It’s not been a great summer break for my beloved Everton Football Club, as articles like this one: “Everton in Turmoil“, should attest. Amongst many problems, there’s been the boardroom squabbles, the exodus of players (which would be fine, given that most of the ones leaving weren’t very good, if only we could replace them), and the ongoing Rooney saga, to name but three.
We seem to have finally signed a couple of players, but I couldn’t help but notice in the BBC’s article about our signing of Australian defender Eddy Bosnar that he “does not qualify for a work permit and will be playing in the UK on a Commonwealth working holiday visa”. I’m sorry: Working Holiday Visa? I’m not sure that’s quite following the spirit in which the scheme was introduced, but whatever it takes to fill up a squad is fine by me. The old joke used to be that Aussies arriving at Heathrow just had to fill in the form with their name and the address of the bar they’d be working in, but I guess that should now be what position they’d like to play, and what time their train leaves for Lime Street.
Ah well, at least we can’t be relegated to the first division any more, no matter how badly we play.