I write in darkened mood. Today is Derby Day. 24 hours that used to be filled with all the emotions. Hope, fear, high stakes, high reward. With the current state of elite, ebullient Liverpool and gutless Everton, it just feels like Doomsday. I am sitting here, preparing for all that is to come by listening to Tracy Chapman on repeat. Indulge me for a moment, and let me walk through my biography as told by a lifetime of pain experienced in this fixture (3.15 PM ET NBCSN, followed by Men In Blazers Television Show at 6 PM ET, and a post-Derby Greenroom on Spotify at 6.30 PM ET).
To the outside world, the Merseyside Derby may just be a regional scuffle between the Blues and the Reds, but growing up in Liverpool in the 70s and 80s, it always felt like something more. The game was nothing less than a savage battle against which I would fine-tune my sense of good and bad, truth and injustice, reward and punishment.
In contrast to the prevailing atmosphere of carnival that grips the city in the week up to kick-off, the actual experience of watching the games was always a tortuous one. The football was inevitably helter-skelter as the adrenaline-fueled atmosphere infected the players, local-born and foreign alike. Tackles crackled. Headless decisions were made. Red cards were brandished.
At the core of the agony is that the two teams’ histories and fanbases are so intertwined. Liverpool emerged as a splinter of Everton 14 years after its founding back in 1878. Their home grounds, Goodison Park and Anfield, sit at opposite ends of a park, less than a mile apart. Extended families contain both blue and red factions. Witnessing the game is like watching a boxer trot into the ring solo and proceed to punch himself in the head.
In the spirit of full disclosure -- in my lifetime, Everton have savored just 16 wins to what feels like Liverpool’s 12,974. But many Reds fans also loathe the game. As one Red supporting friend of mine confided, “I hate watching the Derby. There is too much emotion at stake and although I would never miss it, all I want to happen is for it to end.”
The first Derby I remember was Everton’s 1-0 win in 1978. Liverpool swaggered into the game as league leaders who had not lost a Derby since 1971. A sumptuous 58th minute volley by Andy King changed that. Bereft in defeat, Liverpool defender Phil Thompson could only utter he was “as sick as a parrot.” With his thick Scouse accent, the first word dragged on as if it contained multi-syllables, supplying Everton fans with the perfect sound byte to torture their rivals in offices and schoolyards until the next game.
The roles were often reversed in excruciating fashion. In 1982, Kenny Dalglish propelled his pass-and-move Liverpool side to a devastating 5-0 rout at Goodison Park. Liverpool attacked with an unrelenting fury that could not be repelled. To make matters worse, mustachioed-marksman Ian Rush, who knocked home four goals, had been a boyhood Evertonian. Et Tu, Rushie?
Mercifully, I had been unable to secure tickets for the game and was forced to listen to the action unfold on the radio in the privacy of my bedroom. Back then, I believed quite literally in the footballing cliche, “it only takes a second to score a goal” which my Dad often uttered. Until there were five seconds left in the game, I clung on to a naïve belief that Everton would somehow turn the game around. I turned to him and said, “Dad, remember, it only takes a second to score a goal,” only to have him bellow “Don’t be so bloody stupid lad!” in anguish. By the final whistle, I was lying on the floor prone, groaning softly, as if I had just been kicked in the kidneys. My heroes had been humbled. A harsh and early life lesson about idols and clay feet.
In the 1980s, Liverpool was a bleak, economically scarred backdrop with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Social unrest simmered. Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet debated the possibility of allowing the city to sink into a “managed decline.” Football was, alongside music, our only respite. When both teams battled their way into the 1984 League Cup Final, one out of every four Liverpudlian males invaded London to savor the first ever Wembley Derby. An event which was less a game of football, more a delirious celebration of the city itself.
The final, which ended goalless, was best remembered for both sets of fans uniting to chant the name of their beloved county in unison. Cries of “Merseyside, Merseyside, Merseyside” rang out across North London. Despite these emotional scenes, I seethed in silence on the long journey home with my father. The referee had inexplicably allowed Liverpool defender Alan Hansen to use his hand and save a goalbound Everton shot. The rematch, which Liverpool won 1-0, told us what we already sensed. Everton were doomed.
We were right, as it turned out, but in a way we could never have foreseen. In the mid-eighties, Everton finally managed to assemble a squad to rival the gold standard set by their neighbors. Their 1985 team plundered both the league title and the (now defunct) European Cup Winners Cup and was poised to become one of the best sides on the continent. Yet, the 80s were the peak of the English game’s hooligan years, culminating in the tragedy of the Heysel Disaster, a fatal confrontation between Liverpool and Juventus fans ahead of the 1985 European Cup Final, which led to the death of 36 Italians. A blanket 5-year ban resulted, expelling all English clubs from European competition. Everton never recovered.
The Blues failed to adjust to the new financial realities of the game, and the Derby entered a dark age in which it felt as if Evertonians had no choice but to line up for the inevitable humiliation of a bare-bottom spanking. The nadir came during 1999’s 3-2 loss. Robbie Fowler controversially dropped to the Goodison turf after scoring a penalty and celebrated by “snorting” the white line along Everton’s penalty box, mocking Evertonians who had long sung of his rumored drug habit. I was there that day. As Fowler ridiculed us, we howled in derision. The cries, a thin attempt to mask our own impotence.
Moments of happiness proved to be fleeting. Most carried the stench of gallows humor. Set-piece hero Kevin Sheedy blasted a free-kick into the top-left corner of the net, and then celebrated by manically giving Liverpool fans the finger (in a game we lost 3-1!). A young Steve McManaman was throttled by his own teammate, the manic Bruce Grobbelaar, in 1993. Tiny striker Francis Jeffers traded punches, toe-to-toe, with bewildered goalkeeper Sander Westerveld. Both men were sent off, but the jug-eared Jeffers later crowed, "I won on points. I landed a few more shots than big Sander.”
In 2007, the culture of the Derby was changed forever when then-Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez smugly labeled Everton “a small club.” At the time he was right. My cousin was “webmaster” of the local Liverpool paper and he spent his days tracking Liverpool news stories as they were read across Asia, Africa, Australia, and Scandinavia. I asked him where Everton’s global digital footprint spread to. “Liverpool and North Wales” was his unvarnished reply.
Yet, saying it was akin to adding lighter fuel to a forest fire. It changed the tenor of the game. A match which had always been played with spirit and mutual respect spiralled into a seething, snide, cruel affair, in spirit, more akin to watching a savage fight outside of a pub at closing time. Add to that the fact that Liverpool always… always… find a way to do us, has meant that the Derby, once a joyous celebration, has taken on the tenor of an Arthur Miller play, in which Everton are a Willy Loman or John Proctor-esque character, always fighting for their self respect and demanding that they “have their name back.”
Rafa Benitez’s assumption of power at the aforementioned “small club” as “Agent Rafa” is a writer’s flourish even Arthur Miller could not conjure though. Proof you never know where life will lead you. His appointment was a high stakes gamble by Everton’s owners. Things had to go extremely well for him to be accepted by Blues fans. Any stumble would be perceived as a freefall. That is where we are as we enter this game, having gleaned a meager 2 points from the last 21, and with Arsenal, Palace, Chelsea and Leicester on the horizon. The implosion has been triggered by injuries which are not Rafa’s fault. Yet, the lack of effort his team has displayed is unforgivable for an Everton fanbase who prize tenacity above all else.
The gulf in class between the two teams has rarely seemed bigger. Virgil van Dijk will be making his first appearance at Goodison since sustaining a brutal season-ending knee injury caused by a moment of Jordan Pickford recklessness in last October’s 2-2 draw. Do Everton stand a chance? I am trying to offset my self-loathing by telling myself that Merseyside Derbies always exist in their own ecosystem. However, the fight Everton teams have quite literally brought with them onto the field in years past has been wholly absent in the likes of Rondón, Iwobi, and Digne all season long.
Perhaps the greatest symbol of just how dark I feel: Last year, Everton beat Liverpool at Anfield for the first time since fire was invented. On that day, I wore a tracksuit top I had found which I had last sported on October 17th 2010 when Everton beat Liverpool 2-0.
It still has the stain on it from when Tim Cahill scored and I poured a beer down the front. I wore it, and we won again. So obviously the garment has magic powers, right? Out of fear of destroying my delusions, I will not be wearing the top tonight. I will be wearing a new, rather natty one sent to me by the Chicago Evertonians. May a new tradition of glory be forged. I doubt it. I truly believe there will be a lot of Tracy Chapman blaring at full-time. I fear this 90 minutes will be as hard to watch as Kendall Roy’s 40th birthday party.
Courage.
