Covid 19 hits Liverpool but the Mersey ferry sails on.

 Covid 19 hits Liverpool but the Mersey ferry sails on. 

Covid 19 is still spreading its dangerous tentacles far and wide over hill, valley and moor. On Merseyside the mists of its autumnal splendour are drifting towards the murky docks and life is hard, unbearable at times but then the fine, upstanding folks of this now legendary city still hope that one day that their patience will be rewarded and football will become the melodious leitmotif, the signature tune for both Liverpool and Everton's grandest attacking symphonies. 

You can throw anything at Liverpool and Everton but you'll never dampen their unflagging spirits and throbbing passions. For the first time in seemingly ages both Everton, now top of the Premier League and Liverpool, clinging onto their derby neighbours in second, are the major pacesetters in the embryonic stages of a brand new Premier League season. This is rapidly turning into one of the most remarkably hig- scoring starts to any football season. 

But yesterday it almost as if the whole of Liverpool had been submerged by the most depressing gloom ever to fall over any thriving English city. The coronavirus has now sunk its teeth into every conceivable area of our lives and Liverpool was poorly, woebegone, sick and trying to keep the proverbial stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. Wherever you looked there were all manner of masks, face coverings, day- trippers and residents rationalising something that couldn't be understood and then burying their head in their hands.

Over at Goodison Park Everton and Liverpool were playing their 100 something derby on a stage that was stripped and naked, a ground both solemn and sombre. There was not a soul in sight, none of those fanatical reds and blues lobbing hostile and, occasionally good-natured barbs at each other. For well over a century the footballing parishioners and feverish zealots of Liverpool and Everton have congregated, swayed and tumbled down the terraces of either Goodison or Anfield in that traditional footballing rendezous where waspish Scouse humour has often joined forces with memorable chants. 

A fortnight ago Liverpool were quite amazingly steamrollered by Aston Villa at Villa Park in a 7-2 defeat that bore no relation to anything that had preceded the club since the end of their last Premier League winning season and the start of the new season. To say it was a shock would be the most gross understatement of all time. How on earth had a delightful trophy-winning club reached such rock bottom and in such mind-boggling circumstances? Had Liverpool forgotten where they were, losing their bearings completely perhaps. For there can be no other plausible explanation for such a cataclysmic defensive collapse.

But when Sadio Mane gave Liverpool the lead it seemed as if the capitulation at Villa Park was merely a temporary blip, a crazy indiscretion that would never be allowed to happen ever again. Then the young and thrusting England upstart Dominic Calvert Lewin levelled for Everton and Goodison remembered the heroic deeds of Howard Kendall, Alan Ball and Colin Harvey during the 1970s, the smooth and streamlined trio of Kevin Sheedy, Paul Bracewell and the tigerish Peter Reid a decade later before entertaining ambitious hopes of winning the Premier League for the first time in the 21st century. 

Under Carlo Ancelotti, Everton have one of the shrewdest and coolest of managers, a man whose body language betrays nothing and gives the overriding impression that Italy have lost a World Cup Final rather than leading his latest club to a bells and whistles Premier League trophy. Ancelott is now a wise managerial veteran who has probably seen it all and that phlegmatic, grumpy face seems destined to remain that way regardless of who he may be managing. 

At Chelsea Ancelotti almost went to the top of the hill and won the Premier League but then discovered a seemingly arrogant Portuguese named Jose Mourinho who was convinced he could go one step further. History now tells us that Mourinho had perhaps a couple of tricks under the sleeve and although Ancelott was a brilliant strategist, the resources available to Mourinho were far greater once the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich had got hold of the club.

Now though Ancelotti has got a new toy to play with and these are encouraging times for Everton. In this hard and challenging year for the world, Ancelotti may not be the man to leave us laughing in the aisles but he does know how to fashion and mould a team going nowhere. Everton have merely started the season promisingly but the crackling and crunching leaves of autumn have just settled, the peaty bogs of the countryside are now drenched with the fragrance of a new season and the log fires of winter are but a heart-beat away. 

In the middle of it all Everton have reaped a bumper harvest of early-season victories and top the Premier League deservedly. For ages they have endured that looming inferiority complex that their Merseyside rivals have taken a sadistic pleasure in all so frequently. Last season Everton must have been consumed with jealousy at the comings and goings at Anfield and when Liverpool finally rubber-stamped their thumping superiority over the blue half in August with a 25 point lead that just bordered on humiliation, Everton must have thought that things could never get any worse. 

But here we are into the second month of the new season in October and Everton have their noses in front in what still seems like some incredible figment of our imagination. We must hope that sooner or later the fans who are very much the lifeblood and raison d'etre for football's welfare, will finally be welcomed back rather like those demob happy Second World War soldiers running into their arms of their loved ones after a punishing train journey. 

The traditionalists among us are still at a loss since some of us need to be told that eight'o'clock kick offs on Saturday evenings are just some daft experiment rather than, quite literally, a permanent fixture. It does seem that the fixture planners are simply frustrated, music hall comedians rather than those with a passionate interest in football. Maybe football has taken leave of its senses. Saturday night used to be the perfect opportunity for all footballers to sample a tantalising glimpse of night-life but now they may be required to trip the light fantastic on a Premier League stage. Still, another eight months of combat, drama and excitement stretch ahead and the fans may have been a secondary consideration anyway. Let the goal glut continue.