For the third consecutive home game, Everton fans staged a pre-match protest from outside the Royal Oak to the directors’ entrance at Goodison Park but this time organisers asked ‘our next generation’ to lead their rally march. Unhappy with the way the club is being run by the owner and board of directors, the disgruntled supporters signed off their message with the words: “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next” a line from Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers’ 1998 number one hit If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, inspired by a poster from the Spanish Civil War. Given Everton’s struggles in recent decades, the generational divide among the fanbase is arguably as stark at Goodison Park as any football team in the land. While Anfield is now something of a football ‘Disneyland’ on matchdays, attracting huge throngs of tourists from around the globe, many thousands of Merseysiders still choose to actively follow the city’s senior club in sickness and in health, with parents passing on their passion to their children in a manner that their Red brethren struggle to emulate within the ground. This ‘children’s crusade’ is the latest reminder that such a position has become all-too-fragile under the current regime.
Continue reading...
