Everton F.C. supporters

Everton Football Club are an association football team based in Liverpool, England. They are one of the best supported clubs in English football with a strong support base around Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and North Wales. Everton fans are known colloquially as Evertonians or Blues.

Demographics

Everton have a large fanbase by virtue of being an original founder member of The Football League and contesting more seasons in the top flight than any other club. For the first nine seasons in the football league Everton had the highest average league attendances of any team in England.^[1] Recently the club has averaged around 36,000-38,000 in league games at Goodison Park which has a capacity of 40,158. This is despite having the most obstructed views and poor sight lines in the Premier League. A 2006–07 fan survey by the Premier League returned listed 15% of Everton fans as being unhappy with sight lines at Goodison Park. Only 19% described matchday views as "very good" as compared to Arsenal fans who described the Emirates Stadium as having 75% positive sight lines.^[2] For the 2009–10 season Everton sold over 24,000 season tickets.^[1] In the same season, around 7,000 Evertonians travelled to Lisbon for a match against Benfica.^[3] For the 2014-15 season the club had 27,500 season ticket holders.

The 2004–05 Premier League survey, which asked almost 1400 Everton fans various questions, found that 40% of matchday fans live within 10 miles of Goodison Park. All together 77% of Everton fans lived less than 49 miles away from the stadium.^[4] The 2007–08 found that on average Everton fans live 44 miles away from Goodison Park, 3 miles less than the average and a huge difference compared with rivals Liverpool and Manchester United who were 82 and 78 miles respectively from their stadium.^[5] Everton draws the vast majority of its support from Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and North Wales. Although no conclusive studies have been undertaken, supporters are more prominent in areas such as Aintree, Anfield, Bootle, Croxteth, Everton, Kirkdale, Vauxhall and Walton with the northern parts of Liverpool seen as Everton dominated. Fans can tag their location on the Everton Fan Map on the official club website.

Everton has a large overseas support, especially in Australia, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, Thailand and United States of America.

The 2003–04 Premier league survey found that 71% of Everton fans earn under £30,000 a year. This is the lowest average income in the league. Chelsea meanwhile had the lowest percentage with only 41% of fans earning below £30,000 per year.^[6] The 2002–03 report found Everton had the highest number of season ticket holders from the two lowest social classifications with 16%, 1% more than Sunderland.^[7] A study in August 2012 by property website Zoopla found that houses around Goodison Park were the cheapest of any Premier League club averaging £66,000, almost £30,000 less than 19th placed Villa Park with £94,000. Chelsea's Stamford Bridge came in highest with average house prices of £1,467,000. .^[8]

In February 2009, Everton F. C. became the first Premier League club to have an official fan page on the social networking site Facebook, which publishes important club news and even in-match score updates. The page allows users to interact by uploading photographs and commenting on posts. As of July 2014, there are over 1.2 Million fans.^[9] The club also has a Twitter account with 380,000 followers.

For the 2013-14 season the club unveiled a new club badge which received overwhelmingly negative response. A fan named Danny Zocek made a petition online demanding the badge be changed, and the petition attracted over 24,000 signatures. The club announced they would be scrapping the design at the end of the season and would liaise with fans for the new design.^[10]

Rivalries

A 2003 survey by The Football Fans Census found Everton's main rivals are Liverpool, Manchester United and Tranmere Rovers.^[11]

The inter-city rivalry between Everton and Liverpool FC is regarded as a "friendly" rivalry, with households in the city having both Everton and Liverpool fans. Whilst performances on the pitch are heated and passionate, the off-pitch behaviour of fans is largely amicable in comparison to the Old Firm for example. However, isolated incidents have seen vandalism to both the Dixie Dean Statue and the Hillsborough Memorial in 2002–03.

Supporter groups

Everton have supporter groups located all over the world. The three largest clubs outside of England are "The Irish Toffees" located in Dublin, "ESCNI" located in Belfast and the "Everton Supporters Club - Isle of Man".

Famous Fans (footballers)

The following footballers have claimed they were Everton fans either in their youth or later on.

Famous supporters

A significant number of famous individuals are known Everton supporters;

Although not an Everton fan, Paul Whitehouse, when asked to describe his childhood bedroom on the Danny Baker radio show stated that on his wall is an Everton and Tottenham poster. Whitehouse states that "I really liked Everton, they were the champions at the time and they would still be sort of my second team after Spurs." ^[64]

In popular culture

Everton fans have featured in a variety television shows and films. In Alan Bleasdale's Liverpool based series Boys from the Blackstuff, Socialist plasterer Snowy Malone tells Chrissie that his militant trade unionist father brought him up "to believe in what was good and proper." Loggo quickly quips "I didn't know your dad supported Everton".

The Rutles a parody of Beatlemania sees Eric Idle interviewing respected Liverpool poet Roger McGough (a real life Evertonian). He introduces him to the camera as "he was born in Liverpool, grew up in Liverpool, drank in Liverpool, wrote about Liverpool and his football team is of course ... Everton."

The 1997 UK television drama The Fix told the story of the exposure of a match fixing scandal in 1963 that centred around Everton player Tony Kay. Jason Isaacs (himself a Liverpool fan) played Kay while Colin Welland portrayed then manager Harry Catterick with a broad Liverpool accent, despite the fact catterick himself was from Darlington. The drama also featured lifelong Liverpool fan Ricky Tomlinson playing Gordon, a fictitious character and Everton fanatic.^[65]

The 1979 television advertisement for ITV's ORACLE teletext service a disembodied voice in the strong Liverpool accent asks "Ow Did Everton do?" To which he receives the response, when the page is searched on the teletext service, "Everton 1 Stoke 1."

In the comedy series Harry Enfield and Chums episode The Scousers visit that London, one of the three stereotype scousers is an Everton fan. Starting off on the National Express coach to Wembley, he sits cross from the two Liverpool fans singing You'll Never Walk Alone. When they finish he replies "Up the toffees" which then erupts into an argument.

The 1994 episode To Be a Somebody of Cracker in which Robert Carlyle plays a Liverpool fan who becomes a serial killer after the events of Hillsborough and the death of his father. With the police looking for a Liverpool supporter with a skinhead he is questioned by DS Beck but he manages to avoid arrest by claiming he has been diagnosed with cancer. He further avoids suspicion by claiming he is from St. Helens and supports Everton.

References

External links

• http://www.facebook.com/Everton