I went with my dad to see Everton. It was a spiritual experience.

September 23, 2023. Milwaukee, WI

“I’m sorry, I’m probably boring you, aren’t I?” said the old man.

“No, not at all. Go on,” I said.

We were finishing our beers and reveling in a rare victory for Everton Football Club, who had just beaten Brentford 3-1.

He wore a Leighton Baines shirt, and I wore Seamus Coleman, the famous fullback duo of not so long ago. A handful of other Everton fans in the pub discussed their plans for the rest of Saturday.

“It’s quite the complicated story of how I came to support this club, I know,” he continued. “But I have always found it to be true: Evertonians are born, not manufactured. We do not choose; we are chosen. Those who understand need no explanation; those who don’t, don’t matter.”

I knew these words. All Evertonians have heard them at some point. They provided the narrative for the stirring season ticket promotion before the 2015-2016 campaign.

That season and its expectations seemed so very long ago. Times were very different for Everton back then.

Two seasons prior, the Toffees had surprised everyone by finishing fifth in the English Premier League, accruing a point total that most seasons would be enough to secure a coveted place in the Champions League. It was the first season in charge for the charming, ambitious Spanish manager Roberto Martinez, who had parlayed his stunning FA Cup win with relegated Wigan into management of one of the most famous clubs in England.

Roberto’s second year in charge was a disappointment that found Everton floundering in the middle of the table, but a respectable showing in the Europa League and a bevvy of young talent gave reason for optimism heading into year three. The club was gearing up to make another run at breaking into the English “Big Six” and maybe even earning a spot in the Champions League. Watching that season ticket promo and hearing those inspiring words would have any Evertonian believing anything was possible.

March 5, 2016. Sturgeon Bay, WI

I left noontime pickup basketball at the Y and found I had a voicemail.

“Hi, Peter. It’s Ray Malewitz at Oregon State’s School of Writing, Literature, and Film. Could you give me a call back? I’d like to talk to you about your application.”

After graduating the December prior, I had been accepted into a fully-funded Master’s program for English Literature and Culture. A couple months later, I would be given the English award for graduating seniors at my college. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I was going where I wanted to go and doing what I wanted to do. I felt capable and confident.

June 11, 2010. Johannesburg, South Africa

Siphiwe Tshabalala blasted the ball into the top corner of the net after a lightning counter attack for World Cup host nation South Africa versus Mexico. Several teammates joined him on the touchline for a short celebration dance that was pure joy to the tune of delirious fans whose voices (mercifully) drowned out the vuvuzelas. Half a world away, I realized I’m a soccer fan.

August 20, 2012. Liverpool, England

Marouane Fellaini’s massive head of hair rose above the Manchester United defense to nod home the winner. I realized I’m an Everton fan. A few days later, I moved into my freshman dorm room.

I started watching Everton Football Club and began my journey into adulthood at about the same time. Those two things dovetailed in 2015-2016 as Everton and I both looked to be headed into big, exciting new chapters.

Sitting next to the old man in the Leighton Baines shirt in a pub in 2023, I had just watched Everton – seven managers removed from Roberto Martinez – earn their first win of the season, a season that promises to be a desperate battle over the moon door of relegation for a third successive campaign. And I…well, I’m not who I thought I’d be when I officially accepted the assistantship at Oregon State.

Just last week, two things happened: I traveled with my father, also an Evertonian, to Liverpool for the first time to see Everton play at their famous old ground, Goodison Park, and I turned 30.

The one happened because of the other; I took this trip because I’ve reached an age that feels significant because our brains like neat numbers like 10. But, for me, 30 really does feel important, a clear end and beginning, an Ebenezer and a point of origin. A commencement.

What is it that ended? My 20s, which sucked. Thank you to everyone who helped them not suck a lot worse, but there’s no getting around it. On balance, I didn’t have a great time this decade. Over the last few months, I have found myself mourning these years, filled with regret, and feeling some anxiety about what comes next, a decade I desperately hope goes better than the last one, but finding little reason to believe it will work out.

My response to life’s challenges has sometimes been to flee, either in the form of a short, spontaneous trip, or packing up my things and moving to what I hope are greener and safer pastures. Earlier this Fall, I first got the idea to make a short trip to the UK when Going.com sent me some great deals on flights. This evolved into making a trip to Liverpool to see Everton play for my birthday. Traveling alone to a rainy city in Europe to be surrounded by strangers while I drink pints of beer and watch football seemed the thing to do to break out of one of the worst depressive periods in my life. Because that’s what I do: I’m a sad boy who sometimes wishes he could disappear or start over and often thinks he’s a character in a Sally Rooney novel. Maybe I could stare out a window into a stormy afternoon long enough to have some kind of breakthrough, or hear some faint echo of the still small voice.

It also seemed fitting to involve Everton in this since the club’s last decade has paralleled my own in many ways. Great expectations, false dawns, crushing disappointments, near-disasters, actual disasters, abject failure, betrayal, fear, self-loathing.

However…

Through Providence, Personal Growth, and Relentless Love (not that those three things are separate), my perspective on this trip changed in the weeks leading up to it. It was not to be a lonely gift to myself to feel some things and numb some others, not an escape from the regrets of my 20s and the anxieties of my 30s. I thought when I initially planned this trip that what I wanted was to be alone with something that gives me some escape from everything. What I realized was that I actually wanted to be with other people who love this thing so much it changes who we are and how we see the world. This trip was not an escape. Not a funeral, not a restart. It was an awakening.

There have really only been three things that have been with me every step of the way from my first year of college to now: my family, God, and Everton. Even the friendships that have lasted all this time have waxed and waned in their connectivity. My trip to Liverpool involved all three of these things (not because there happens to be a church literally connected to Goodison Park but because I believe God is with me wherever I go), and my experience last week helped me to reframe so much of where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going.

There is another saying amongst Evertonians that comes from the great Alan Ball: “Once Everton has touched you, nothing will be the same.” This has been true for me, and it is also true for me with the addendum, “except for Everton.” Virtually nothing the last 10+ years has been the same for me…except for Everton.

If you don’t want more football talk, more uncomfortably personal revelations and ornate sentences, now’s a good time to fast-forward to the end. But I hope you’ll stick with me. I haven’t posted since March, you know. Buckle in. I know where we’re going but I’m not sure yet how we’re getting there.

January 15, 2006. Sturgeon Bay, WI

The “idiot kicker” Mike Vanderjagt had just missed a chip shot field goal, and the Indianapolis Colts were eliminated from the NFL Playoffs. I went into the other room and sobbed for like an hour.

March 21, 2013. De Pere, WI

Vander Blue made a layup as the buzzer sounded and Marquette avoided an upset in the first round of March Madness. I started yelling insensibly as I ran around the hall of my college dorm.

Sports were my favorite thing growing up, and I lived and died with the results of my teams. I went to college wanting to be a sports journalist, and some of you may recall this used to be a sports blog. But over the years, sports started to play a different role in my life, one a little more casual, more reasonable. For the most part.

May 19, 2022. La Crosse, WI

I was about to move to Milwaukee the next day, so I’d already returned my wifi equipment. I needed somewhere to watch the Everton match, so I headed downtown to an Irish pub. I had to ask for them to put the match on. They were hosting Crystal Palace, and if they won they would be safe from relegation. Anything less, and they were almost sure to be relegated. They were down 2-0 at half, and there was a pit in my stomach (and a couple pints of Smithwick’s). As per our usual, my dad and I were texting about the match, and we were not confident.

Then Everton scored. Michael Keane, an at-times bumbling centerback, hit the ball with the outside of his boot and curled it into the net. And then they scored again. That magical Brazilian, that flare-throwing, bike-kicking revolutionary, Richarlison, in a moment of improvisational genius, found a way to equalize. And then, in the 85′, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, perhaps the handsomest lad in England, threw himself at a curling free kick. The diving header put Everton in front for good. They were safe from relegation and Goodison Park became a 40-thousand-person party. I teared up and had to explain to the bartender what just happened. My dad and I got choked up again talking about it when I visited home months later.

Everton! You never shined so brightly.
Everton! The spirit of the Blues.

A year later, Everton would again need a win to be safe. This time, when Abdoulaye “Duke” Doucoure smote the ball from the top of the box to score what would be the winner over Bournemouth, my dad and I would be sitting in the same room, able to breathe together that fresh air that comes with knowing your team has survived to fight another day. Hail the man from Mali.

There are plenty of other examples of me celebrating in public or injuring myself or just making a lot of noise in reaction to something happening in an Everton match. I once began a first date by responding to a simple “How are you?” with “Well, my soccer team lost.” This is certainly unhinged behavior, right? Like, I’m a lunatic, aren’t I?

In one sense yes, of course I am. A rational cynic could tell me that a football club across the Atlantic Ocean doesn’t actually have anything to do with me, that I’ve made all this up, that it doesn’t need to ruin my Saturdays (and they lose a lot, so it’s a lot of ruined Saturdays). That cynic would be right, but only in the way someone would be right to say novels and movies and TV shows don’t matter, that they’re made up and you don’t need to be invested personally in them. So, if that’s the way they’re right, then they’re wrong. “Those who understand need no explanation; those who don’t, don’t matter.”

And maybe they could also say that it was just random chance I came to be an Everton fan. I knew they had an American goalkeeper and were in the middle of the table and had a striker who had dazzled for Croatia at the 2012 Euros, but that was just about it. Truly, if Luis Suarez, that cheating cannibal, hadn’t been on Liverpool at the time, it’s entirely possible I’d be a Kopite gobshite now. The horror.

So, yes, okay, maybe I could be here 11 years later a diehard fan of any other number of teams who happened to be in the mid table in 2012. But I’m not, because Everton chose me, and Everton chose my dad. It has always, from the first time I watched them play, felt right to support this historic club, a club know for its roots and involvement in the local community (they own the title of The People’s Club!) and professionalism on and of the pitch, a club known for tenacity and collective endeavour. Maybe living/growing up in Green Bay Packers territory instilled those values in us?

And, as I alluded to above, there are many parallels between my life and recent Everton history.

May 12, 2017. Corvallis, OR

I spent a lot of time in graduate school roaming the student union looking for day-old bakery and an open spot to do schoolwork. On this day, I had taken a break from researching 16th century travelogues to watch Everton’s final match of the season. It had been a good season overall, now under the care of Ronald Koeman, though it didn’t quite hit the heights we hoped for. My first year at grad school had gone – overall – pretty well, but the seams were showing. A lot was about to start going wrong.

Everton won the match versus Watford 1-0. The goal came from Ross Barkley, a local boy who had so much potential but never reached it. Everyone knew it was his last game at Goodison, and it was bittersweet celebrating in that moment but knowing we were watching a premature end to what should have been a storied career on Merseyside.

February 2, 2019. Vadnais Heights, MN

“Who’s playing?” asked the young man standing in my living room.

“Everton and Wolves. Everton is my club. They’re terrible,” I said.

The young man was one of several of my younger brother’s friends who had stopped by as they car-pooled to some Saturday activity.

The stream was cutting in and out. The Premier League had moved onto Peacock (at that time called NBC Sports Gold) and I didn’t have a subscription because I was broke, so I was using the now-defunct and not-at-all-sketchy SoccerStreams subreddit to watch. Usually I cast them from my phone to my brother’s Apple TV+.

Wolves scored.

“Ah, fuck,” I said, louder than I meant to in front of my brother’s friends. “Have fun, see you later.”

Everton played very badly and lost 3-1. The most exciting part of the match was when a black cat invaded the pitch and went marauding on a run more inspiring than any effort an Everton player had put in. Roger Bennett tweeted something after the game that amounted to “Watching Everton used to be a reminder of joy and the strength of the human spirit. Now it is a grim reminder that we are all going to die.”

That’s about how I felt in the beginning of 2019. I had moved back to the Midwest to live with my brother as he finished college, and that was truly a special thing we were able to do. But I was not my best self (he’d tell you the same thing). Everton were joyless with no clear plan, and I was the same.

October 3, 2020. La Crosse, WI

“Well who’s going to be able to stop this Everton juggernaut at the moment?”

Those were actual words said about an actual Everton team in the midst of thrashing Brighton and Hove Albion.

The return of pro sports during COVID was a boon to millions. “The least important most important thing,” as Jurgen Klopp called it, gave us so much when everything was so bleak.

Everton weren’t just back; they were better than I’d ever seen them. Midway through the previous season, Everton had replaced Marco Silva with Carlo Ancelotti, one of the greatest managers of all time. The Italian brought hope in the form of his tactical genius and charisma, but also in the form of several new players. Namely, Allan, his attack dog from their time together at Napoli, the above-mentioned Doucoure, and James Rodriguez, only one of the most talented midfielders of his generation.

Carlo Ancelotti, he is the fucking man
They said there was no chance, Moshiri had a plan
He wears the blue and white, like all the Toffee men
And when we’re back in Europe, we’ll sing this song again, ohhhhh….

By Boxing Day of 2020, Everton were in second – SECOND – and the COVID vaccine was on the way. Things were looking up.

Of course, they promptly went to shit again. January 6, anti-vaxxers, etc. And Carlo Ancelotti got bored and Everton finished 10th and he left the club to return to Real Madrid. I’m not a pessimist with fear of abandonment for no reason, guys.

April 22, 2021. La Crosse, WI

I’ve cried plenty of times in therapy, but this occasion was the only time it had something to do with football.

“Yeah, I just talked to my Dad for a few minutes about the soccer game, and it just felt…” *tears* “It just felt so good to talk to him about that, and…sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying right now.”

“You may be lonelier than you thought.”

She was right. As an introverted homebody, COVID was not a huge adjustment for me in some ways. But I hadn’t realized until then how much human connection I was really missing. I wanted to share things with people – things like Everton. I tried dating apps for the first time that summer and slowly made my way out of my shell.

December 12, 2021. Vancouver, WA

I woke up on an unfamiliar couch to a text. “Are you alive?”

“Yeah, I’m up. Hey, what’s the wifi?”

My favorite American soccer team is the Portland Timbers, and I had traveled on a whim through a blizzard to the PNW to be with other Timbers supporters as they took on NYCFC in the MLS Cup Final. We couldn’t get tickets, but we could still go join the party if they won. They didn’t. They lost in penalty kicks.

I was staying the night with a grad school friend I had a very “It’s Complicated” sort of thing with while we were in school. She rented from and lived with a middle-aged woman in nearby Vancouver. She texted me the wifi info and I started to watch Everton vs. Crystal Palace. Connor Gallagher ran roughshod over us and we lost 3-1. It was a strange time in my life, and I had found myself in an unexpected place with unexpected people, and yet Everton were there on my little phone, losing again.

The losses would pile up, and that Spring as relegation looked almost certain I went ahead and really messed things up with my girlfriend. Like, really bad. Sometimes it’s not my fault. Sometimes it’s not Everton’s fault. And sometimes it is. More than sometimes, actually. Everton and I have both made some truly terrible decisions these last few years.

But it’s not always our fault…

August 2, 2022. Washington, DC

Roger Bennett, host of the Men in Blazers show and the most famous Evertonian in America, interviewed several members of the team as they completed a tour of the US before returning to England to begin the new season. Frank Lampard, the Chelsea legend who steered us to safety the year before, talked about what would be different this year to avoid going through another relegation scrap. Among the players Rog interviewed was the young Antony Gordon, a boyhood Blue who was one of the standouts from the prior season. With him leading the way, we were sure to leave the foot of the table behind.

I listened to this podcast in my apartment in Milwaukee where everything was going right for me (well, except for having to get rabies shots, but never mind that).

My life, again, went to shit over the next few months, and Everton were just as bad. Frank Lampard was out of answers and was sacked. Antony Gordon made a shocking heel turn and requested/forced a transfer to Newcastle in January. Piss off, Ant.

At about my lowest point, my brother came to see me simply because I asked him. We had lunch and I told him about how I wished I could bet money on Everton being relegated so that if/when it happened, I’d have some consolation.

Everton survived, thanks to the above-described Doucoure goal, and my life did get better. And then we messed it up again, naturally. I ruined another relationship and Everton found themselves entering a new season picked by many to get relegated and facing a potential points deduction for one count of infringing financial fair play rules (Manchester City has over 100 counts and has no such penalty forthcoming, for some perspective). They were/are also trying and failing to secure new ownership, and the leading candidate right now is skeeeeeeeetch.

Perhaps you see now how I have come to identify so strongly with this club and why I would see a solo trip to see them play as an appropriate and alluring course of action. And maybe, with these anecdotes and explanations, you’ll understand some of why last week was so meaningful.

So…what happened last week?

November 2, 2023. Liverpool, England

My dad and I arrived around midday in gray and rainy Liverpool on the banks of the River Mersey. It’s a large, blue collar, left-leaning city with major universities and a somewhat turbulent history. So, yeah, it felt familiar.

That first day confirmed many of the things we had heard or assumed about the city and its sports teams. It gave a real, lived-in place for the team I’ve just known as people on TV for my adult life.

Goodison park just kind of comes out of nowhere. You drive from the countryside to the suburban area and then you’re in rows and rows of flats and there’s an ancient concrete and steel cathedral rising up from the earth.

We’ve heard commentators say before about how Everton and their arch-rival Liverpool are just across Stanley Park from one another, but distances don’t really compute until you measure them with your own eyes. They are shockingly close; you can stand at street level and see them both. This is a physical representation of the 100+ year history of this bitter rivalry. In 1878, there was just one football team in Liverpool, a church-sponsored team named St. Domingo’s, which later took on the name Everton (named for the area of the city where the church was located). A dispute between the committee and owner led to Everton relocating to one of the few places where they could build a purpose-built stadium. Goodison. The owner founded a new team close to the original ground. Anfield.

And there the two giants have sat ever since. The Merseyside Derby, the Friendly Derby, blue vs red. The city has been divided in this way for well over 100 years. One can’t help but think what would have happened if the two never split and the whole of this proud city rallied around one football club.

We stayed in a guest house above a pub just a few blocks from Goodison. My dad had let them know it was my birthday ahead of time, so they had streamers and a balloon and a card in the room for me. Maybe once upon a time this would have annoyed or embarrassed me, but one of the great gifts aging has given me is an appreciation – or at least a tolerance – for many of the little things my parents do. The innkeeper chatted with us about the room and where to get breakfast and mentioned casually that her friend is married to Everton legend Duncan Ferguson.

After visiting the Beatles Story and hearing their “new”/”last” song a day early (!), we trudged through the rain to find one of the main Everton murals. There is a huge mural of Giannis Antetokounmpo downtown Milwaukee that I drive by often, and I never get tired of seeing it. It is majestic and grand, a statement of the great fortune we have here to employ the best (okay, mayyyyybe second-best) basketball player on Earth. This Everton mural is different. It is off the main drag in the middle of an industrial park where there is a lot of street art and graffiti. You’d have to be looking for it to find it. And when you find it…it’s glorious. Five Everton legends with that famous saying: “Once Everton has touched you, nothing will be the same.”

I won’t say one mural is better than the other, but they are very different. The Giannis mural is a celebration of a young man we have here for now, who will one day retire or move on (the national media will continue to incorrectly assume it’s the latter). It’s something overlaying Milwaukee, something additive. The Everton mural is like something that grew out of the very bones of the city. A testament to history, to culture, to a creed. Soaked as I was, I was moved.

We finished the day back at the pub with a couple pints. They wouldn’t let us pay for any of it – first round from the manager and the second from the bartender’s daughter after she found out we had traveled to see Everton for my birthday. She showed us pictures of her niece meeting club captain Seamus Coleman and manager Sean Dyche and mentioned her brother worked for the team’s education system. My dad said later she was flirting with me; I insisted she wasn’t.

November 3, 2023. Liverpool, England.

After a proper English muffin and probably a little too much coffee, we headed to Goodison Park for a tour.

One of Everton’s songs goes like this:

It’s a grand old team to play for,
It’s a grand old team to support,
(and then everyone shouts) AND IF YOU KNOW YOUR HISTORY, IT’S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOUR HEART GO WHOOOOOAAAAAHHHH

Maybe it’s a bit strange for “history” to be given so much hype when it comes to sports teams. If anything, I believe American sports culture has moved towards general indifference and even disdain for sports back in the day. Those histories are also sometimes fractured, with teams moving cities with some frequency, or just rather brief. Consider that the NBA and ABA didn’t merge until 1976. We’re still coming out with new teams.

But, touring Goodison Park, the Grand Old Lady, the first and oldest purpose-built stadium in England, history is exactly the thing that comes to the fore. The move to a new stadium at Bramley-Moore dock coming next year is well-overdue, but it will come at the cost of a ground that is a testament to the history of a club, a city, even of a sport. It is outdated and sacred.

It was a fantastic tour, and it ended with us having the opportunity to walk out the tunnel to the theme song from Z Cars just as the players do. I was almost overwhelmed.

After the tour, we took in another mural, this one of Duncan Ferguson with his quote, “When you play for Everton, you forget about the Rest. The rest mean nothing!” We also viewed the statues of Dixie Dean, who still holds the record for most goals in a league campaign, and of the “Holy Trinity” of Colin Harvey, Alan Ball, and Howard Kendall. We saw the Everton giants on the side of the stadium, with the likes of Dave Hickson, who said: “I’d break every bone in my body for any team I played for. But I’d die for Everton.”

Then, after dropping off our merch from the team store, we took a scenic walk through Everton park to find Prince Rupert’s Tower. The tower has adorned the club crest for most of its history. The truth is, it’s not much of a tower. It’s a decommissioned lock-up/gaol/jail that is hundreds of years old and maybe 25 feet tall. We walked right past it in comic fashion that cannot be overstated. And yet, I loved seeing it in person. It was a reminder, again, of the importance of history, of shared experience, of culture, of the place itself. The team is named Everton because that’s the neighborhood they started in. They picked a lock-up for the crest because it’s an old building that sits atop a hill overlooking the neighborhood. They’re nicknamed the Toffees because there used to be a famous local “Everton Toffee” shop.

Again, maybe we appreciated this more because we came from a place where the professional football team is named after the local company that sponsored it over a hundred years ago.

We ended the day with some proper fish and chips.

November 4, 2023. Liverpool, England. Matchday. Everton vs Brighton and Hove Albion.

A little before noon, we set out again from our room for the 3 p.m. kick-off. We started at one of several nearby Everton pubs that was just starting to see some Blues come by for a pint. We drank Carling, watched Cricket *comma* and cheered on a horse called Oxford Comma.

Our next stop would be St. Luke’s Church, the church that is literally connected to Goodison Park. On the way, we ran into one of our tour guides from the day before. A proper, proper, lifelong Evertonian. We spoke for 15-20 minutes and learned so much about the club and what it means to someone like him and what he hopes will become of the Goodison grounds. We hope the new owners of the club will listen to people like Mr. Cross and maintain the reputation of The People’s Club.

St. Luke’s is still an operational church, but on matchdays the fellowship hall is open and serving coffee, tea, and pies, and upstairs there is a treasure trove of memorabilia. Yeah, we’re Chrizzos so this is probably especially interesting to us, but it’s another testament to the shape a club takes when it grows out of a community.

Next, we headed to another pub. We were getting closer to turnstiles opening, so the place we went to right next to the park was packed.

We stood close with pints of Guinness, and looking around at all the other blue-clad people, I suddenly realized something, something obvious that I had only just put together then.

I’d never been in a room full of Evertonians. Only just a few at a pub in Milwaukee. But everyone there – everyone there – was there for the same reason we were. They love this club. I felt such community, such a bond with these people, and it would last for the next few hours. Because our next stop was Gwladys Street.

There are six different sections in Goodison Park. There are the two levels of the Bullens road stand, the terrace between the two exhibiting the steel framing of Archibald Leitch that was, at the time, an architectural innovation. The lower part of this area closest to the pitch – and the stands at Goodison go right up to the edge of the pitch – is the Paddock. Opposite of the Bullens is the Main Stand and the Family Enclosure surrounding some of the luxury boxes and the dugouts. The upper level here gives an excellent overview of the formations and tactics on the pitch. One end of the stadium is the Park End, which is designed to give every seat an unobstructed view of the pitch.

And then there is the Gwladys Street End (pronounced like Gladys Knight. Gwladys is a Welsh saint (Liverpool is basically on the border with Wales). No one is quite so reckless with “W” as the Welsh). Ten thousand of the most ardent, most faithful, most demanding, most noisy fans in all of England. Maybe all of the world. This is where I managed to get us tickets – the very back row of the lower level, one of thousands of seats in this area classified as having “severely obstructed views.” They’re not kidding. But we didn’t come all this way to see every kick of the match when we can do that every weekend courtesy of our friends at NBC. We came here for the Goodison Gang.

We went right down to the edge of the pitch to watch warm-ups after the friendly attendants/stewards/coppers let us know we could. Then, close to kick-off, we returned to our seats. And then we finally watched in person what we had seen on TV so many times, what we got to simulate the day before on tour: the siren sounded and the players emerged from the tunnel to the Z Cars theme. It gave me chills.

After a short ceremony for Remembrance Day (Veteran’s Day in the US), the match kicked off.

Everyone in the Gwladys Street End stands the entire match, making our view of the pitch that much more obstructed. Trying to see anything on the far end, the end Everton always begin the match attacking, is an exercise in ducking and weaving like a boxer or sitting on top of your seat or standing just behind.

The fans were in good voice from the first moments, singing and chanting in acts of murmuration. I joined in enthusiastically though somewhat shakily, not being a confident singer or shouter or rememberer of words.

And then, in just the seventh minute, Everton scored. The young Ukrainian, Vitalii Mykolenko, was rebuffed by the keeper on his first attempt, but his follow up found the back of the net. The stadium exploded in the loudest sound I have ever heard.

And then an army of Evertonians raised their voices as one to sing his song (to the tune of Pilot’s “It’s Magic”):

He’s magic, you know!
Vitalii Mykolenko!

Over and over as the young man from a war-torn country jogged back to his place in defense. I sang along like a proper blue Scouser. And in that moment, I was simultaneously perfectly myself, and so, so much more than myself. I found myself as I got lost in a sea of blue voices. It was one of the most exhilarating moments of my life.

Brighton controlled the game, commanding 80% of the possession, but Everton created more chances. I would love to relive every interesting moment with you, but this post is already absurdly long.

Late on, Brighton equalized with a cheap goal that was peak hapless and unlucky Everton. Kaoru Mitoma cooked the Everton right flank once again, and his cross took a gnarly deflection over Jordan Pickford and across the goal line.

Everton would have just a few minutes to push for a late winner. As always, they were attacking the Gwladys Street End, right in front of us. They managed to create a few chances and win a few corners, and each time they did we met them with chants of Everton! Everton! Everton! Usually, I would start chanting this as soon as I could tell the chant had started, but after one of them, I started shouting Everton! Everton! Everton! before I had actually heard anyone else say it. But the third or fourth repetition, the entire Gwladys was shouting it. There is no way – no way – that someone with a voice as soft as mine could start that. Rather, I think I was tuned in very precisely to the murmuration. Some telepathic frequency inspired many of us around to start chanting it. It’s a mystical experience.

One of these corner kicks met the head of James Tarkowski, and the ball floated across the goal into a mass of bodies as attackers, defenders, and the keeper all converged.

The legendary Everton player and manager Howard Kendall once told his team going into the second half of a cup final: “Get the ball into the box, and the Gwladys Street will suck the ball into the net.” In that moment, we all looked on and cried out in some mix of elation and terror and anticipation, and I felt it. I felt the will of ten thousand people bent on a colorful sphere, trying to drag it across the line for a late winner.

It didn’t happen. The ball somehow stayed out of the goal, and the match would end 1-1. It felt in the moment like a loss, but as we applauded the players and filed out en masse into the rainy night, we knew it was a result we would take without complaint. Brighton are brilliant – taking anything off them is a worthy prize.

We picked up food from a Chinese takeaway place on the walk home. We ate with a final round of Carling in the kitchen area in the upstairs of the pub. We would have loved to have these drinks at a pub after a victory, but we were content and grateful and exhausted. My voice was shot.

I’m home again after a journey from Liverpool to Manchester to Amsterdam to Detroit to Green Bay to Milwaukee. My dad and I parted ways with an emotional hug and we would later find we both picked up a cold somewhere along the way. Yesterday was my cat’s 3rd birthday and my best mate’s 30th.

We had fun. So, so much fun. And it meant so very much to me.

Life goes on for me and for Everton. And it’s not easy. I guess no one said it would be. I came home to all the shit I left. Everton play Crystal Palace (didn’t expect three mentions for the Eagles in this blog post!) on Saturday and need a good result as their future still remains very uncertain – even grim. I don’t know what kind of turmoil the club might be in when I turn 40, and I certainly don’t know what the fuck I’ll be doing between now and then.

But it’s okay. You kick on anyway.

It’s at the heart of my heritage, and of Tolkien and other great tales, and of my favorite team. It’s at the heart of my family and my faith. “You go on,” says Davos Seaworth, who would undoubtedly have been an Evertonian. “Go fail again.”

I didn’t waste the last decade of my life. I lived it. It made me who I am today. And I am – slowly – learning to love that person as I find out who he is. He is loved by his family and by his friends and by his God. I will go on. I am at all times becoming who I am meant to be. Nothing can change that, just as nothing can really change Everton. Everton will always exist, until some day in the future if sports are no longer a thing. Even if new ownership comes in and makes a mess of things, even if the club gets relegated and goes into financial ruin and the resulting death spiral takes us down through all the levels of English football, even if the club were to dissolve, it wouldn’t be the end. Some people on the banks of the River Mersey would clear a patch of land and paint it with some simple white lines. They’d put up two goals and set up a few bleachers. Local lads and ladies would put on the same-colored shirts and play against a team wearing a different color. And then they’d get sponsorships and investment and bring in players from Ireland and Wales and Senegal and Brazil and climb from one division to the other. And young children and old timers and Americans would gather and cheer. The People’s Club will go on, and so will I.

We are who we are today, and that’s enough.

November 5, 2023. Liverpool, England.

The night before, walking back to the pub with our takeaway, we found that someone had spray-painted “Ban Ingrants” on the side of the pub. Shitty, but not unexpected in today’s UK. “More like ban ignorance,” I said. It disturbed my dad, too.

Early the next morning, I went out to find some bottled water. There was a middle-aged man painting over the graffiti, already nearly done applying a fresh, even layer to erase the hateful words.

“You alright, mate?” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m good.”

He was just finishing up when we came down to meet the car to take us to Manchester.

“Good morning,” said my father.

“Have a good day now,” I said.

“Cheers,” he said. And then he went inside.

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

Up the Toffees

-Peter