Come on…Everton aren’t our natural enemies!
By Pete Ellis
I was up there on Tuesday, and can say with confidence that I have given the red half of the city plenty of stick throughout the course of the day. All friendly of course.
The blue half of the city is the one which seems to have caught the attention of Hammers fans over the course of the season and with non stop arguing and abuse on social media, I wondered where the venom had come from this season.
Sure , McCarthy chopping down Payet had us rightly outraged, and players rejecting Everton for West Ham would have irked their fans.
Perhaps the Hammers and Leicester out-performing the “best of the rest” has also annoyed them?
I wonder if it’s more to do with Everton’s frustrations that their title of being the best side out of the top 4 is but a long distant memory.
There was no malice from the various guys i spoke to. On the contrary, the general consensus was that West Ham were their favoured London club. (I can’t print to comments on Arsenal Spurs or Chelsea on this site!)
I think it’s a case of the McCarthy incident, and Martinez claiming HE rejected Payet and Ogbonna – not the other way around.
Martinez is trying to show a position of strength because he is not well liked by the guys I spoke to.
In all honesty, I think this spiky relationship is down to those two incidents, as ultimately, we are both clubs that have suffered from big mouthed neighbours that have enjoyed success while we haven’t.
Every fan will stick up for their club, but having sat down with some of Everton’s finest, they seemed to cringe just as much as we do at some of the childlike stuff you see posted.
Make no mistake, they love getting one over “cockneys” (a term used incorrectly for any London club) and In turn, we want to do them for once at Goodison.
We are rivals, but I don’t think we are quite at the stage of cancelling all police leave when we play!
Now, let’s roar our boys on to victory… and enjoy the fallout on social media in the aftermath!
COYI