No one hates Everton more than the Everton fans do.

Jez Clein played football from the age of 14 to 44. Then a prolapsed disc ended it – not on the pitch, but batting at the crease in a cricket match. A friend suggested he take up refereeing. He hasn’t stopped since. Ten to fifteen matches a week. Never been more certain of anything in his life.

In episode six of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Jez in the greasy spoon café to talk about Everton, refereeing, the Jewish football community in Liverpool and what the game does to you when it becomes the thread running through everything.

Where it started

They start in 1977. Jez’s first game – Everton versus Manchester United at Goodison, an evening match, the floodlights on, the Upper Park End. From there the conversation moves through the 1984 Milk Cup final at Wembley, the golden goal ticket that paid out £125 when Jez was 14, his son playing in the same grassroots team as Curtis Jones, and Harold Dean’s – the only Jewish football club in Liverpool – where Jez started playing senior football at 14 and kept going until his back gave way.

One line comes early and stays with you. “No one hates Everton more than the Everton fans do.” Delivered with the wry resignation of someone who has been going to Goodison since 1977 and means every word of it.

The courage of your convictions

In the second half, Jez talks about twenty years at Heinz, voluntary redundancy at 44, and then picking up the whistle. What refereeing taught him surprised even him. He was shy. The courage of his convictions – believing you are right even when you might not be – came from standing in the middle of a pitch with a whistle and having to mean it. That belief spilled into everything else.

He brings the whistle to the table. Jim blows it. It’s very loud.

The result he’ll never get over

Everton winning in Kharkiv. He went to Ukraine on a day return. He really needed them to win.

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Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. New episode every Tuesday morning.