Brian Viner on Saturday: An Evertonian's lot: paranoia, self-pity, conspiracy theories and hopeful bets

In the same way that being paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you, and having hypochondria doesn't mean you're not ill, nor does self-pity mean that you haven't got a good reason to feel sorry for yourself.

At the moment, self-pity hangs over Goodison Park like a dense blanket of grey cloud. Even those Evertonians who know Shakespeare only as the name of a slightly rundown boozer in Fazakerley, realise that there is something almost epically tragic about the way this season is unfolding. A football club run by King Lear could not have plunged from hope to hopelessness quite as Everton have from the moment they drew Villarreal rather than FC Nobody-to-worry-about in the qualifying phase of the Champions' League, although for this Evertonian, the first stirrings that there might be a cosmic conspiracy afoot came in Istanbul in May, when Liverpool rose from the dead to win the European Cup final. Everton had finished above Liverpool in the Premiership, qualifying for the Champions' League into the bargain, yet local bragging rights, reasserted for the first time in years and years, were stifled practically before they were born.

The red half of Merseyside likes to tell a joke about the blue half: how many Evertonians does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: none, they just sit there in the dark and blame Liverpool.

I first heard that gag with the same sort of wince that comes with glancing into a shop window and recognising the jowly, middle-aged man looking back at you as yourself: among Evertonians of my generation and older there is still a Liverpool-inspired persecution complex which began with the realisation that Howard Kendall's brilliant 1984-85 championship-winning team would not be allowed, on account of the Heysel ban, to contest the European Cup. You would think that the tragedy of 39 people dying at Heysel would have kept this bitterness suppressed, but it hasn't, alas. Time has diminished it, rather than perspective.

Further evidence of cosmic conspiracy against Everton came in the summer, when it seemed that just about every player David Moyes tried to buy said thanks, but no thanks. One of them, Mohamed Sissoko, was on the verge of signing when Rafa Benitez whistled from across Stanley Park, and he was gone. But of course, Wayne Rooney's departure a year earlier had shown that one summer does not a season make. Or break.

The failure to add significant firepower to an admittedly limited strikeforce did not overly worry the Goodison faithful. Moyes would get it right. Ever the alchemist, he might even tease some £6m quality from James Beattie. And when the Champions' League dream died - smothered by Pierluigi Collina, of all people, who disallowed a perfectly good goal by Duncan Ferguson in the second leg against Villarreal - at least there was still the Uefa Cup to bring European nights back to Goodison.

In retrospect, we should have known. The portents were there all along, in the 7-0 hiding by Arsenal last season and in the 5-0 thumping in the pre-season friendly against Fenerbahce. Besides, Collina had gone 20 years without making a really execrable refereeing decision, so it was obvious he was saving it up for Everton. Similarly, it was inevitable that our defence would metamorphose into Fred Karno's Circus in Bucharest, leaving us without even Uefa Cup consolation. These things happen to Everton. It's not self-pity. Well, it is. But it's fact as well.

To turn to the Premiership, the right words are almost as hard to find as the back of the net. As I left White Hart Lane last Saturday, I heard one Tottenham supporter rebuking his teenaged son for shouting "you're going down" to a bunch of gloomy Everton fans climbing aboard a supporters' club coach. "You were wrong to say that," he said, and my heart leapt in gratitude. Here was a man of sensitivity and wisdom, who plainly recognised that Everton were a better team than bottom place suggested. "They know that already, son," he added, "without you telling them."

He was wrong. Moyes is, unequivocally, the man to get us out of this mess, and I don't know any Evertonians who have resigned themselves to the unthinkable. Relegation is never settled by Hallowe'en, nor are championships won, despite the fact that some publicity-hungry bookmakers have already paid out on Chelsea.

On which subject, the champions visit Goodison Park tomorrow, a reminder that 27 years is a long time in football. I was there in April 1978 when Everton hammered Chelsea 6-0. Bob Latchford scored two that day, becoming the first player that season to score 30 League goals, which won him a £10,000 prize from the Daily Express. Goodison celebrated as if we had won the League, FA Cup and European Cup treble, not least because it was something we had that all-conquering Liverpool didn't. So in other respects, 27 years is not such a long time.

As for tomorrow's match, even the most optimistic Evertonian knows that a 6-0 thumping can only go one way. But I'm going to have a bet on a 1-0 home win. Self-delusion doesn't always mean that you've got it wrong.

Who I like this week...

Cheryl Ladd, the former Charlie's Angels actress, who has written a book called Token Chick - A Woman's Guide To Golfing With The Boys. In it, Miss Ladd (pictured) has devoted a chapter to a 57-year-old recovering alcoholic called Jimmy Kelly, a caddie at Gleneagles in Perthshire, whom she met 14 years ago. The idea of a Hollywood blonde knocking about with a raddled Scotsman by the name of Jimmy is beguiling enough (she once bet him £5 that he couldn't go a full 18 holes without swearing, and he made it only to the second tee), but she also recognises the traditional gifts of old-school caddies, who are so often the only people able to puncture the gigantic egos of film stars and captains of industry.

And who I don't

Politicians who claim devotion to a particular football club to win credibility with the electorate. Tony Blair was quickly rumbled as not being quite the Newcastle United aficionado that he made himself out to be, and I'm told that, with Heart of Midlothian riding high at the top of the Scottish Premier League, there are Hearts fans positively tumbling out of the closet both in the Scottish Parliament and at Westminster - including Charlie Falconer, the Lord Chancellor. At least the Labour former junior minister Baron Foulkes of Cumnock can claim to be a real Jambo: he's chairman of the club, and was spotted in an overexcited state at the recent Rangers game conducting the crowd in song from the front row of the Tynecastle directors' box.

b.viner@independent.co.uk