 Welcome to Toffy TV today. I am joined by Andy Bush from Absolute Radio. Bush on the radio. Hello mate, how are you? Oh man, how's it going? I feel like we're in some kind of science fiction movie where we're broadcasting from our various bunkers and it's not safe to go outside anymore. Do you know what I mean? It's absolutely bizarre, almost isn't it? You're allowed out for your one hour a day exercise and people are out walking, you've never walked before. It's so mad. What's your game plan with your hair? Look at the state of my hair. What are you going to do? We've got weeks of this ahead. Are you going to cut your own hair? What are you going to do? There's a saying isn't it? For a scum said it, didn't he never cut your own hair or whatever someone said it. I'm not going to cut my own hair. Products probably. Yours looks alright though. You can carry that off I think. You sure? I feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway. He cut the beard off the other day actually, but I'm going down that route. I think, I honestly think, maybe a little bit of gel, maybe a mow. I think you could carry a mow off easily. You reckon? A fin, a fin. The Andy Bush fin. It could be a thing. A Morgan Schneidlin style shaved down the sides and pile on the top. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, let's leave it at that. I think you've got to be with it. Me, I don't know. He's looking at me disappointingly. As a man who uses a lot of products on his hair, he's looking at me, he literally gets out the shower and just goes like that and walks. I think a lot of people, fellas, at the moment, I think into themselves, I did it back in the day, could have bring it back again now, would have looked right with a shaved head. Until you do it, you don't really know, but you either look brilliant or you look like you've not got long left. Yeah, I'm not going to shave my head. I'll probably go for the kittens before I shave the head. Fantastic. Full Jason Donovan, Neighbours, Serch in 1989 or something like that, or 88, wherever it was. I'd see you in a bit of, remember that wet look gel they used to sell in 24-hour garages? I could see you with a bit of product in there. You never know. There's a face for everything, isn't there? I mean, we were just talking before we started recording, and it is. How are you finding just the day-to-day stuff of going out? Obviously you're not allowed, but they're like just shopping and with the family in that. It's so strange, isn't it? It's really weird. I find like people, I mean, I know they've got to do it and stuff, but I find people like wearing masks and rubber gloves and flipping hazmat suits around Tesco. A bit disconcerting. You do feel like you're in a movie, but obviously people have got to do it and keep themselves safe, and maybe they're wearing it because they're at risk and all that kind of stuff. I'm glad we're over that kind of weird end-of-the-world panic buying bit. That was the scariest point where people were buying bloody loo rolls and stuff like that. That's when I felt like, oh my God, what is going on? It's kind of settled down a little bit, but this is like a battle not just against the virus, but against going mad, like climbing the walls. I think people are like taking up hobbies. There's no footy on, so you've got to take up hobbies, watch old games, whatever it is. You've got to do just to keep yourself sane. I mean, I'm a radio presenter. I'm a radio presenter every day, but broadcasting from bedrooms and stuff. It's really weird because you'd live your life by having experiences and talking about them on the show, but I'm not doing anything. I'm literally not doing anything. I've got a week left before I've completely run out of stuff to talk about. We're all Netflix and Disney Plus and everything. That's becoming the focus of the day in ours, certainly. Obviously me and Pedda are still coming into the studio, but there's only us here. My house is getting me car. Get out to the studio. There's two of us in the studio. Get back in my car. Go back to my house. That's it, doesn't it? I do me hour every day of exercise out. If not, I'll do stuff around the house, but it's so weird, especially for you. I mean, we're struggling on a football channel when there's no football, so that's quite challenging. Doesn't it make you realise, though, not just football, but everything? I think hopefully the positive that's going to come out of this is that we didn't realise how lucky we are and how good we had it. Even those games you'd turn your nose up at on a Wednesday night, it'd be like a couple of teams saying, I'm not sitting there watching that. Now, I'd give anything for, I don't know, Watford versus someone, do you know what I mean? I'd give anything to watch that on a cold Wednesday night. Hopefully, if we've got a bit... Sometimes you can get a little bit jaded with football sometimes with the way it's been and particularly the way our fortunes have been going and everything. Hopefully, when we come out the other side of this, it's going to be a bigger appetite than before for football because when you have someone taken away from you, I think you realise how much you love it, you know what I mean? I'm hoping that there's a lot of that with a lot of stuff, to be honest, with depreciation, because I think sometimes, and life's under a mile an hour, isn't it, and the appreciation for almost everything. I think being able to go and see other members of your family and be close to people, it was my mum's birthday this week, we were on the same day and had to basically talk to her through a window, you know? Smart, isn't it? And things like that, it's bizarre, and we had a situation where we were in the porch and my mum and dad were sat up the stairs in like a teat, so it was almost like a stand situation. So, you know, as long as we're six foot away, so it is all very, very bizarre, isn't it? We'll get back onto the radio stuff in a minute, but, you know, obviously, you know, a big episode on it. How did that come about? So, I was born in Ellsmere Ports, my mum and dad are from Norris Green originally. My mum used to work at Amfield when she was in her teens, so my mum and a lot of her side of the family are all red and my dad and his side of the family are all blue, so it was 50-50 how it was going to go, luckily my dad got to me first and I chose the right path in life. But you know, I come from that kind of Liverpool background of, you know, whenever we would go over to my uncle's house across the water, he'd always make my dad's tea in a Liverpool mug. Is that kind of... Do you know what I mean? None of this kind of slightly modern hate each other stuff, more of that kind of what I think the Merseyside rivalry should be, which is kind of gently taking the piss out of each other. Do you know what I mean? So, that's my background to it with Everton and obviously I was lucky enough to be, you know, a school kid during the housey in days of like the 80s and, you know, watching Peter Reid and my favourite player of all time is Kevin Sheedy and all that kind of stuff. So, lucky to have experienced that team and then a little renaissance, I guess, fairly timely as well, you know, with 95 and everything, with the Cup final, but obviously we've had tough times in between. But I do look at people like, you know, I've got a couple of good friends who work with on the radio who are Manchester City fans. And even though they've had all this success and everything, they'd give anything to go back to being the ones that were moaning and everyone hated them and no one wanted to play them all that. You know what I mean? People miss the hardships. If it's all, you're winning all the time, it must be weird. I mean, I don't know what that's like as an Everton fan, but getting annoyed because you've drawn because you think you should win. What is that in the footballing experience? Football is about massive highs and massive lows or loads of lows for ages, then a bit of a high. Not constantly winning all the time and being annoyed because you've only got a point instead of three. So I feel like, you know, obviously it'd be brilliant to have amazing success like Manchester City and we're getting there with the money and everything. But I do love the times when we were crap and when we've been crap because that makes you appreciate it all, doesn't it? It is weird. You know what, the second person that's mentioned that about Manchester City this week, I think it was on something we were doing the other day and someone's relations, a city fan, and he said he'd rather be back at Main Road when everyone hated them and you're like, I'll have a little go with it and winning everything for a little bit and then I'll make my decision of like, oh, you know what, I wish we were getting beat around three and I'll buy Tramir in the Facebook. That would be great days then. No, I think, yeah. No, you're right. Obviously you cling on to what you know, but obviously you just mentioned the 80s there and have you had the chance to watch the Howard's Wave film? Do you know what I haven't, which is really, really bad at me because obviously he was the manager that was just omnipotent the whole time when I was growing up when I was at school and that is something that I definitely need to sit down and watch. But I kind of get a bit like, a bit scared of being nostalgic too much about it sometimes, you know what I mean? Because it's quite emotional, all that stuff as well. And sometimes, and I'm not having to go at like the team we've got at the moment or anything, but I look back at how they behave then, people of that era of Everton Football Club in the 80s and I just wish I'd love to put them back on the pitch now because sometimes you see from the model professional, you don't quite get the same kind of it being in the blood that you would have got back then. It's a little bit like watching One Night in Turin or whatever about the England, the semifinals and all that kind of stuff. It's great to know where you've come from, but sometimes it can be quite hard going back to it as well. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think you definitely need to watch it honestly because it is, especially when we're in lockdown. Come on, hand. Yeah, I'll get on the case. It's a brilliant watch honestly. You're right, it makes you look at it and there's a tear in the eye and there's a bit of nostalgia there and everything else, but it's a brilliantly told documentary type thing put together by Rob Sloman. I had the pleasure of speaking to age in ETH last week for 70 minutes about that time and you've just said it there, about that set of players. The players of the 80s were... One thing Age in ETH said to me, but I thought it was really interesting, was that you were forced to be accountable to each other by Peter Reed, by Andy Gray, as in look at yourself. I'm not sure that's quite the same nowadays, that money and fame and everything else, which has escalated to incredible amounts and makes it more of a job now, I think. More of a choice of, I'll be a footballer because I can make loads of money from it, whereas I think in the 80s it was... I'm good of footy, but I absolutely love it and that's the thing I want to do, even if I only earn a couple of hundred pounds a week and we make it on. Derek Manfield tells us when we won the 84 FA Cup final, he was on £150 a week and his mate with plasterers were on £300 a week. Oh, my God, it's mad, isn't it? It's mad. It's mad, you know, and I'm adding it now, compared to what they're on now, so I think you're absolutely right with that. So Kevin Sheath, he was your hero growing up, that left foot wand, what a player. Honestly, I was lucky enough to see him score a couple of amazing free kicks and stuff back in the day. I think we were drawn against Plymouth in a cup game. I lived down in Devon for quite a bit and I remember Everton playing Plymouth, I think, and he scored a goal in that game. And if we ever played Wembley, you know, the one where it was everyone against everyone, you had to pick your favourite player from your team, one person in goal. You score, go and stand behind the net and you're free to the next round. I would always be Sheedy, 100% always be Sheedy and I just think there's something magical about it and that left side is very, you know, we've been lucky to have a few good left-sided players over the years at Everton, but I just think there's something about that foot that we have that's just amazing, do you know what I mean? Unbelievable player, unbelievable. You know, it wasn't the most dynamic of players, but just that left foot, he could just put it anywhere, couldn't he, it was absolutely unbelievable and yeah, just amazing, absolutely amazing. Playing forwards though, playing people who, it's a rarity now I think as well. We see it a lot with the team we've got at the moment. It's kind of a modern footballing thing where everyone's too scared to play the ball forwards. We've got a lot of side lateral passing going on at Everton. You know, the way it used to go, it goes down the wings, then back into the middle again, backwards, sideways, sideways, back down the wing, and it's just like the whole impetus has gone and that's why I love someone like him who's got this, you know, stuff we had to say, Artheta, someone that can unlock things. I think we all thought we were going to get that with Sickerson a little bit and it hasn't happened, but people who play the ball forwards, brave enough to write, I'm going to try and put it in his path and see whether we can make something happen here rather than just turning, shifting and putting it back out again and just, you know, moving the ball, which is just, but, you know, I used to hate, I used to hate, I hate Barcelona's style of football. I know it's probably slightly controversial. I hate that tic-a-tac-o, playing the, working the ball to death, I hate all that shit. I much prefer sticking it in there like a howitzer and trying to put it on someone like Duncan Ferguson's head and getting the ball knocked back out and thunked in or so. I'd much rather go down that line of football than pass, pass, pass, pass, slow it down, slow it down, you know, so play it forwards, come on. I think, I think that's evidence, like, the thing that evidence has built. Certainly my, my, my experience of evidence is exactly the same, fast attack on football and direct at times, but, you know, get it for, I mean, it's something Carlo Ancelotti said when he came in, you know, we was, we're too safe. We passed the ball backwards and sideways and it's got to get played forward and that was brilliant to hear, but were you surprised Evan were able to get Carlo Ancelotti? I don't know how it happened. I think, I don't know where to begin because I think he's such an amazing guy in such a short period of time, he's just given us, we were starting to lose a little bit of class because of the way that we were behaving in terms of terrible decision making and all that kind of, you know, people were starting to take the mickey out of us a little bit and he's just come in with his, with his fantastic suits and he looks like, he looks like a restaurant manager who you say you're fuming because your meal's been terrible and he comes over with the old thumbs in the belt hoop thing and just chats you for five minutes and it's all fine, you go away with a bottle of wine and you're, yeah, good lads, he's fine. And the kind of players that, and we've not even seen this yet because the season's been on pause and he hasn't had a chance but I think some of the people he has kudos with, that work with him and love him and respect him, you know, he must be stood there. I mean, some of the footage from games where he's seen some of the behaviour from our players and he's like, I'm not having that and I love that as an Everton fan, do you know what I mean? What is this? So he's going to ring the changes. Once we get this season going again, he's going to really ring the changes and I love these come straight in and kind of called a few people out and said, what is this style of football? I mean, for me in recent years, I love that sweet spot of the Moisira when he had Coleman firing and Baines and Pinar on that wing. You know, that was that kind of, you know, more direct stuff and a bit, I guess with the, oh God, I can never remember his name, the guy went in on Belgium manager and we loved him. Not Martinis. You know, a bit of the Martinis era, there was a bit when we were playing on the break with Dele Feu and everything where it was exhilarating and I feel like he's with us and that he wants us to get back to being exciting again. You know what I mean? If you go to Goodison sometimes the way we play at the moment, you end up watching a crisp bag float around and then go back to the game. I wanted to get back to gripping football, do you know what I mean? Oh, most definitely. He's come in and he's been able, one of the things he's been able to do is get the, we talk about getting the club, don't we, but he's kind of got the fan base and I think it's probably from where he's come from and you know, he's a humble fella that he's come from in his book. He talks about poor background but he granted them where card and he's never lost that and I think, I think it's Evertonians we identify with that and what he's done is he's come in and he's been able to calm everyone down cos it was getting a little bit to everyone that set you with each other. He's been able to calm it down and he's a big enough name to be able to carry the football club on his shoulders and go, this is Everton Football Club, we were a big club and I'm Carlo Ancelotti with all due respect to Marco Silver who was a good training ground coach we couldn't really carry it through on a Saturday and we've had people like Cooman and we've had Martiners and Ancelotti's the biggest name we've probably ever had. It was Everton Football Club in terms of an international appeal. He's able with what he's done to carry us forward and stop the questioning really from the fan base people. Instead of going he hasn't got a clue people are like Ancelotti I'll kind of back him. Trust him on. There's a fine line between protecting the players and the amount of times you would watch a post match interview with Martiners or Cooman or whatever he did really well, brave that wasn't the same game we were watching they were terrible and what I like about Ancelotti he's quite honest about it but not in a way that winds the players up by frying them under the bus like you get with Mourinho six months into any job he does he's just absolutely honest with the fans about what he thought of that performance whether it was good or bad or whatever and doesn't try and sell you any bull about the Martiners thing about the bravery when we get embatted and everything like that we're not going to stand for that at all so I feel like he has just stepped into our club and there's just been a complete breath of fresh air and given us what kind of feel like the manager we've deserved for a long time because I think when you get a load of money we keep going about Man City here but Man City had the same thing I think when you get a load of money come into the club particularly when you've been like we have and like they were for a long time it's quite difficult to find what you're supposed to be doing we've always been like scrappers we've played counter attack IED style Everton trying to get people jump out on them type of thing suddenly you've got all the money people are doubling the prices of all their players and fans are looking at you like thinking you're supposed to be the big guns it's like trying to change that mentality and I feel like he has given us that grounding in where how you navigate your way through that transition because when Man City got all their money remember they bought a load of stupid players like Benio and all that kind of lot and it just settles down after a bit and suddenly they find rather than throwing money at everything because I look at the list of some of those players the amount of money that we've spent on some people who've just turned out to be really bang average and that's just because everyone saw us coming a mile off do you know what I mean? Sigurdsson? He for me is one of the biggest disappointments I know what he does he scores maybe this is what he did in all his other teams if you can score a worldie every two months then you get everyone off your back do you know what I mean? for me he doesn't take any ownership or responsibility of that football at all and it's just like you put him up against say Pinar in his pomp or Artheta he was playing the ball forwards and being brave I get more annoyed with him just giving it back again sideways and just some of his then I would be if he tried playing it forwards and it didn't work out and for me so I wanted to moan in it I don't know what has happened to set pieces and corners from Everton football club I grew up sitting behind Andy Hinchcliff putting in these amazing corners we've always been good at taking set pieces and they've been terrible are corners still to this day the way we take them and the way we defend them are just like I don't know what's happened to it well hopefully you've just said that hopefully anti-lossy will be able to get a grip of that are you confident now for the next few years that he's in charge that he will kick the football club on I am I'm excited about it I don't know what's happening I don't know what we can do about that I'd be more mortified if we were completely on our ass but I think in our own way we're having our own little renaissance they've been so many points ahead you can't deny it to be honest with you but if you're an Everton fan we've got a great manager finally that the money that we've got and we've got a brilliant fan base new stadium that looks smart and everything on the way as well it's great times for being an Everton fan as well absolutely spot on listen I know you've got a gog so I'm going to finish it there but I'd love you to come back on when you've got a little bit more time and we'll have a catch up and hopefully when there's a bit of football on the go as well I'd love that I'd absolutely love it it's fantastic thank you very much for having me on you've entertained the nation on absolute radio stay safe look after yourself and thanks very much again for coming on thanks man at the Toffees cheers and thank you so much man so a big thanks there to Andy Bush you can catch him on the radio on Twitter he's on absolute radio hilarious he's a really he's a top man and a big Evertonian as we've just made there make sure you give the video a thumbs up and if you want more videos join us over on Patreon see you later