It was the ones who hadn’t stayed to the end who I felt sorry for. The ones with a bus to catch or a car to move or an early start the next day. Imagine leaving early. imagine missing that .
For there were some blue seats visible before it all happened. In the Gladwys Street End where James Tarkowski thumped in his equalising goal for Everton against Liverpool and in the Lower Bullens Stand, over by the corner. Some – as is always the case up and down the country – presumed the game was up and that the story had already been told. So they went home.
And now all they have left is a woe-is-me tale about going to the last and most dramatic Merseyside derby at Goodison Park only to leave before the atom bomb landed. They are the ghosts of Goodison, the living and breathing internet memes.
Not for them the adrenaline rush, the shock and awe pumped directly into their veins, the dizziness, the heart banging like a drum. Not for them the sheer joy of it. Not for them that feeling that good things really do still happen, even in these most difficult of times.
Not for them the reminder that live sport still has not changed. Not for them the knowledge that whatever we do to it and however we seek to mess with it and sanitise it, the stuff that happens out there – out there on the grass where we all really want to be – still matters more than we can ever explain.
No, none of that is for them. Maybe they will seek to change their story. Maybe they will say they were there because for the previous 90-odd minutes they had been. But deep down, they will know.
James Tarkowski smashed in a half-volley to rescue a point for Everton against city rivals Liverpool
There was pandemonium in the Gladwys Street End following the 98th-minute stunner
However, some supporters had already left their seats before the conclusion, assuming the action was done
Deep down they will know their experience lacked the bit that matters, the bit that would have kept them awake at night, staring at the ceiling thanking their mum or dad or aunt or uncle or brother or sister or whoever it was who first nudged them in the direction of their football team.
And this is not to mock those who didn’t see it, who didn’t witness Tarkowski do that thing that so few ever get to do. No it’s to celebrate those who were there and who did bear witness to another moment to remind us that football still lives deep within us in such a way that it is impossible to soil.
We all know the list of things they have done to us in the name of progress. And when we say progress, we largely mean money.
Kick-off times, ticket prices, VAR delays, FA Cup replays, Wembley semi-finals. But we also know that deep down where it matters, they can’t touch us. They just cannot take this from us.
Football remains visceral and real and representative of life in all its glories and failures and sometimes there is absolutely no substitute for just being there to see it.
Everton now have their Tarkowski moment just as Liverpool have Jerzy Dudek and Manchester United have Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Manchester City have Sergio Aguero and Paul Dickov and Arsenal have Michael Thomas and West Ham have Jarrod Bowen and Carlisle have Jimmy Glass (you may have to look that one up).
And there are dozens of others. Most of us have one and those who don’t just need to stick around because eventually it will come around. That’s sport. That chance to collapse into now is just round the corner, somewhere.
The final derby at Goodison was actually rather mundane for the most part. The football was too frantic and uplifting moments were too rare. And now it is done, there will be recriminations and investigations.
There has been plenty of fallout following the fixture, with referee Michael Oliver facing criticism for his performance
Liverpool believe the Toffees’ equaliser should not have stood because of a foul in the build up
Tarkowski’s strike proved to be a fitting end to Merseyside proceedings at Goodison Park
Liverpool fans think Everton’s first goal came from a free-kick incorrectly awarded and they are probably right. They think the second one came from a foul on Ibrahima Konate and they are probably wrong.
The FA will look into what happened among all that bad feeling at fulltime and all this will keep the media busy for a while. Football’s news cycle rolls on.
But that stuff is just the noise of our game. The truth is that the stuff that really mattered came and went in the time it took a former Burnley central defender – raised a Manchester United fan but now playing for Everton – to draw back his right boot and extend it through the ball as powerfully as he could late on Wednesday night.
Goal to Everton. Point for Everton. Glory to Goodison. Pride restored. Heart rate spiked. Head spun. Love requited. At last.
Yes, imagine missing all of that .
Ange Postecoglou claimed that the scrutiny over his position at Tottenham is ‘just agenda driven stuff’
Postecoglou’s crystal-clear message
Ange Postecoglou was calm as he delivered his assessment of Tottenham’s latest setback but his message was crystal clear.
‘This is just agenda driven stuff,’ said Postecoglou. ‘If it’s to get rid of me then good on you. If you want to get rid of me, fine.’
So let’s be clear. Nobody in the mainstream media wants to see Postecoglou sacked at Tottenham. Nobody treats him differently because he is Australian, as he suggested earlier in the season. There is no agenda.
He is being scrutinised over his results, just like everybody else. By suggesting it is about something different, he appears weak when he actually isn’t. Managers who see ghosts in the shadows don’t tend to last very long so it’s a look that Postecoglou would do well to shake off.
He is right when he says some people don’t understand the impact of injuries and exhaustion on his team’s results. And for what it’s worth, I think Tottenham should hang on to him. Let’s see what his team looks like when its big players return.
But managers who talk in terms of conspiracy theories often end up with a foot out of the door. Postecoglou should leave that to the social media loonies and get on with his work while he still can.
Exeter’s feat goes unnoticed
Nottingham Forest almost went out of the FA Cup at Exeter City, the 18th placed team in League One.
Yet hardly anyone seemed to notice. Fair to say the world had moved on by the time Tuesday evening rolled around.
A lesson learned, we hope. An FA Cup weekend should be precisely what it says it is.
Nottingham Forest survived an almighty scare to reach the fifth round of the FA Cup on Tuesday night
League One strugglers Exeter took the Premier League side all the way to penalties before falling just short
John Eustace was confirmed as Derby County manager on Thursday, having made the switch from Championship promotion hopefuls Blackburn
We get what we deserve
My colleague Simon Jordan believes John Eustace will get what’s coming to him down the line after making it clear he wants to leave Blackburn for Derby County.
But the fact is that he has already that punch in the solar plexus. Football has already done its worst to him.
Eustace had Birmingham City sixth in the Championship in October 2023 when he was sacked to make room for Wayne Rooney. So he knows how football works.
And this is the nub of it. Why do we expect our managers to follow some unwritten code of trust and loyalty when the world they live and work in trades on expediency and short-termism? It makes no sense.
It’s football that makes people like Eustace behave the way they do. Sometimes we get what we deserve.
