Naismith’s giveaway to jobless is just the ticket
GOODISON PARK will be packed to its old rafters tonight and somewhere amongst the throng there will be four Evertonians appreciating Steven Naismith.
The Scotland international has endeared himself to the blue half of Merseyside with his honest performances combining hard work, deft skill and an ability to pop up with a goal when it matters, but the affection for Naismith runs deeper.
He is not someone for whom the term ‘typical footballer’ could be used. Naismith, for starters, is an ambassador for dyslexia in Scotland, launched an initiative some time ago to help the progress of injured ex-servicemen return to work and he supports homeless centres in Glasgow and Liverpool.
Spend time with Naismith, 27, and you discover he is a man with awareness and values and that explains why he became quickly attuned to the rancour surrounding the prices of tickets to watch matches in the Barclays Premier League and the frustration that come from spiralling costs.
So he decided to try and make a difference. Before the beginning of this campaign, he bought four season tickets for Goodison Park with the ambition to give those down on their luck a chance to get matches they would have no hope of seeing.
The tickets will be circulated around Merseyside, with four different fans being selected for each Everton home match. It is why, when Roberto Martinez’s side emerge for their crucial meeting with Chelsea, there will be one particular quartet in the crowd willing on Naismith.
‘When I got to my mid-20s I started thinking of myself as a bit more of an established player in terms of knowing how the football world works, what’s expected of you,’ said Naismith (right). ‘On the other side, you know what comes with it, with all the attention on you.
‘Social media is a massive platform with Twitter and stuff. It’s so easy to get things out.
‘Even when that side of it was young, I would talk to mates and say you could literally write anything on there and within three or four days everyone would know about it.
‘So we got thinking of what we could do that could make a difference to various charities and it was pretty simple really. The price of football is getting more expensive and more and more fans, who would probably have gone for years, were struggling to go any more. That was the idea.
‘But without being able to just go and pick people, and not knowing if you’d picked the right ones, we decided to speak to the job centres in the local areas — they would know who was working hard to get back into employment and maybe had a few setbacks and could do with a morale-booster.
‘It’s worked really well. We spoke to the people who went to the first game and they were delighted, they said it made a really big difference to them. It’s good to hear it. Prices can’t get out of hand because we are losing the spine of what football is all about.’
Though he initially struggled to adjust to the Premier League — he says he was ‘in awe’ of players like Phil Jagielka, Leighton Baines and Steven Pienaar — Naismith has blossomed in the last 12 months and it was against Chelsea last season that his Everton career really took off.
His header secured a 1-0 victory, gave Martinez his first win and set the ball rolling for them to return to Europe. Chelsea are likely to prove a different proposition to the out- ofsorts bunch that arrived last year but they will have to contain a forward whose confidence is on the up.
‘Last year there was a lot more uncertainty about how we were going to play and shape up because the manager was new,’ says Naismith. ‘This time the start of the season has been more of a disappointment rather than not understanding the system. We’ve thrown four points away.’
Should they play as they did for 60 minutes against Arsenal last week, though, Chelsea will certainly have issues to deal with and Naismith is relishing the prospect of working in tandem with Samuel Eto’o and Romelu Lukaku.
‘Samuel is a player with a massive pedigree,’ he says. ‘ Maybe he’s getting older but he still has a wealth of knowledge that could definitely be passed on.
‘As for Rom, it will be a funny day for him. This is probably the first season he is going to get that he can show them what he is made of.’