Monday, February 13, 2006

Weekend stuff

It has occurred to me that this blog is little more than an Evertonian diary...it is tricky because although I've got other things happening in my life what else are you going to talk about when you get in on Monday morning?

Take this weekend, we had Anne's bridesmaid Helen & her Husband Andy staying with us. Helen was going to get fitted up (guvna) and then we were all off to the match. They are die-hard Peterborough United fans and so Posh have become a bit of a second team for us. Any footy programmes we get go to The Posh Fans Trust as opposed to ebay. Last year we went down to London Road for the first time and saw Peterborough absolutely spank Port Vale 4-0 (this, we were told, was not the norm) so we owed them a game. Everton V Blackburn are somehow two of the form teams in the league so happily this seemed a good game to take them to. Afterwards we went to The Gulshan Indian Restaurant for a really, really nice curry. Stomachs straining we waddled back to the car to head to The Vic as it was Dave Dolan's birthday and we were all going there to surprise him. Unfortunately there was lots of food and cake layed on by Carmel which was torment 'cause we barely had room for our beer after stuffing ourselves with curry. A good time was had by all (although my friend Harriet cruelly mocked me for being a glory hunting Leicester Tigers fan). After all that we tripped off home.

So you see although other things happen the weekend hinges on the footy....so anyway, the footy :



Another weekend another nervous one niller. Big Nige recovering from an ankle operation, Richard Wright out for a month after his freak injury in steps Iain Turner for his home debut...nine minutes later in comes John Ruddy for his debut! Stubbs had headed back to his keeper but Turner had advanced outside his area to kick clear. He instinctively reached down and handled. Oops! The Blackburn players were all over the ref asking for the young lad to be sent off and the ref duly produced the red card. Harsh I think, Crystal Palace's keeper did the same offence last season and stayed on the pitch...the rule is that it's a red if the player handling denies a goalscoring opportunity. This wasn't the case. So that effectively ruined the game. Everton had had a goal disallowed and had hit the bar before Turner had been sent off but we'd had to take a striker off...plus it had to be said the ref & linesmen weren't doing us any favours. The players game everything, the back four in particular were immense. Beattie seemed to terrify their defense, he ran himself into the ground. In the end they never troubled us. Beats scored the winner in the first half and we basically looked the better side throughout the game. We had 3 goals disallowed (at least one of them looked absolutely fine prompting songs of "Four nil to the Everton") too. At the final whistle Moyes and the players were all in the centre circle hugging each other and applauding the fans. This is what Saturdays are all about.

Another win for 'loo sees them back up to 2nd after Mosely had beat Esher. Sounds like they had to work very hard for it though :

Echo Match report

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