🔵 Royal Blue: Everton's season in one road trip, made twice
A campaign that began in crisis ended with the dawn of a new era. A motorway service station holds some of the answers
Hello, and welcome to edition one of the Royal Blue newsletter. Every week I will provide an in-depth insight on the major talking points - on and off the pitch - at Everton FC.
You might also know Royal Blue from the podcast of the same name, in which I often feature. Here’s the latest episode.
One motorway service station. Two stops. Three weeks.
🔵 It is 11.38pm. I have been driving for a couple of hours. It will be another three before I am home. It is snowing. In the car park at Warwick Services, I am the first to leave footprints.
That was the lowest point of the season. It was cold, I was tired and the M40 was a pristine but treacherous track of glowing white that was starting to freeze.
The demons that really tormented me were not on the road, however. They lay 140-odd miles away at Bournemouth. It was January 4 and Everton had started a new year in a familiar fashion with another limp defeat at the Vitality Stadium. Not even a shot on target.
I led the way when Sean Dyche emerged for the post-match press conference. They can be tough. Especially after displays like that. Dyche was hard to question. Sometimes combative, sometimes defensive, always looking for the upper hand. Sat a few feet in front of him the power dynamic was different that evening.
Days later he told new Everton owners The Friedkin Group he had taken the club as far as he could go. That much was clear in his eyes and words as he looked down to me from his raised platform after the defeat that left Everton staring down the barrel of a fourth consecutive relegation fight.
🔵 It is 11.38pm. I have been driving for a couple of hours. I am tired. Another late night stop at Warwick. I will be home quicker because the weather is better. So is my mood. So is Everton’s outlook.
It is January 25. Just three weeks have passed since *that* nightmare in Bournemouth. It could have been a year. Now, David Moyes is in charge. Everton have just sealed a battling, hard-fought, surprise win at Brighton. A second straight win has them seven points clear of trouble and Moyes, who celebrated with the away end as his players fought on the pitch, has already dispelled the doubts over his return.
That was the day Everton’s season changed. It was not the takeover that finally lifted the club from financial chaos, nor the handover of the keys to the sleek, state-of-the-art new stadium that is a symbol of everything this club wants to become.
The win at the Amex came at a cost but it was the day belief returned. You could hear it in the cracked voices celebrating in the away end, you could see it in the way players hurled their bodies into tackles. I could see it in Moyes’ eyes when I questioned him after the final whistle.
Everton went on to stay up with ease. More great away days followed at Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Newcastle United. They were made possible by the transformation achieved at Brighton.
“It was like a noise that was almost still. It was that loud it was silent, if that makes sense”
Dominic Calvert-Lewin is a great talker. Pleasant, thoughtful and articulate. The striker has been speaking to Jake Humphrey on the High Performance Podcast and he is as insightful as ever.
This is an emotional interview in which he talks through the pressure he felt to save Everton from relegation - a responsibility he took on personally and which drove him to tears. The podcast is a fascinating glimpse at a player who has been through a tough few years but it was the above quote, about the survival-clinching goal he scored against Crystal Palace three years ago, that struck me.
⭐ From the archive
It was some night, that win over Palace under Frank Lampard. Relive the pyro, despair and the heroics of Dele with my report
📷 Photographer (and Everton supporter) Laura Gates has produced a stunning collection of images from the final men’s game at Goodison Park. Take a look at some of them above (more details on the rest, below)
📰 Everton noticeboard
📘 Laura, whose Instagram I link to above, has just released her new photography collection, one that captures the farewell campaign at Goodison
👏 The guys over at Toffee TV recently passed the 100,000 subscriber milestone - what an achievement, congratulations!
⚽ Everton have confirmed two additional pre-season friendlies with the Blues set to travel to Accrington Stanley (July 15) and Blackburn Rovers (July 19) before heading to the USA
And one last thing before the end
🍟 Expect plenty of this kind of insight when next season gets underway and I can take you through the press room food we get on our travels. Newcastle is just about recent enough for this to be relevant - the offer was mince and mashed potato. I only took up the packets of biscuits (Shrewsbury biscuits, ginger, oat), however, as we stopped off at Tebay Services - before and after!
Thanks for reading. My name is Joe Thomas and I’m the Everton correspondent for the Liverpool Echo. I travel home and away to watch the Blues and speak to players, staff and, of course, David Moyes, on a regular basis. My ambition here is to give you a glimpse at life at the club that you can trust and value.
The Royal Blue newsletter is not a place for match reports and player ratings. It is a specially crafted effort to take you beyond the headlines and behind-the-scenes.
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