GettyImagesManchester City and Everton: Still with similar characteristics?

Everton. Blue shirts. Ordinary man-in-the-street supporters. In the shadow of a great slow-moving, all-consuming red machine for 40 years. Tired, emotional and a little bit frayed around the edges. Workaday players battling their guts out. The sounds, the smells, the sights of a history rich in tradition, rich in hand-me-downs and stories of the days of yore.

Sound familiar? It should. The Merseyside Blues are as close to our kindred spirits as City supporters are likely to find, and have been for a very long time now. Evertonians follow their club much the way City fans do, without too many awkward questions, with a resigned 'Sigh' and sometimes with a clenched fist.

For long periods over the last half a century, supporting these two grand old clubs has been a little like waking up and looking in the mirror. Now City have moved into another orbit. They inhabit a glitzy world of constant live tv, of midweek tussles with the cream of Europe, of endless widespread interest and transfer speculation. So, how do Everton fans see City? How do they see the weekend's game and their side's chances? Are they jealous, are they bothered about City, do they still relate to their Manchester cousins? I sought out three dark blues from different eras to get the answer:

Fellow ESPN scribe Luke O'Farrell sees it like this: "For many years, Everton and City were two peas in a pod. The poorer relations within their cities, both tried to upset the established order with Everton making a slightly better fist of it over the years.

"However, a lot has changed in recent times and City now possess the sort of wealth that Everton can only dream about. The money has skewed the similarities with recent City managers doing their best to sour relations; few Everton fans would speak positively on Hughes or Mancini. The Lescott departure was acrimonious, to say the least, and Hughes irked a number of fans with his behaviour. Mancini has failed to endear himself to Evertonians with the Italian throwing sour grapes about whenever Everton get the better of his Manchester Millionaires..(...) The money now threatens to drive a wedge between two once similar clubs but the fact that you aren't United probably still applies for many."

Simon Hughes, a Goodison match-goer since the glory days of The Holy Trinity of Ball, Kendall and Harvey states: "This is a fixture laden with nostalgia for fans of a certain age. Everton and City sparred entertainingly throughout the late 60s and 70s, fielding some great players, but ultimately falling short of sustained success. We left that kind of monotony to Leeds and Liverpool. For City and Everton disappointment lurks around every corner. Recent years have seen an unexpected upturn in City's fortunes due to the sudden influx of Arab money, whilst Evertonians have become used to the club trading to survive.

"Fortunately, under Moyes we have one of the few managers able to make continued progress under such constraints. This season City have looked fairly ordinary so far, but have the knack of winning, often late in games which I guess marks them out as champions. Everton, whilst playing well and creating chances aplenty, have failed to see out games they should have won. This makes the weekend's game particularly intriguing and will be a key test of whether the Toffees can challenge for the top four places. I'll be thinking of those dark terrace streets outside Maine Road and asking myself whether footy really was better in the 70s."

Chris Dottie started his love affair with Everton in the 80s and puts his case thus: "I think Evertonians feel a bit bereft nowadays, that they used to have brothers in arms. It helped that we normally felt like the big brother in my life time, that for all we had in common life was still that little bit worse for City. There were many shared players and managers, never any bitterly painful or violent games that stick in the memory – maybe because neither club had anything positive to play for during much of the past 30 years.

I still think there is a lot more affection from Evertonians for City than for the rest of the rich and famous because the feeling is that most of the fans haven’t changed, but sometimes it feels like the club is forgetting quickly where it came from. Because of this our paths are diverging and the brotherhood is becoming a pleasant nostalgic memory."

For the full interviews with Luke, Simon & Chris, plus a tour of the history of this fixture: http://downthekippaxsteps.blogspot.pt/2012/11/everton.html

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