Paul: Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending upon where in the world you are, what time and day you’re listening to this episode, which might be a significant episode of Talking the Blues.
George and Andy, how are you both?
George & Andy: All right, mate. Good call, yeah. Blue skies? Everywhere.
Blue skies everywhere.
Paul: Okay, let’s cut to the quick. I think one of the reasons why Talking the Blues has been a success is that we’ve kept close touch with the people who listen to us and the podcast itself has been about everything, it’s been about football, and it’s been about the people to whom we send our message every week.
We’ve done 250-something, maybe 260 podcasts over the last six years, and it’s been a tumultuous journey, hasn’t it? You know, that evidence has gone through really difficult times, and yet now, even if we don’t see the evidence yet on the pitch, we’re in a much stronger position than we’ve been in any of those times.
But the situation, and let’s just be blunt with everybody that’s listening, the situation that we face, the three of us, is that we can’t continue. Talking the Blues can’t continue, can it, Andy? Can it, George?
George: Um, no. Well, not not with the three of us, no, because I don’t want to watch professional football anymore, professional male football, and I can’t see myself going to watch professional women’s football. I might do, but I don’t think so.
I’m just sick of football.So if you seek a football and you have no intention of watching anymore, you can’t talk about it in a podcast because I’m, I’m just kind of done with it. So, effectively, I’m sort of resigning from the podcast.
I’m absolutely certain that I personally will miss the podcast a great deal more than I will miss watching British Premier League football. But I’ve got to stop, because it just makes me unhappy now. I’m a grump. And I approach it negatively.
And what’s the point, it’s supposed to be fun and entertainment, and it’s not so stop doing it and find something else to do.
Paul: And is that something that’s grown out over a period of time? Or is it, you know, the realizations is like, you will go
George: That’s exactly so, you know, I mean, you go into denial about it for ages, because it’s part of your life. And, you know, I’ve been watching Everton since I was 15 or 16 or something. And, you know, it’s a huge part of my life.But I can’t because it’s not Everton.
It’s just the game. And the way the game has evolved, I just can’t be watching anymore. And so, on Saturday, as I fired up my laptop, I thought, I approached it with dread, frankly, thinking, I won’t enjoy this. And I’ll just bitch about it. And I did.
And you think, well, just stop doing it and get the paints out or get the guitar out. I got the guitar right yesterday and the mandolin. So there’ll be other things to do with that energy for me. I don’t expect anybody to join in or follow me. But I can’t do Talking the Blues because I’m not going to watch the blues or anybody else for that matter.
Andy: No, I know exactly where our kid is coming from on that. I don’t think I’m going to stop watching Everton. But I have become very disillusioned with football, particularly since the inception and the growth and inverted commas success of the Premier League.
I don’t find myself enjoying the success of the Premier League because I don’t think it is a success. Personally, it might be a success for one or two or three or four clubs, but it isn’t a success for 20 clubs because I don’t believe there are 20 sets of fans who will go into the start of next season harboring genuine thoughts of being champions. There will be three or four who will harbor those thoughts.
And the rest will be scrambling for the fourth champion league place. And most likely, as it looks like it’s going to be this season, the three promotees will be the three relegatees. And I don’t think that’s any way that football should be run where it’s such an uneven playing field.
And I just think there’s so much wrong with the game that needs to be addressed by the authorities at every level, but particularly at Premier League level. And it has become difficult to watch games. I kind of sat down over the weekend and thought about how many games have I watched this season, not just Everton games, other games where I’ve actually really enjoyed the spectacle that I’ve watched largely on TV.
And I couldn’t think of very many. I’m struggling to think of anyone now of a game that I actually sat down for 90 minutes and at the end of it thought, by God, I’m glad I watched that. Because there haven’t been games like that. There’s been odd moments that I’ve really enjoyed. Tarto’s goal, obviously, will stick in the memory for many a long year.
But in general, 90 minutes of football, or more often than not less, considerably less with the time wasting that goes on, it’s not the game that I grew up with. And I’m disappointed with that because I love football, but I can’t be doing with the way the game has gone and the way it seems to continue to want to go, which is not in the greater good of all the clubs involved.
It’s for the greater good of three or four, or maybe five or six at best, the rest are also runs. And I don’t think that’s right.And I would say exactly the same if Everton were one of those two or three that were nailed on to be top three next season.
I still don’t think it would be fair on the game and on the millions of supporters around the country and around the world, that basically there’s only two or three teams who are going to compete. I don’t think it’s right. I’m disillusioned with football.
There’s been times over the last six years that we’ve all been disillusioned with Everton, but the love of our own club helps wash that away. But football itself, and in particular football under the guise of the Premier League, no longer. is no longer the pull that football has had in decades gone past.
Paul: Thanks for that, Andy. I find it a fascinating subject and I’m sure lots of people listening to this will be nodding, but also maybe, you know, forming their own opinions of that.And in a sense, it’s for me, it is. I’ve never really had a massive interest in football generally. Other than the fact that, you know, for everything to be successful. Football generally has to be successful.
My focus has always been on everything, Football Club, and it always will be. And I think with both you, George, and both you, Andy, of course, you will always be Evertonians, even if your love of the game disappears.
Andy & George: Yeah, absolutely.
George: It’s not like i’m it’s not like i’m going to empty me me wardrobe with scarves and shirts That’s not real
Paul: And nor should you and nor should anybody else because what we’ve all done as fans and what everybody listens to this podcast, what they’ve all done as fans is, you know, we’ve been, whether, whether people realize this or not, we’ve been active participants in the game of football over the years by virtue of our support, by virtue of the fact that we spent our money and either go into the game or spent our money on, you know, sky subscriptions or whatever other subscriptions you have to pay for in order to watch the game on TV if you don’t happen to be in the same locality as the team that you support.
So the three of us and everybody that listens to this and every other Evertonian, in fact, every other football fan are participants.I suppose the question for me is, you know, how many people feel similarly to yourself or to yourselves and what should football do about it?
George: Or won’t even notice. Football’s off to Saudi Arabia to have another sportswash. Football has been treating its fans with contempt now for, as Andy said, quite some time. What should football do about it?
Stop the clock. Address the cheating. Stop making me watch something whereby Declan Rice goes to take a corner and about 10,000 Evertonians at the Carter Street end go, oh hey Pollocks, put it in the quadrant. There wasn’t a linesman there because he was at the other end, but Rice kind of went, oh yeah, go right then, fair enough.
Just to stop the shellacking and drawing attention to the fact that he was deliberately cheating and Rice is a decent football player. He doesn’t need to do that, but he puts the ball in the quadrant, takes the corner and off we go with the bargee-fargee.
The game has become a spectacle. How do I gain an advantage? And not because I’m faster and more skillful and more practice than you, but because we’re going to get more free kicks than you, we’re going to waste more time when we get in front of you, 1-0. It’s just dreary, really dreary.I have seen a couple of games this season where I thought, well, I’m really glad I watched that.
Matches that were superbly refereed and interesting that they were, and in one of them Liverpool lost, that was marvellous. Personally, I’m done with it, and I don’t really care. I don’t believe football has got the will to give a damn about the fans, except pay your money.Come on, get another shirt, buy the reserve shirt, buy the third reserve shirt, make sure your kids have got it. Keep the money going. It’s a gravy train. It’s ugly. It’s not football.
You know what football is. I was thinking about this the other day, that we’ve all played football at whatever pathetic level. Tell me, remember me now, anybody listening to this, what it felt like the first time you were running up the wing, skinned the full back, and he pulled your shirt. And I remember it, you just go, what are you doing? You can’t pull my shirt. That’s just flat cheating.
It’s a completely acceptable part of Premier League football.I’ve got better things to do than watch that, really, I have. And as Andy said, and this is what I’ve been banging on about for ages, there’s no will within the organisation of the game, either in England or FIFA to stamp that out and present it as something that’s fairer all over the place. That alone, Andy’s thing about a level playing field whereby, you know, Wolves fans will go now that we’ve got a real chance this year, got a good squad, you know, not good enough because you haven’t got the money because you know.
Sorry, that was my final rant. Goodbye, everybody.
Paul: You’re not getting off that easily.
George: Yeah, exactly. We’ve got another half hour to fill with rants. It’s gonna be really short.
Paul: All right, look, so we don’t have to give our ages away here, but between the three of us, we’ve probably watched football combined for something, probably something greater than 170 years between the three of us.
George: It won’t be far short of that. That could be generous, yeah.
Paul: Well, George, I didn’t say how much of the hundred and seventy belong to you. Most of them, I mean, Andy, he’s only 44. So where does that leave the two of us?
Iis it right that, you know, football has been such a big part of I’m not necessarily going to say just such a big part of our lives, because obviously there are so many other elements of our lives that have nothing to do with football. But in terms of our leisure activities, in terms of our friends, in terms of the friendship that the three of us have, you two are brothers.
But I’m just a friend to you both, even though I treat you both as brothers and you treat me as your brother. And. All the time, all the money, all the commitment that we’ve made to football over the years and, you know, in the early, early times of being a football supporter, when that commitment wasn’t so great, because it was just like a what for you guys, you had to get down the East Lancs in order to get to Goodison for three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, and let alone eight o’clock on a Monday or a Sunday evening when whenever Sky decides it’s appropriate to to play the game.
Andy: Quite. Did we just walk away?
George: You don’t know, do you? I mean, I don’t know whether in two weeks’ time I’m going to phone you up and go, right, guys, well, that was interesting.I’m missing it all night, man. Let’s reconvene. I just don’t know. The game doesn’t owe us anything.
Paul: But so that’s.
George: George? Sure, I can really. I was thinking of Bob Dylan saying, somebody’s saying, well, why don’t you say thank you? I don’t owe anybody anything. I’m rambling now.
Paul: Yeah, but Dylan was the performer. He wasn’t the guy that paid the money to go and watch Dylan perform.
George: Yeah, but, you know, I don’t feel as though the game owes me anything for all the money that I yeah, of course, I’ve spent squillions and, you know, like Andy, if I threw away all my Everton shirts, I’d have a completely empty wardrobe. But that’s, that’s just, that’s just part of the gig, isn’t it?
I’m not sure where this strand of the conversation is going now, Paul, sorry.
Paul It’s just it’s just a really interesting well for me at least I don’t know if anybody else listening to this thinks it is um it’s to whom does the game belong?
George: Well, it should belong to the fans. The game should belong to the fans because irrespective of the Covid years, a game of football without fans just doesn’t seem right. You know, yes, the game got through the Covid period playing behind closed doors in Guaraville, but…
Paul: I don’t know. Yeah, but in medical terms, and I’m not a medic, but in medical terms, during the COVID period, the game got through, but it got through in almost in the form of a coma. So it didn’t die. But it wasn’t alive. No. And it
George: Yeah, exactly. If football didn’t need fans, we wouldn’t need stadiums. We could still play on the park with jumpers as goalposts. I don’t know, maybe that’s where we need to go.We need to go and watch football in the park. I don’t know.
Paul: Maybe we’re trying to look too deep and answer all of this and maybe it’s just the fact that, you know, like almost anything in life that’s not directly related to your family, it just comes a time when it’s no longer attractive. Sometimes that would probably relate to your family as well, but, you know, the points I’m making are that, you know, for years and years and years I liked, you know, driving cars fast. I no longer like driving cars fast.For years and years and years I like football. I used to love test matches, I still do, but I used to love test match cricket. I don’t any longer.Maybe it’s just inevitable.
George: My mind has gone back here. This is completely spurious and one of my favourite nights at Goodison was going hitchhiking up to East Langston to watch us play an intercity fairs match against Újpest. And I was in the Gwladys Street with all my mates from Kirby and all that. And out they came and they beat us 4-2 on aggregate.They played some nice football Újpest.
But the fans were completely baffled as to what they were supposed to sing. And eventually they started singing co-op farmers. And I stood there going, this is curious because is that an insult?
I mean, if you were a co-op farmer, it wouldn’t be an insult. And also these people are Hungarian. They can’t understand it. What do you think? I don’t know.
It was just one of my favourite memories of going to a football match standing there. I joined in, of course, co-op farmers. That’ll teach you a plan. But, you know, just those joyous things that I suppose, you know, as you get older and cynical and more older and more cynical, can’t be the case. There’s so many, you know, so many wonderful memories of that, of those times of, you know, seeing Alex Young and Andy’s right. There’s no difference between, there’s no real difference between seeing Alex Young in his pomp and Tarko’s goal.
They’re the same thing. Yes. That’s what you go to football for. There’s a lot like, yes, than there was, because there’s a lot more, oh, for f**k’s sake, stop rolling about you, twat. You know, that’s sorry about my language, but, you know, I can afford to now.
No, but you make a very salient point there, that kid. You know, it’s got to the point where too much of what we witness is abhorrent to us because we want to watch football and we want to watch decent, flowing football played at pace and, you know, with full intent to score a goal. And too often these days, that’s not there. It simply isn’t there. And that’s disappointing.
Paul: So I don’t know. Is it the game going away from the fans?
George: I think the game’s going away from itself, Paul.
Andy: I agree with that. I mean, yeah, go on. We’ve all played football to whatever level we’ve played to, be it at school or just in the park with our mates, or whether you’ve actually gone on and played professional and got to Premier League level and international level.
There can’t be a young boy anywhere in this country and in many, many other countries who hasn’t kicked a football and dreamt of scoring the winning goal in the Cup Final or the World Cup Final or whatever. And I’m not sure that kids feel like that these days. I don’t know. I haven’t talked to any kids who play football in the park. Maybe I should go and ask them what their dream is. I don’t know. They’ll probably just say to play for United or City or Liverpool because that’s where all the money is.
And if that were their answer, that would kind of confirm in my mind my disillusionment with football, that they don’t want to play football.They just want to make a shed load of money. And if they can make a shed load of money from football, fine. I’ve always said if you can make a living from doing something that you love and enjoy, then that’s what you want to do. But if that is purely the aim rather than going out and enjoying a game of football and enjoying being part of a game of football and having the crack with your teammates, then to me that’s wrong.
George: I think that might be a bit too cynical, Andy, and I would bet you that, you know, well, I know because I’ve watched my grandson play football and he’s dreaming every second of it. And, you know, he is going towards, you know, football is such a primal, you know, we’ve said it a thousand times, two piles of coats and a ball. That’s all you need all over the world. So you can be sure that the dreams of every, you know, kid, girl or boy in Brazil is tonking the top corner against Argentina. It’s got to be.
Why should that change? You know, what changes is as you, you know, as you go into the professional game, is that the professional game is nothing like what we went to watch. Not saying that it’s worse, it’s worse in the way in the visual spectacle I’m watching.
But when I first, you know, first match I ever saw was Tom Finney and Matt Lothaus playing for Preston North End and Bolton Wanders. They were being paid pennies while the directors cleaned up. 45,000 people there putting their hands in their pockets and the players were seeing absolutely diddly squat of it until Jimmy Hill and Johnny Hanes, you know, and now it’s gone the other end so that Ronaldo is owning small countries all being paid.
You know, you know what I’m saying. So I don’t mind that evolution if it didn’t come alongside cheating. And I don’t see why it should. And I’m tired of thinking about it. And I’m tired of saying it. I’m tired of hearing myself say it. And I’m sure other people are too, so they won’t anymore. Because I shall be fly fishing or something.
Andy: That’s a good idea, bro.
Paul: Well we’re not doing a fly fishing podcast, Talking the Fly.
Andy: Ha, ha, ha, ha.
George: Would you want it to go, Paul?
Paul: We started this six years ago, and as I say, we’ve done 250, 260 something podcasts, and we’ve been listened to by tens of thousands of people in each podcast, so therefore, you know, the figures add up and, you know, hundreds of thousands of people have listened to us over, over the six years.
And those six years have coincided with probably the most difficult times that Everton have ever faced.
And in fact, you know, in the very most recent times before the Friedkins came in, the, in Moshiri’s words, the existential crisis that the club faced.
Where do you think the club is today? And where’s it going to go forward?
Notwithstanding anything that you feel about, you know, football generally, but just as an Evertonian, what’s your, both of you, Andy and George, what’s your perception of where the club is and where it will go going forwards?
George: I know where I’d like it to be.
Paul: Okay, start there.
George: Well, first of all, I’d like us to be playing the kind of football that we’ve seen all too infrequently in recent seasons. I’d like us to be challenging in every competition we enter and winning one every now and again. Not endlessly, like certain clubs have done in recent years where they’ve won back-to-back, back-to-back, back-to-back titles. I’m, you know, much as it would be, I guess it would be nice, I think it would get boring. I don’t want us to be, I don’t want Everton to go into games knowing that they’re going to trolley who the opposition is. I’d like them to go into games wanting to trolley the opposition, whoever it is, but not having it nailed on.
I want it to be a competition, and I’d like to see a damn sight more competition than there is these days. And I think football would benefit from greater competition. And if Everton could go into those competitions and win one every now and again, I’d love to see us win a Carabao Cup, a League Cup, whatever you want to call it, we’ve never won it.
We’ve been to a couple of finals, but we’ve never won it. So that would be the first aim for me.And then to be, you know, to genuinely challenge, but most of all, to play entertaining football that the fans can really get behind, win, lose or draw. You know, we’ve all been to football games and seen Everton lose, but there’s been a solid effort from the players and they’ve gone out and done their damnedest to try and win the game.
And if you’re not good enough on the day, you’re not good enough on the day. And that’s just the way the mop flops. But it would be nice to know that every time the players are going out, they’re going out with a belief in themselves in what they’re doing and the way they’ve been coached and the way they’ve been prepared, that they can go out and give anybody on the planet a game of football. And I think that’s what football needs. It needs competition.
So that’s what I’d like to see, Everton. I’d like to see us more successful on the pitch, attracting better players, obviously, but not hoovering them up in such a way that nobody else gets one. That would just be, you know, coming off one slippery slope and getting onto another one.
Andy: No, if going forward, you know, David Moyes, and whoever ultimately replaces Moyes as manager of Everton, can build a strong squad that plays good, attractive football and pushes in a position to challenge for trophies, great. That’s what I’d like to see .And I’d like it for every Evertonian.
And I’d actually like it for every other club supporter as well, that if their clubs could go out there with the same kind of mindset. And if we ever got back to the stage where 20 clubs in the Premier League, at the start of every season, fans truly of every club harbored at the thought of winning the league title or getting to Wembley for the FA Cup Final or the Carabao Cup Final, then, you know, maybe I’m being over-romantic and nostalgic for yesteryear, but I just think football, it knows it.
George: And I think that, at times, was a better product than the product we’ve got now. And I don’t care about the financial success of the Premier League. I don’t think the product is as good. And ultimately, when you buy a product, be it a car, a house, a motorbike, a fishing rod, whatever, you want that product to be the best you can get for the money that you’ve got to outweigh. And right now, I don’t think we’re getting the best product for the money that’s outweighed by football fans of any colour.
Interesting, Andy, because I suspect that the powers that be in football would say, yeah, yeah, but what you haven’t seen is that there is plenty of competition in football, but it’s in the real competitions that the leagues are just, you know, like silly things that feed the big stuff, the European competitions.
Nobody running football gives a damn that, you know, below Aston Villa, nobody’s got a hope. So what? That just means that the fans in Europe will see the teams that they’ve heard Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, la, la, la, la, the usual suspects.
And that’s where the competition happens. That’s where it really cranks up. I think that’s pathetic. But I think that’s the state of the game, as it is.And as regards, you know, always hoovering up people, the irony of that, I agree with what you’re saying.
But the irony is, we started it. Everton with the first moneybags team to go, oh, we’ll buy him. You remember that joke. You had a good seven. They buy you next week. And they did. I mean, so you know, it’s a bit class houses.
And in the very short term, my hopes for Everton is he stops picking Doucoure. And Harrison plays the decent players he’s got, takes a risk for goodness sake, Moyes, take a risk.
The fact that they stayed on the pitch for both those games is shameful.He contributed next to nothing. And he didn’t contribute anything like what Alcaraz would have contributed, which is pace, optimism, hope, you know, I’m just done with moaning about it. I guess that’s another reason why I’ve had enough. I’m sick of hearing myself moan. I must find something not to moan about.
Paul: I think you made it a bit hard on yourself there, George, because you haven’t just moaned. I mean, you’ve contributed.
George: You know, well, that’s just how I feel right at this minute. But that’s another reason why I just.
Paul: I haven’t said much so far. For me, I always think there’s two ways to go. And please forgive me, this is not a value judgment on what you’re saying, because I think what you’re saying and what I’m about to say are both equally valid.
As I said earlier, I’m not a massive football fan per se, but I am, to my core, an Evertonian. And I know both of you are.
And I feel that, as I have done for many years and over my time in social media, and particularly the really difficult times, and with five minutiae, when what you’re being offered, the product that you’re being offered and you’re paying for, isn’t what it should be, then you’ve got to fight for it. If you really believe in it and you have the ability and you have the capacity and you have the time, and I appreciate that, you know, other people, including yourselves, you know, stress this is not a value judgment in any sense, may have more important things to do.
You know, walking on the beach the weekend in Formby, Crosby, spending time with the grandkids, whatever it might be, painting, you know, whatever George and Andy, then you make those decisions. For me, I’m not prepared to give it up yet.
George: Good. I haven’t started yet.
Paul: I don’t believe Everton would be where they are today without all the efforts of the people who’ve fought against Bill Kenwright and against Farhad Moshiri.
100%.It’s, it’s not, it’s everything or not where we want to be, even with Bramley-Moore, even with the Friedkins coming in. Both of whom, you know, Bramley-Moore and the Friedkins I think are positives, albeit, you know, there’s a lot of things to sort out still with Bramley-Moore.
We’re not where we want to be.
Maybe it’s just because I’m a little bit younger than, not that much, but a little bit younger than both of you. I don’t want to give up on this Everton because
George: I don’t think we want to give up on Everton, Paul. We just want the game to change.
Paul: Right. I’m not sure what we can do about the game. Oh, we tried. Yeah, absolutely.We tried. Yeah. And maybe maybe this is where my argument falls down, that you got to work out a way of changing the game. As well as making sure that your club is competitive.
But no matter how crap the game is and how biased the game is and how against the game, against your principles, the game has become. And this probably says more about me than it does about the two of you. I still want everything to succeed in this. Does that mean that I want everything to become, you know, a cheating club like many of the biggest clubs are? Hmm, I don’t know.
George: No, of course not. No. I get more depressed when I see Everton players going, oh, I can go down here and get a free kick. I think, oh f*ck sake, why isn’t somebody saying, you know, remember how distressed I was when Moisey said on BBC Two about 15 years ago, I do tell my players that if the centre half sticks his leg out, go over it. Get the penalty. That was Moisey then.
And he’s an absolute realist. And he was the centre half, so he knows exactly what he’s talking about. And no, you have to be really perverse to go, what, my team cheats better than yours? We wasted miles more time in that last game than you did. When Everton played Liverpool, the ball was only in play for 53 minutes.
So stick that up, you arse.Nobody would want to go there, surely to God. And if you think I’m not going to look and see next week whether we’ve beaten… Sorry. Yeah, Forest as well. You’re very much mistaken, I will. But that’s all I’m saying.
Paul: Oh yeah, I totally get it though. We’re talking in the microcosm that is talking the blues.And beyond that, you know, we’re all still Evertonians and we’re all still going to be active Evertonians. I get that totally. Maybe that’s where we leave it.
George:Well, not within the form of banks and dealers.
Paul: No, yeah, I was just about to go on to that. But go on, go on, George. No, no, no, I’m sure you will do better than I can do it. Go ahead, mate.
George: I’m not talking anymore. I am not talking the blue. Yeah, go on.
Paul: Well, look, it’s been six years.
If it’s been 260 podcasts, plus or minus a few, it’s been more than 260 hours of podcasting and it’s been many other hours of us talking together.
And sometimes we did plan, most times we didn’t. Sometimes we did edit, normally made with my introduction, which caused George endless entertainment over the years, because I didn’t always get my introduction right the first time. And sometimes three or four times, four times or more.
But we’ve had, you know, regardless of what’s happening with everything and regardless of all the crap that we’ve been through and regardless of, you know, all of that, we’ve had amazing fun doing what we’ve done.
Yeah. And we’ve had, you know, if we can, we never talk about ourselves here. I don’t think any broadcaster podcaster or whatever should do. And we’ve had great fun.
And, you know, the relationship between the three of us has grown as the podcast has grown. Obviously, you two brothers and me and a non-family member of that brotherhood. So for us, it’s been fantastic.
And all I would say is I hope for everybody that’s listened. And, you know, almost, but almost every week, the number of people who listen has grown in the number of countries in which we’re listening to has grown. So for all of you, I hope you’ve really enjoyed the journey.
And sad that, you know, the journey is finishing now for Talking the Blues.
But that doesn’t mean that everything is finished. It doesn’t mean that fan media is finished. It doesn’t mean that podcasts of this nature are finished. It doesn’t mean that football is finished. It means it’s probably going to be a bit different going forwards.
But football is really important to all of us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here or we wouldn’t be listening to it. So if you don’t like how football is going, if you don’t like what football is today, I would encourage everybody, not just to talk in the pub with their mates or with their family at home. But get involved and tell the people who have the ability to make changes in football, to make football better.
And to always remember that their role is at the football club. So anybody that’s employed by the football club, anybody that’s employed by the Premier League, anybody that’s employed by UEFA, anybody that’s played employed by FIFA, your role is only a custodian role. It is nothing more than that.
You are looking after the game, the most simple of all games, as George and Andy say, two jumpers and a ball and a group of boys and girls you want to play.Your role is to take the game forwards and to make sure that the game stays true to its roots, but actually is there and is available for not only for current generations, but for future generations.
And you know, talking to Blues, we’ve played a minuscule part in that in terms of helping make sure that Everton survived through what it survived through in recent years. But Everton is only a small part of a much bigger pie.
And everybody else who’s involved in football, either as a fan or, you know, as an administrator or as a player, whatever, they just have to continue that journey.
And they have to make sure that football as much as it can. And I totally get what Andy and George are saying. And, you know, I said the same myself. It has to remain as true to itself as it possibly can going forwards.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Sorry, Andy, are you going to say?
Andy:I was just going to say, totally agree, Paul, totally agree.
Paul: So look and six years some people will have listened to every single podcast
George: Thank you very much.
Paul: Well, thank you and I’m very sorry if you did.
George: That was me. I listened to him all.
Paul: Some people will have dipped in and out from time to time but it doesn’t matter some people will have hated everything that we said doesn’t really matter.
Thank you all above all else from my point of view and an entirely personal point of view this podcast has been like such a you know i’ve done a number of things in my life this podcast has been fantastic.
And I know Andy and George will agree with this and part of my life and you know it’s been amazing not just talking but listening and hearing other people and seeing the number of people who listen to us and who agree and disagree.
it’s been amazing, Everton will continue, As Tony Blair said he left the House of Commons “That is that”.
George: Wanker, That’s it Tony, you’ve finished, so that’s it.
Paul: Well, that may well be the perfect analogy, George. Let’s finish.
George, Andy, personally, thank you both so much for all that you’ve contributed, both when the microphone has been on, but more importantly, when the microphone has been off. Everybody else, thank you. And yeah, that’s it.
Andy: And the lady who pressed the microphone?
Paul: Well, I thought you could talk about her, Andy.
Andy: Well, I think we have to pay enormous respect to someone who’s stuck with us all the way through these six years. We’ve never really mentioned it before in the past.In fact, I don’t think we have ever mentioned it in the past.
But our production assistant, now production manager, who will go off to other things, I’m sure with great success. Rebecca, thanks for everything.
George. See you in a bit. See you around. Take care. All right.
Paul, Andy, George: Thank you all. Take care. See you soon.
* Just a personal note from me, thank you to every single listener, everyone who got in touch, even those who sometimes didn’t always agree.
There a better times ahead for Everton. I will continue podcasting and writing personally, but for Talking the Blues “that is that”.
Thank you both Andy & George for your enormous contributions over the years