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Radio City's Alan Irwin

Posts: 61

Alan Irwin is the Voice of Everton for Liverpool's Radio City 96.7. An experienced radio journalist, Alan commentates on all of the Blues' matches and is well placed to provide insightful blogs on the progress of the team.

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For those that are fairly regular readers of this blog I'm sure you're aware I'm a bit of an old fashioned traditionalist at heart. I definitely didn't want the FA Cup semi finals at Wembley but I must admit it's been great this week to hear the old words I've not heard for a long time, that great line... "any chance of a ticket for Wembley?!". Yes, the scramble for entry to the great event is underway. At least all season ticket holders do get an opportunity to buy a ticket, which is one of the positives of playing the game at Wembley.

I'm sure all loyal Evertonians will manage to get their hands on one but the demand already seems incredible. I know of many wanting to take family members on the trip who've maybe only attended the odd home game this season. I can understand why of course, it'll hopefully prove to be a top weekend. No matter how the allocation is divided up, I know the Blues supporters will be there in their thousands and the hunt for tickets will continue right up until kick off time!

Hotel accommodation is already proving a little difficult and it looks like some Evertonians may even stay down in the capital for the Chelsea league game that follows on the Wednesday. Great idea I say! Although a touch expensive I imagine.

Two victories in London in the space of four days would soon make up for that expense though!

Talking of expense, more of it this weekend as we head to Portsmouth. Sky Sports, calling the tune of course, determining that we must get under way at 12.45pm on Saturday. It's no real issue for many of the media crew that would probably have made the journey on Friday anyway and stayed over ahead of the game even if it had remained a 3pm kick off. The consideration for the average travelling fan has obviously disappeared. I'm almost of the opinion that the game has been switched by Sky Sports to stop supporters from Everton travelling in the hope they'll watch their live broadcast! After all it is our longest journey of the season! However, they could make us kick off at 9am in Portsmouth and the Blue army would still be there in their thousands! (Note to Sky - 9am is really not a good idea though!) 

Most of those Evertonians will be in fine form on Saturday despite the long journey, and it'll give the lads a great lift when they run out and hear you, hopefully drowning out those incessant Pompey chimes - wouldn't you just want to strangle that bell ringer if you sat anywhere near him! Please make sure Sharpy and I don't hear too much from him at Fratton Park!

I'm looking forward to three points down there anyway. Portsmouth have lost five of their last six league games at home and are now firmly ensconced in the relegation fight. Our away form is such that teams find it difficult to break us down. Last week's display wasn't exactly vintage Everton but we achieved what we set out to do, and that's important at this stage of the season. We need to head into the international break with confidence still flowing because we've got some great (but difficult) games to come in April.

Providing we've a fully fit Tim Cahill I feel we can win at Fratton Park by a couple of goals. That should be enough to shut that dreaded bell ringer up for good!