is it even worth going round the bookies for a flutter on whether or not he'll be knighted? Is it fuck.

He's gone to another club FOR MORE MONEY! Loyalty my arse. Unless they're talking about to his wallet.

More time was given to him on MOTD last week than to our win at West Ham. Special programmes on the telly and radio.

Even the likes of Peter Allen, Radio 5 Live's grand old voice of reason for current affairs weighed in.

During an otherwise interesting and reasonable discussion on football, scouting, buying and selling of players and the lack of player loyalty with the likes of David Pleat and others, he suddenly piped up with, "...Of course, I exclude Stevie (like he's his mate!) Gerrard from that kind of thing. He's about the only player you could say has always remained loyal to his roots..."

Fuck me, where to start?!

With the fact that he grew up an Evertonian and remained loyal until he was steered in the shite's direction?

With the Chelski temptation and the threats of leaving to force his wages up? With the likes of Leon Osman and Tony Hibbert who just get the fuck on with it?

And just to kill this lie, HE ISNT RETIRING!!!!!

She Bangs The Drum….

“Steven Gerrard has given more to the city of Liverpool than any politician has," says manager Brendan Rodgers.

Oh really, you sycophantic, delusional, thick fuck? What’s that then? His personality? His social skills whilst out? His driving ability? His wit and intelligence? The mirth we shared when he slipped?

Oh, I know…his league title medals. Has he donated them? I’ve no idea where you’re from, with your mad accent, but keep your opinions about the City of Liverpool to yourself, you sensationalist prick. You’ll be saying it's phenomenal next.

Bye Bye Bad Man….

I had no idea Tim Roth had played a lionised Sepp Blatter in a film about FIFA last year until they recently started arresting the corrupt bastards and The News put a bit of the film on.

Tim Roth? Really?? Mind you, what's the difference between what FIFA do and Tim Roth standing up in a restaurant and yelling, "Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!"?

One Love….

I know there's other pages for this type of thing but if you can get hold of a copy of a book called "The Holy Grail And Beyond - A Collection of Yarns and Observations from an Unbiased Evertonian" by Phil Thomson, do so.

"I hope that memory hasn't happened yet. Beating the shite 6-0 at their tip. The sixth Champions League in a row.

But if I peg out tomorrow... So many. I suppose because I was young and it seemed such a long time since our last win, Andy King's derby winner. The elation. Bouncing all over the Street End. If I could bottle that and take a sniff every day until the end I'd die a happy man...."

No end of people will be far more eloquent than me in these pages about the sadness of Andy's passing but I hope he knew the effect he had for a generation of Blues. Loved him.

Don't know where from, like.

He was hawking it around the pub after the Tottenham game and I think that's probably the only sales outlet he has at present.

It was going like hot cakes though. There's no publisher or distributer listed. It's a bit like reading a piece in WSAG. But a long piece.

Tales of away games you might have been at.

Fair play to him.

Fool's Gold‌.

Got in to Rigby's just as they started to show the Stoke v Shite highlights last Sunday. The first goal went in and the whole pub started chanting "We want six..." Priceless.

Earlier in the day, just as we were leaving the pub in town before the match, some tourists unwittingly wandered in with "3 Queens" hats, takeaway bags from their "store" and were looking for somewhere to watch the above mentioned game with Stoke.

Their City Break was very quickly christened Ship, Shop and Shite.

Mersey Paradise‌.

A couple of years ago WSAG asked a number of questions of us (Everton and Me), one of which was: What is the one personal Everton memory you will take to your grave?

My response wasn't printed, but this was my answer:

Olly, olly, olly With your balls in a trolley And yer dick tied up with string Sittin' on the grass With a bottle of Bass Singin' Andy is our King Oh Andy is our King Oh Andy is our King Oh Andy is our King.

Tommy Boy

A Changing of the Guard “If I die tomorrow, I’ve done something that millions would give their right arm to have done.”

Andy King, reflecting on his derby-winning goal On 18th April 2015, at a book signing upstairs in St Luke’s Church, I met, for the second time, the man who, on no fewer than 751 occasions, did the one thing I had dreamt of doing as a kid: put on the gloves and keep goal for Everton.

some of them hadn’t previously given away their right arms in order to do so.

That meeting with Southall, together with Tim Howard’s dismal form last term, got me thinking about not only whom I would like to see in goal for Everton next season but also all the goalkeepers who have stood between the sticks for us since Southall’s departure.

Thomas Myhre was the first to have a go at making the goalkeeper’s spot his own postSouthall.

Signed from Viking Stavanger for £800,000 by Howard Kendall, the big Norwegian performed soundly in his first season and a half with the club. Probably his best performance in goal for the Blues was up at St James’ Park, where he saved a penalty from Alan Shearer and made a couple of stunning reflex stops in an important 3-1 win.

Following that fine performance, it was rumoured that Alex Ferguson had enquired about taking him to Old Trafford as a replacement for fellow Scandinavian Peter Schmeichel.

However, in the summer of 1999, Myhre broke his ankle while on international duty and his career never really recovered.

After loan spells at Glasgow Rangers, Birmingham City, Tranmere Rovers and FC Copenhagen, Myhre made the switch to Besiktas in Turkey before enjoying spells back in England with Sunderland and Charlton Athletic.

So here we have it: a look back at the good, the bad and the indifferent stoppers who‘ve kept goal for Everton in recent times. I only wish that

Myhre’s ankle injury in 1999 finally gave Paul Gerrard, no stranger to the treatment table himself, an extended run in the side, some three

In previous articles, I’ve written about how much I idolised Neville Southall whilst growing up, so I won’t go over old ground here. All I will say is that I respect the guy even more these days after our meeting in the old church and the way he was with my brother, a wheelchair user.

Indeed, my only gripe is that I hardly got a word in as the two of them discussed wheelchair access to different venues. Thanks, Nev, for a truly wonderful twenty minutes.

years after he had signed for the club from Oldham Athletic. A target of the Gwladys Street boo boys, the former England U21 international undoubtedly struggled at times for the Blues but was nowhere near as bad as many fans made out. Often remembered for inexcusably letting Gary McAllister’s long-range free-kick in the last minute of the 2001 Goodison derby squirm past him, and for colliding with Abel Xavier in a game against Newcastle, the Heywoodborn stopper had a number of fine moments between the sticks for Everton too: he was brilliant on the opening day of the 1999/2000 season versus Manchester United and gave an accomplished display at Anfield in the Kevin Campbell derby a few weeks later. An excellent performance up at Newcastle in a 1-1 draw had people in the media talking about an England call-up, and it’s often forgotten that, less than a fortnight after the McAllister slip, Gerrard saved a penalty in a 2-1 win against Bradford which went a long way to securing our top-flight status. Highly thought of at Oldham, Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United, Gerrard, who struggled with knee injuries throughout his career, excelled away from the Old Lady, whose faithful were used to the ridiculously high standards set by Southall.

Challenging both Gerrard and Myhre for the firstteam spot in the late-90s was Steve Simonsen, a promising England U21 international, who became British football’s most expensive goalkeeper when manager Walter Smith paid a staggering £3.1 million to Tranmere Rovers for his signature. Though it has since been claimed that the Prenton Park club saw little more than a million pounds of the money, as the transfer fee was performance-related and dependent on such things as Simonsen achieving full international honours, that Everton chairman Peter Johnson, who still retained a controlling interest in struggling Tranmere, sanctioned a deal for a player not really needed at Goodison certainly raised a few eyebrows.

All but five of Simonsen’s thirty five appearances for the club were made during the 2001/02 season.

However, after replacing Gerrard in the first-team, Simonsen failed to fully convince, and when David Moyes took over from Smith towards the end of the campaign, the Scot seemed less than impressed with his goalkeeping options and quickly put plans in place to purchase a new stopper.

That man turned out to be Richard Wright, a disastrous £4.5 million signing from Arsenal.

After a debut to forget, in which he was at fault for both of Spurs’ goals in a 2-2 draw, Wright’s career was perfectly encapsulated in his next game away at the Stadium of Light: he got away with a howler when a crossed ball he completely missed was incorrectly ruled out for offside, made a stunning reflex block to deny Kevin Phillips, and then saved a penalty which he had inexplicably given away. Even during periods of decent form in his first season with the club, supporters always felt that a calamitous act wasn’t far away. And so it turned out that way: in the summer he damaged his shoulder after falling out of his parents’ loft, which forced Moyes to sign the veteran Nigel Martyn, who performed miracles for the club (but more on him later).

And worse was to come for Wright: warming up before a rare start in an FA Cup tie away at Chelsea, the ex-Gunner tripped over a ‘Not in Use’ sign placed in the goalmouth to keep players off that part of the pitch. At the end of the 2006/07 season, to the relief of many Evertonians, Wright was released.

After returning to his first club, Ipswich, for a spell and turning out for both Sheffield United and Preston, he somehow found himself on the playing staff payroll at the Etihad Stadium.

Possibly only Espen Baardsen, an emergency loan signing in 2003, performed anywhere near as poorly as Wright did between the sticks for Everton.

Baardsen, a Norwegian international, looked extremely heavy and short of match practice in his sole appearance for the Blues, a 4-3 defeat at White Hart Lane.

There was a period during the mid-nineties when Nigel Martyn, along with Mark Schwarzer and Alan Kelly, was constantly linked with a move to Goodison. Seen as the long-term successor to Southall, Martyn, who had become Britain’s first million pound goalkeeper when moving from Bristol Rovers to Crystal Palace in 1989, held talks with Everton representatives about a move

to the club in the summer of 1996. With a £2.25 million transfer agreed and the move seemingly going through, the Everton director looking after business in the absence of both manager Joe Royle and chairman Peter Johnson panicked when he heard that Leeds United had matched Everton’s offer and also wanted to talk to the player. According to Martyn, the Blues official was anxious to seem fair so ended up drawing a map of how to get to West Yorkshire for the goalkeeper and told him to get a move on as traffic would be bad! For the next seven years, Martyn provided sterling service to the Elland Road club whilst Evertonians failed to comprehend how the Cornishman had slipped through their grasp. However, in the summer of 2003, an admittedly ageing, bulkier Nigel Martyn finally signed for the Blues. Initially brought in as cover for the hapless Wright, Martyn turned back the clock to produce a number of splendid performances that kept Everton in the top flight.

A string of fine saves at Anfield at the turn of the year and again at Elland Road in April helped Everton to two crucial away points and reminded Blues fans what it was like to have a consistent performer as the last line of defence. Richly deserving the player of the year award given to him at the end of his first season with the club, Martyn was even more impressive the following term as Everton rose to an unlikely fourth. There was talk of an England recall but Martyn, now in his late-thirties, decided that he wanted to concentrate solely on Everton. Alas, in January 2006, in his 99th start for the club, Martyn suffered a stress fracture of the ankle in an FA Cup tie at home to Chelsea. His brilliance that day earned a replay at Stamford Bridge, but he would not be fit to play in it. Indeed, the injury was so severe that Martyn never played again, missing the final four months of the campaign and retiring at the season’s close, two months short of his fortieth birthday.

Signed from Stirling Albion in 2003, Scotland B international Iain Turner failed to seize the opportunity presented to him following the career-ending injury to Nigel Martyn and Wright’s

mishap at Stamford Bridge.

Less than ten minutes into his league debut against Blackburn Rovers in 2006, Turner was sent off for handling outside his box. In his place, John Ruddy, who had signed from Cambridge United less than a year earlier, came on and produced a smart stop low down to his right at the Park End in his only appearance for the Blues. Moyes failed to be convinced by either youngster, though, and, after drafting in former Liverpool stopper Sander Westerveld on an emergency loan for two games, the Scot shipped both Turner and Ruddy out on loan to numerous clubs before selling the pair to Preston and Norwich respectively.

Turner, whom many thought was the better prospect, saw his career plummet, whereas Ruddy forced his way into the England set up after an impressive spell in the Premier League with the Canaries.

Following Martyn’s retirement, Tim Howard was brought in on a season-long loan from Manchester United, before signing for the club permanently. It seems a bit unnecessary to write a detailed profile of a man who has now been our first-choice stopper for eight seasons so I won’t bother. In my opinion, though, for what it’s worth, Howard has been a fantastic servant.

A key man in the David Moyes years, the American put in some fine performances in Martinez’s first season, performances which often went unnoticed because of the quality of football being played by those in front of him.

His display at Villa Park in 2013 was as good as any I’ve seen by a goalkeeper and in a number of tight games that year he made crucial saves before Lukaku, Barkley or Deulofeu grabbed the glory.

However, last season was completely different. For huge chunks, it seemed as though he’d lost the hunger, had rested on his laurels and was enjoying the celebrity status he’d gained back in his homeland following an impressive 2014 World Cup. There were still some fine performances (Wolfsburg at home, in particular) and unbelievable saves to enjoy (Southampton at home and Swansea away immediately spring to mind) but far too many rudimentary handling errors, particularly from balls crossed into the box, which ended up costing the team goals. Unlike the fine performances the year before, these errors did not go unnoticed as this time there was no stylish football being played by those in front of him.

For me, it is time for Howard to retire but for Blues to remember the good times we’ve shared with him.

Anyway, back to

2007.

Having failed to be convinced by the likes of John Ruddy and Iain Turner, Moyes took a change of tack in subsequent seasons, preferring to purchase more experienced keepers as back-up to Tim Howard.

German stopper Stefan Wessels, signed from FC Cologne, was the first of this new type.

Despite only making seven appearances in his one season with the club (2007/08), Wessels, who had once been on the books of Bayern Munich, played in all four competitions Everton were involved in that campaign. However, Moyes must have regretted fielding him in the FA Cup tie at home to Oldham Athletic, as the James Blunt lookalike was at fault for the goal which knocked the Blues out.

Following Wessels’ departure, Carlo Nash was handed the task of providing cover for Howard.

A talented stopper who’d been rewarded with a free curry every time he’d kept a clean sheet during his Stockport County days, Nash’s sole appearance for the Blues came at the age of 36, in a Europa League dead rubber against BATE Borisov.

In 2010, Nash made a loan move to Stoke City permanent, meaning Moyes needed to find another back-up stopper.

Next to play second fiddle to Tim Howard was Jan Mucha, a Slovakian international, who had been his country’s first choice keeper at that summer’s World Cup Finals in South Africa. In his third season with the club, following an injury to Howard in a bruising FA Cup replay against Oldham Athletic, Mucha made his league debut in a 3-1 home win over Reading. He would play in the next two games too: the shocking 0-3 FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Roberto Martinez’s Wigan and the 2-0 victory over Premier League champions Manchester City just seven days later.

At the end of the season, Mucha’s contract expired and he moved to Russian side Krylia Sovetov Samara.

Former Atletico Madrid keeper Joel Robles was one of three Wigan Athletic players new boss Roberto Martinez brought with him to Goodison Park. An FA Cup winner the previous season, Robles was seen as genuine competition for Tim Howard for the first-team spot. Nonetheless, it was the American who started the 13-14 campaign in goal for the Blues. What’s more, on the few occasions Robles did get to play, in cup competitions and over the Christmas period following Tim Howard’s dismissal against Sunderland, he looked nervy and failed to fill his back four (or indeed the crowd) with confidence.

He was at fault for the goal conceded in a 2-1 win over Southampton and seemed determined to fist away any ball, catchable or not, that came into his six-yard box. Very little changed in 2014/15: Howard was still rightly the number

one keeper and Robles had to settle for playing the odd game in a cup competition. At home to FC Krasnodar, the Spaniard lost his bearings and gifted the opposition the only goal of the game.

Over the Christmas period, he got an extended run in the side and again looked void of confidence. His insistence on punching balls he could take cleanly cost the team a goal at Newcastle, and his performance at the KC Stadium on New Year’s Day wasn’t much better.

Whenever the ball went anywhere near him, you could feel the tension in the crowd. It was, therefore, extremely surprising to hear how outraged fans were when Howard, having recovered from injury, was restored to the side in February. Admittedly, Robles had kept three clean sheets in a row but little had really changed. Against WBA, the big Spaniard had nothing to do, against Palace he again looked suspect under the high ball and against Liverpool he nearly had another Krasnodar moment.

Indeed, his one solid performance came in an FA Cup tie at West Ham…where unfortunately he ended up missing the decisive penalty after the game had ended all square. For me, we can do much better.

Last season, Tim Howard had a really poor time.

If he’s no longer the answer, and I no longer think he is, I would like to see Martinez go out and buy two hungry keepers who want to make the position their own. Ideally, I’d like David Marshall and Wayne Hennessey to battle it out next season.

I know they’re both internationals and that a side can only field one goalkeeper, but I’m sure we could get the two of them here. After all, one’s currently plying his trade in the Championship and the other is sitting on the bench at Crystal Palace.

And what Welsh international goalkeeper in his right mind would not give his right arm to play at Goodison Park? You know it makes sense.

Paul Owens

PARTY FEARS TWO This weekend is the one. Cup Final weekend in 1995.

It started at a pub on Queens Drive, where a couple of official EFC (obviously Eavesway) coaches turned up to early on the Friday morning to pick us all up. There were a bunch of normal Everton fans who has an extraordinary weekend ahead – members of the 100 club or whatever is was called then and a load of other ‘knows a man who knows’ (me and my Dad) who managed to get on to the gig of a lifetime!

Anyway, on boarding the coaches, an old guy called Freddy Peacock (he has passed away now, but some of the readers may have known or heard of him, a bit of a legend in his time around Everton, knew everyone there needed to know and in his day was a pro boxer and mixed with the likes of Frank Sinatra and the likes) greeted us on to the coach with a blue nose and smile with the ‘All together now’ anthem already playing and set to continuous play on one of those dodgy coach cassette players. I kid you not, it was the only song played for the whole journey. Either that, or nothing. Brilliant.

We arrived at a Moat House in Reading for the evening stop over, which culminated in a taking over the resident's bar and adjoining nightclub with the obligatory blue noses on for the evening. That was rule. I woke up the next morning slightly worse for wear, although my Dad was convinced it was the nerves of the occasion getting to me…I knew it was the beer.

We set off for Wembley early doors and were having drinks and food at a private function at a nearby Cons club to top up on the ale from the previous evening and soak up the TV pre match coverage which was much more of an event then, so were dropped off across the road from Wembley having sailed through the road blocks as ‘Official EFC’ coaches.

The guy I was with, Neil was a bag of nerves and superstition ruled his head that we needed to get into

the ground as soon as it opened, so off we trotted about 12pm and as soon as we got in bumped straight into Bobby Charlton under the stand, a lot smaller than I thought he’d be! We went up to the seats and realised we were in a pretty good spot, as we looked at the pitch the Royal box was about 50 seats to our right, slightly below us.

Time went pretty quickly and before we knew it the stands were getting packed and the rest of the party joined us, then it became clear we were in amongst the now tagged WAGS and family of the players. Sat direct in front of us was Duncan Ferguson's Dad, the poor guy was not left alone all day by typical blues friendliness!

The match went in a flash, I can’t remember much apart from the unbridled ecstasy of the Goal, Big Nev’s save from Scholes, the Final Whistle and of course the nerves with constant stomach churning every time United got the ball.

We didn’t really see big Dave lift the cup, as we were almost too close to get a view, it flashed up into our line of sight a couple of time but that was it. We didn’t care one bit though – we were all emotionally shattered by then!

Once the lap of honour finished, we were straight back on the coaches, a quick change at some random peoples room in the Hilton Hotel and then off to the Lancaster Hotel for….the Everton Cup Final Evening Reception. You can imagine the talk though out the weekend was of what this would be like if we didn’t win…but we did and it

was going to be Fucking Amazing!

In we all trotted, like a wedding party looking for where our table was and diving straight into a room where the atmosphere was electric, people still hugging and kissing each other – the sheer excitement, relief and total feeling of being at one with our great club was a privilege to watch and be part of. The room slowly calmed down and we waited for the players and the FA Cup to turn up.

Then the MoC asked us to stand and welcome “The 1995 FA Cup Winners, Everton Football Club” and the room erupted again as the players walked in led by Davey Watson holding the prize, all apart from Big Dunc, who after a short pause followed the rest of the players in on his own – again the place erupted for the man, dressed in a Kilt with fist on the air, marched through the room to stand the rest of the players for a standing ovation that went on and on and on. Brilliant.

Eventually the room settled down and were entertained by Bobby Davro – yes, Bobby Davro and then we had some speeches from Big Joe Royal amongst others before the meal. This was followed by a live band which at one point was commandeered by Big Dunc who at this point had his shirt off swinging it over his head (Derby style) whilst singing with the band on stage!

Again, amazing scenes!

We were coincidentally sat directly behind a girl called Jane that my Dad used to work with, who happened to be David Unsworth’s girlfriend/wife so managed to have a good chat with him. A true blue if ever there was one and a great bloke.

The rest of the evening continued out with a lot of photo’s with players who were more than obliging to join in and mix with the fans. Paul Rideout was pretty much carried to bed, completely smashed - who wouldn’t be if you’d just scored the winner in the Cup Final! Graham Stuart was everyone’s mate, Gary Ablett, Anders Limpar and Matt Jackson were also the players that stuck out in terms of mixing with everyone in there.

We didn’t see much of Amokachi, he disappeared early doors, but did eventually return towards the end with bunch of homies who joined in the fun. Another really nice bloke who mixed with everyone and had that smile made famous in the semi-final etched onto his face at all times!

Pretty much at the point everyone was shattered we had to leave the party, back to the hotel – what a day.

One final part to add was on the way home on the Sunday morning, with All Together Now still on repeat came a call on to the coach (before the widespread use of Mobiles), to speak to a Security Official from Everton who was travelling back with us, to ask if he knew where the FA Cup was, as no one who was still at the hotel could find it! We then got a call back to the coach saying it was ok, the FA had been found in the Fridge in the main kitchen of the Lancaster hotel where by all accounts it had spent part of the night at least! You couldn’t write it.

What a weekend, once in a lifetime - great memories and laughs from start to finish, and of course the Cup! Sadly, my Dad’s friend Ronnie Wright who sorted the weekend out for us and made us cry laughing throughout (and was also well known at Everton), passed away a couple of years ago.

RIP Ronnie, one of life’s gentlemen. @zinegreenzidane

IT’S HARVEST TIME ( (or “Get rid of the deadwood Roberto”) A huge collective sigh of relief greeted the final whistle at 5.45pm on Sunday at Goodison. The Blues went out with a whimper which pretty well summed up the season.

Think back to August; high hopes of a Champions League placing, the optimism of a jaunt against the second tier of European football, and the expectation of good cup runs in the domestic competitions.

It all turned to shit rather quickly.

By the end of September we had six points from six games and were already out of the League Cup. By the end of March we were out of the FA Cup and Europe and the only teams we had managed to beat were West Brom, Villa, Burnley, West Ham, QPR (twice) Palace and Newcastle.

All of those teams aside from West Ham and West Brom, had flirted with relegation as did Everton for a brief spell between January and March.

The final two months saw us beat the aforementioned West Ham and Burnley again along with Everton’s two highest profile scalps of the season, a stuttering United and an overachieving Southampton.

Hardly Nil Satis Nisi Optimum is it?

Yes we had injuries but so did everybody else.

Yes we had individual fuck-ups but so did everybody else.

We ended up as the eleventh best team in the League, twelve points clear of relegation and

nineteen points short of returning to Europe.

If it wasn’t for the Europa League campaign the calls for the manager’s head might well have been a lot louder.

There really were few excuses but by God, Martinez found them.

I know I am not alone amongst Evertonians in not wanting to hear Martinez post match anymore because he comes out with some of the most ‘phenomenal’ bullshit this side of Brendan Rogers.

He has made some totally mental comments at times which have suggested that for all the bluster, he is clueless.

Perhaps the most criminal of his media work was the suggestion that proper Evertonians do not criticise the team. That shit might get lapped up over the park but it won’t wash here.

On a similar trip, Martinez’s talk of parasitical bus parkers was even more lunacy. The manager has to turn things around quickly or all the good work carried out over the last decade or so will be worth nothing.

Is Martinez the man to do it?

I sincerely doubt it but I will be supporting him again in August since that is what the board has done, and therefore I have no choice.

C’mon Roberto la, prove me wrong.

Martinez’s transfer record is somewhat mixed thus far. He was lauded for it at Wigan but that reputation doesn’t really bear scrutiny.

He has spent big on Lukaku and McCarthy and they have performed well. As for the rest; well his other Wigan acquisitions can fuck off, expect maybe Robles, and they can take McGeady, Howard and the loaned Atsu with them.

Depending on how much he will cost, Lennon might stay or go, but anything above what we paid for Kone and we should be looking for a younger player with potential to come in instead.

Barry can fuck off too. What possessed the club to give him such a long term contract? The coming season is make or break for Martinez and Everton. We will discover whether Wigan really is

Roberto’s level, and more importantly, whether Everton are going forward or backwards.

Personally, I am just glad to see the back of the 2014/15 campaign and if it all starts off in a similar fashion next season I hope Bill acts quickly. Much more preferable would be to see Martinez hoisting a cup in the air, we can but dream.

WRAPPED UP IN HONOUR News has just reached WSAG towers that Andy King has died. The first I saw of it was Peter Reid’s tweet at a time when it was not on the mainstream news. I hoped he was mistaken but doubted that Reid would write something like that if he wasn’t sure.

Straight away the memories came back like it was the seventies again. THAT Derby goal which is up there with Sharp’s as iconic bluenose moments go, will be most people’s memories of Andy and so it should be, not least for the look on the faces of the RS players faces (especially Clemence) because at that point they were arrogant pricks who felt they were entitled to success (plus ca change...).

Yet even in his second spell he played a part in turning things around for Kendall Mk I before injury put an end to his influence on that particular road to real success.

Andy King looked cool as fuck and was cool as fuck. Despite not being from the city, he never claimed to be anything but an Evertonian. I wonder how many of our current crop will be remembered as fondly as him? R.I.P. to a true Blue.

COMEDY Away from Everton, everything has been pretty irie. The Stevie G farewell could not have been any more delicious. Having taken the lead in the FA Cup Semi Final the redmen couldn’t contain the might of relegation fodder Aston Villa who deservedly scuppered the supposed ‘Dream Final’.

Then came the Fod’s final home and away games. After all the hype, shite and tears that the RS could muster (and for which the club is a laughing stock and only they don’t know it) Palace walloped them 3-1 bringing back beautiful memories of Crystanbul.

So having had to put up with the wankfest that was the Kop’s farewell to Stevie at Klanfield (this didn’t include pissing in his pockets, calling him ‘negrito’ or shoving a wall on him and claiming innocence) only to see it all go tits up, the media

went through it all again for Stoke away and the result was even more laughable, a 6-1 drubbing.

Stevie was gifted a goal (just watch that last Stoke defender...hamstring my arse) before the sixth was slotted making the goal difference on the day FIVE, yes, FIVE. So in Gerrard’s final two games Captain Fantastic led his team to concede nine goals whilst scoring just two.

It was quite simply breathtaking in its beauty.

Meanwhile the far more deserving and talented Frank Lampard quietly went about retiring from his far more successful and medal laden British career with little fanfare.

Anyway, at last, the Fod is gone. Oh hang on...what’s this? A number of Gerrard’s crimes have been caught on video; his attempts to referee the derby, the dive in the Champions League Final, his battering of a DJ, but was anything more toe-curlingly excruciating than watching a soon to be 35 year old man doing the Yaya/Kolo thing?

The fact that it was in celebration of fat arse Toure’s RS contract extension says it all.

It’s all about the money...so from all of us at WSAG, fuck off Stevie and please don’t come back. You were a cunt, you are a cunt and I am sure you will be a monumental cunt when you get over to the land of cuntery.

You will love it there Stevie, they are bullies and cunt on the rest of the world, a bit like you at Southport’s Lounge Inn. Of course, the knowing amongst us realise that the switch to the MLS is your final tribute to your idol Phil Collins, who also famously played on both sides of the Atlantic despite being shite.

ON THE TERRACE Still on those across the park: the Heysel Memorial Service. Why did they bother? About

three people turned up to see a minty plaque unveiled (the ‘Gents’ and ‘Ladies’ signs in the Blob Shop are more impressive) and Phil ‘Yes Boss’ Neal looked to be the only player who could be arsed turning up. It really was shoddy but perhaps not unexpected when Peter Hooton is rewriting the history of Heysel thirty years on.

sort of place you would go to in order to top yourself.

Apparently flares were to blame for spooking those delicate souls that make up the RS contingent.

LOADED MAN

Now Peter was there and I wasn’t, but I arguably had a better view than him because I was watching it unfold in all its horror live on television. My memory (which is very much mistaken according to Mr Groovy Train) is of Liverpool fans running amok on the terraces and launching huge slabs of a concrete at the Juventus fans.

This means of course that all of the readily available video footage on youtube is also very much mistaken.

I actually got on it after reading Hooton’s article, doubting my own memory, before seeing enough to realise the excuses proffered were on a par with eating grass, term of affection in South America and Pete Townshend researching his autobiography(?!).

It’s about you Pete! What’s to research?

AL ON VACATION Anyway, fuck footie, its summertime and time to sample the sunny delights this country has to offer.

Has anyone been to Glossop? Yes? Are you scarred?

Fuck me, what a shithole that place is.

I had the misfortune of passing through there the other day and it seems to be populated by extras from the League of Gentleman which I understand was filmed nearby. I had to ask for directions but this was made more difficult when the mutants I was talking too recoiled in fear when the ringtone on my moby went off, and anyway, very few of them seemed to be able to speak English.

They all seemed to have appalling teeth and similarly shaped protruding ears too. I bet they play the fuck out of a banjo though. The town looks like something England forgot. I thought Manchester was depressing but Glossop really is the

Moscow got McDonalds before Glossop. In fact, the only sign of modernity was a crisp, fresh, Liverpool shirt on a trampy fatty who was masturbating furiously in a telephone box.

A far more preferable excursion was to see the Super Furry Animals in Manchester. The nature of the band and their music required, nay demanded the ingestion of a cocktail of Class A’s, B’s and C’s in order to amplify the majesty of the sounds to be experienced on such a night.

Being an elder statesman and more sensible (just) than my younger self, I choose to conduct such chemical experiments on home turf before heading out, but a tiny miscalculation on my part meant that as I was entering the fringes of the city that gave us the Industrial Revolution (The Liverpool gentleman and the Manchester man etc), I found myself to be industrially off my face.

As I drifted and swayed inside the inner sanctum of the M60, I soon discovered that road-works had made the city I know reasonably well, unrecognisable. I seemed to be followed by a trail of parping noises from other drivers as I navigated streets that looked like jelly and smelt of liquorice, but thankfully the drugs made the noise of horns recognisable, I think it was Fight the Power by Public Enemy.

Anyway after circling the inner sanctum of the city at least three times I finally found myself somewhere recognisable, Chinatown.

I could have sworn I saw Mo Besic talking threateningly to someone saying “You're a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses”.

I got out of the car, scratched my bollocks and

tried to figure out where exactly I was and where I was in relation to the Albert Hall.

There were no signs but a parking meter twenty yards down the road. At the other end of the road were two workmen in fluorescent yellow jackets dicking about with one of those Stop/Go signs. I ambled down to the meter only to find I didn’t have the right change. I wandered back to the car looking for a shop where I might change my note.

Then one of the workmen came over. “Excuse me mate, could you move your car back a space or two?” he asked. I was so stoned it took a while to commute so I just looked at him whilst the information took time to commute to my brain. “Mate, can you just move your car back a bit, we are filming”.

At this point I looked up and saw a group of about twelve people armed with boom mics and a couple of cameras and sitting on those director type chairs looking at me like I had just shat in their mouths.

“Errr...O.K.”. I got back in and reversed the required distance and then got out again. I still needed change.

This saw me zig-zagging all over the streets of Chinatown, and no doubt all in camera shot, trying to find change for the meter. I finally achieved my quest in a Chinese fish shop, and legged it back to the car, probably ruining another shot for the luvvies.

So If any of you see some Manchester tv drama set in Chinatown, and see a shambling disorientated mess in a Rastafari t-shirt and blue Samba ( I had trousers on as well... I think... but don’t remember the particular cut of cloth I was wearing) it will be me Prof. Henrik P Sensimilla,

and it could be all you ever need to put you off drink and drugs for life.

After an hour of tramping round Manchester I finally found the venue, well the bar next door to be precise. I ordered a Guinness only to be told it was a real ale pub. I should have guessed by the beard, the shaved sides and flicked fringe of the cereal cafe-like beaut serving me. “Just something black then” I responded. I then got chatting to a lad. Turns out he was an Evertonian. Life was all good again, and as Mr Urdd will attest to later in WSAG, the SFA were sensational whether you were smacked off your tits (me) or not (him).

The gig took place on election night. It was all a bit heavy and doom and gloom as the Man (who) Don’t Give A Fuck got back in power, this time on his own. The only positive to come out of the election was that the Wicked Witch of the Wirral (McVey) got binned off, and for that we should all be thankful.

So Blues, tighten your belts, it’s going to be a rocky summer and a rocky five years.

But you are an Evertonian.

You’ll be aiiiighhhhhhhht. We’ll also be in good company. We have Michael Head and the Strands to guide you through the Olde World, and if you haven’t been there before, there’s a Magical World to explore too. Peace and Love.

KOKO Prof. Henrik P Sensimilla The Bunker L4 4EL

Hipster coppers, whatever next?

LOADSAMONEY! I’m writing this on the Monday after the West Ham match, in which, predictably, Evertonians heading to ‘World War II blitz chic’s Newham’ were treated to throaty renditions of ‘Sign On!’ from the chromosome-enhanced locals, despite the number 55 being next to the pound sign on tickets for the privilege of watching the ‘Fair Play Derby’ (#fuckoffEPL).

I imagine there’ll be lots of articles in this issue looking at desired ins and outs from the boardroom to the squad over the summer weeks, but I don’t really think the eight I’d like to see purged from the current squad will go to be replaced by eleven or twelve others, so I’m not going to depress myself by thinking about starting next season with Howard in goal.

Instead, I’m going to *Ben Elton voice* do a little bit of politics, so be warned, and scroll on if you want.

Since about the end of 2010, it’s been fair to say a lot of people have gritted their teeth and hoped that an awful government would be moved on come 2015. And despite Labour being absolutely chronic, just look back and think about it they were terrible, it looked like they might just be able to squeeze and massage a way in ahead of a lazy Tory campaign relying on a barely twentieth century approach of bogeymen and knowing your place.

As we all know, they didn’t, which is shit.

Badly shit.

But the election did show us something else. Karl Henry, Jonathan Walters, David Thompson; what do these three have in common? The answer I’ve

got on my card is that in the run-up to Election Day, all three took to social media to declare that people who rely on the government are lazy, that if you’re not succeeding it’s your own fault, and that voting Conservative is what is right for everybody.

I presume that’s because these three maestros of modern football got to where they were just on raw, irresistible talent…

Now there’s nothing wrong with voting Tory per se, no seriously, the esteemed Phillip Carter was as arch A Tory as you’d probably encounter, but there was something unnerving about seeing, to be fair to them, middling, unexceptional athletes whose riches are dependent on the goodwill and disposable income of others claiming that they are where they are because of their own efforts, and you are where you are because you couldn’t be arsed.

It was a sharp reminder that the working man’s game hasn’t been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern, loadsamoney sphere, but is in fact bursting at the seams with people who struggle to see where they started from atop the mountains of cash they’ve accrued.

There are a few things to consider when looking at why these players, and probably others, thought theirs was an opinion that needed as broad an audience as possible.

First thing is it’s not unusual for sportsmen to be more ‘right’ than ‘left’ in their outlook on life, the selfishness and single-mindedness apparently needed to make it and the idea that is drummed into athletes that you’ll only get out what you put in, means being a selfish Tory twat is the inevitable consequence.

The really extreme version of this recently was Bruce Jenner coming out as transgender, seemingly midstream as it were, while still professing his support for the Republican Party.

All I can say to the former Olympic champion is good luck at the next convention when you find yourself in between the NRA and Southern Baptists lobbies.

But

there

you

go,

it

to be indignant when they do say something?

Well, to be honest, when it shows they’ve seemingly forgotten their extreme fortune, then yes, especially when they are calling their paymasters free-loaders.

Now, you might be sitting there thinking, ah but wee Naisy, he’s a good ‘un, and the club can be relied upon to do subsidised away tickets at least once or twice a year – Everton, we’re alright y’know.

And you’d have a point, but I’m not sure being the best of a bad bunch is good enough. happens, we shouldn’t be surprised if a sportsman doesn’t necessarily line up behind the Red Flag.

Second thing is who among us would turn down massive loads of cash, beyond our wildest dreams, if offered?

Exactly.

And let’s be honest, for players like Hazard, David Silva, Rooney and the rest of those who are capable of super-human moments, the money being paid is more easily explained if still wince-inducing.

If you are the very best in any walk of life, you can reasonably demand to be rewarded accordingly.

The ones who make your teeth itch, knowing that at 35 they’ll wander off to monitor their property portfolio from the Caribbean without a care in the world, are those who have piggy-backed on the great players who can be sold to big international markets.

The likes of Henry, Walters, and Thompson, who had they been 20 years older would currently be thrashing about trying to make their coaching mark with a string of lower league clubs unlucky enough to be local to where they wound up their careers.

So, if we accept that it’s not the fault of the players that they are being offered these contracts, it’d be nice if they maintained some level of humility to acknowledge that, despite their hours of hard work and sacrifice, if you like, they have hit the jackpot by being good enough at exactly the time when the abilities of their peers has allowed them to get rich (a sort of all for one, eh lads?).

We often bemoan the bland public comments of footballers, so is it ok

The recent seats-on-stickers episode prompted much gnashing of teeth, as the club showed that it is good for the odd tenner off here or there (£30-35k in total?) as long as you keep up your end and stump up five, six, seven hundred quid every twelve months.

I am pretty confident that most Everton players are self-aware enough not to flaunt their wealth too much (stop laughing at the back), or at least throw their fortune back in the faces of people who have watched them achieve not very much for an awful long time.

I’d doubt any of them would take a wage freeze for the good of the bloke in the stand, or indeed as a squad skim off a tiny percentage of their annual to ensure that the people who keep the club going day-to-day are given a decent salary at the end of each month.

So as you’re checking out the options for spreading the payments, thinking about whether or not it’s worth it, maybe bear in mind where football is at the moment, and if you really want to be fuelling the gravy train.

Mike Murphy

ME AND JOE ROYLE BOTH Called Out….

The last edition of WSAG (E020) featured a list of 5 things that would never be printed in the mag.

Item number 4 called me out. Said they might print my Johnson story if I could ever find it. Well I have. So go on.

A bit of background. This was first sent in just after Big Joe’s departure in 1997. I didn’t think there would be any problem with it but when the next issue came out it was missing. Instead, there was a sentence apologising to me saying that the 'lawyers' had ruled it out.

So I sent in an A4 sheet with huge lettering just saying “YOU NO-BOTTLE SHOWER OF SHITHOUSES”, or something equally as eloquent. They printed that full page in the next edition thereby going up floors in my estimation.

You Cool Mothafuckas, I thought.

Anyway, like I say, I can’t see the offence and believe it will be a bit of a damp squid now. It’s nothing compared to what we see in WSAG these days and it certainly doesn’t identify a manager who liked to watch women shit on a glass top table (no. 4 on the list – my money’s on Herrard Goulier… dirty French bastard!).

But here it is.

I knew it wouldn’t take too long for Everton to become a complete laughing stock as soon as I heard that Johnson had taken over.

The only surprise was it took so long. I’m sure WSAG pages will be full of the Robson/Toshack/Kendall/Gray/Kendall farce as

well as the ‘absolutely-democratic-above-boardfix-free-ballot’ to up stumps (goalposts) and decamp to Kirkby.

What I want to tell you is why I hate Peter Johnson so much and why it came as such a kick in the bollocks when he took control of my beloved - and why it came as no surprise whatsoever when he sacked JR. (Cue wavy dream sequence thing...)

When I left school in 1975 there weren’t all that many jobs to be had in Birkenhead, even then. If you weren’t too fussy, or if you were just plain desperate (I fell into both categories) there was Park Hampers as a last resort, where Johnson employed women and school leavers’ as the cheapest and most easily exploitable source of labour.

Most of the £16 per week I got as wages went on following Everton about all over the place which was just about all I was interested in. And it was just as well - there wasn’t enough money for anything else!

Conditions were pretty grim inside Johnson’s money making machine. There were closed circuit cameras everywhere and at the end of every shift he made us walk through a metal detector frame in case we’d pinched the odd can of salmon. Johnson’s father-in-law worked there too. He had a metal plate in his head which he seemed to forget about every day. He’d put his change, keys, etc. to one side, walk through and nearly blow it up. We’d all be on the floor in a heap. I think it passed as our incentive bonus. It was the only one we ever got. The work was heavy and non-stop. Or almost non-stop...

We stopped work one day because we were so cold, as Mr. Money Bags wouldn’t supply any heating. Eventually, he brought in two hot air blowers for either end of the line where the women worked and they went back. But nothing for the rest of us who worked away from the line. So we refused to go back to work until he provided heaters for us too.

He sent his bully-boy foreman/henchman down to threaten us and some of the kids went back in dribs and drabs. Throughout the day there

were more threats issued and more kids went back. Until there was just me and Sammy Woods, another Blue. Tough Guy came in and said, “He wants to see you in his office, now”. (He’s probably chief steward in the top balcony these days).

We walked in to Johnson’s office but he didn’t even look up from his desk. He just carried on with whatever it was he was poring over (probably his long term plan for fucking-up Everton Football Club) and said, “Either get back to work now or get your cards and get back on the dole”.

Being the Bolshy young bastard that I was I told him that I was reliably informed that the Factories Act, 1961 said that the workplace must be at least 60.8º within the first hour. I also told him that if he carried on treating us in this way we’d all join a union and get them to help us (how naive can you get?).

He looked up at us then - like we were shit on his shoes. “I haven’t got time to waste on the likes of you”, he sneered. “You’ve got no rights. I won’t tell you again - get back to work or get on your bikes.

Now get out of my office!” He wasn’t quite the polished article then that we see on our screens today.

We made a snap decision to bite the bullet and go back to work. After all, it was almost Christmas and there were at least 3 or 4 games coming up. We needed the dosh.

When we got back to the warehouse everyone wanted to know what had happened. We told them to leave us to do our work as he’d be watching on the cameras.

We worked our guts out for the remaining hour of the shift before Tough Guy came down again and repeated No1 from his limited list of phrases.

“He wants to see you in his office - now!”

We went up to listen to Johnson tell us, “There’s your cards, I warned you - now get out!”

Inevitably, when we asked why, he told us he’d been watching us on camera and that we hadn’t done a tap. Lying bastard.

Anyway, give everyone their due. They came out on strike in disgust for all of the next day and part of the day after. But the North End of Birkenhead was never particularly wealthy and

Sadly you can't see the Johnson is a Cunt banner on this picture most of the women there had no other option for getting their kids Christmas presents.

So that was that. He went on to become a multi millionaire and I... well... didn’t. But I did manage to get another job and scraped together enough to follow the Blues all over that Christmas and for the remainder of the season while Johnson the redshite was probably sitting in the Kemlyn Road with his glory hunting rich chums watching the shite.

I don’t know if he approached Howard Kendall to replace me. I think he was at Birmingham at the time and it was probably too far for him to come each day. Andy Gray turned it down as he was working his way towards a £1 million transfer.

Bobby Robson was too old, even then. I think he had to settle for another Birkenhead scally in the end.

I grew up wanting to be like Joe Royle, banging them in for the Blues. I never thought our common ground would be that we’d both be given the bullet by a red. So, I just thought I’d let you know Joe - you’re not the only one mate.

It happened to me and I hate him too.

Tommy Boy PS. Just thought I’d let you know PJ.... I had more than one can of salmon out of that place!

Postscript…

About 10 years after writing that I was parking in Sainsbury’s one hot summer Sunday when a flash car with the roof down pulled in near me and we got out of our respective but entirely dissimilar cars, the fella with a young good looking sort. I thought, “I know him…”, and just as it was clicking in to place he pulled this big

phoney smile and said “Helloooh…”, like he was some big star and I was a fan about to ask for his autograph.

“Oy!” I said, as he turned away. “You don’t fucking remember me do you?”

“Erm, I’m sorry”, he said quizzically, with his smile turning to a shit eating forced grin and his eyes betraying the fact that he was wondering if I had a gun, “…should I?” “Well I think so, yeah. But obviously not. I remember you though. You sacked me from my first ever job!”

He actually chortled! “Did I really? I’m sure you must have deserved it.”

“Probably. I was trying to keep me and the other recent school leavers warm whilst you were trying to freeze or work us to death. No wonder you got wealthy.”

“Well, I’m sure you haven’t done too badly yourself,” he offered before scurrying off into the shop.

“Fuck off!” I retorted, a bit too slowly.

I followed him in and caught up with him by the spuds. His friend had gone off somewhere and left him minding the trolley.

“Do you know what really galled me?” I asked, as he looked around weighing up the usefulness of a cucumber as a weapon. “The fact that I wrote about it to WSAG and they wouldn’t print it because they were too scared of your lawyers!

Were you really so insecure that you would be worried by a story from 22 years earlier?”

“Really?” he said. “I knew nothing about it. I wouldn’t have minded at all. I’d love to read that.

Have you still got it?”

Fuck me, I thought. Why do my nearly-fights always take a turn for the surreal?

Believe it or not he gave me his email address which I thought was just a ploy for his security people to track me down but I sent it to him the next day and got a reply saying he couldn’t open the attachment. He asked me to have another go so I did. Again he came back and said he couldn’t open it and would get his “girl” to have a look.

He then came back and said he’d been told what the problem was, could I save it to a different version of Word and send it again. It worked that time. I never heard from him again. Thought he’d at least ask me for the salmon back…

Tommy Boy

Heysel Remembered There's been a lot of shit written about Heysel in the days leading up to the 30th anniversary. Some of it has been written by Liverpudlians, of course, but a little bit of it has been written by Evertonians.

First things first. For me personally, unless you are over 50 years of age you probably won't remember what it was like going to football matches back in the early to mid 1980s. And while I would never look to condone any behaviour that led to the death of anyone, it is fair to say that the behaviour of the Liverpool fans was typical of the time. Wrong but somehow ordinary. God rest the souls of those who died.

I remember reading somewhere that Heysel had an effect on lads all over the country who suddenly realised that what they'd been doing for years as a bit of a laugh had now lead to thirty nine people losing their live. It was a sobering experience.

I've read loads comparing the events that night to what happened in Rotterdam. Well, we were lucky. We played a bit of a nomark team and as supporters we outnumbered them about three to one. Also what little flashpoints there were during the day were quickly stamped on by the much more clued up Dutch Police.

Perhaps the thing which has annoyed me the most is the revisionist view about Munich 58. There is a famous picture from Heysel where such a flag is clearly visible.

Disgraceful, claim some Blues. Another stick to beat them with. Well look at the photo above. There's one at Rotterdam too. We both took them everywhere. We both sang the songs. To pretend otherwise is just wrong.

Enclosure Boy

Mid 90’s things (FA cup 1995 commemorative edition)

o

o Loaded o The Spice Girls o Cool Brittania o New Labour o Richey Edward's empty Vauxhall Cavalier o Alcopops o Friends o Oasis o My So Called Life o Reebok Classics o Polo Ralph Lauren Robbie does loads of drugs and quits Take That o Blur o Calvin Klein ck One o Black leather bomber jackets o Cream o Laddettes o R Newbold o 6876 in Smith & Westwood o Cast o Blue and black hooped socks o Alan Partridge o Duncan Ferguson o Jumanji o Amazon.com sells its first book o The 051 o Stone Island o Vic n Bob o Joe Royle o Everton winning the cup

KING OF MERSEYSIDE Andy was one of us. Despite being born in Luton and speaking with a funny accent. He joined in April 1976 for ÂŁ35,000. He was signed by Billy Bingham who quickly gave him his debut. With quick feet, plenty of skill and a knack of scoring goals he was soon a crowd favourite.

During 1976-77 when Everton reached the final of the League Cup and the semis of the FA Cup, King was an increasingly important player despite the fact that he was around 20 years old.

He scored 12 goals including two at Old Trafford as Everton wiped the floor with United in the League Cup. Injury meant he missed the infamous semi with Liverpool at Maine Road.

Who knows what might have happened that day had both him and Latchford been fit.

The following season, King flourished. It was Gordon Lee's first full season and the Blues were flying. Lee's Everton is often characterised as dour but with Latchford, Thomas and King it was anything but. We spent most of the time in second place in the league and but for the fact that them lot were winning all sorts it would have classed as a great season. King was ever-present in the league and in the cup, scoring 11 goals.

He had made the No.7 shirt his own.

1978/79 was his season. Lee's team had another great season and we were never lower than fourth. We even hit the top in February when a King hattrick against Bristol City saw us take advantage of the fact that the cold weather had forced many games to be postponed.

This game occasionally shows up on the Big Match Revisited and it worth watching just to see adidas footwear on most of the Everton players. And King's sublime hat-trick.

More importantly though, King scored in both derby games. The famous 'King's Drive' in the October and the lesser known but equally impressive equaliser at Anfield in March. These goals cemented his place in Evertonian hearts.

In the last season of the seventies, Lee's Everton fell apart. Dave Thomas had already left, Latchford was injured on the down slope. New players were bought but the team spent most of the season looking nervously down towards the

relegation places. King was still there and started the season in the No.9 shirt. Things didn't quite work out and six games in King was sent off for a half-arsed push into Emlyn Hughes' chest. The ex-kopite gobshite then playing for Wolves made it look like a headbutt and the referee bought it.

King again got into double figures but with the team not performing he wasn't scoring as freely.

His last game for Everton was the semi final replay at Elland Road when generally Everton played poorly, only rallying late on when Latchford equalised. Bastard Frank Lampard.

Early the following season, Andy was sold to Queens Park Rangers for ÂŁ450,000 - over ten times the amount the club paid for him.

Although, latterly his form had been patchy, King was still a firm favourite with the fans and his transfer disappointed many. King later went on the record to say that it was gambling debts that forced his move away and that he should never have left. He was only 23.

Of course, he was to return two years later but let's pause for a minute and consider his first spell. In the Official Annual 1980 King was interviewed after signing a contract to keep him at Everton until 1983 said "I would not have signed it if I didn't think Everton were about to start winning trophies. Everton is one of the

biggest clubs in the country and all it needs at the moment is some success for it to take off and become really big - as big as anyone in Europe or the world."

He was right. In a way. Of course he was talking about Gordon Lee and not Howard Kendall. Lee's team had already peaked and it was a completely different set of players that went on to win things under Kendall. Different apart from John Bailey and a couple of youngsters, Ratcliffe and Sharp, already given their debuts. And a returning King.

It was in July 1982 that Kendall swapped Peter Eastoe for Andy. By that time King had moved onto West Brom and was in danger of ending up on the scrapheap. Kendall, described King as a "technically superb player and finisher" and initially his faith was repaid as King fitted into Everton's new midfield perfectly alongside Heath, McMahon and Kevin Sheedy. It was like he'd never been away.

King was only 26 and was possibly entering the best years of his playing career but that all came to an end at Roker Park in March when his forward run was halted by a vicious assault on his knee from some nomark Sunderland defender. If you must watch it, it's here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxYKU6POGGY

King was out for the season. The game was only a week before the quarter-final of the FA Cup when Kendall's young team outplayed United at Old Trafford only to lose in the 94th minute to a Frank Stapleton goal. King may have made the difference but once again, events conspired against him and us as we fell short again.

But not for long. The following season, after an indifferent (to put it mildly) start, Kendall's team suddenly flowered. Just like King had said some four years earlier.

Unfortunately for Andy he was to play nothing more than a bit-part. Kendall did start with him but he wasn't the same player. He looked bereft of confidence and much more hesitant on the ball. Suddenly as the team's self-belief soared, he was often left out.

It must have been heartbreaking for him. He had so much wanted to bring success back to Goodison and now it was happening he wasn't able to be fully involved. He was always in the first team squad but in the days of one substitute, he was often the spare man.

He was the twelfth man in the League Cup Final replay against Liverpool and did get on towards the end and if the footballing gods were romantic

old souls he would scored an equaliser and late winner to bring home our first trophy for fourteen years. But they're not.

Andy King's last game for Everton was an away win at West Ham, five days before the cup final.

He played only to protect Andy Gray's own battle-scarred knees. He had no chance of forcing his way into the team and I doubt there were many supporters who thought he deserved a place.

Perhaps that's ultimate ignominy. From there, he had to leave for a second time.

Having said that, the club and its supporters remained close to his heart. In interviews he echoed Alan Ball's words that once Everton touches you, nothing will be the same again.

Likewise, as a player he has remained a firm favourite for all those who grew up supporting Everton in the 1970s. The decade promised much, starting as it did with Los Tros Magnifico.

Andy King was our great hope.

Ultimately, the flaws within his and the team's character let us down but for an all too short fleeting moment he lit up the team and allowed us to believe again.

For that, Andy was and is our King.

GE

SOMETHING LIKE YOU Andy King has died. Aged 58. You know that by now.

Far too young for anyone but for a hero, it's way too soon. He should have lived forever.

will. You should watch it again, even if like me you've watched it a fair few times over the past few days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwzflFV3wyA

I'm not one for gushing sentimentality. Not really. But Andy King's death shook me more than any other death I've known outside of my family and friends. He was my first and last favourite Everton player. Only a day or two before his passing my son asked me who was my favourite player when I was a kid, Andy's name was given before he'd finished the question.

What I remember more clearly is the aftermath, the sweet taste of victory and the pride. I couldn't care less if they were European champions, we had beaten them. Played them off the park. I remember going into school, walking tall, smirking all through Mr Goodman's lesson.

To quote someone else, this man was my bombers, my dexys, my high.

We had. It was the first time for years - my lifetime of supporting Everton and more - that we'd won.

October 1978 was my Geno moment. I'd been an Evertonian all my life. You just were in our house. I'd been going the match with my dad since 1974 but, looking back, this was the day it all fell into place.

That game, that goal led to all this.

I was in the Main Stand with our Joanne. Don't know why. I usually went in the Paddock with my dad. I think this was actually the first game I went to without my dad. I was 12. Our Joanne was a couple of years older. I have no recollection whatsoever of how we got to Goodison, or got home.

It was the first league derby match I'd been to. I can remember three things about the game. The deafening noise from all corners of the ground as the teams came out. The unbridled joy in seeing a linesman's flag when David Johnson had put the ball in our net. And the goal.

Thankfully the Match of the Day cameras were there to record the moment. It wasn't always the way back then, even for big games like the Merseyside derby.

My own sparse memories are now padded out by a clip on YouTube. You don't need me to link this but I

"Oh have you won one, 'ave you?"

"Seven is his number and seven years it is..."

As stated, looking back, that was the moment when I realised what supporting Everton was all about. What made us different. Special. Unique.

Twelve years old, hugging my cousin, both of us screaming our heads off. The ground erupted.

John Motson said in the Match of the Day commentary that "Goodison Park has gone absolutely mad".

Here, there and everywhere Blues were jumping up and down, chanting, singing, shouting. It was breathtaking. Thinking about it now the hairs on the back of neck are raised. It was the best ecstasy rush ever. It's a feeling that never goes away.

At the centre of it all was Andy King. A spotty kid, barely out of his teens. Yet already he was an idol. Our hero. A man who singlehandedly brought sweatbands back into fashion and who's "double-arm-peaceman" celebration was copied in schoolyards all over the city.

By me. By you.

How can you shine so bright And still you shine for me

ANDY IS OUR KING We asked readers for their memories of Andy King, here's what came in...

Joe Ainsworth Just rang my dad, 'have you heard about Andy King?' He didn't know. I could hear the catch in his voice as I told him the news.

80's were mine, one of the lucky few to hit his twenties without a care in the world, drinking myself daft, following the Mighty Blues as they swept all before them.

My dad took me to my first game in August 1970, one year too late for Championship glory. I had a proper glossy photo of that team pinned to my wall, but never saw them in their pomp and they soon broke up in the way great Everton sides always seem fated to, leaving us with the nearly teams of the 70's as the enemy took a vice-like grip on any available silverware and more importantly each and every Derby game for what seemed like an eternity.

But the 70's belonged to the pair of us. Dad and lad, in the Street End or the Enclosure, with King and Latchford the two great Goodison Gods.

Then, as Souness called 'you've missed it', Andy found the top corner of the Park End goal and the absolute dead centre of my heart. The 60's belonged to my owl' fella, two league titles, a miraculous FA cup win, the Holy Trinity. The

I just wish, when he came back in the 80's, his knees had stuck it out long enough for him to taste some of the glory that was to come. It seems strange to think he's only seven years older than me and he's gone.

Maybe that's why I'm necking the red, feeling maudlin, fighting back a tear or two. Or maybe it's the thought of me and my dad, in a disbelieving Gwladys Street bear hug as that ball arced over Clemence and into the back of the net. I still remember the Monday morning going into school,

head held high, nearly forty years ago, giving loads to each and every Kopite that crossed my path.

That was down to you Andy.

And I'll never forget it. @andyisourking "Mum I can't wait till I'm 8" "Why son" "Then people will call me Andy, like Andy King" Only ever wanted to be him.

Still do.

Paul Dempsey Terrible news.

Was a pleasure to spend time in his company, listening to despite him being a south he just fell in love with us and classed himself as a scouser and a born blue.

The passion with which he spoke about not just Everton, but the city and the people

Andy lad. memories.

Thanks

for

the

Alfred Cooper Used to get my tickets from Andy King, stopped getting them when someone told him I gave one to a kopite. NOT TRUE I would never give anything to them, but he went up in my eyes then. RIP Andy.

was a joy behold. It was like listening to a fan born in L4 Ollie ollie ollie...

Steve Lee Andy King would be priceless now - without doubt he would have been a star in modern football.

The pace, vision, above all goals.

skill

peace Andy, you were my first blue idol.

Gary Campbell ESCLA with Andy's dad on our trips up to Liverpool for the home games . Andy on his crunchers surprised us all by getting the train with us .

ANDY IS OUR KING . RIP From Squadie .

and

The late 70s weren't an easy time for Evertonians, Andy King was one of the reasons we had to still feel proud. That he was never capped at senior level is inexplicable.

Bingham called him 'a gem for the price of coal' when he signed him - never a truer word was spoken. RIP Kingy.

John Furlong “Rarely has an individual exuded the sheer joy of football with such utter abandon as Andy King. The impish midfielder believed passionately that he was born to play the game.�

Richie Banks I wish I'd been older when I watched him. As a 4 year old in 1979, my (now) step dad used to ask me every Saturday who'd scored.

"Kingy" was my reply, every time. I'm now 40 and today's news has gutted me. Rest in

Jamie Yates "7 is his number and 7 years it is since this last happened...!!"

Kingy's best days were well before my time but I know I'd have loved him. RIP. Leigh Tindsley My first game at Goodison and my two heroes both scored big Bob and the King himself.

Happy little lad then. Very sad middle aged man now. RIP

Darren Owens Had Andy is our king painted on wall top room me nan's old house on Rocky Lane!

Great servant of club. Top bloke gutted sad, sad news!

Gone but will never be forgotten. God bless Andy King! RIP singing olly olly olly with your balls in a trolley and your dick tied up with string!

Sitting on the grass with your bottle of bass singing Andy is our king o Andy is our king!

Always smile thinking about Andy king! Legend.

Stu, Aintree I had the pleasure of meeting Andy King - one of my first blue heroes, along with Bob Latchford and Mick Lyons - in the Lighthouse pub in Formby, circa 1988. I was sat with my Redgate Rovers team mates, having played a midweek match, and gone through our usual post match ritual of free

Mick Ord Memories of Andy King....well I have one but it's a secondhand memory, i.e. not mine, but I know it's accurate because Andy confirmed it to a mate of mine when he was manager of Swindon Town.

When Andy returned to Everton in 1982 Everton most of the members of the press apparently had no idea that he was returning and Everton wanted to make it a big surprise. drinks back at the boozer, sponsored by Nev, the very generous owner of the pub and one of our coaches.

Andy King was in there, and known to Nev, who invited him over to speak to us. He came over and spent an hour, talking to a load of spotty star truck teenagers about football, our positions, our aspirations, what it was like to be a professional footballer, how to improve, and generally having the craic. He urged all of us to strive to be the best we could, but not to be disappointed if we didn't all become professionals as it was more important to keep playing and use football for enjoyment.

What came over in this short time was how generous he was with his time, his charisma, his love for football but most strikingly, his unbridled love for the Blues.

I've still got the autograph.

The king is dead, long live our memories of the king.

Michael Pye Everton Icon, Boyhood hero with Bob Latchford. Loved by the fans always remembered for that goal in the derby of 78. Have a gab to me Dad while you're in your royal Blue Heaven Goodnight God Bless.

So while the hacks were waiting the tension was rising...'Who was this mystery player the Blues had signed?"

Then Andy bounces into the room, big grin on face and says ' You thought it was gonna be Zico didn't yer ?!" to much amusement from the assembled press pack.

Although I never met him I know plenty who did who say he was a great bloke. Full of life and enthusiasm for the game and especially Evertonians.

RIP Dave Fernandez He was my hero as a boy and is still one of my favourites of all time.

In 1978 my dad wrote to Andy King asking for an autograph for me so that he could give it me on my 7th birthday. Got nothing back and just thought that's footballers for you. 6 months later (when my birthday was long gone) my dad got a handwritten letter from Andy explaining that the original letter had been hidden under a pile of magazines and that he'd only just found it. He sent me a signed photo and apologised for taking so long to send it to me. I still have the letter and the signed photo. RIP. Nevmog Andy King. I loved the fella. I lived in a small village outside of Swindon in Wiltshire as a kid in the 70s. Everyone else at that time supported Liverpool. Andy King was my hero.

In one of the lessons at school everyone had to pick a topic to talk about. I did it on Andy King and had loads to say about him. That goal will always be one of my most enjoyable football moments ever....even for a kid, with no scouse background living miles away surrounded by glory hunting redshite followers.

It was finally a day when I

everyone wanted to be like. A David Watts."

That was brilliant that. Yet again WSAG puts into words what we all feel.

Remember too when he said crawl over broken glass to play for Everton Football Club?

For someone who wasn't born here and who had no connection with the Club or the City he understood perfectly just what it meant to us all. could get them back for all the grief they gave me.

Andy even ended up managing Swindon Town too and took them to a playoff semi final.

That in itself was enough to make him an icon for all us Blues.

God bless Andy King. My first Everton hero.

Absolutely gutted he has gone.

Derek Sullivan Wasn't at Anfield, I was too young and it was a school night, but remember dancing around the living room and getting a telling off from my old girl when Kingy equalised, it was well worth it!!

Couldn't wait to get in school the next day to ram it into the RS we had taken three points (only two points for a win then!) to their one and for that season we were KINGS of Merseyside, Thanks for everything Andy mate.

David Pearsall He used to come out and have a kick about with us when he lived in Melling, he was great.

Benny Blue I remember you had Andy King as the first WSAG Icon.

You said "To me and possibly to all those of a similar age, Andy was our star man. While Martin Dobson looked like your dad, Andy was the smooth bastard brother, the one who

I was a bit embarrassed, the whole camp site laughed, thanks Andy!

Carl Reid 1979 at Anfield. First time mar let me go there. 13 and got spat at for my amber and blue scalf. Thanks Andy.

John McPartland I hopped all the way home to Breck Road when he scored in the 1-1 game at Anfield! Haha!

Andy scored at Anfield a few months later in a 2-2. 3 goals v Liverpool from Andy Derek Carey Vernon I am absolutely gutted. Andy's two goals at Old Trafford in the League Cup in 76 was my favourite memory. https://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=Pv7lbPRaQyc (This is great footage from a memorable night. The team look great in the blue shorts and there's thousands of Evertonians who have made the trip over to Manchester filling the old end. Back then we used to do that regularly.)

Harvey Weewax I remember pretending to be Andy King with a tennis ball in the living room when everyone was out, running from one end of the room to the other and scoring between the bookcase.

Well I was 12.

I had the old Umbro Everton shirt with No. 7 on the back and I ended up giving it to a French boy that we met in Brittany on holiday, he promptly stole his dad’s St Etienne pendent out the car “Allez les Verts” and gave it to me as well as a kiss on either cheek.

Mike Loftus Me and Andy King, when I won best Everton fan

FROM A BOTTLE OF BASS TO CRAWLING OVER BROKEN GLASS - ANDY WAS OUR KING goals that season but it was the effervescent and non-stop dynamic way that he played that was so infectious and we loved him for it.

He was young, he was fearless and he had looked like someone from the terraces (pre scally of course) and in an era where our neighbours were winning everything, Andy King gave Evertonians hope that our fortunes were about to change for the better.

I know that this mag will have loads of tributes to Kingy and there should be, it is our place and when one of ours goes, we mourn here.

And Andy King was one of us.

No doubt about it.

The Everton player we all wanted to be from 1976 to 1980, the one who arrived from ‘darn Sarf’ like he owned the place, the one who took to us just like we took to him, the one whose passion, enthusiasm and skill captivated us all and the one who scored THAT goal in THAT match.

2.

When 78/79 began, the first league match programme (or was it the NAC Breda friendly trainspotters?) had photos and words concerning Everton in a pre-season tournament in Rotterdam and I can remember as a seven year old being thrilled at seeing an Everton player with a trophy, namely Andy King with a Player of the tournament trophy. It seemed to augur well for that season and Andy’s and the team’s form up until the winter months certainly indicated that more silverware was on the cards for him and the Blues.

3.

Those of us who were around at the time and who went to the Andy King derby at Goodison in October 1978 have all got our memories of that day and we will carry them to the grave.

For me it was my first derby and my Dad and I weren’t in the Top Balc as usual but in the Lower Bullens and I can just remember the

And given that he will always be remembered in an Everton number 7 shirt and that his Derby winner in October ’78 enabled our first win against them lot in 7 years, here are my seven recollections of Andy King.

Seven ways to love if you will.

1.

I started going to watch Everton in 76/77 and my first full season was the following campaign where we finished third and played some cracking togger. The season is rightly remembered for Bob Latchford’s 30 league goals but as a young six year old I remember Kingy’s contribution vividly. He scored 11

absolute bedlam when Kingy scored and obviously when the final whistle blew.

Although I had just started with this Everton thing of ours, there were grown men all around me in a state of euphoria that was almost scary to this young lad such was the joy that AK’s winner brought. And the joy continued on and on.

In school on the Monday when I arrived in the playground I was grabbed by one of the lads from the older years who said, “You’re an Evertonian aren’t you? Put this on and start singing!” at which he handed me a scarf and I was sent over to another load of Blues and with the playground split down the middle between reds and blues some sort of chanting war ensued until Mr Wright the Deputy Head came to break it all up. ‘Monday, Tuesday, Happy days.’

4.

That whole season though, Andy was just mustard and it is great that his hat-trick against Bristol City was captured on Kick-Off and is there for all to see on You Tube years later. Again it beggars belief that he never gained full England international recognition but the London press were too busy wanking off on media darlings Glenn Hoddle and ‘Butch’ Wilkins and old Ron Greenwood was too busy placating them.

I’ve read commentary on Kingy that he just lacked a bit of pace or class to have been truly great but I would refute that as between 1977 and 1979 he terrorised teams left right and centre and pioneered the goal scoring midfielder role that Bryan Robson became famed for. Also on You Tube is this the first match of that season v Chelsea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8eIMK3vLM and guess who scored?

5.

When he was sold in September 1980, I was devastated given that he was my favourite player so when he came back to Everton two years later, I was naturally made up and he started like a house on fire and before his injury at Sunderland in ’83 scored 13 goals.

That’s 13 goals.

From midfield.

With McMahon, Sheedy, Richardson and Kingy, Kendall seemed to be building a new and exciting EFC midfield and then a knee injury wrecked it all for our hero and when the great promise of that team turned into real success, Andy King sadly wasn’t a part of it.

He wasn’t forgotten though and I always remember a load of fans being interviewed at Lime Street before the 1984 Cup Final and asked who their fave player was and whilst some said Inchy or Reidy, one lad just said, ‘Andy King.’ Is right.

6.

Andy was always willing to publicly profess his love for Everton FC and that he would always be an Evertonian and I loved him for this. Most people have seen the clip in the Granada doc ‘Home and Away’ when he was interviewed after being left out of the 12 for the Milk Cup Final and how gutted he was and we all know of the quote that he would ‘crawl over broken glass to play for Everton.’ A few years ago I went to one of those Adelphi former players do’s and Kingy was inducted into the Hall of Fame and it was boss for me to see him on the top table getting the recognition he deserved as a true Blue who gave so much for our club. His acceptance speech was hilarious as was Bill Kenwright’s where he made reference to the notches on the bedposts at the Holiday Inn in Paradise Street due to Andy’s conquests much to his noticeable embarrassment. Later there was the opportunity for autographs and photies with the ex players and I was desperate to get one with Kingy and me but I bottled it and just got a signature instead and a photo of him on his own. I regret that now.

7.

A few years ago he became the Northampton Town Assistant Manager.

Having lived in Northampton it was great to know that one of my all time heroes was now something to do with the Cobblers.

One Saturday in Amsterdam I got a text from my step bro who was in some sort of lounge after a Northampton match and he said Andy King was in the lounge. Half jokingly I texted him back and told him to give him a kiss from me.

It is clear that wherever he went, Kingy was loved and when he died last week the Northampton Chronicle & Echo ran a lovely brief obit from a sports writer which highlights how missed he will be, not just by Evertonians http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/fo otball/andy-king-jefferson-lake-says-footballhas-lost-one-its-great-characters-1-6767244

58 is far too young an age for anyone to die and whereas I felt really sad when Labby and Bally died, they were my Dad’s generation whereas with Kingy’s death given how he was my era, it really feels worse.

I know however that we have our memories of him forever and rest assured that whenever a group of arlarse Evertonians congregate be it in L4 or in foreign lands far far away, as Everton songs are sung, someone will always spark up with ‘Olly Olly Olly’ and we are right back to the late 70’s when Andy really was ‘Our King.’

RIP Kingy x Kieron

VIDEO KING Without giving it much more thought, (as there are sure to be more I can’t think of) on first thinking, there are only two times I can remember exactly where I was when I heard of a player signing for Everton.

Remarkably, it was the same player both times, but never seemed that significant until I thought about it this week.

Scene 1 – April 1976, a kitchen in Aintree. I had returned home from school and my Mum told me that the radio said that Everton had signed Adam King from Luton. I hadn’t heard of Adam King, nor Andy for that matter and it was probably the first time for a while we had signed someone unknown, which wasn’t too impressive on transfer deadline day. This was in comparison with the recent big money buys of Latchford and Dobson. Even David Smallman signed from Wrexham came with me having some knowledge of him. Luton had been relegated the previous season after just one year in Division One and the programme from that game had no details on him. However I am sure the latest edition of Shoot would have confirmed that a player called King was in the Luton line up at the time.

Scene 2 – July 1982, another kitchen in Aintree (we had moved). This time I returned home from an early shift at work and my Mum, still in the kitchen, said that the radio (may have been the same one) had said that Everton had signed a new player and a special announcement was to made on the four o’clock news. It was a hot summer day, so I said I was going to sit outside in the late afternoon sun, but gave a pleading look, which happily resulted in me being able to take the radio out with me.

I dozed in a chair, thanks to the early start at work, whilst the likes of Captain Sensible and Kid Creole and the Coconuts would have vied with ‘Come on

Eileen’ to keep me awake. At times I probably daydreamed about our new signing, wildly imaging that a star of the 82 World Cup was on his way, Socrates? Zico? Boniek? Rossi?

But as it turned out, it was much better than that ! It was truly a surreal moment that I do remember well.

Unaware it had gone 4 and the news was on I was definitely drifting in and out of sleep when I heard the words that could have been either in dreamland or reality – ‘Andy King is an Everton player once more’! I was fully awake in seconds to ensure it was true – fantastic news and unlike the Scotland World Cup song of that year, this dream did have a happy and real ending!

So I probably spent the rest of the day, remembering why this re-signing meant so much.

Apparently it was after debuting for the reserves in a 6-5 loss at Coventry that Andy King made his debut for the first team at Goodison on Easter Monday v Middlesbrough. I was at that game and the final league game there on the Saturday v West Ham. However it was the midweek game at Derby County when he made his mark in those last three matches of the season. And of course, being too young to consider going, I heard of his two goals in a 3-1 victory on the trusted radio !

I had forgotten that winning these last three games meant the squad were treated to an end of season holiday, so the introduction of our new player must have gone down very well. Also that at the start of the month, just before we signed him, we had recorded five straight losses when losing to a very late goal at Anfield in a morning game due to the Grand National.

So a satisfactory signing already after just 3 games.

Everton’s next match at Goodison was a pre-season 6-0 drubbing of Home Farm, that I watched close to the Church from the Gwladys St terraces, the first time I think I watched us from there. And our wonder boy stepped up again by scoring a hat trick, a first team place for the coming season already certain.

I was in the Park End stand, one of 10,899 in attendance when on another bank holiday Monday, he scored his first official Goodison goal against Cambridge in the League Cup. August 30th and Wembley beckoned. Just over three months later, we were indeed in the quarter final of the competition but tasked with a very

formidable tie, Man United at Old Trafford. King had been instrumental in us beating Coventry 3-0 the round before, scoring twice. I remember being gutted when we drew United who had put seven past Newcastle in that round.

So far his goal scoring record was 4 in the league and the 3 in the cup, but that was to change with cup goals taking over on December 1st 1976. This time I didn’t listen on the radio as I intended to watch the Midweek Match on ITV to see the highlights without knowing the score. My Dad did have the radio on downstairs and hearing him on the phone to my sister, I was sort of sure that it was going to be great viewing. It certainly was with Martin Dobson’s opener being added to by one in each half from King. Had only ever seen the goals since, but now thanks to someone having an early video, there are over 7 minutes of the highlights on ‘you tube’ and I never knew how close he was to a hat trick.

Despite the two great cup runs that season, the goals dried up with only three more in the league being added. To be honest, whilst he had looked untouchable under Billy Bingham, it didn’t instantly work out under Gordon Lee, but after a whirlwind twelve months, he was due a quiet spell.

Andy King was to play in every match the 77/78 season though. A special season when had it not been for Brian Clough we would have probably won the league. 11 goals came his way in all competitions, the most remembered ones can all be found on ‘you tube’ . Leicester 1 Everton 5 two goals, Everton 6 Coventry 0 a sweet left footed volley, Everton 4 Aston Villa, the opener in the third round FA Cup tie. There were also a couple of winning goals, in 1-0 home wins over Bristol City and Villa in the league.

78/79 and after winning player (or may have been young player) of the Rotterdam tournament with Feyenoord, Benfica and Bruges, we started with an away match at Chelsea on the opening day. There are twenty four minutes from match of the day of this on ‘You Tube’ Andy King’s winner after five minutes another well taken goal. At least those ambushed on the tube train home had something to be happy with that day. The King was on top form the opening months of the season adding another 7 goals by mid October, including a penalty v Wolves, that can be seen on ‘You Tube’ as of course can his next goal.

It was 28th October 1978 and I didn’t use my stand season ticket, instead wanting to watch from the Street End. I was on the top part, half way between church and centre for what turned out to be a glorious afternoon. When his strike went in down at the other end it felt like I jumped up and down for ever. There was no way we weren’t going to win after that as we had outplayed them and watching the highlights again it seems like only last week. The only thing I would change was that it was half term at school the following week and I had to wait to wear my ‘Andy is

our King’ badge with pride. But the fourteen minutes of highlights are priceless.

There are twenty six minutes available of our 4-1 defeat of Bristol City in February, significant that we went top of the league for the first time since 1970, courtesy of the only competitive match hat trick scored by Andy King. It was a true hat trick too, header, left foot then right foot. He played up front that day and maybe should have done so more in his career.

The return derby was midweek so no cameras to see a second half equaliser after we had gone one down.

And the following season there was a strike so no cameras captured his third goal in consecutive derbies, a second at Anfield. There were ten goals in total that season, the most remembered being in a 10 win at the Baseball Ground in August, We had lost our opening two games and though I don’t really recall the goal I do recall that it was special and great to be there to see it.

79/80 had been a poor season though with changes inevitable. Come the start of the next campaign Mc Mahon, Hartford and Stanley were the preferred midfield trio. Long time partner Martin Dobson had departed twelve months earlier and the writing was on the wall that King would be following soon. But did we want him to be sold – no. I was in the stand at Blackpool for a league cup tie Sept 3rd and we bumped into Andy King afterwards pleading with him not to leave as the rumours were suggesting. ‘I’m not going anywhere’ he said, but looking almost tearful, sadly he was going to QPR very shortly afterwards.

So his return in July 1982 was celebrated by all Everton fans, certainly with the reception he got on the pre season tour to Bruges. And also scoring I think our final goal in a 5-0 win over Villa in our first home game. He scored 13 goals and was in fine form before his season was cut short by a bad challenge from Sunderland’s Munro.

In fact sadly his career was cut short by that foul for he was never the same player again.

Sad that he was never part of the squad that conquered everyone just over two years from that incident.

Sad that he has now left us for good, just when he planned to return to live in Liverpool and would have been a regular at Goodison.

There was a song ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ out during his career. In fact at the time of another heroic act that gained him is legendary status when Emlyn Hughes ended up on the Goodison turf, nearly forgot to mention that. Anyway, along with the memories in my head, these ‘You Tube’ clips mean that video keeps alive my Radio Star. RIP Andy King Adrian Thomas

SOUND CITY What's Sound City you ask? Oh please keep up. Sound City is Liverpool's annual city centre music festival and conference. We asked if anyone out there in readerland would like to review it for us and first to put their hands up were Robert Gavin and Matthew Loughlin. Photos by John Johnson.

Forget them Kopite friggin' ships last bank holiday, the real attraction in the city was the newly located Sound City at Bramley Moore Dock.

Like many punters I wanted to see if the bold move to make the festival a more traditional, one site affair would pay off.

Out with the old venue-to-venue trawling and in with the pungent aroma of the Dock Road (you could only smell it on your way there).

Several stages (both indoor and outdoor) coupled with stunning views of the city skyline created a surprisingly picturesque hive of activity and, thanks to the weather holding out, helped create a successful festival that can surely build and become stronger.

Aside from the new site, Sound City is always a good excuse to have a (ÂŁ4.50) bevy and go and see some live music. Here's my

highlights from the multitude of bands and artists who performed: Friday I'm going to level with you here, I wasn't really there too long on the Friday. A combination of being knackered from work and not being that fussed about Friday's line-up saw me make an early dart. I did, however, manage to scoff some pizza, see a lad in a gas-mask play violin and watch a brilliantly entertaining Canadian hip-hop group. I didn't catch their name but they really got the crown going and delighted the locals by donning North Face attire.

I then caught a bit of mediocre stuff from the band Everything Everything before making the 10 minute trudge back to Sandhills and back home.

My mates, Paddy and Eve stuck around for SWANS who were 'dead loud and their songs lasted ages'. I know, I know, move over NME!

Saturday Weather really was a make or break factor for this festival and a scorching Saturday really did the organisers an almighty favour.

Sundowners - probably the favourite new band I saw over the course of proceedings.

Despite playing in town on what seems like a weekly basis this was my debut watching the Wirral band and they nailed a well attended early slot on the main stage. The two female lead singers have voices so good Sir Michael Head asked them to help him out at a recent Manchester gig. Try and see these guys if you haven't already.

Serpent Power - another Wirralian band (there's a theme developing here) followed the Sundowners on the main stage and played another upbeat and tight set as the crowd basked in the sun. Ian Skelly, of Coraldrummer fame, is the lead singer of this band and sounded very like his brother James who

headed over to the small but already bouncing tent that inhabited Kenny's finest; Tea Street Band.

fronted The Coral. It's worth mentioning that the sheer volume and quality of bands coming from the Wirral at the moment goes to show just how inspiring and influential that band were over the water.

The Flaming Lips - let's face it, these guys were never going to disappoint were they?

With the crowd suitably liquored up Wayne Coyne and his mad mates did the business. Playing their biggest hits, firing confetti, a big balloon that spelt out 'Fuck Yeah Liverpool' and Wayne doing his trademark zorbing into the crowd (Google it, Grandad).

A proper headliners set that reach a crescendo with closing song 'Do You Realize?' left me in a good enough mood to head back to town in the longer-thanyou-think walk. Excellent.

Sunday With the match clashing with the Sunday afternoon acts I was faced with the quandary; head straight there after the match or leave the match early to watch Bill Ryder-Jones if the match is shite?...

Needless to say the match was that bad I made it in plenty of

time to see Bill. He played a mixture of his 'older' stuff as well as the higher tempo, louder new material which unsurprisingly went down a treat. My favourite of his newies was Catherine & Huskisson named after the famous pair of roads, it really is a rasper. Notably Bill left his piano at home and played guitar throughout the whole set which only served to highlight just how talented he is on the instrument.

Bravo William, much better than watching Distin's lap of honour.

Tea Street Band - after watching The Cribs (a band who need to start acting their age) and a few minutes of the the delightful Belle & Sebastian I

First thing I noticed was that it was bloody packed in there and EVERYBODY was dancing.

When it comes to closing a festival and having a party these boys really know how do it. Their new songs, sprinkled in between their debut album stuff, really connected with sweat-soaked crowd. The pick of their set was the fully instrumental Fiesta, a Balearic infused anthem that transported us all from beside the Mersey to the White Isle. A triumphant ending to the whole weekend.

In summary, it'd be easy to criticise a newly relocated festival and, yes, the bog queues were long and there was a completely redundant set of fairground rides but people need to get behind events like this in the hope they grow and attract more acts to play the city. In my eyes Sound City's future is bright. Get there next year!

Bloody hell, see how positive I am when I'm not writing about Everton!?!

Gav

Now here's Matty...

Every year it’s the same tedious process; “coming to Sound City Matty?” “Nah, applied to play it haven’t I, gonna hang on and see how that goes” and every year comes that “thanks but no thanks” e-mail for whatever band I’m currently in, and by that point, early bird prices are long gone and I’m too friggin skint (and probably more than a little bitter) and I swerve it. And so it was this year. I was warned it’d be particularly tough for local acts this year, but I still, like the eternal optimist waited, hoping against hope, new band, new chance, only to be dealt the inevitable blow. Once a blue.

Anyway, I digress – my band didn’t get picked, but this year, the lineup was just too good – the nose too pretty to cut off to spite the face. Or something like that.

For one reason or another however I couldn’t make the Friday – I checked in with folks there and was told The Vaccines were very Vaccine-y and Swans were very Swan-y (“like a cult for middle-aged men”) and played a 2 and a half hour set.. friggin hell, I like them as much as anyone, but 2 and a half hour Swans set on a Friday night? Heavy stuff, man.

Anyway, come Saturday and suitably stocked up I headed straight for the Baltic Stage for R. Seiliog on the back of a recommendation and was very quickly very glad I did. A minimalist set up, one guitar, lots of knobs (aye aye) and a drummer side on (always a belter of a look) delivered a hypnotic yet melodic, instrumental set.

Influences were on show, namely Neu! and perhaps a smattering of Animal Collective, but never in a

derivative way. File under: get into.

big crowd… well it is Lennon’s son isn’t it.

After that, it was over to the main Atlantic Stage for Serpent Power. Being made up of remains of The Coral and Zutons, that sound seemed hard to break away from, and although the Byrd/CSNY melodies and harmonies were tight, nothing really caught my attention long enough to warrant a second thought. Nice enough like.

Close your eyes at times and you’d swear Sean Lennon was his arl fella. And it’s probably harsh that that’s the main talking point of the set, but the music was decent enough – though a Syd Barrett Floyd cover ensued, meaning we’d truly hit peak psych. It was during this set that a mate and I pontificated that the ‘Tame Impala’ sound is very much ‘in’ and as such, the amount of bands lashing a phaser pedal over the guitar sounds and singing vaguely psychedelic lyrics has sky-rocketed. Too much of a good thing and all that.

Back to the Baltic for Hooton Tennis Club – a band I’d heard many a thing about but not a note of. My mate buggered off after the first line, suitably unimpressed and seeking medicinal remedies, but I quite enjoyed them – it appeared most people in the ol’ warehouse did too. They have the slacker thing going for them, and it’s clear they’ve heard the Modern Lovers’ first album, but you can’t reinvent the wheel every day can you.

All We Are and Cavalry were up next – quite decent and not my cuppa tea retrospectively (Cavalry in particular were just trying that bit too hard to be The National) and then THE GOATTS drew a

Stealing Sheep are doing more than well for themselves, but it wasn’t until their last song that anything grabbed me – excellent harmonies throughout though.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra delivered a polished set to a rammed Baltic warehouse, their Stevie Wonder influenced sound going down well to a responsive crowd.

Next up the Flaming Lips. Get in. But before that, one thing.

Liverpool is a musical city. We all know that, we’re told it enough aren’t we – sodding hell, we tell it

to the rest of the world enough.

So why is it that Liverpool crowds are becoming increasingly notorious for being either small or half-arsed? I could write a whole article on that alone, but I’ll save that whinge for another time, my point is meant to be leading up to the disappointing crowd that met the Flaming Lips.

It wasn’t Steve Coogan at the Echo bad, but when Wayne fuggin Coyne is firing confetti, dressed in a rubber green and yellow suit with a frog lilo strapped to this head, climbing into a giant inflatable ball and throwing a huge balloon that strokes our collective ego (reading ‘Fuck Yeah Liverpool’), not to mention playing mind bogglingly good music, and he is greeted with a ‘meh’, you do wonder don’t you. And it didn’t go unnoticed – “come on, this is Liverpool!” our bemused leader reasoned. There was even an onstage proposal for feck’s sake.

Ah well. They were fuckin boss though. And it doesn’t really get much better than Do You Realize??? does it? You can only hope that everyone was grinning, if not cheering.

Refreshed and restocked, onto round 2 and the Sunday. I caught the end of The Probes who were very good, but again, very Tame Impala – but if you’re gonna do it, do it well. And they did it well – in particular their rhythm section was impressive and they are still apparently very young. The bastards.

Right, I’m in danger of trespassing into Pseud’s Corner with the next, so I’ll try and reign it in. We all know Bill RyderJones is good. Very good. But frigging hell what a set. Flanked by his band and members of By The Sea, Bill opened his set with a storming version of the title

track of A Bad Wind... and it was glorious. The songs on that album are delicate, stripped back and sparse, yet amped up, they somehow seemed even more fragile and vulnerable, like they could crack at any moment, lost beneath the fuzz.

The sound was a mix of Galaxie 500 and almost Spiritualized at moments, with typical idiosyncratic lyrics detailing train journeys to Birkenhead and the names of streets we all know. It’s easy to forget too just how good a guitar player he is – I was informing my long-suffering better half how in The Coral he was one of the best guitar players I’ve seen live, but was nonetheless impressed by his playing even after years of watching The Coral. Anyway, that’s all immaterial until we come to ‘Daniel’. Written for his brother, even now I’m nearly welling up thinking of that song.

Christ. If it’s on the new album, and the album is as electric as the set, all bets are off. Nice one Bill.

Gaz Coombes was the name on the lineup that clinched it for me.

Very skint but very tempted, after hearing his new album ‘Matador’, the overdraft took the hit. I’m probably running out of space here, but safe to say, his set was fucking. Boss. His new stuff lent itself very well to the setting, The Girl Who Fell To Earth and 20/20 particular highlights and ‘Dan’-esque shouts of ‘go ed Gaz’ suggest Liverpool gave him the two thumbs up. Seriously, get his new album.

After last night’s lacklustre response to the headliners, Sound City needed to go out on a high. Belle & Sebastian are a band I like a lot, but never got round to seeing and my word did they wear the headline shirt well.

A healthy smattering of (rather quite good) new stuff and classics (‘I’m a Cuckoo’, ‘Boy With The Arab Strap’) with mass stage invasions and guest tambourine players from the crowd ensured we all left with smiles on our faces. And then, to top it off, Stuart Murdoch jokes about Steviee Geee la and they finish with – what else - The Blues are Still Blue. Fuckin get in. Tell you what as well, Everton have missed a massive trick not adopting that one.

A late night session in the Bramley-Moore, raiding the jukebox and free scran and then it’s all over, back to ours, to spend Monday and Tuesday with my old pals the Shakes and the Fear. Worth every braincell.

As this is my first WSAG contribution, couldn’t help myself, here’s two lists. Nice one Sound City: 1. The Bramley-Moore. My favourite secret pub reaches the masses. Hipster, me?

2. The speedboat tour of the docks. Fuckin ace.

3. BRJ telling people who cheered during the pause in Wild Swans “you made tits of yourselves Liverpool” then fluffing the very next guitar line.

4. The location. The docks man. History.

5. American Pizza Slice.

Not so-Sound City: 1. £4.50 a pint?! Thank God for hipflasks and half-arsed searches.

2. Queues for the bogs. To be expected I guess.

3. FOUR POUND FIFTY?!

4. No stage times anywhere. Or directions.

5. No, seriously, £4.50?!

blue-tone.co.uk

WSAG June Playlist Shake Your Rump ‐ Beastie Boys Golden Afro ‐ Pete Heller & Terry Farley Dominas ‐ Carl Craig Club Silencio ‐ Lazy Fat People

Eating Glue (with Mutado Pintado) ‐ Paranoid London Do Me (Frank Wiedemann Orchestra Remix)‐ Tiefschwarz feat. Khan Love Never Felt So Good (Frankie Knuckles Extended)‐ Michael Jackson That's The Way Love Is (1989 Extended Mix) ‐ Ten City Shout To The Top (Club 69 Vocal Mix)‐ Fire Island feat Loleatta Holloway

Keep On Movin (New York Mix)‐ Soul II Soul Young Americans‐ David Bowie Party Fears Two ‐ Associates Fiesta ‐ The Tea Street Band These City Streets ‐ Paul Weller Genuflection‐ Errors Something Like You (Quartet) ‐ Michael Head & The Strands Going My Way ‐ Paul Weller Emily Says ‐ By The Sea Kissing Things ‐ The 6ths (with Sarah Cracknell) Something Like You ‐ Bill Ryder‐Jones Seven Seas ‐Echo & the Bunnymen Tin Foil Valley (7" Mix) ‐ Angel Pie The Blues Are Still Blue ‐ Belle and Sebastian Through the Knowledge of Those Who Observe Us ‐ Errors

For more music follow WSAG on Spotify and This is My Jam

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A selection of the things we like that might interest you SUPER FURRY ANIMALS – THE ALBERT HALL MANCHESTER 07/05/2015 To say the return of the Super Furry Animals was highly anticipated is something of an understatement.

From the moment the teasing trailers were unleashed, social media was ablaze with speculation as to what it could all mean.

Not long afterwards we got our answer, the band were reforming and touring for the first time in six years in support of the re-released Welsh language masterpiece Mwng.

WSAG has always regarded the Super Furries as a unique band that time would come to regard as ground-breaking and highly influential, and for the current generation of tokers and shakers, they seem to have become this generation’s Pink Floyd. Their talent was emphasized during their six year hiatus with a dizzying array of solo projects.

Gruff Rhys has released a number of excellent solo albums imbued with songs of poetry, fun and intelligence, he has written a book and also made a couple of fascinating documentaries and has therefore been the most prolific…just.

Cian Ciairan released two solo albums, the latter dripping with political fury, and the delightful debut album by Zefur Wolves, with his partner Baby Queens’ Estelle Ios up front and singing beautifully.

Brother Daf got together The Earth and created two albums with the astonishing vocals of Dionne Bennett. Guto got together Gulp and Bunf the Pale Blue Dots to illustrate their own musical direction when released from the SFA Leviathan.

When the dates were announced tickets were snapped up in mega quick time showing that there was a real appreciation for the band that maybe they did not totally believe themselves. And so they embarked on a sold out mini tour and WSAG managed to catch them in Manchester (thanks to

some kind souls!), and so it was we found ourselves in the Brewdog next door listening to a myriad of Welsh accents swarming this part of the city.

Having never been to the Albert Hall before we were impressed by the building itself, and like the rest of the sold out crowd, couldn't wait for the Super Furry Animals to test its acoustics.

The familiar thudding beat of Touch Sensitive indicated the arrival of the band, resplendent in white outfits, and the reception from the crowd was gob-smacking.

Six years of waiting encapsulated in one magnificent roar. Rings Around the World, Do or Die and Neo Consumer launched the show in triumphant fashion, mining songs from the band’s fifth, third and eighth album respectively, before the early hectic pace gave way to the beautiful If You Don’t Want Me to Destroy You from debut album Fuzzy Logic.

Demons was all stately majesty, as horns wafted down from the heavens (literally) accompanying the glorious noise from down below.

The jaunty steel drum smile of Northern Lights followed and whilst the tempo remained the same the language changed for the first delivery from Mwng, the backing vocal drenched Ymaelodi

Ar Ymylon. Y Gweneb Iau, Nythod Cacwn and Pan Ddaw’r Wawr formed a slab of Welsh wonder before a return to English with the opus that is Run Christian Run. So far so perfect. Gruff’s voice was wonderful all night but Run Christian Run is a real showcase for his range, and his howling outro backed by Cian’s mesmerizing background bleeps and bangs was jaw-dropping.

There was hardly a break during the first hour of the set and each song was interspersed by a wild acknowledgement from the crowd.

This truly felt like an epic return, a homecoming far from home.

Many SFA aficionados rank Hello Sunshine as up there with one of their best songs and so it was dusted down and given voice alongside the beautifully haunting Hometown Unicorn.

The first time I ever saw Zoom live, I was let's say a little worse for wear, and the space age sounds and backing animation had me convinced aliens were landing. The effect was similar tonight; it is a truly majestic tune.

From one of their later songs, the band retreated back towards the very beginning with the schizophrenic marvel Arnofio/Glo in the Dark and from here on in the set really took flight. Ice Hockey Hair, Gwreiddiau Dwfn and the mind crushing Slow Life

illustrated the widescreen nature of the Super Furries' back catalogue.

The summer Number One that never was but should have been; Juxtaposed With U, was immaculate and signalled the start of a fiery triumvirate comprising The International Language of Screaming, Golden Retriever and the barmy madness of Receptacle for the Respectable.

Still the crowd was roaring, their appetite unsated by what had thus far been a fantastic trawl throughout the gamut of the SFA back catalogue.

The lovely Fire in My Heart tempered their enthusiasm somewhat before the techno freakout of Mountain People (a biographical song about the political wastelands of North Wales, one that once more looms closer tonight as the Conservatives go about their jackbooted march to another five year term).

Given the early signs of General Election misery, it was more than apt that tonight should end with the fierce political agitation that is The Man Don’t Give a Fuck, and its furious assault on the senses positively fizzled tonight.

The crowd had not stopped moving all night but this was something else. Sheer madness greeted the return of the yetis as the Super Furry Animals reminded everyone present that this was a vital and still totally relevant band.

This did not feel like the end, but a new beginning, and if they do get around to completing a new album, those who didn't get them first time around can enjoy both the fun and the fury of a band that has been truly and sorely missed.

THIS BOY: A MEMOIR OF A CHILDHOOD, BY ALAN JOHNSON There's many reasons why Alan Johnson's childhood memoir, This boy could bring a tear to the eye.

Not least the awful conditions he and his elder sister had to endure throughout a miserable childhood in 1950/60's West London but more so than anything, the saddest, underlining fact in all is that Alan’s mother, Lilly didn't live long enough to witness the successful man that he was to go on to become.

Brought up in a 1950's Notting Hill slum (later deemed unfit for human habitation) long before the area's well documented onset of gentrification, colourful carnivals and Hugh Grant.

At times This Boy reads more like a something from a Victorian age rather than the mid 20th century with the family living without food, gas or electricity at one particularly low point during a freezing English winter.

Heavy reading indeed.

Johnson's seldom seen father Steve disappears from the family home early on leaving behind a young family on the brink of destitution, living a daily hand to mouth existence and when Alan's mother dies aged just fortytwo it's left to his sixteen year old sister Linda to care for both Alan and herself.

It's Linda who is the real hero of this story. Single handedly looking after her younger brother and also managing to talk the council out of separating the siblings and putting them into care, instead finding them a council flat south London and ultimately a new beginning.

The only light relief for the Johnson's comes in the occasional holiday to Liverpool. Lilly, a scouser having moved to the capital after joining the NAFFI returns occasionally to visit family.

There's a fantastic piece in the book about a young Alan being taken by his favourite uncle, Harry (a diehard Evertonian marooned in Anfield) to Goodison Park to see the 1963 reigning champions demolish Nottingham Forest 6-1 but I’m not going to give that story away here.

Given Johnson's fortunes in later life there's an overall, if unintentional message in the book of no matter how humble your beginnings may be there's nothing that can prevent you from making the best of life.

Not short on humour, music and plenty of football This Boy is a fantastic read. As someone around here said recently....Get involved!

Ste Porter

5 TELEVISION THINGS WE'VE BEEN WATCHING 1. Peter Kay's Car Share - this just got better and better as what seemed like a flimsy story turned into something akin to heartrendering. I loved it. Sian Gibson was the real star though.

Outstanding.

2. Britain's Got Talent - oh come on... loosen those cool pants and sit back and enjoy. Who do you think won the dresses? Really, I much prefer the other one.

3. North West Tonight - we have a little crush on the lovely Beccy Meehan. (pictured above trapped in Frank Sidebottom's giant doll's house.)

4. The Affair - classy drama on Sky Atlantic. A bit slow at first as most of these things are but its picking up now.

5. No Offence - The In-laws love this. Keep telling us that we should watch it. We've got them all sky+ed so we've got something to look forward to.

THE HOLY TRINITY AND BEYOND BY PHIL THOMSON If you’ve been with us for a while you’ll know the work of Phil Thomson. In fact a couple of the pieces that appear in this booklet first appeared in one form or another in WSAG. Phil (or Teece) is a long time reader and buddy of the fanzine. We used to call him

The Clock because we knew that when he turned up on the island to buy his copy of WSAG we knew it was time to pack up. Five to three wasn’t in it – it was more like two minutes to. Never any earlier, never any later.

This book is a self-produced and printed little gem. It contains eight short stories of various away trips over the years and is enjoyable from start to finish.

We are sure all of you will love the story of when he went to Tottenham away in 1979 and inadvertently found himself involved in a jewelry heist and, more remarkably found himself arrested twice in one day.

Teece is a good lad and well known amongst Evertonians. So much so I expect this book will sell out very quickly.

In fact, he was selling some in St Luke’s before the last game of the season and with barely any publicity, he was selling copies hand over fist.

You should buy one. Thankfully you won’t have to wait until the start of next season now as he’s set orders through up a PayPal account. If you are UK based

simply send £6.50 to thtandbeyond@hotmail.com and he will send a copy out to you. If you live abroad, contact him either at the email address or via @thomsonjack on Twitter and he’ll sort out the postage with you.

go on too much about it. But, it’s an excellent read and well worth a fiver.

As we’ve said, it’s a great little book, written in a fanzine style by an Evertonian, for Evertonians.

http://www.harvestfromthedeep.com

HARVEST FROM THE DEEP Despite our digital conversion, we still love a magazine and thankfully there’s plenty of them about these days. In fact, we seem to come across a new one almost every month.

This month, it’s Harvest From The Deep. A beautifully produced magazine from the north east.

They describe themselves as “a magazine born out of sport, fashion, music and everything else we turn to in order to escape the mundanity and stresses of working life”.

Can’t go far wrong there.

I think the first issue is now sold out but it featured an interview with Steve White, ex of The Style Council, Paolo Hewitt, Neil Sheasby from Stone Foundation as well as various pieces on non league football, especially North Shields (to whom some of the profits from the mag go to).

There’s also a wonderful piece on skinhead culture.

Still if you can’t get it, I shouldn’t

You can keep in touch with what they’re doing by following them on Twitter, @HFTDMagazine or by going to their website

BOSS MAGAZINE While we are mentioning magazines, we should pause and mention that Boss magazine has decided to call it a day. After only 16 issues. Bloody lightweights.

The magazine was nominally a Liverpool FC fanzine although they once joked that there was more about their club in WSAG than there was in Boss.

Actually there was a few bits about Liverpool FC. We know because we had to turn the pages.

Everything else in the mag was always very readable, especially their music coverage and their pieces on everyday life in the City.

They did suck up a bit too much to the likes of Jegsy Dodd and Kevin Sampson but we’ll let that pass.

There were copies of the last issue in Weavers Door but you'll have to be quick.

Alternatively you can get a copy via Distant Echo. http://www.distantecho.co.uk/pr oducts/boss-mag-issue-number-16 ‘IN THE ALL-NIGHT CAFE’

BY STUART DAVID We highlighted the imminent publication of this book by former Belle & Sebastian bassist Stuart David a few mags back and it has now been published. The book is in a similar vein to Pogues

Associate Alan Rankine.

You really do feel like a fly on the wall as he relives this era from the mid 90’s and it is almost moving as he describes the inevitable ups and downs as they try to progress from within the local music scene of Glasgow.

accordionist James Fearnley’s excellent ‘Here Comes Everybody’ in that it reads like a novel but it describes how the excellent Belle & Sebastian came together and were able to release their first LP ‘Tigermilk.’

David describes how he first met Stuart Murdoch whilst at a local authority musicians’ course at a place called ‘Beatbox’ and then he goes on to chronicle the wonderful set of coincidences that led to the group forming, almost by accident and how they then went on to be able to write and release a long playing record with the support of students on a record management course. David is a novelist and the quality of his charming writing shines throughout this lovely book whether it be describing how important the social security system was back then in assisting budding artists with their development or the chaotic and disorganised environment that was Beatbox or the first incarnation of the band called ‘Lisa Helps the Blind’ consisting of Murdoch, David and a mad sounding S&M loving fella part-time musician called Alistair or playing their own slowed down version of ‘Party Fears Two’ at a mad gig in France for a grateful but emotional ex-

Most of all, David is able to convey the personal contradiction he feels between his joy at playing Murdoch’s fantastic songs as a professional musician and becoming part of a band with a clear vision whilst recognising that it isn’t HIS band and HIS vision which is what he had dreamt of when getting into music so seriously, a contradiction which undoubtedly contributed to him leaving the band in 2000 before they got even more successful. All through he recognises (as do others) the immense talent of Stuart Murdoch and it is clear that from the get go Murdoch knew where he wanted this group to go.

All in all this book works whether you are a Belle & Sebastian fan or just interested in how bands form but it is also an entertaining memoir of an ordinary fella with dreams of becoming a musician and how bewildering it was when it started to come true…Hopefully he will continue the story with the years post ‘Tigermilk’ but even if not, he’s written a beguiling and enchanting account of the formation and early development of what became a great band and it is well worth a read.

‘SATURNS PATTERN’ – PAUL WELLER In the mid noughties, Paul Weller’s critical reputation was as low as it had been since the arse end of The Style Council.

After releasing a covers LP ‘Studio 150,’ 2005’s ‘As Is Now’ was popular with his legion of

dedicated supporters and contained some great songs like ‘From The Floorboards up’ and ‘Come On/Let’s Go’ but to many it appeared to be more of the same and for the critics this smacked of what they had lazily (in typical musical journo style) termed ‘Dadrock.’

In addition for some eternal punks he had never been forgiven for breaking up The Jam despite the soulful brilliance of a lot of The Style Council’s early offerings and the boss tunes on much of his first few solo LP’s.

Something must have snapped in Weller because as he hit his 50’s in 2008 he released the double LP ’22 Dreams’ which was a marked change in musical direction from most of his LP’s after the seminal ‘Stanley Road.’

It embraced different sounds and had a myriad of musical genres contained in the album and was incredibly well received not just by his fans but by the critics and suitably reinvigorated he followed this up with ‘Wake Up The Nation’ and ‘Sonik Kicks’ over the next few years both of which continued this experimentation but all still imbued with Weller’s songwriting craft and ear for a tune.

‘Saturns Pattern’ therefore promised a lot and given that it has been rarely off whatever device I

play music on these days, it has, to my ears, certainly delivered.

From the opening psychedelic bars of ‘White Sky’ through the joyous, bouncing and uplifting title track, it is an album that is full of tunes that are unpredictable in nature and which fuse loads of different influences and which you want to hear again and again.

It works best listened to as a proper LP and not dipping in and out of songs although if I had to single out one track it would be the sprawling ‘These City Streets’ a love song not just about a relationship but a city itself.

Most artists of Weller’s era have tended to stick to the same tried and tested genre knowing that it sells out arenas and will appeal to their well healed fan base or have descended into farce.

Weller (who has admitted he was perhaps narrow minded in his musical taste in the past) however is seemingly now obsessed with new sounds and new genres and if he continues in this vein post

‘Saturns Pattern’ we hopefully will get to hear more even brilliant music from a fella approaching his 40th year making records.

DIXIE SOCKS A FURTHER UPDATE No we haven't forgotten…

We talked about it last time. We're going to talk about it again.

WSAG, with more than a little help and expertise from our friends in the Sock Council have been working on a snazzy pair of socks for all you Evertonians out there. (As we said last time, if truth be told, they've done everything and we're just constantly hassling them about when they are going to

be ready.

Fear not. The final product will be available very shortly and they are worth the wait. We will let you all about it through our mailing list and on our various social media outlets. How modern are we?

You should also make sure you follow @SockCouncil to make sure that you don't miss out.

You can find more information on the website: http://www.sockcouncil.com/ and finally...

If you're in a band and you want to send us some songs, please do. If you've written a book, please let us see it. In fact if you do anything you think we might be interested in, send it in. We love getting stuff through the post and we'll try our best to be nice.

Join in. You're amongst friends here. It's what it's all about.

Send anything and everything to whenskiesaregrey@btinternet.com

WHEN SKIES ARE GREY is an independent Everton fanzine. Written by supporters for supporters.

The fanzine was first published in 1988 and produced 175 paper issues.

Last season the fanzine went digital and is now only available on your tablet, phone or PC. WSAG used to be only on sale around the ground on match days. It's now on sale all over the world. Any time, any place, anywhere.

WSAG is now produced monthly.

You can subscribe for next season for ÂŁ20.00 and you will receive 11 issues over a year. Subscriptions are available here: http://www.freewebstore.org/WSAG/Digital_Subs/cat150030_1892561.aspx

On subscription we will send you confirmation and full instructions on how to download WSAG. As part of your subscription you will also receive all digital back issues free.

WSAG is a celebration of all things Evertonian. A celebration of this thing of ours. It's a shared experience and we want to make it an inclusive as possible. Join us. You can see a sample free copy here: http://www.exacteditions.com/read/wsag If there's anything else you want to know about WSAG contact Graham at whenskiesaregrey@btinternet.com.

Onward Evertonians. Please take a pic of this page on your tablet or phone and share across Twitter and Facebook or email to your Evertonian mates.

The twenty first digital issue of When Skies are Grey (E021) was produced in June 2015 by Graham Ennis and Phil Redmond and Nick Jones with invaluable assistance from Kieron and Thomas Regan.

Cover by Thomas Regan (with a little nod to Peter Saville) Sound City photos - John Johnson http://www.johnjohnson-photography.com/ Thanks to the following for their words, pictures and stuff: Jonathan, Greg, Lee Molton, PJ, Benny Blue, Terry Smith, Nick Brown, Mike Murphy, Adrian Thomas, Paddy Howlin, Stan Getz, Joe Ainsworth, Robert Gavin, Matthew Loughlin, @andyisourking, Ste Porter, Enclosure Boy, Mike Loftus, John McPartland, Paul Owens, Derek Carey Vernon, Paul Dempsey, Steve Lee, John Furlong, Richie Banks, Gary Campbell, Jamie Yates, Leigh Tindsley, Alfred Cooper, Darren Owens, Stu from Aintree, , Michael Pye, Mick Ord, Dave Fernandez, Nevmog, Derek Sullivan, David Pearsall, Carl Reid, Harvey Weewax, David Dodds, Andrew Skinner, Claire Sanders, Kieran Bell, Paul Burdett, Daniel Hughes, Paul Bennett, Andrew McEgan, Ken Pickett, Nick GMX, Gwladys, Wes Coles, TommyBoy, Oscar_, Mark Ellis, @sterushton, Scott Cookson, Dom Ashton, Paul Greensmith, sash, Phil Rathe, Steve Murphy, Phil Murphy, @_Sho_Nuff, @pablovana, @zinegreenzidane, tr calder, Alan McKeown and all those who have sent messages and tweets in the last month.

Thanks also to: All our subscribers, all at Exact, Seb @ Mundial, Reuven Fletcher, The Sock Council, Paul Gallagher, Steve from Blue Kipper, Si from NSNO, Neil and Joe from SOS1878, Paul from Toffeeweb, Barry from Toffee TV and Ped from Followtonians and Dave Swaffield.

As ever much love to: Julie, Louis and Ruby; Nikki, Danny and Lauren

The next digital issue will be uploaded: E022 around 05 July 2015