How do you sum up 136 of glorious history in a few pictures? As clearly evidenced above, you can only scratch the surface.

I often proclaim that the current generation of football fans have no idea how blessed we are to live in this time of instant global inter-connectivity, granted immediate access to games, stats, profiles, in-depth analyses from all of the talking heads and essentially any access into any team worldwide (even in Cincinnati apparently). It wasn’t always like this & for this American, my football journey was difficult… I was blind, but now I see. I remember having to find people with those NASA satellite dishes to watch the 1990 World Cup. My parents fed my addiction by subscribing to any publication available stateside (and sending me to any camp within driving distance – LONG LIVE INDIANA SOCCER CAMP). Much of the credit goes to my Eternal Dude Tony King who kicked around the German Third division playing for SV Blumenthau after a stint at Werder Bremen (that’s right, Bundesliga from Findlay, Ohio). Tony sent/ brought me all of the old fanzines from England- Shoot, Match– and Gemany- Kicker– making me one of the lucky few in America who had such access & this was the formal beginning of my football education.

Being immersed in this wealth of European literature and videos, put me in a unique situation… I was this nerd with all of this info that very few had, but it gave me the insight into what a club means to a fan, but also a veritable treasure trove of possibilities. I wasn’t going to choose just any club… it had to be the right club. So without further ado, I present the footballing journey of an American Footballing Vagabond.

The Initial Path- United

Hi I’m Jon, and I used to support United (1991-1996 roughly). We all hopefully come to the Age of Reason at some point in life and my life is no different. Why United? The same reason there are so many City, Liverpool, United, Chelsea fans today… they were winners. Slightly deeper here though… Ryan Giggs was my hero at the time and he made his debut at 18 when I was 16 (any guesses who he debuted against? That’s right la’s, it was Everton!). I was blown away that someone at his age could do what he did…with that flowing curly mane of his as he left fullbacks in his wake. And they also had this dude named Eric Cantona, a man I still revere (oh, I met him in the parking lot of the Silver dome as he walked through unnoticed by our public… I definitely didn’t chase him down shirtless on a hot day camera in one hand, over-sized shorts in the other to take his picture…as my shorts fell down- that’s right, I stood in front of the world’ best player in my under- britches). Anyway, eventually I realized that rooting for United was worse than being a Bulls fan at the time & had to find a real club to support.

The Secondary Path- Wimbledon

This evolution was based solely on attitude and attitude alone. Some of you may know that I’m a Little Guy, and thankfully there are no stereotypes or sayings about little guys, but I always felt the need to “Not be Little.” For Christmas one year, Mom & Dad bought us a copy of Soccer’s Hard Men hosted by the venerable Vinnie Jones (he was fined 20k pounds just for hosting this) & it was all over for me. This was 1 hour and 18 minutes of the hardest men England has produced: Graeme Souness; Norman “Bites Your Legs” Hunter; Ron “Chopper” Harris, Steve McMahon; Billy Bremner; and of course… Vinnie Jones. I watched mesmerized as Vinnie compares football to war while offering his charming insights into the “toughness” of people “trying to take his living away” from him. Charming indeed. Vinnie played for the most hated team in England- Wimbledon. They trained in an open, public park, they terrorized the youth teams, played in a ground that you wouldn’t let your 12 year old visit, let alone play in, they burned designer suits of new players, and literally kicked their way from non-League football to the Premier League in 4 successive seasons (no one had ever done that before or since- looking at you Wrexham). They played a thoroughly unloved variety of Route One football & they bludgeoned their way to beating Liverpool in the Cup Final in 1988. Long-story-short, the Crazy Gang started to filter into bigger clubs, new managers couldn’t keep the Crazy going & they fell into relegation, eventually dissolving completely once MONEY tried to relocate them to Milton Keynes (they have been reborn like Lazarus, are back in the League (2) and playing at Plough Lane again- all by itself, I’ll have to share this remarkable story of what a club means to fans). It was too hard to follow a relegated club then, so I migrated again.

The Tertiary Path- West Ham

Have to admit, most of this choice was down to that lovely color combo of claret & blue… always got me. Add to this, 2 Italians that simply took my breath away during their partnership at Sheffield Wednesday- Benito Carbone & Paolo Di Canio. Mesmerizing, simply mesmerizing. Paolo went onto to grace the hallowed turf at the Boleyn Ground in East London & my sensibilities followed him (only later to discover that he’s an actual fascist… broke my heart). Anyway, I was a Hammer when the most lovely lady in the world asked me to marry her (that’s right, you read that correctly… I was going to ask her the next day anyway). Our wedding colors were claret & blue!. But…as goes life, West Ham was relegated in 2003… but things had already started to shift for me as a certain Beacon of Blue from the industrial Northwest started to turn my head…as if the universe was directing me to my true spiritual self.

Evertonians Are Born, Not Manufactured

Around this time, a handful of Americans started to break through into the Premier League, and Everton specifically seemed to be a place they found to be home. Joe- Max Moore, Brian McBride and an indoor legend, naturalized as a US citizen from his Serbian homeland named Preki, all graced the Royal Blue of Everton at this time, so I was naturally drawn by their presence. THEN, they brought a young, Ginger Genius named David Moyes from Preston North End to save us from a relegation battle before righting the ship and putting us on a journey of solidity, and constantly punching above our weight for the next 12 years. He brought in my absolute HERO, flawed as all geniuses are, to play out the last embers of his career… Paul Gasgoigne never reached the heights he could/should have, but I got to watch him at Everton. It was that season that it all came together for this Blue. I found a great old club, with the greatest fans desperate to get back to their fabled past and it struck me instantly (I’m a Browns fan BTW, so please see the parallels). I then further remembered that the first ever REAL English game I watched was the 1989 FA Cup Final between Liverpool & Everton. My brother Paul & I had this game on VHS, probably via Tony King again, and we watched the crap out of that game. No matter how many times I knew that Ian Rush, the boyhood Blue, would come off that bench to score twice in extra time, undoing Stuart MaCall’s brace, I still hoped that somehow, something would change, much as I did every time I read The Iliad somehow hoping that the gallant Hector could somehow avoid the arrow of Achilles. It was only many years later that I knew how much that Cup Final meant to the city of Liverpool… this was the final after the Hillsborough Tragedy where 96 Liverpool fans died in the Semifinal. I was always meant to be Blue and history has shown me this. From there, it was Duncan Ferguson, more Americans (Timmy Howard, Landon Donovan), Bainsey & Pienaar down the left flank, Super Timmy Cahill and the Spanish Wizard Mikel Arteta, amongst many others like Richarlison etc… Blue Forever! Who are we to think like this about ourselves… “Everton, aren’t we?”

So go ahead & tell me how big a fan you are of United, City, Chelsea, Liverpool and maybe even Spurs… it’s cool, I guess. Being a BlueNose isn’t for everyone, “But IF you know your HISTORY, it’s enough to make your heart go WHOA WHOA! We don’t care what what the Red side says, why the hell should we care? Cause we only know that there’s gonna be a show when the Everton Boys are there!”