Hello, I'm Jo Fidgen. Welcome to Outlook, the home of personal stories on the BBC World Service. There are football fans. And then there are full blown football fanatics. Consider the case of Osmo a composer from Finland. Can I start just by getting on tape the correct pronunciation of your full name, please?
My full name? My full name is Osmo Tapio Everton Räihälä.
I can get the Everton Well, I'll try, I'll try for the others. Osmo loves Everton so much, he's changed his name to include it. I mean, why not just have a tattoo like any normal fan?
At the time, tattoos were becoming very fashionable. At first, I was thinking about that. But realized that when I'm dead, either in ashes or microbes have eaten up any tattoo, it won't last.
Whereas Osmo is hoping to immortalize his beloved Everton through his music. If the music lives on and Oslo's name with it. Then Everton can never die, you see?
Exactly, exactly.
It's really quite vain. For those who are not passionate supporters of the English Premier League, Everton is the somewhat less glamorous of the Merseyside teams. Back in the 70s, when Osmo was a boy, it was neighbours Liverpool, collecting all the trophies and winning all the overseas fans. But it took only one match to win Osmo's heart.
I can remember it very vividly. It was 26th of November 1977. I was 13 years, and I had been following English football for many years. We had those Match of the Day games televised in Nordic countries. I had paid attention to a player called Bob Latchford. I was sort of interested in Bob Latchford and his team, but it was only on that very day. Everton beat Coventry six-nil and Bob Latchford scored three goals, two headers and a left foot volley. and right there and then I realized this is how it's going to be for the rest of my life.
What I'm trying to say is that Evertonians are born, we are not manufactured. We didn't choose we were chosen. And there and then, as a 13 year old, I realized that I'm one of the chosen. So I fell in love with Everton and being a 13 year old kid, I kept staring at that league table like a young boy who's got a crush on some girl. It was the same way that I felt deep love with Everton and it was Everton, who proposed to me that day. And I answered, Yes!
Preparing for marriage.
Yeah. And it's a love story, which has had some good days, and mostly some worse days. But that's how it goes in, in in every marriage, I think.
When was the first time that you actually went to Goodison Park to Everton's ground?
I went for the first time in 1981. But that was just before the season started. There were some renovation work going on in the stadium. And so one of the gates was open, and I could sneak in. I wandered around the stands with my rucksack. And when I came to the main stand, there came four gentlemen, and asked "What are you doing here?" Because I was 17 years old and must have really looked out of place. I said, "I'm a pilgrim. I've come to Mecca." And one of them said that, "Oh, aren't they all supporting Liverpool?" So it said something about the self-confidence of the of the team and the club at that time.
You described this as a love affair, but actually it sounds more like a religion.
Yeah, right.
Football is not a common subject of inspiration for musical composition, I'm guessing. So how has it influenced your early pieces?
When I was a fledgling composer in my mid 20s, sometimes I thought about this. Where do composers get their inspiration from because there are works written about war and peace and the love and hatred and nature and I thought what are those things that are affecting me the most? What are the most important things in my life? Apart of course from my, the people near me and my family and those, and I had to answer to myself, honestly. Everton football club. That's that's the thing that takes up most of my time, because that was a bit before the time of the internet. And it took a lot of time to find even small snippets of news about possible transfer, a sender and all that. And it took so much time that I decided why not let this source of inspiration come true into my music. That was how I wrote my first Everton related piece was a short orchestra piece called Hinchcliffe Thumper - Tha' Bloody Intermezzo , which was premiered in the young Nordic Music Festival nearly 30 years ago, then I wrote a string quartet titled Evertone, and then I had a couple of others as well. And these were mostly really bad music because I wasn't a good composer. It took time it takes time to learn to write music well.
But then came fresh musical inspiration in the form of a towering new striker for Everton. As soon as Duncan Ferguson pulled on the number nine shirt, he was a hit with the fans. Tall and talented, and often in trouble with the law. He was already facing a jail sentence for violent conduct on the pitch and knew that at the end of the season, he would have to serve his time at Barlinnie Prison. Let's talk about Duncan Ferguson and the piece you wrote, 'Barlinnie Nine'. So So you began this piece in 1995. So Duncan Ferguson joined Everton and just before that in 1994, at which point he was already facing, going to jail for assaulting an opponent on the pitch, he knew that that was coming. He joins Everton, hugely popular with fans, despite this, you know, violent streak that appears on the pitch sometimes and trouble with the law off the pitch as well. What was it about Duncan Ferguson, that caught your eye that inspired you?
When Duncan had just joined Everton and very quickly had become a cult figure, having scored his first goal, versus Liverpool, ...
... so in a local Derby?
hmmm... and facing the prison sentence, which to a lot of people seemed very harsh. He was said to be a very, very friendly guy, and like a very nice person in his private life, and yet having this kind of trouble. And he had this hobby of the keeping pigeons, which was something that your typical football player doesn't really do. And I had the feeling that in the story, there are layers. I just felt that, he's a very, very interesting person. I remember that in 1995, when he was still facing the prison sentence. And I remember that I sat in my kitchen and had a piece of paper, and what I wanted to express a musical portrait of the person. And luckily, I didn't compose the piece there and then, because afterwards, there came so many other things about Duncan Ferguson, that found their way into the piece that if I had written and finished the piece immediately, it wouldn't have been the same at all.
What sort of things came in later then?
There were plenty of things like, of course, he hadn't been in prison yet. And that must have been the darkest period in his life. Then he was sold to Newcastle United behind the managers back. It seemed to the Everton fans, that he was always either injured or suspended. And so the piece became a story of stop starts. A lot of good things start, and then they stop suddenly. And that was, that was how Duncan's playing carrier was.
One of the good things one of the high points was that he was part of the team that lifted the FA Cup in 1995, just before he went to prison. And I know that your daughter, I think both your daughters, in fact are also Everton fans - I guess they have to be - were interested in in the cup final and wrote to Duncan Ferguson about it.
Yeah, it was right before the Cup final in 1995, I had three daughters and we wanted to have a good time together watching the game on television and one of them was wearing a blue and white wig. And they had scarfs and all that. And then one of them wanted to have Duncan's name and the letters EFC on her face, and I took a photo of her. We sent that photo to Duncan when he was sitting, in Barlinnie. Half a year later, my daughter received a letter from Duncan a signed photo where he thanked her for the photo and said it had been on the wall in his prison cell and how it kept him going for those six weeks and to have a, have a photo of a smiling little girl cheering him. I also think that, that all those over 6000 letters and cards, postcards that he received in the prison made him into an Evertonian himself.
Even though he's, Even though he's not from the area, he's from
No! Yeah, yeah! He's from...
Scotland. But his children, I think are Everton fans and you know he clearly adopted the club wholesale.
Yes, yes.
But you stopped writing Barlinnie Nine? But why was that?
In 1998, I spotted an announcement of the cold Nordic workshop for young composers. And I sent in a sketch for Barlinnie Nine and was picked for the workshop. It was at that time that Duncan was sold to Newcastle United. And, of course, my first feeling was he's not an Everton cult hero or cult figure anymore. And my piece is not finished. So I had the feeling that that's it! We are never going to see or hear this work. And in the end, in the workshop, it wasn't selected for performance. It looked to me that there will not be a piece titled Barlinnie Nine performed any time in the future and Duncan is gone and this piece is gone and that the chance of a performance is gone. And that's it.
And in fact, what was also gone was your sort of traditional way of supporting Everton you stopped following them during the season had a season blackout and caught up with everything right at the end of the season. Why why?
Yes, on the last day of August 2004, I had tried even before to stop following English football and stopped following Everton, but I failed miserably.
You sound like an addict. I tried and failed.
Yeah, sure it is. And not a lot of people admit that following a sport you really get addicted to it and it can disturb your normal everyday life or take too big a part of your everyday life.
But how big a part of your life was it then by 2004?
I spent three or four hours a day, at least in trying to look for any possible news or to react to any possible news and spent just too much time and and felt that I can't get anything done If this goes on. And then I managed to quit following Everton and English football during the season. And that is how it has gone since then. nearly 20 years now. 15 minutes before the season starts. I quit one single forum where I'm on during the summer, during the closed season. And my inner clock tells me what is the day when the season ends.
You don't even need to check the calendar?
Yeah! No, I don't need a calendar. 15 minutes after the last whistle of a season. I know that ...OK! The season's over. I can log in back to that certain forum where the people are already waiting for me and shouting Woohoo Osmo. Where are you? Every now and then, perhaps once or twice a season, it happens that there appears a crack in the wall where some little news might creep in. And it's always usually some bad news like Everton have been badly beaten by Liverpool in a Merseyside Derby or something like that. So I can, I can keep my peace of mind. So much easier. This way.
and get more done, I guess.
Yeah, it's, it's my very personal, very individual way to be an Evertonian. And at the same time, I don't claim to have quit supporting Everton. I can't do that. It's part of my identity, and will always be.
You just binge in May. May to August. So what happens then, to make you revisit Barlinnie Nine and complete the composition,
as the manager of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra called me, there was a change in the program. And they didn't have the time to commission a new work and asked, Do I have orchestra piece, unperformed? And I admitted. Of course, when when the manager of the Radio Symphony Orchestra calls a composer, you don't answer No I don't! You reply: Yes, I do! Yes, I do! Of course I do! And only then start thinking, what the heck am I going to do now? And then I knew that I had an unfinished work lying dormant. And so I said, Yes, I do. And we agreed that my work would be premiered on the 20th of April 2005, at the Finlandia Hall in Helsinki, of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. And that was the season 2004 2005, which was the first season when I didn't follow Everton and English football during the season.
So you didn't know that Duncan Ferguson was back in the side?
I didn't know. I didn't know. Because I had told all my friends all my Everton supporting friends and, and also other friends that I'm not following. Please don't tell me any news. Don't comment on anything that happens. And I was left in my news blackout.
Bear in mind, this was the best part of 10 years after Ferguson had done his jail time and Osmo had shelved Barlinnie Nine. But their fortunes were bound together once again. Osmo got his head down and worked on the composition. Ferguson was battling injury and trying to help Everton qualify for the Champions League. Osmo, of course, knew nothing about it. Right up to his big night. So tell me then, about the night that Barlinnie Nine premiered.
The piece was premiered at the Finlandia Hall as planned 20th of April 2005. And it was a big personal success for me. It was full house and I was cheered and applauded and people came to thank me and say how much they had enjoyed the piece. And although a lot of people were really baffled. What's this? An orchestra work, a Symphony poem about a football player. What's this? ...and
Were they asking you about about Duncan Ferguson and what he who he was?
Yeah, of course, they were. I had written some program notes about telling telling a bit about the background. But of course, you can't explain everything because if you could, then you wouldn't need the music.
But what was your analysis of Duncan Ferguson, what did you say about him?
Stop starts. Like I've also called this piece an apotheosis of underachievement. Because, because, because so many people have underlined that Duncan should have achieved so much more. He was the most talented player of his generation, at least in Scotland. And one of the absolutely most talented players in the whole Britain. He should have really had a much much better carrier than he did. And of course there were all these, all these strange things like being injured, beating up a burglar or getting injured way too often, or just getting suspended and all those things that made him so, so complicated figure a friend of mine, also a diehard Everton fan was in the concert. Right after the concert, he jumped into his car and dashed back home, without me knowing that... to be at home in time to watch Everton play Manchester United on a televised game. And he knew, of course, about my news blackout. And I was in the pub, celebrating with my friends and all those musicians and had already had a couple of pints and perhaps, mumble big. And then he calls me and says that, I know that I must not say anything about Everton, but I have to now. I just can't let this go. Because the game has ended half a minute to go. Everton have beaten Manchester United. And Duncan Ferguson started the game for the first time in ages and rose like a phoenix from the ashes and headed home the winner. It was like, Duncan was waving his middle finger to me 15, 1500 miles away, because there I had been describing his carrier as a failure, and talking about underachievement, and then he just jumps up and, and scores that winner that same night. And it's like, this is like from a movie.
Were you cross with your friends for breaking the blackout?
No, no, no, no, no, it was, as I said, I had already celebrated myself with a couple of pints. And I was just like, What are you saying? And then I nearly started dancing on the table. And it was so great to hear that because it made it all the more special night.
I'm aware Osmo that a lot of listeners to the World Service are big fans of particularly the English premiership and I wonder what what advice you would give them from your long relationship with Everton and this and this clear season blackout that you that you go through what advice you would give them about how to achieve a healthy life? Football balance?
Well, that's a question. I'm a living example of a football fan who couldn't take take everything... I was like an alcoholic who just can't have a drink every now and then, but who had to drink too much? So all I can say is that it's much easier. Well, no, no, no. It's not...I ... Honestly, I can't I can't answer to this question. At least I. I can't find any plausible answer that would sound like that this guy knows what he's talking about.
Osmo Tapio Everton Räihälä, speaking to me from his home in Helsinki. Stay with us on Outlook. We'll be back in just a minute with more stories of surprising obsessions, including the Iraqi woman who thinks she really should have been born in South Korea.
