Oh Tommy Tommy!

We have seen a lot of characters at Everton recently, from Sly Stallone to Mr Testicles, but never anyone as eccentric as Tommy Gravesen, the man who bewitched Mike Tyson in 2001 with his playground scruff of the neck style whilst playing for Denmark...

It turns out that our last game of the season was Tommy Gravesen's last game for Everton. David Moyes was kind enough to give him a short run out, in which he gave us a display that was a distilled version of his time as an Evertonian; he still had his telegraphed, affected body movements when he went to pass the ball, and he still charged around, arms stretched wide, following the ball like a star-struck autograph hunter. The Gravesen of this season wasn't the same as in his prime though, and watching him in his few minutes against Newcastle was like watching the latest Indiana Jones installment - everyone knew that something was missing.

Gravesen's first stint at Everton was his best as a player. Often starved of a partner to exchange skillful midfield repartee with, he was forced to roam on his own - a goggle-eyed, shaven-headed hunter gatherer. When the conditions were right though, and when the mood took him, Gravesen would play like a ball-hogging maverick. He would head down blind alleys and cul de sacs, submerged in his own skills, dribbling - waddling - with his head down, like a hooded teenager enveloped by his I-Pod. And when Tommy came to from his midfield daydream - he would often find himself near the corner flag.

If Everton are a Bill Kenwright production then Gravesen was often the star of the pantomime, a barrel-chested player who grimaced and gesticulated when he played, and with his bald head and bulging eyes he looked every part a Mad Dog of a midfielder. His theatrics were often greeted with an "Oh Tommy, Tommy..." bellow from the stands, and as the cheers trickled down to the pitch they were echoed back with his larger than life skills.

When Gravesen did leave us, it was to chase his dreams. Any gripes about the timing of his departure (he left as Everton were fighting tooth and nail for fourth spot) were swiftly brushed away when we realized that Real Madrid were the club that had had come knocking, and turning them down would have been like stopping Mowgli from joining human kind. Gravesen, with his voluptuous ego, seemed perfect for the Galacticos, but it didn't quite work out.

After Tommy's Real adventure came to an end, he moved to Celtic, and then boomeranged back to us on loan; the feeling was that he had unfinished business, but this time round he was muted, more susceptible to injury, and found it hard to break into an Everton squad that has grown a lot since he was last at Goodison. We know a lot about second comings at Everton, from Howard Kendall's second stab at management to Tommy, via Duncan Ferguson - and they don't usually work out.

Gravesen's constant charging around the midfield like a rebel without a cause, and his Mad Dog persona perpetuated a huge myth about the Dane. Simply because he looked like the acme of a hard-man defensive midfielder defensive midfielder - people began to assume that he was. As Gravesen waddles off into the sunset and his career dwindles and meanders to an end, he shouldn't be remembered as a defensive midfielder. In truth he couldn't tackle very well at all - and much of the confusion must rest on the shoulders of his midfield looksalike, Lee Carsley, who was an excellent tackler. It was an easy stereotype - the skinhead midfield Dane with bulging eyes - but his bark was far worse than his bite.

In reality Gravesen was very over-excitable, but that always translated into mad mazy runs, and charging after the ball like a blue-arsed fly - not the hard-man with a penchant for ultra-violence that the "meeja" portrayed him as. The bald truth is that Gravesen simply wasn't the glass-chewing, no-prisoners enforcer that many thought he was. This utter misreading of the basic tenets of Gravesen's game wasn't just among fans and pundits - both Real Madrid and Celtic tried to play him as a defensive midfielder and essentially failed, outside Goodison, he was misunderstood.

From the beginning of his Everton career Gravesen set out to get noticed, he played like he should have an exclamation mark grafted onto his surname, getting sent off in one of his first outings, a friendly against Blackburn Rovers in 2000 for exhibiting some appalling tackling - a variety of slides and lunges that made Paul Scholes look like Franco Baresi.

Gravesen didn't just save his wilder side for the opposition, after getting into a fight with Robinho at Real, Fabio Capello - who later in the same interview claimed that Gravesen was "a little different" - was asked about his behaviour: "His behaviour? I don't like it, he wants everyone to do what he wants, and I have told him so."

This summer marks the end of an era, not just because Gravesen has left, but the unsung Carsley too, and their characters will be very hard to replicate...

Comments

[Peter]

Although I'm not sure how Real deployed him, he was definitely played as an attacking midfielder at Celtic, a role in which he failed to deliver rather spectacularly, most probably due to his abysmal positioning and erratic passing. I, for one, was at a loss at how great a difference there was between his Everton heyday and how it could be explained.

Good article.

[John]

He played some good games for Celtic, but the majority of the time he ran around like a headless chicken.A hope we can get rid of him if its true he's on 40 grand a week.

[mikey]

get your facts right, celtic did NOT try to play him as a defensive midfielder. we had neil lennon for that. gravesen was supposed to be lennon's more forward thinking partner -t hough still with some degree of defensive responsibily - but he just ran all over the place and did what he felt like.

[Alex]

Great article! Don't think anyone at Goodison will forget Gravo or Z-carsley! IF YOU KNOW YOUR HISTORY!