It’s often been a wonder of fans in any sport. Do the fans respond to the players, or do the players respond to the fans?
When your team is playing poorly, it can be hard to cheer as you usually would. It can be hard to find the motivation when what you’re seeing on the pitch is so dire. Soon that cauldron of atmosphere can turn into a library.
Except, in the last few months, Everton fans have ceased to care about what they should be expecting from the players. They’ve ceased to care about whether the team is worthy of their support. They’ve decided to care about one thing and one thing only, Everton Football Club.
When fans of other clubs may have wilted away, Everton fans have turned up the dial. The already great supporter base has turned feverish.
It’s the type of passion that you’d expect if we were ever to go on a run for the title. Anyone looking at the scenes at Finch Farm the other day would presume that the fans were serenading their team off to a final at Wembley.
They weren’t. That team instead were heading off to a standard Premier League match against Leicester City. The type of fixture that’d usually sit firmly on the bottom of MOTD’s running order.
I’d love to know what the players thought but they must have loved it. Playing for a Premier League football club must be a surreal experience at the best of times when you have thousands of fans praying for you to do well at your job.
One of the unquantifiable mysteries of football is how much the fans influence the team. What percentage lift does it give, at all? How does it change players when the crowd are jeering, instead of cheering? The answer is that no-one quite knows for certain.
Whatever the true answer, the support from Everton fans must have had a positive impact. Back in March after the FA Cup loss, Lampard said “if you haven’t got the confidence to play, you can quickly flip it and say have you got the bollocks to play?”
It seems as though in the last few weeks, the Everton players have found their bollocks. If you have a ferociously passionate set of fans behind you then you must walk a little taller on the pitch. That support must drown out little pieces of doubt that have been plaguing your performance.
There are times recently when the majority of Everton fans would have thought we were going to be relegated. After the loss to Burnley, the situation seemed dire. After the loss to Liverpool and another Burnley win, it seemed even worse.
If the fans had lost a little hope internally, they didn’t show it in their support. In fact, the opposite happened. It has felt as though as the situation became more and more desperate, Everton fans shunned the white flag, picked up their arms and went to battle.
While the fans deserve the most credit for this, Lampard has also been an important factor. He instantly got what Everton fans wanted and showed a level of passion that struck a chord in the heart of every Everton fan.
Lampard never gave up, the fans never gave up and the players have responded with turning hard-fought losses into hard-fought wins. The result now is a situation that is a lot more optimistic.
The job is not done, far from it. We still need to pick up points but the feeling around the club is a lot more optimistic.
If we do stay up, then this season will be dissected. Lessons need to be learned and mistakes never to be repeated. But if we do stay up then one group need to be praised more than any other and that’s the Everton fans.
The scenes after the Leicester win will live long in the memory. That joy and jubilation were probably due to the fact that after so much hard work, support and dedication, it must have felt for those away fans, it all paid off.
The songs, the banners, the shouts of encouragement, the send-off at finch farm the welcoming of the bus at Goodison. It worked.
Everton Football Club has been in the top tier of English football for the last 68 years. If we’re still a Premier League club in June, then every Everton fan whose support has been unwavering deserves their share of the credit.