Penblwydd Hapus i Fi!

Or Happy Birthday to Me! As they say in English. I am 39 today. Not a particularly special birthday numerically speaking but a poignant one for me nevertheless, as it's very likely to be the last one I spend in the bosom of family and life-long friends.

And what do I have planned for this momentous occasion you ask? Nothing special really. I've got an electrical repair to carry out at my brothers place which I may or may not do. To knock the skin off a few at the driving range is the next goal followed by a visit to my folks seeing as we go back such a long way and , who knows, there may even be a birthday gift there to mark the occasion. My plan then follows a rather predictable pattern. I intend to rock up to the Esp (my local), find myself a pew, probably the one by the fruit machine and get cooked, nice and slowly, the way it's meant to be done.

At some stage I'll be watching my beloved Everton take on Newcastle on the foreign satellite broadcasts widely available in pubs and clubs in Rhyl these days. It'd be a nice birthday treat for me if the Blues bucked their recent trend of being the least entertaining team in world football and produced a display that warranted my thirty five years of unquestioned loyalty to them.

For it was on this very day in 1971, my fourth birthday, that my Dad gave me the wonderful gift of a blue shirt with a white trim, white shorts and stockings. Why Dad picked this kit is a mystery that I've never ventured to solve. Most parents, especially amongst my peers, virtually force their offspring to support the same team as they do. Employing such despicable tactics as dressing their infants up in miniature replica kits then photographing this heinous crime in order to brandish this photographic evidence at any stage during their childs life when they show the merest hint of showing favour to another team.

This is important stuff too. Very important stuff. For the ardent fan, which is almost everybody in the U.K., you are forever linked to your teams fortune. They suffer, you suffer ten-fold. Likewise with all the other emotions involved. Success for the vast majority, especially Evertonians like me, is an all too infrequent and fleeting visitor. Probably unbeknown to him at the back-end of 1971 my Dad made a decision that has had a massive impact on my life. A massive impact.

Dad's a Liverpool fan from Billy Liddells days, Evertons deadliest and only real rivals. I hate them, which makes his decision all the more difficult to fathom. We lived in Hampshire at the time and I was an easily pleased kid, he could easily have palmed me off with a more local team, Southampton perhaps or one of the London giants like Arsenal maybe. Imagine my delight in this day and age if he'd have picked blue shorts to go with that blue jersey - Chelsea would have been my team. Urrrgh! Even contemplating supporting someone else sends a shiver down my spine.

Like I said I've never questioned Dads motives, I've just been grateful, very grateful. But for what? For the vast majority of my life Everton have been an average to poor side rarely providing value for money for the paying fan. We've had our moments of course, the mid-eighties was terrific but failed to materialise into a dynasty the like of which seems to occur these days following a period of great success which 1984-87 truly was for Everton. The remainder of the time has found me at the mercy of mocking work-mates and friends who, fortunately, have grown bored of such easy prey and turned elsewhere to get their kicks.

Having said all that, me following Everton right or wrong, great or grim has helped to make me what I am. A character who appreciates the good times and has learned to roll with the bad. With sharpened wit due to having been forced to seek verbal repertoire elsewhere than the football based responses spat out by supporters of 'corporation' teams. It has bonded me with like-minded individuals the world over whose company I have revelled in and will continue to do so.

In song the great Johnny Cash named his boy Sue to prepare him for anything the world could throw at him, my old man made me an Evertonian. Being an Evertonian hasn't made me what I am, my Dad has.

So Dad, for this and so much more I thank you. If you present me with a gift today that provides me with a nano-fraction of the stimulation and entertainment that the one you gave me thirty five years ago has done then you would have achieved something impossible. A win for the Blues would be nice!!!!!


P.S. My mum's not a bad old stick either!