You Can Choose Your Friends....

I wake up on Monday morning a little confused. The surroundings are not home, but I have become used to that. The time is later than we usually wake - we are used to getting up at 6am and it is 8.30am. I have a dream in the back of my mind but it is taking me some time to piece it together in my confused state. It was a football dream. No surprise there. I was playing....I've still got enough energy to charge round a pitch so again, hardly a great surprise. I go to the bathroom, where much of my greatest thinking occurs. I am playing football, with some friends, enjoying the game, bending some free kicks like Beckham....and I am wearing high heels. All my team-mates are wearing high heels. And we are all guys.

Sometimes it is good to wake up, even if you are short on sleep. This was one occasion. Some things in life you choose. Some things are chosen for you and you play with the card you are dealt. This dream was dealt to me, and the only choice I have is to embrace the dream and hope and pray it was a one off.

It's a bit like the old saying about being able to choose your friends but not your family. I liken it also to how you begin supporting a team. Little Bobby never wanted to be a Leeds fan like the rest of his pals at school. They were in the second division at the time, while Everton were riding high. Not that it made much of a difference, as I would not have chosen Leeds any way, just to be awkward. I am not the kind of guy who likes to be different. I do have a track record of being awkward at times, and this was one of those moments.

There are two phrases that are used at Everton.....and they are cheesy as they come. 'Evertonians are born, not manufactured' and 'Once a blue, always a blue.' You often hear of people supporting one team during their early years and occasionally making a switch – that does not happen with Everton fans. You may switch to Everton, but you will not decide to shelve them and go for somebody else. It happens with other clubs and there is an example in my family. My cousin’s son TJ, whom you may know from the dance floor if you attended our wedding, used to be a Manchester United fan. I took him to Wembley in 2009 to watch Everton v Man Utd in the FA Cup semi-final, and before kick-off, he was wearing blue. That may have been something to do with being surrounded by hundreds of slightly tipsy singing Evertonians on the train, but he knew what was good for him. It may not have been the Leeds United his father would crave, but it is not Manchester United, which surely has to be a bonus living in Leeds. Anyhow, he is stuck with the Blues now, always a Blue.

So many of us choose a team when we are young and with twenty years hindsight, you wonder why you made the decision. Nobody has ever called me a glory supporter as it has been downhill ever since but that was in essence what it was with Everton dominating in the mid-eighties. Unfortunately, you can ditch your friends, you can change your car, but the team becomes part of the family and there is no escaping that even when times are bad.

Another season is coming to a close and another season of raised hopes but inevitable disappointment for my boys. It is looking like a seventh place finish which on the face of it is a fantastic finish with the resources we had available and the circumstances faced. It may end up being one place higher than those in red, and if it does, that will be a small consolation. It could have been better, but it could have been much worse.

I finished a fantastic book last week called the GM by Tom Callaghan. It gave great insight to the role of the General Manager at an NFL team. Effectively, he is the only guy in the teams that must think long and short term. He makes the calls on player recruitment, and always has an eye on the long term development of the team. Some are good, some are bad as in any sport. At Everton, we are lucky, to have had a great manager for over ten years now who has had the possibility to consider long and short term. That is not the case for so many other managers and coaches who change clubs with such frequency, that long term planning is impossible. It is a serious flaw in the game, particularly English football. You have the guy whose future depends on the next few results, signing players on four or five year contracts – where is the logic? I do not suspect it will change as it is certainly endemic in English football, and these things take years and decades to change. Heck, even heels may be adopted before that happens.

Some clubs have tried to bring the role in, with Liverpool being the most recent team. They fired Damien Comolli a month ago after it was deemed that his methods of player recruitment had proven unsuccessful. No surprise that it was American owners that brought him in, but even they may have realised that it is difficult to adapt to. The other side to the logic is that you are asking a coach to coach players that he may not want or like. Maybe in that sense, it is better to stick to tried and trusted method that has existed for years. It will likely lead to mistakes proving extremely costly, (Andy Carroll any one?) but the truth is that those kinds of mistakes still happen where GMs are in place (Albert Haynesworth perhaps?).

When I was younger I remember reading a story about a child who tried divorcing her parents – a pretty radical idea at the time, and still is really. It got me thinking that perhaps you can indeed have some choice in your family. I must admit that it did cross my mind once or twice when I was in trouble, but it is fair to say that it was nowhere near as much as my parents wishing they could divorce me no doubt. I liken the role of parents to that of the GM – they have to have the long term development and perspective in mind, but they have to get through the next day and week with the kids. A bit like supporting Everton, you may have fleeting thoughts of divorcing them too when they lose a key semi-final against the enemy, but they are part of the family, and regardless of the options that exist in different colours, you’re ultimately stuck with them. You can choose your friends, but not your team, nor your dreams.