Every time I sit in the press box at Goodison Park my eye is drawn across the field to a hoarding at the front of the Lower Bullens Road Stand.
It was where the late, great Ray Wikins came and perched during a break in play when QPR played Everton in November 1993. Reports from the day say he actually signed an autograph before taking a corner. I don’t remember that, but I do recall him sitting and talking to the supporters as my father and I were there, a few rows back.
I’m not an Everton fan but I used to go occasionally when I was younger. It was 40 minutes from our house and Everton always played decent football. Or at least they tried to.
So I was there when Howard Kendall’s buccaneering team of future champions beat Sunderland 4-1 with that bravura performance in 1985 and, more sombrely, the foggy night Jim Beglin broke his leg in a Merseyside derby less than two years later.
I was even there on the day Efan Ekoku scored four in a 5-1 Norwich win. Some chap called Chris Sutton scored the other.
Everton currently sit bottom of the Premier League after losing their first two games of the season
They look set to face another relegation battle in the their last season at Goodison Park
Sean Dyche has done an admirable job so far, but faces mounting odds after a disappointing transfer window
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It is because, at least in part, of these memories of a throbbing, humming Goodison Park that I feel so sad when I look at Everton right now.
That super old stadium — crammed in on all sides by houses, a school, a main road and a street of pubs and chip shops — still looks the same. It still points so unapologetically to that storied past.
But Everton won’t be playing there this time next year. They will have moved to what promises to be a quite stunning new home down by the water. But what will become of Everton during their final season in Liverpool? I really do shudder to think.
They play Wolves at home on Saturday and, after two games of the new Premier League season, are bottom of the table. Two games? Usually it means nothing but I think with Everton it means everything. 1-0 at home to Fulham and 4-0 away to Aston Villa are the numbers on the board so far.
Everton are a club that get so many things right. Off the field, they do as much for their community as just about any club in the land and more than most. But matters concerning the football often feel desperate these days. When their name crops up in the sports pages, it often tends to be bad news.
The Everton board, for example, still don’t feel its safe to attend matches. They have not done so since January. And yesterday, while defender James Tarkowski was defiantly trying to talk up the team’s prospects in an interview in The Times, it emerged potential investors from America had withdrawn from talks about taking a 25 per cent stake in the club.
Sean Dyche is the man who currently has the job of keeping Everton afloat while all this swirls around him. He was hired to keep Everton up last season and, on the last day, he did it. He averaged 1.16 points per game, which equates to a 44-point season. Given the circumstances, that was plenty good enough.
But Dyche was so successful all those years at Burnley because he was able to slowly build a squad capable of doing the things he wanted to do and of playing the way he wanted to play.
The Toffees are still without a clear striker after Dominic Calvert-Lewin picked up a facial injury
Everton will move to a spectacular new home, but it remains to be seen what state they will be in when they arrive
Ian Ladyman asks what will become of Everton’s last season at their famous old ground
He has no chance of doing that at Everton. He arrived on January 30 thinking he may be able to bring in a last minute centre forward. It didn’t happen.
This summer the club have been trying to sell fringe players to give their manager something — anything — to play with. The net result of that has been Ashley Young on a free, loanee Arnaut Danjuma from Spain and one buy, teenage striker Youssef Chermiti from Portugal, who is described as ‘for the future’.
So as he tries to avoid the same fate that has befallen Frank Lampard, Rafa Benitez, Marco Silva, Sam Allardyce, Ronaldo Koeman and Roberto Martinez — the sack — he is left to get a tune out of a squad he knows desperately needs an injection of energy, freshness and life.
Will Dyche manage it? I wouldn’t back against him, but he faces mounting odds. This season’s squad is worse than last season’s and that one almost went down. So go figure.
His best chance remains Dominic Calvert-Lewin, but the centre forward will be absent yet again on Saturday, this time with a facial injury.
Everton’s top league scorer last season was Dwight McNeill with seven. The year before it was the Brazilian Richarlison with 10. Calvert-Lewin’s contribution over those two campaigns? Seven.
So Evertonians will pray for their striker’s fitness and pray that Dyche can turn water if not quite into wine then something with a bit of life in it.
That stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock awaits. Leaving Goodison will be a wrench — another part of English football’s fabric will go and the city will be changed forever.
I only hope that Everton are still playing top flight football when they leave. Because if they aren’t I would have no great optimism about seeing them again any time soon.
Pacey Foden is flying under Pep
Phil Foden has been electric this season in a more central position than before
Watching Phil Foden paint magical pictures in a new central position for Manchester City against Newcastle was thrilling and reminded me of a lunch conversation from almost five years ago.
With Pep Guardiola resisting pressure to use a teenage Foden in his first team more regularly back in early 2019, the man who oversaw his early days at City had an explanation and also a prediction.
‘Philip is just lacking one thing,’ said Jim Cassell, head of City’s youth academy when Foden was discovered. ‘He just needs that next growth thing, that burst of pace to take him away from players. ‘The kind of pace that Lionel Messi has and Paul Gascoigne had. When that comes — and it will — you will see him fly.’
It is fair to say that yard of pace has arrived and the player Jack Grealish thinks is the most skillful at the club is indeed flying. Guardiola will have a decision to make when Kevin De Bruyne regains fitness. Cassell, meanwhile, was hurried out of the door by City 10 years ago.
It seemed odd then and it seems odd now.
Lionesses owe fans
It was not the England women’s team’s choice to leave Heathrow by the back door after they returned home from the World Cup. Nevertheless, it happened and it left an awful lot of young fans waiting for them in the arrivals hall feeling disappointed and disregarded.
England midfielder Georgia Stanway says the team will ‘connect with fans on social media’ but that does not feel good enough.
Fans waited at Heathrow to welcome back the Lionesses after they reached the World Cup final
Many were left disappointed as the players left quietly through the back door
As the 24-year-old said on This Morning, there is a game soon, against Scotland in Sunderland next month. An open training session — or some such public access — would feel about right.
Chris Wilder’s five years at Sheffield United ended bitterly in March 2021, but time heals.
Club owner Prince Abdullah said recently: ‘If I need a consultation now I would call Chris and ask. The promotion this year, some credit goes to Chris.’
In Paul Heckingbottom, United have a very good manager. If it doesn’t work out, though, who would the smart money be on?
