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Wading through university prospectuses is as uncertain a time as there is for the average teenager but for John Shearon his academic future was decided in an instant and for the most unlikely of reasons: a quick read of the match programme on the way home after a third-round FA Cup tie between Everton and Stoke City.
Everton won that game and would make it all the way to the semi-finals but for Shearon the 1977 FA Cup run would be one of his last for a few seasons as he was to apply for and, A-level results permitting, accepted on to the Latin American studies degree course at Portsmouth Polytechnic, and he had a new goal in life.
Year two was to be spent at university in Mexico City, the only course with the option at the time, and Shearon wanted to visit the other Everton whose name had featured in the programme, the one based in Viña del Mar on the Chilean coast. The compliment will finally be returned tomorrow evening when the South Americans will be present at Goodison Park for a friendly to mark their centenary against the Merseysiders who – by virtue of a summer tour of Argentina and Uruguay undertaken with Tottenham in 1909 – had given the Chilean club their name.
The Chilean Everton was founded in 1909 by David Foxley, whose grandparents had emigrated from Liverpool, and the club became nicknamed Los Ruleteros (the roulette players) as a thank you for the financial support offered to the fledgling side in the early days from the huge casino in the town. After small beginnings as an amateur side of Anglo-Chileans, they had won the First Division title for the third time in November 1976 and Shearon had seen a letter from an 81-year-old Evertonian, exiled in Santiago at the time, celebrating the fact. Unwittingly it had given the teenager a focus which crystallised with the founding of the Liverpool-based Ruleteros Society, which has been the driving force in arranging tomorrow's game
In October 1979 Shearon made it to the Mexican capital with a rough command of Spanish and, after seeing out most of the academic year, got himself a crew cut and slipped away from college before the end of the course and embarked on a 6,000 mile trip to Viña del Mar, hitching and bussing it through Guatemala, grabbing a flight from the island of San Andres off troubled Nicaragua and into Colombia before hitching through Ecuador and Peru to Chile. The trip was gruelling and would take a fortnight to complete.
Chile was under control of the military dictator Augusto Pinochet at the time and was a much more intimidating place than now but Shearon made it to the stadium unhindered to witness a 2-0 home defeat by Universidad de Chile. He was put up for a week by the club, who had a youth hostel at the ground, before stopping in Lima, Peru, for three months teaching English until he found a ship's captain who allowed him to work his passage back to the UK. He got back to Portsmouth on 7 October, the day before year three began.
Last Sunday Everton Viña del Mar arrived at Heathrow with around 80 supporters and the town dignitaries having had last and this Friday's domestic games postponed by a far-sighted league which sees the chance for one of its clubs to play in England as an opportunity to increase exposure of the game in Chile, one of the few sides to attack and impress in South Africa last month when they reached the last 16 of the World Cup.
"We nagged the life out of Everton to get the game on and eventually they said, 'OK, let's do it,'" says Shearon, who has been back to Viña del Mar five times to research the club's history and also visited unrelated Evertons in Argentina and Uruguay. He also managed to locate a document which shows that the iconic Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist leader removed by the US-backed coup which installed Pinochet in 1973, was a member of the Everton sports club back in 1923, when he was a youthful long jumper.
Things have moved on a lot since then and Everton sent a telegram of congratulation when Viña del Mar won the league in 1950, as they did for a fourth time in 2008. Although this season is proving to be more difficult, it should provide an interesting workout for both sides as it is Everton's only home friendly of the close season and the clubs will compete for the newly inaugurated Brotherhood Cup. Mark Halsey, the referee who is in remission from throat cancer, will take charge, having officiated at Goodison in his last Premier League game before standing down for an operation and chemotherapy.
"The fact that the match is finally going ahead is fantastic and everyone needs applauding," adds Shearon, who, along with other members of the Ruleteros Society has been putting up the youth team coach, Mario Salas for the past week and took him to the Sheffield United v Estudiantes friendly on Sunday. "They have put on an official dinner for the Chileans on the eve of the game and I'll be there, of course, but for me it's as much about the obsession as the football."
They may raise a glass to the former Everton director EA Bainbridge, who, along with the board, travelled with the team on the 1909 tour and on their return reported his observations in a letter to the Liverpool Echo.
"We are pleased to say the Everton football club has contributed something to the sport of nations and, in a measure, has broken down many of the old standing prejudices peculiar to foreigners. When a team has travelled 24,000 miles in 10 weeks to introduce and develop first-class football, and returns with a clean bill of health, and a clean slate, and at no cost, it has something to be proud of."
Tickets for the game are available for £10 for adults and £3 for concessions from Everton.
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