Royally Blue

There is an inherent hope within the fan base of Everton football club. A hope carried by history, by familial ties, by rivalry, by comraderie that flows through Goodison in one great wave of Grand Old Team and shows us passionately to the world. We are Everton and we refuse to be belittled.

I have been an Everton fan my whole life, seeing such highs as getting to the 2009 FA Cup final with David Moyes, and such lows as cheering for André Gomes. It has been a difficult year.

To many on the outside, it may seem Everton have everything possible to be a good side. Having players such as Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Anthony Gordon alongside the backing of Farhad Moshiri and the current development of a new stadium; it would seem there is a perfect storm brewing above Bramley-Moore dock.

Yet, I dreaded this season as it approached. There seemed to be the old feeling of malaise but this time not even the fans seemed to care. We were beyond upset, beyond angry; we had become indifferent. The season did not begin with the usual growing excitement that evidently ferments into a boiling anger as those expectations are derailed. I wondered what had happened to us.

In the August, just as the season looked above us, I lost my grandfather. He was a lifelong Everton fan. He lay in bed, knowing he was going to die, and discussed the future of the club. Where they were going wrong, how they could improve.

Perhaps this played a part in my own disinterest. I was emotionally destroyed. There was nothing left for me to give. No anger, no misery, no joy. I was a husk.

My grandfather did not leave me much to remember him by, but he left me Everton, and as the season progressed, as Everton became worse and worse, I was revitalised. I got behind them for the first time in years. Truly. I screamed through every game. I celebrated Alex Iwobi’s goal against Newcastle with my brother as if we had been rescued from death itself. I talked madly with my dad about the club, these were our only conversations not coloured by grief. I began to realise, we may not have my grandpa anymore, but we have each other. We have Everton.

The second to last game of the season we had Crystal Palace. We needed to win to stay up, having Arsenal on the last day and our opponents having much easier opposition. I watched with my brother. By half time we were 2-0 down. The game seemed beyond hope. We were beaten. My Everton, our Everton had finally succumbed to relegation. I was heartbroken and did not want to watch the second half. I was defeated.

Even when Michael Keane’s goal went in to make it 2-1 I didn’t believe. But I watched with bated breath as Richarlsion scored the equaliser. Surely, we wouldn’t come back, not 28 years after we had last done it against Wimbledon. It seemed to good to be true and, as the minutes wiled away, I believed it might be. Until Calvert-Lewin, a man who had been injured for the majority of the season, scored the goal that kept Everton in the Premier League.

I almost wept with joy. The fans stormed the pitch, I shouted at the television, ‘ITS NOT OVER YET! ITS NOT OVER YET!’

I sat through the last few minutes of stoppage time and when the whistle went the relief was palpable.

All I could think of was my Grandpa Joe, if he were here, smiling broadly, overjoyed for his club. Yes, football is just a game. Sometimes it goes to far into the negative emotions it can bring out and I find myself frustrated to be a football fan. But then there are times like this. When the reason it means so much is so clear and evident and pure.

Often people ask me why I support a team like Everton. Why not trade in the hard times for one of the big teams? Why not see what victory tastes like instead? It is not so simple. Everton are my childhood, they have a deep connection with me and I with them. They are my club, my brother’s club, my dad’s club, my grandpa’s club. There is no club I would rather support than them.