Part 2 - Climate Change

[TLW]

Written by Neil Godfrey

 

 

The story so far: after escaping a post-Heysel ban from European competition, Everton went on to dominate domestic and European club football and, after becoming an independent country, international football as well. Their World Cup win in 2002 averted an American invasion of Iraq, and led to Iraq becoming a territory of the state of Everton.

The Story Continues: In the early 21st century, climate change was one of the most serious problems facing mankind. Some experts considered global warming a greater threat to the future of civilisation than international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Much of the blame for the problem was directed at the USA, and in particular President George Bush, who was accused of denying the problem while at the same time making it worse by refusing to tackle America’s massive consumption of oil, coal and gas.

A potential saviour had emerged though, in the form of the Everton chairman and head of state, Bill Kenwright. Kenwright claimed he had found a way to end the industrialised world’s reliance on fossil fuels and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. He explained that it had all started with David Unsworth doodling on the back of an envelope while sitting on the bench for Everton.

While conducting a basic experiment in spatial relativity using the comparative distances between London, Birmingham and Merseyside, Rhino put a decimal point in the wrong place and suddenly realised he’d stumbled upon the formula for nuclear fusion.

Kenwright announced that he would use Everton’s vast wealth to launch a massive international project to enable the large-scale production of fusion energy. The world’s first operational fusion reactor would be built on the King’s Dock on the Liverpool waterfront, once a few trifling technicalities had been ironed out.

This wasn’t the only momentous development for Everton. On the football pitch as well, they continued to go from strength to strength. The Blues’ dominance had reached the point where they could now say that there were only two teams on Merseyside, Everton and Everton Reserves – a lifelong dream for older fans who even now fought to keep the dark, distant past a secret from their children. It was in fact literally true, as the reserve team had been promoted to the Premiership at the request of the 19 other clubs, who knew it was the only way they would ever be able to say they finished above Everton.

A bright new star was rising in the form of a local teenage prodigy named Wayne Rooney, whose footballing prowess was matched only by his love of Everton Football Club. Rooney burst on to the Premiership scene with a stunning winner for Everton Reserves against Arsenal in October 2002. Before long he was pushing for a place in the first team, at the tender age of sixteen.

Away from the pitch though, Kenwright had begun to encounter a few difficulties. George Bush’s friends in the oil industry, already angry at Everton for its role in preventing their long-planned takeover of Iraq, were plotting against the Everton chairman. He had repeatedly denied them a share in Iraq’s oil revenues, and as they came to realise that the nuclear fusion project would decimate the oil industry if successful, they knew Kenwright had to be stopped.

An underhand campaign of industrial espionage, sabotage and dirty tricks was waged against Kenwright and his project.

Kenwright resolved to fight back. In early 2004, as the US presidential election campaign began in earnest, he declared his support for Bush’s Democratic rival John Kerry.

‘It’s perfect,’ he told Kerry in a transatlantic phone call. ‘The Democrats are the people’s party, and Everton are the people’s club. And of course, the Democrats’ traditional colour is blue.’

‘Right,’ said Kerry. ‘Plus, our party’s symbol is a donkey.’

‘Erm, yes… sorry John, you’re breaking up. Must be sunspots.’

Everton’s support boosted Kerry’s standing in the polls as millions upon millions of American Blues rallied to his cause. This development was met with alarm by the Republicans. George Bush summoned his campaign strategist Karl Rove to the White House for an emergency meeting;

‘It’s simple, Mr President,’ said Rove. ‘The Democrats’ colour is blue, our colour is red. So we have to enlist a well-supported English soccer team that plays in red who can defeat Everton.’

‘I see. Is there such a team?’

‘Only one. They’re called Manchester United.’

‘Manchester United, huh? Are you sure they’re the only one?’

‘Totally sure, Mr President. The British press say so, and they couldn’t possibly get something like that wrong.’

‘Hmm… the Manchester United States of America… I like it. Let’s do it!’

And so, with the billions of dollars that had been earmarked for the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration bankrolled Malcolm Glazer’s bid to take control of Manchester United and turn them into a force capable of dethroning Everton.

Glazer was delighted, as he would otherwise have needed another year to borrow the money he needed to bankrupt the club. Meanwhile Kenwright, although a little concerned at the emergence of a potential challenger, felt a quiet satisfaction at the fact that nothing and no-one, not even the most powerful nation on earth, could escape the influence of Everton’s dominance.

Euro 2004 rolled around. Despite Wayne Rooney’s achievements in the preceding two seasons, Everton boss David Moyes wasn’t sure that he had yet developed the maturity to play in a top international tournament. Besides, his inclusion in the team would mean dropping one of Everton’s first-choice strike partnership of Ronaldinho and Thierry Henry.

Moyes felt though that Rooney would benefit from the experience, and wanted to make sure he played. Making full use of the revision to UEFA rules that Kenwright had successfully lobbied for, he arranged for Rooney to be loaned out to England for the duration of the finals.

Rooney was a revelation, and was adopted by England fans and neutrals alike as the tournament’s most popular player. Had he not been injured against Portugal, Sven’s men could well have gone all the way to the final, although since they would have faced Everton they would inevitably have suffered the same mauling that was dished out to the hosts.

While Rooney was wowing the crowds in Portugal, Kenwright received an enquiry about his availability from Manchester United. His initial response was a point-blank refusal, but after giving it a little more thought the Everton supremo hatched a master plan. He saw that America’s massive budget deficit, racked up by Bush’s tax cuts and increased spending on the war against terror, meant that it couldn’t bankroll United for long.

The financing of Glazer’s takeover was clearly a short-term move to win the election for Bush in November, after which the Americans would hang United out to dry. The signing of Rooney would therefore plunge United into a crippling financial crisis that would end their challenge to Everton’s supremacy before it began.

Everton could then buy Rooney back at a fraction of the price they sold him for. Kenwright chuckled to himself with satisfaction: he knew a club in financial trouble when he saw one, and was shit hot at working out how it could be utterly ruined.

On hearing that he was being put up for sale, Rooney was devastated. He was being forced out of the club he had supported as a boy and that he really, really, really loved with all his heart. No, really, he did.

Everything was progressing smoothly from Kenwright’s point of view, but suddenly a spanner was thrown in the works. The Newcastle chairman Freddie Shepherd made an unexpected offer of £25 billion. Kenwright laughed it off. ‘Where are they hoping to find that kind of money?’ he asked incredulously. ‘This is just a cheap ploy by the Newcastle board to convince their fans that they’re a big club, by offering sums they can’t afford when they know there’s no way in hell the player will want to sign for them. I mean, what self-respecting football club does that?’

Shepherd desperately tried to up his bid. He persuaded Newcastle city council to offer to sell Everton the Tyne bridge, as a way of easing congestion in the Mersey tunnels created by match-day traffic from north Wales, but to no avail. He offered every Everton fan a lifetime’s supply of Newcastle Brown, but this was a non-starter as everyone knew that the Blues’ favourite tipple was a pint of… traditional English ale.

He finally offered to sell the city of Newcastle itself to Everton, but it was all in vain – if Rooney had to leave the club that he had supported as a boy and that he really, really, really loved with all his heart, he was set on a move to Old Trafford. His transfer was sealed for £27 billion, with an unneeded set of American football helmets and Phil Neville thrown in as a makeweight.

Kenwright, cunning old fox that he was, knew he needed to make it look as though Rooney had left of his own accord. His associates at the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post, by now the world’s two best-selling daily newspapers, made sure of this, running stories that Rooney thought United were a bigger club and that Moyes wasn’t the greatest manager in English football history. As if!

Everton fans around the world fell for Kenwright’s ploy, and burnt their Rooney shirts in fury at this unforgivable treachery. The burning of billions of replica kits created a thin layer of ash in the upper atmosphere, and just as had occurred after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, the ash reflected some of the sun’s rays back into space and cooled the Earth’s temperature by several degrees, offsetting the worst effects of global warming.

Climatologists speculated that the so-called Rooney Effect could even change the colour of the sky. For a long time this had been assumed to be impossible, but in recent years pioneering scientific research had shown the theory of ‘once blue, always blue’ to be utter rubbish.

Back on earth, Rooney was so upset at being forced out of the club that he had supported as a boy and that he really, really, really loved with all his heart (have I mentioned how much he loved Everton?) that his infamous temper got the better of him.

The start of his United career was blighted by a succession of red cards for violent and foul-mouthed altercations with opponents, officials, team-mates, stewards, mascots, opposing fans, his own fans, goalposts, corner flags, advertising hoardings, spare match balls and pitch markings. A particularly ugly clash with the D on the edge of the penalty area was the last straw for the FA, who handed him an unprecedented fifty-match ban.

As the Rooney-less United languished in mid-table and Everton once again raced clear at the top, it became clear that Bush’s gamble had failed. Kerry’s poll ratings soared as the legions of Everton fans in the USA continued to grow, and with the aid of Bill Kenwright’s lavish financial contributions to his election campaign, the Democrat challenger stormed to victory.

Kerry’s presidency began awkwardly when he inadvertently started his inaugural address with the words ‘my fellow Evertonians’. His spokesman later explained the slip by saying that Kerry had been overwhelmed with emotion after watching Everton play the previous evening, when he had tearfully described the link-up play between James Beattie and Duncan Ferguson as ‘something truly beautiful and humbling to behold’. The slip did him no harm though, and in fact increased his approval ratings.

The Rooney Effect had slowed down climate change before it became irreversible, and bought mankind just enough time to wean itself off fossil fuels and develop alternative sources of energy. Kerry reversed Bush’s disastrous energy policy of mass oil consumption, and lent the full support of the USA to Kenwright’s fusion project, which was a glorious success. The temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere was stabilised, and global catastrophe was averted.

As he congratulated himself on playing another decisive part in world history, Kenwright silently thanked his lucky stars that Everton hadn’t been banned from Europe after Heysel. If that had happened, he thought, who knows what sort of state the world, and more importantly Everton, might be in now. For one brief moment he shivered with cold, and it wasn’t because of the Rooney Effect.



.