Forever Everton: An American’s First Year as a Toffee
Well, it has been one hell of a season! I can’t say this is what I expected, but I am now an Evertonian for life and feel like this campaign taught me pretty much everything I need to know about the club. This year, of all years, was my first full season as an Everton supporter. I live in Houston and call myself a “Texas Toffee.” I do a fair amount of freelance political commentary and “blogging” and thought I would write something about soccer instead. I promise I am not a narcissist and fully understand that there is nothing intrinsically interesting about anything I have to say about Everton, but I wanted to look back and process everything that I just experienced as a fan. Perhaps, it will be less painful in hindsight? I also imagine a few people in the UK or elsewhere might find it interesting to hear about the experience of an American Toffee, and brand new one at that!
So, how did I become an Evertonian? It might sound strange to a life-long supporter in Merseyside, but contrary to the saying “we do not choose; we are chosen” I basically just decided to become a Toffee. I played competitive youth soccer in the States, but stopped at the age of 12. That being said, I never lost my appreciation for the game and I certainly enjoyed watching the USWNT win World Cup titles. But, for many years soccer was not an active part of my life. I enjoyed watching major league baseball, but as I got busier with work and kids, it became difficult to watch an entire baseball game or even get that invested in the regular season (MLB playoffs are great!). Golf tournaments, likewise, are very time consuming. I just can’t sit around and watch The Masters’ or Open Championship for 4–5 hours each day for 4 days! Soccer (last time I will use that word!) is once a week for 2 hours! And, there were no commercial breaks! Just uninterrupted play for 45–50 minutes. It dawned on me that football was the perfect solution. Regrettably, I wasn’t that interested in getting into MLS, which brought me to the Premier League in April 2021.
Now, why was I being so intentional and deliberate about finding a sport to watch? I am a political junkie. I am also a liberal Democrat. American politics has been totally fucked since 2016. I also teach political science at the local community college so there is no escaping all the stress and doom of the daily news cycle. I needed a new hobby! I needed a distraction! What better way to take a mental break from the shit-show of American politics than following a sports team in another country? This will be fun I told myself! The first thing I needed to do was “pick” a team to follow. Can you imagine? Someone who doesn’t watch the Premier League (at all!) embarking on the journey of choosing a club to follow without any preconceived notions or knowledge about any of the teams. All I knew was that my brother-in-law had been a diehard Liverpool FC supporter since the mid-2000s.
Initially, I thought I might become a Chelsea supporter. What was my rationale? And, seriously, feel free to make fun of me for all of this. Blue is my favorite color. I liked their crest. They are good. “Captain America” plays for them. I thought, this could work! My brother-in-law even signed off on the choice (he said no Manchester United or Manchester City allowed). Then, I read that Chelsea’s owner was a Russian oligarch. Fuck that! I also concluded that I didn’t want to support one of the “Big 6” clubs because it felt too much like joining a bandwagon. I started doing more “research” and reading about other clubs.
Everton. Toffees. Royal blue. That “tower thing” looks pretty cool. The People’s Club. I had warm feelings. I read an article from 2017 titled, “Five Reasons Why Now Is a Good Time To Become an Everton Fan.” I learned about the club’s history. I learned about the club’s connections with the U.S. The author said it was like “falling in love” and as I read more about the club, including the article, “7 Reasons Why Everton Are the Best Club in The World,” I just had good vibes about all of it. I said, this is my team! I had never even watched a match! I just had good feelings about the club. I also liked that they were a respectable club that had the potential to be better. Not jumping on some bandwagon, but not getting too obscure either. Again, this will be fun. They’ll win some, lose some. I won’t need to worry about relegation! They have this great manager, Carlo Ancelotti, and seem to have some great players. Let’s do this!
I texted my brother-in-law to break the news. We then had a phone call. I assured him that I wasn’t trolling. I explained that I had a genuine calling to support the club. I also understood that the Merseyside rivalry was a “friendlier” one than some others. Our family could be like the many families in Merseyside with supporters on either side who loved each other dearly. He said he understood my motivations and rationale, affirmed that Everton was a respectable club to support, and blessed the occasion. For some reason, I decided to make a formal announcement on Twitter that I was now an Evertonian (I suppose I had been born?) on April 22, 2021.
The next day, Everton played Arsenal. What’s this? Every player kneels before the match to condemn racism? I could get used to this! In the States, a disgraced former-President insisted an NFL player be fired for doing so. A mental break from American politics for sure! Richarlison scored the only goal of the game. I was ignorant of where Everton had stood in the table at Christmas and was excited about the possibility of qualifying for European football. Over the next month I developed a deep hatred for Aston Villa, who I blamed for ruining our chance at Europe. I experienced the embarrassing loss to Sheffield United, then the disaster at the Etihad. It was, more or less, what I had expected. We’ll win some, lose some, and end up middle of the table or better.
As summer started, I began following more and more Everton pages on Twitter. ToffeeWeb, Royal Blue Mersey, Everton in the USA, The Blue Room, The Toffee Blues, The Street End. I found the American Toffee Podcast! I read Roger Bennett’s Reborn in the USA and ordered Toffee Soccer. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Ancelotti left. I was so confused! Didn’t he just get there? I started following all the speculation about new managers. I started playing “football” again myself! I joined an indoor Over-30 Coed league. The new hobby intended as a mental break from politics was now going to improve my physical health too. The first teammate I met was an Englishman in his 60s named Mark. He was a Spurs fan and when I told him I supported Everton he remarked: “Well, I suppose someone has to support Everton…” We became friends. The Everton fan base had heated debates online about the search for a new manager. I aligned myself with the camp who thought a fresh face, someone who hadn’t won trophies yet, but was hungry to do so, was the right way to go. My vote was for Graham Potter. We got Rafa Benitez. I understood that Rafa was a controversial choice, but I always thought the objections based on his time at Liverpool were silly. He was clearly a good manager and I got behind him. My sense was that Everton just needed to keep the same manager long enough to execute a vision and all would be well.
Florida Cup! Even though I was a new supporter, I decided that I needed to take advantage of Everton visiting the States and playing another PL team like Arsenal. The Delta variant was already starting to rip through Florida, but me and my dad were fully vaccinated and wore masks everywhere while traveling from Houston to Orlando. My new blue home kit arrived just in time for the trip too! We saw Tim Howard. We sang Everton songs. It was cool to be part of an in-person Everton community having spent the last few months connecting on social media. Arsenal pulled out so we played Millonarios instead. It was a good match and unique to see the entire roster take penalties. We won! I couldn’t believe my luck. Everton came to the States. I got to see them play. They won. Everton fans wanted a trophy and Rafa gave them one after his first match! My favorite players at this point were Digne, Allan, and Davies. I liked them because they fought hard on the pitch. I was also excited about Gray and Townshend, figuring they would, as intended, provide a lot of great service to DCL when the new season started.
Match day routine? Oh, yes. I never imagined when I started watching Everton that I would become so emotionally invested. I mean, I have never been a fan of a sports team like I am with Everton. I’ve been watching the Houston Astros for 30 years, but this Everton stuff was on a different level. The whole thing really surprised me (and my wife!). On match day, roughly 30 minutes before kickoff, these songs play in this order rather loudly in my house: Theme from Z Cars, Spirit of the Blues, Royal Blue Jersey, Dixie Dean (which I find hilarious being from the American South), (We’re Forever) Everton, Rap of Honour, and It’s a Grand Old Team. While these songs are playing, I am brewing English Breakfast tea, baking cinnamon rolls, and making eggs over-medium that will be eaten with Cholula sauce. This is the “Texas Toffee Breakfast.”
Match day was fun for the first two months! Doucoure’s goal against Southampton. Gray’s goal against Brighton. Townshend’s goal against Burnley. Fucking Aston Villa. Draw away at Manchester United. This is going well. And then it started…the losses. For me, the loss to Watford was a wake-up call. I could no longer dismiss all the negativity on social media. Then, win-less during October and November. Finally, Gray’s winner at Goodison against Arsenal. This is the moment that I married Everton. I fell in love in the spring, got engaged in the summer, but then said my vows in the fall after that goal. That scene afterwards was breathtaking. Demarai Gray was like a gladiator in Rome. The roar of Goodison. How hungry everyone was for that win. How much it meant. Briefly, it breathed life into everyone. We had hope. I must have watched that goal 100 times over the next couple months as things continued to get worse.
I defended Rafa to the last. I thought it was a horrible idea to change managers yet again. We were plagued by injuries. And bad calls by referees! I told myself (and Twitter) it wasn’t Rafa’s fault. I was wrong. The long-time Evertonians calling for Rafa to be fired were right. I was finally convinced when we lost to Norwich in January (apparently others became convinced too). The struggle continued under Lampard, but I liked the style of play and had confidence that he was turning things around. I appreciated how emotional Frank was on the sideline when Everton scored. I continued to watch every match, prepared my Texas Toffee Breakfast, and read every article in The Athletic by Greg O’Keeffe and Patrick Boyland to pass the time. Alas, we needed points! The win against Leeds and Iwobi’s winner against Newcastle were the only bright spots for two months (not counting FA Cup matches).
Then, after the loss to Burnley I had truly begun to lose hope. Can I even watch Everton matches next year if they’re in the Championship? What do I do if they go down? Continue watching the Premier League without a team? Pick another team to support? Fuck that. I bought all three kits! It’s Everton till I die now. Then, 10 points from five matches, which included Gordon’s goal against Manchester United, the iconic atmosphere against Chelsea, and then Mykolenko’s goal against Leicester City. Words cannot express how happy I was for Mykolenko when he hit that one in. I was feeling it. This is Everton. This fight. I don’t want to talk about the match at Anfield. Let’s just say it began with me driving from Houston to Austin intending to have a nice get together with the “red” side of the family and ended with a toddler repeatedly vomiting inside a brand-new Subaru. Oh, and then the fucking draw against Watford. What is it about Everton playing against teams in the relegation zone?
After fighting like hell to get out of the relegation zone, we had it within our power to secure placement in the Premier League with a win against Brentford at home. A 2–1 lead at the half turned into a 3–2 loss with only nine players on the pitch. Still, we had the same opportunity to guarantee safety with our last home match against Crystal Palace. The game was a perfect embodiment of Everton’s entire season. The fan atmosphere was intense. Defensive mistakes led to a goal for Palace. A bullshit decision by the referee to not give a Palace player a red card that seconds later turned into that same player scoring a goal. We were down 2–0 at the half. Despondent, bitter, disbelief. I was already resigning myself to the likelihood that our fate depended on the actions of others: Leeds and Burnley losing their remaining matches.
A beautiful, peaceful red, pink, and purple sunset was visible beyond Goodison Park on TV. Then, the serenity of that sky came down onto the pitch. The players just seemed to calm down a bit. Michael Keane, of all people, scored a goal. Keane is a good defender, but let’s be honest. He sort of owed the club a goal after some of his defensive missteps this year. It was so fitting that he scored first. Then, it was Richarlison with an equalizer. The rock who had arguably been leading the team through the relegation battle the last two months got us even. We came back and tied it up! Surely, it would be mad hubris to demand more, but what else was ever going to happen with that crowd, with that sunset? Just like that, what had been missing all season, the absence of which was arguably responsible for the dreadful situation the club found itself in, appeared. Demarai Gray was delivering service into the box and Dominic Calvert-Lewin was leaping into the air and putting the ball in the back of the net. It was the most perfect ending to the most dreadful story ever told. It was so magnificently fitting, so maddeningly ironic, so utterly beautiful that you couldn’t have written a more compelling script. In the moment, it was sort of unbelievable. It was too good to be true. It was a fucking fact. Calvert-Lewin had scored a third goal. We were staying up.
So, what began as an exciting escape from the daily stress and depression of American politics, had gradually turned into something at times even more stressful and depressing. What the fuck is this I would ask myself? This was supposed to be fun. This isn’t what I signed up for! On top of monitoring the slow decay of American democracy, I was now emotionally wrapped up in the possible demise of Everton Football Club! I didn’t need this in my life! Truly, it had taken an emotional toll on me. The early season hopes and the holiday frustrations, the new year fears and occasional spring time elation, then the relegation battle at the end culminating in an improbable comeback that was instantly legendary…what a fucking rollercoaster! Is it always like this? This was only my first full season and I can’t imagine my life without Everton Football Club. As difficult as this campaign was to endure, I am so grateful for the experience.
Perhaps, the Evertonians who routinely curse the club’s mediocrity on social media have a newfound appreciation for finishing 8th or 10th in the table. Do I want a more “boring” season next year? One with a “normal” campaign that finishes comfortably in the Top 10. No, fuck that! Nil Satis, Nisi Optimum! I still want to qualify for Europe. I want to give the “Big 6” hell. Because “We don’t care what the red shite say / What the fuck do we care? / Because we always know / That there’s gonna be a show/ When the Everton boys are there! / Everton! Everton! Everton!” I am excited about the future of this squad under Frank Lampard’s leadership. This summer, I hope the club continues to work on fixing the underlying problems that led to this year’s desperate situation. As for me, I will continue trying to pull off the best Anthony Gordon impression I can muster at my indoor matches as I await the next campaign. I am so grateful to be part of the Everton community. Up The Fucking Toffees!
