Away Days - Man City 5, Everton 0

Manchester = Rain
By Chris Kirwan
August 10 2002

The day started at the ridiculous hour of 12.00, ridiculous due to Friday’s night on the beer. Mercifully the away trip was only the short one to Manchester, but nonetheless the train journey to Manchester Piccadilly was still a struggle for those of us with sore heads.

A quick bus ride later and we arrived at the ‘picturesque’ Maine Road, a ground that manages to combine the ‘dazzling’ colours of grey and light blue. Maine Road is certainly in an area where you wouldn’t hang around after the game, win or lose, but I suppose away fans think the same about Goodison. The man who designed the away section of Maine Road certainly enjoyed seeing away fans suffer. They had a brainwave when deciding that the way forward in the rainiest city known to man is to provide a section of uncovered seating, and I was one of the lucky few to be allocated one of the tickets in that area.

As we settled in our uncovered seats on what seemed like hastily arranged scaffolding, we were buoyed by the sight of Duncan Ferguson who was returning from one of his rare injuries. The news that he would be on the bench re-enforced our belief that we would get three points. As a result, a local girl’s prediction of “6-0 to City” was greeted with by jeers by the travelling support. However, it would turn out that she was a more astute judge that the Evertonians present.

The confidence that the Blues would return to Merseyside with all 3 points certainly seemed well placed. City had lost six games in a row, and Joe Royle gave former Everton player Richard Dunne, the man with the turning circle of an oil tanker, a start at centre-back. However, Everton proceeded to produce one of the worst performances I have ever seen, regardless of Division.

City went ahead in the 13th minute through Wanchope, and hit two more in the first half through Howey and Goater. To make it worse, as soon as Wanchope’s shot hit the back of the net those grey clouds proceeded to do what they had threatened all day and emptied themselves, mostly on the uncovered seating it seemed. As soon as the goals were flying in my phone was buzzing with text messages from mates who were Red-Shite fans, Arsenal fans, Man Utd fans, and just about anybody who found Everton’s plight amusing. Surprisingly enough I chose to ignore them.

Half-time entertainment consisted of their mascot ‘Moon-chester” conducting a half-time penalty shoot-out, so most Evertonians decided it was a good time to cower for shelter from the increasingly hard rain. Things didn’t get much better in the second half with City adding two more through Dickov, and an unfortunate Naysmith own goal. It was noticeable that despite the performance being City’s best for a long time one of their fans in the Kippax stand seemed more intent with goading the depleted support than enjoying his teams performance. Which provided one of the only highlights of the day when he was escorted out by the police, something that those Evertonians who had stayed thoroughly enjoyed. What was most disturbing to see was that the man had a kid with him. Anyway, the final whistle brought jeers and an end to Everton’s humiliation.

On arrival back in Liverpool me and my mate Sean decided that the best way to soothe our sorrows was through vodka. For the short term it did the trick, but even now I’m angry that Walter Smith was only “disappointed” with the performance, I was gutted.

Man City: Weaver, Charvet Tiatto, Wright-Phillips, Haaland, Whitley, Horlock, Dunne, Howey, Wanchope, Goater. (Subs: Dickov, Kennedy, Wiekens, Bishop, Wright)

Everton: Gerrard, Watson, Weir, Unsworth, Nyarko, Campbell, Pembo, Ball, Naysmith, Gravesen, Gemmill. (Subs: Alexandersson, Hughes, Simonsen, Cadamarteri, Ferguson)