Everton: A Family Bond, A Lifetime of Memories
You've heard from one half of the Daly-Lee's, now it's Kaff's turn.
Katherine tells her story, and yep, Paul most definitely messaged first. From childhood memories of standing on Goodison’s terraces to the friendships and even love stories forged through this club, Everton has given Kaff more than she could ever put into words.
By Katherine Daly, as told by Laura Gates.
As the famous saying goes, I was definitely chosen to support Everton. I mithered my Dad for what felt like years to take me to the 'football' - the strange place he disappeared to on Saturday afternoons. So it's all my own fault I suppose, but I wouldn't change it for the world.
When I'd not long started school, Dad took me to a reserve game at Goodison to see if I'd like it. I can't remember much else apart from it was against Sheffield Wednesday and we won. I was instantly hooked. For years, Dad would take my sister and I to plenty of games of an evening after school, I'm sure Mum was mortified we were up so late on school nights. But we didn't care, it was magic. My grandad and uncle used to drink at Marine where the women's team used to play on a Sunday, so me and our kid would go to games there too. Our family just lived and breathed Everton. My mum, who isn't one for football in the slightest, now has the fixtures in her phone and checks the scores, and knows to go bed before everyone comes home after a loss!
My first, first team game was the Goodison derby in 1996 and we drew 1-1. I then went to the odd game on spares my dad's mates had.
I got my first season ticket in 1999 and my sister and I shared it between us. We'd have fights over whose turn it was to go and two years later, we had one each. We sat, and still are, in the Top Balcony, with a good handful of our family friends and us 'kids' have all grown up together going the match. Dad sits downstairs in the Main Stand with his two mates in the seats they've had for 40 years.
Going the match is so much more than just the game. It really is a way of life. It's the social side of the day, the pubs, the routines, the people, the family. The people I sit with and meet up with before or after the match mean the world to me and really are my extended family. Dad and his mates have been doing the same for almost sixty years.
When we were younger, all the dads would give the kids a fiver each and we'd all walk to the big Maccies on Lord St in town. They'd drink in the Poste House, then we'd go in a taxi convoy onto the Dark House up by the ground. Every week, someone used to buy a flyaway ball from the shop over the road and we'd all play football in the street, and then run in when the huge pan of Scouse was being dished out.
We now go with Dad, his mates and the 'kids' (the youngest of us is 24!!!) to the Lion Tavern on Moorfields, so our journey to the new ground will be somewhat shorter!
In the summer of 2013, I'd discovered our little corner of Everton Twitter and as we all did then, followed everyone and got talking about all things blue. Although social media can be a dark place, I've met some wonderful people through it, some of whom are now my closest friends. I'd followed this lad who wrote a few pieces for blogs and who'd said he was training to be teacher - I'd finished my teaching degree that summer. He then slid into the DMs before it was a socially acceptable thing to do (he messaged first and I've got proof!!!)
Paul just got it. He was a season ticket holder, like me, whose family were die hard blues. His weekends revolved around match day traditions, away day plans or finding out which pubs were showing the game. His mates were all Evertonians too - his two best friends he met through going the match. He also has an innate ability to get a ticket for any match at any given notice.
A few months after we first started going out, my dad was short of a ticket after giving his ticket to his brother who'd come over from Yorkshire. An hour before the game, Paul told him he'd be able to sort a ticket, and true to his word and god knows how, he did. We beat Arsenal 3-0 that day. I rang Dad on the way home and he was absolutely delighted. He told me 'thank Paul for the ticket, and you can marry him now'.
Five years later, we did. We now have two beautiful children, Elena and Joseph, who are destined for a lifetime of character building moments, but if they're anything like their Mum and Dad, they’ll embrace every high, suffer through every low, and still come back for more. That’s just what being an Evertonian is all about. We drive past Goodison every week with Ellie on the way to her dance class and she always shouts 'It's Everton! Goodison Park!' Sorry kid, but I know you'll thank me one day, just like I will thank my Dad for the rest of my life.
If Everton do nothing else in my lifetime, they gave me some of my best friends, gave my family some of our most treasured memories, and they brought me and my husband together. Nothing else matters (but a trophy win would be bloody wonderful!)
To the family we're born with, and to the family we make along the way.
UTFT.