Jean-Paul Sartre Was An Evertonian

Jean-Paul Sartre once said that the only way to teach a child the difference between right and wrong was to put a blue shirt on him – or her (Sartre was genuinely avant-garde) – and take him – or her (Sartre was also consistent) – down to Goodison Park on a wintry samedi afternoon. It is thus with a sense of duty as well as eagerness that I tug my four-year-old nephew N through chill winds and driving August rain to see his first big match. We leave early because N is so absurdly good-looking that, wherever you take him, women stop you to ask his name and age and for details of his nursery career to date. Quite what they intend to do with this information has never been clear to me, but it seems to be of compelling importance to them.
While we are waiting for the train at Moorfields, a fraught-looking mother enquires earnestly of N about his favourite foodstuffs, rather as if by unearthing precious nuggets of dietary information she will be able to transform the spotty goblins at the end of her arms into the stars of Primary School Musical or something. Chocolate biscuits and flapjacks ain’t going to work that particular miracle, darling; you’d be better off trading your sprogs in for some kind of novelty pet – at least that way you’d have some half-decent photos for the family album.
By the time we reach Goodison, N is wet through and is losing his voice as a result of fielding rapid-fire questions from a group of scally girls taking the train to an afternoon rave in Ormskirk. The sight of the players warming up on the pitch raises his spirits, however, and, hoarse though he may be, he sings along with pride to “We’re Forever Everton”. I am hugely impressed by the fact that he knows all the words.
The general consensus in the Paddock is that this is a good time to play Arsenal: “Not into their stride yet…going to miss Adebayor…new signings still bedding in…first game of the season, anything can happen.”
“Is that Yakubu?” asks N, pointing to a slight, pale figure practising his crossing.
“No, N, that’s Leighton Baines. Yakubu is injured, black and three times the size of…”
N dissolves into the mischievous laughter he reserves for occasions like when I caught him, rubber glove up to his elbow, firming industrial-quality Playdough from a builder’s sack into the U-bend of the toilet.
“Oy, Funny Boy, you’re only four – I do the humour round here.”
He is still chuckling at his own joke when Arsenal score their first goal, but by the time it is three nil his eyes have the glazed-over look usually associated with shell-shock victims.
“His first game?” asks the bloke next to me.
N and I both nod grimly.
“Do social services know?” he quips, as Everton’s defence disintegrates again: four nil. The away supporters strike up with “Boring, boring, Arsenal!”, presumably intending the participle in the sense of drilling through with relentless force, and I begin to wonder whether N will be permanently traumatised by this humiliation. In injury time, at six nil (Arsenal are incontrovertibly “into their stride”, they are not missing Adebayor in the slightest, and at least one of their new signings has not only "bedded in" but is playing the game of his life), the child announces that he needs the toilet. I myself feel like throwing up, and the prospect of not having to observe the spectacle on the pitch for another three minutes is actually quite welcome, so I resist my first impulse to tell him to tighten his bladder and hold it in till the final whistle.
For the first time in well over an hour, N regains a certain joie de vivre as he attempts to dislodge a fly from the upper part of the urinal by aiming his jet stream high and to his right. The insect remains dry and unperturbed, but an old guy zipping up and turning away catches a generous lashing of spray down the back of his trousers; fortunately he is too shocked and depressed to notice. Suddenly there is a muted roar from the crowd, but before we can return to within sight of the pitch the final whistle blows.
N’s first match is over: we have lost six one and even contrived not to see the miserly consolation goal. Utter disaster.
“That was really sad,” says N, as we emerge onto the Bullens Road, but it is only when he wistfully adds “I nearly got him”, that I realise he is referring to the fly. Sartre would probably have approved.