We start, and end, with football.
Another Euros approaching, and the end of the season being nigh, football has understandably been high on the list of priorities in my mind this past few months, not least because Betsy has had a few games for the school team. They’re doing well, winning a few, and she’s trying her best (but is not the next Alex Greenwood, who actually attended the same primary school) and even turned her hand to netball in a couple of games recently, preparing for high school which we intrepidly await.
There was also the additional problem of yet another Everton points deduction, but there’s more on that later…
TV proved a nice distraction in the meantime. The very good Too Good to be True and the ever excellent Great British Menu, plus the sad news about Dave Myers, announced as it was the day after an excellent Liverpool based episode which I implore everyone to watch on iPlayer.
The best thing I’ve watched recently – which is also available on the BBC platform – was How to with John Wilson – like nothing else on TV – first episode about finding public bathrooms in NYC. Like a blend of Wes Anderson & Spike Jonze meets Found magazine (to which I was once a regular contributor) meets Louis Theroux… small details, like hand signals noticed among native New Yorkers on a daily basis akin to those used by baseball players. The Mets fan, with his glass collection and his recollections of his first game, took me back to NYC and the memorabilia I bought here (wish we could have gone to a game but it was close season) then forward to my own collections and son and our excitement as the new stadium comes ever more real, as does relegation and what would come with that.
And the hoover convention in episode 4 has to be seen to be believed… the ending is particularly poignant.
Other good things we’ve watched in the past few weeks? Passengers: Stranger Things meets Twin Peaks meets Happy Valley meets myriad other Netflix series with dismembered animals and odd teenage characters. I really liked it. As I did Red Eye, not quite real time but largely set on a flight to China (and it put me off flying for a while) then of course the return of Masterchef.
The kids had artworks in church as part of their Easter Art exhibition – a lovely lead in to the upcoming holiday. We went to see the new Ghostbusters, Frozen Empire, which I really loved as it evoked the original more than any of the other reimaginings. Technology has obviously made a film like this all the more possible and realistic, but it struck a chord with us having visited several of the locations featured heavily in it, such as the Hook & Ladder fire station and the lions outside the Public Library – who comes ‘alive’ in the film quite magnificently.
More ‘wow factor’ was to come later that week, as we were lucky enough to attend the Etihad Stadium for the Man City v Aston Villa game.
Little E has adopted City as his second team and obviously he’s thankfully oblivious to the suggestions of oil empire corruption which besmirch, for many, their greatness. What’s undeniable is that they put on a good show, both before the game what with the blue carpet arrival before a crowd whipped up by a brilliant DJ and then the game itself, a stellar performance especially by the Stockport Iniesta which reminded me of seeing the ‘solutions man’ star at the Nou Camp exactly twelve years earlier.
It was the little things I noticed. The vast campus with the training ground nearby, the bus loads of Sheikhs, the crowded megastore, the Asahi on draft, the Pierre Koffman fries on sale, the friendliness of staff searching bags, the myriad homelands of the fans being interviewed on the big screen. Surreal, but whetting the appetite for what we have to come in a couple of years if things calm down.
The moneyed Mancunian experience continued the next day, spending Christmas money at the Trafford Centre.
Twelve years of marriage was celebrated with our first taste of Mowgli – with some delightful orange wine…
very good, it was too – and it inspired me to recreate the Goan fish curry (stank the house out but tasted immense) alongside some delicious aperitifs at the elegant Municipal hotel, and digestifs at the very cool (though hard to locate) Nord.
The next day, more generosity of friends allowed me to enjoy / endure an Everton victory, notable for a freak goal and a chance meeting with the esteemed actor, Ian Hart. From his early role as Rabbit in the brilliant One Summer, via Backbeat and Boardwalk Empire, to more recent performances in Tin Star and The Responder, I’d long admired his acting and only a couple of weeks previously felt starstruck when we saw him going for coffee just around the corner from our house. Now, here he was stood skulking on WSAG island and we had a good chat before he obliged to a selfie.
More culture came with a great little exhibition at the Bluecoat, a retrospective of sorts, created quite brilliantly by Babak Ganjei. It was very ‘me’ but the kids loved it, too!
The real highlight of the holidays – well, to be honest, arguably also 37 long suffering years of support – came quite unexpectedly, as the best things in life often do. I spoke last time about my disappointment with the Blues on the commercial side; a couple of phonecalls and emails was all it took for them to restore my faith for now, but I’m not allowed to talk about it on social media, so that’s all I have to say about that.
The club may well be a mess off (and sometimes on) the field, but a day like the one me and Elijah experienced couldn’t have been bettered (well, a couple of players couldn’t be there, but the ones that did were fantastic both going through training drills and when signing autographs after the session) plus we were treated like kings before and after getting up close and personal with the first team squad, manager and legends of my youth.
I felt very fortunate to have been offered the opportunity not just to meet everyone and see the other side (hospitality, coaching, camaraderie and the human side of players – special mention for Coleman, Tarkowski, Keane, McNeil, Andre Gomes (who remembered hugging Betsy five years ago) and Youssef Chermiti who, according to Elijah, smelt of ‘fruit and flowers’) but also to see his excitement and the look of excitement and awe on his face when up close and personal with his heroes who seemed to really appreciate this encounter nearly as much as we did.
Whatever happens, I love you.
The very next day we visited the beautiful little Lancastrian town of Heysham for a lovely lunch to celebrate my mum’s birthday and, afterwards, the setting for – I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – the greatest music video of all time.
A haunting graveyard, in picturesque scenery, seemingly a world away from the maelstrom of football fervour. Imagine my surprise, then, that only a few weeks later, the bizarre worlds of Sean Dyche and Blossoms aligned with his cameo in their new video, which has to be seen to be believed…
Football, and Everton, are magic again – three victories in a week, the last of which we were very lucky to attend and I even realised a lifetime ambition of bumping into the King of the North himself, the great Andy Burnham whilst he was marching down the Goodison Road.
It wasn’t exactly a spectacle, but the relief as we left the stadium, to the beautiful strains of ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’, was palpable, and the excitement I witnessed on Elijah’s face at Man City, this scrappy victory which meant survival for another year, and the excellent Marine season closer as they approached their own moments of glory in the Liverpool Senior Cup and League Play Off Final, reminded me of the seminal quote from Fever Pitch which had a huge impression on me when I was learning about the game, and being a fan, myself.
“Football has meant too much to me, and come to represent too many things.
See, after a while, it all gets mixed up in your head, and you can’t work out if life’s **** because [Everton] are **** or it’s the other way around.
I’ve been to watch to many games, spent too much money, and fretted about [Everton] when I should have been fretting about something else. I’ve asked too much of the people I love.
OK, I can accept all that.
But I don’t know, perhaps it’s something you don’t understand, unless you belong…”
That Saturday evening, Elijah knew he belonged.
As I always have.
