Home Atone

Derby day at Goodison. For the last time.

When I was a kid I used to have a recurring nightmare, in which I was rudely strapped to a chair situated at the rancid dinner table of the house from Tobe Hooper’s ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’…and, just my luck, it was meal time (disclaimer: I was a weird kid).

Except, in my dream, it wasn’t the inbred cannibalistic Sawyer clan serving up stomach-churning chow that looked like it should be swilled down swiftly with Chang at 16.00.

No. It was an entirely different coterie of sadistic shitkickers inflicting untold trauma upon an impressionable and unconscious young mind.

Still inbred, still cannibalistic, but not red necks.

No, these were Red SHITES.

The Cook — whose practised persona of serious player and reliable number 1 would be exposed as nothing more than mere projection as his mask of sanity frequently slipped to reveal a jittery, flaky nut job — was Bruce Grobbelaar.

The hitchhiker — demented wiry dosser who looked like he loved to dig into a bit of roadkill while bringing up the rear — was Mark ‘Lawro’ Lawrenson.

Leatherface — a big squawking simpleton built like SpongeBob SquarePants on steroids, but capable of alternating between lumbering and lethal — was Jan Molby.

And there, propped up at the head of the table, was the miserable, shrivelled up, scrotum-faced, near mummified body of the old mingebag bloodsucker they called ‘Grandpaw’, but who blues knew as Kenny Dalglish.

Slowly, they would wheel him toward me, recounting tales of their sour-faced sires supposed greatness:

“You just hold still now….old grandpaw was the best…faster’n Jesse James…a real double hitter…two titles in one season…golf with Jimmy Tarbuck….’King’ they called him…”.

Squirming free from the restraints, I would make my break for freedom, seven year old legs scampering as fast as possible, barrelling toward the front door. Only to run slap bang into a character I’d somehow forgotten all about: fucking Chop Top from the crappy Chainsaw sequel, here renamed ‘Kop Top’ and played in all his moustachioed glory by the number one horror figure for any young Evertonian growing up in the 1980’s, Ian bastard Rush…just hanging around waiting to finish things off.

At that point I would wake up, sweaty and seriously freaked out, but mostly safe in the knowledge that, out in the real world, there was no way any red shite could reek such macabre misery upon me. The 1986 all Merseyside FA Cup Final, the first derby game I can fully recall, may have been the trigger factor behind my many trippy night terrors, but now Everton were back on top, where they rightfully belonged.

Howard’s men had reclaimed the league title and, what’s more, had done so with non-entity players like Kevin Langley and Neil Adams contributing more than just carrying lager and crisps for the lads with true class. The Reds couldn’t come back from that. Especially not after flogging their main source of goals to Juventus.

Even the local loon, ‘Mad Martin’…who had an uncanny resemblance to the bloke from ‘Robocop’ that had his face melted off with toxic waste, and hung about on the corner of our street, at night, in full ‘Crown Paints’ Liverpool kit, worn under a tight transparent raincoat the likes of which has probably only ever been seen since on Patrick Bateman before he butchered Paul Allan with a bloody axe, and patiently waited for any Everton supporting kid to walk past so he could shout at the top of his voice, “IAN RUSH!!”…..would be lost for words now.

(How was I to know that six months later he’d simply be hollering, “ALDOOOOOOO!!”?).

The spawn of satan could beat us at Anfield, stuff us at Wembley and debase my dream self while a denizen in an imaginary Texas doss-hole, but by god Goodison is where we always stand our ground. Or so I thought.

Kids. Thick as fuck.

There was the Wayne Clarke derby, of course, where Colin Harvey’s men faced a side already christened champions-elect in March and who bookies had stopped taking bets on to be title winners.

The previous week, a draw against Derby County had seen the RS equal Leeds United’s unbeaten run of 29 games since the start of the season and all the talk in the lead up to the game was of how great an achievement it would be for them to make it to May undefeated. A live tv audience of millions got to witness Bruce Grobbelaar flap aimlessly at a corner and (in a twist of fate) the brother of Leeds United striker Alan ‘sniffer’ Clarke bundle the ball home from close-range to send Goodison into raptures.

That was the spoilery high-point though.

The remaining home derbies during the last three years of the 80’s saw a 1-4 twatting in a Super Cup (don’t ask) semi-final 2nd leg, a 0-1 defeat in the League Cup, an FA Cup 5th round exit at the hooves of Ray Houghton and a 1-3 reversal in the league.

The 90’s started in similar fashion with a 2-3 league defeat in the Goodison derby with a pre-blue Peter Beardsley bagging a double, but then miraculously the mob from Mordor failed to fuck us over at home in any competition for the rest of the decade.

The most memorable match during that period may have been the classic 4-4 draw in the FA Cup, but the five victories Everton achieved at Goodison against their arch-rivals would surely have stood out further if it was known at the time that getting one over the ogres from across the park was soon to become a much more rarefied event, one now occurring with about all the regularity of ‘put out night’ round Nora Batty’s place.

Let’s face it, the derby record since, whether home or away, league or cup, has been nothing short of a complete and utter disgrace.

Playing a large part in the litany of poor performances was the man who is manager now, and was manager then for 11 years. In the Premier League, David Moyes managed to win a mere three games from 22 Merseyside derbies during the period 2002-2013, covering his first spell as blues boss. What makes that record even more uncomfortable to wincingly choke down upon is that such a lack of victories came when Everton were faced with some of the worst Liverpool sides that lot ever cobbled together.

Then again, the finger of blame cannot be pointed solely at Moyes, as the record didn’t exactly improve in the 11 years following Davey’s departure. There was a long, long, long overdue win at an empty Anfield during Covid lockdown under Ancelotti, and a barnstorming 2-0 victory at Goodison last season that nearly blew the roof off the old ground, but that’s it.

Similar to when I was a kid, I can stomach the defeats at their swamp and live with the odd let-down at Wembley (on the rare occasion we get there), but for some undefinable reason it’s the reversals at home that upset and rankle the most.

As things stand, we’ve faced them 119 times in senior games at Goodison and with one match to play the victory count rests at 41 a piece.

That makes this game winner takes it all, first to 42.

Although, they’ll claim they don’t care about it in the slightest, as they have ‘far bigger things’ on the agenda, can you imagine the sapphic delight those snidey arseholes will take in being able to stick it to us and say in years to come that they won more games against us in our old ground than we did them?

Derby days at Goodison don’t deserve to go out on such a sour note. No way…and there are reasons to be optimistic.

Despite the lack of Everton victories in derbies over the last decade, the shite haven’t fared much better away from home themselves. Since the 2012/13 season they’ve won twice at Goodison, to Everton’s once. Nothing much to write home about there.

The RS may rightly be favourites, and remain unbeaten in their past 19 Premier League fixtures (14 wins and five draws), but that’s why I mentioned the Wayne Clarke derby earlier.

Let’s go do the same again (so, hopefully, we can all sleep soundly tonight).