What Dr David France does not know about Everton Football Club truly isn’t worth knowing.
Howard Kendall once declared the Blues a marriage in a sea of love affairs. For Dr France, it has been an enduring matrimony; through better and worse, richer and poorer, in sickness and health.
Such has been his unrelenting devotion to Goodison Park, clocking up two million Transatlantic miles, that it even staggered some of his fellow patrons in the Joe Mercer Suite on match days.
“I used to come every other week, like you do, and just sit there,” he recalls.
“One day, I came in late and they all had to stand up because I was in the corner – in the dead end.
“{They asked} ‘Where the hell have you been!?‘, and I said ‘There was traffic on the M1’. They said ‘The M1 from Chester?’ I said ‘No, I LIVE in Houston, Texas’.
“They said ‘You’re sad! You’re Everton mad!’ They had no idea up to that point that I’d come all that way. I never let on, I just showed up every week.”
Now into his fourth decade of residing in the United States, two things have remained strong in Dr France; his unmistakable Widnes accent and an unstinting commitment to all things Blue.
But it is more than mere loyalty which defines the 68-year-old’s fixation; the subject of his latest literary offering ‘Everton Crazy’, which sold out within weeks of its original print run.
In total, he has written 16 books on Everton but this is the first truly autobiographical take from a man who has become a true pioneer for his beloved club, themselves no strangers to innovation.
Supporters of all ages will be familiar with his initiatives, not least the Everton Former Players’ Foundation and the Gwladys Street’s Hall of Fame, which makes a long-awaited return in March.
He also created the much-vaunted Everton Collection, which remains unrivalled as the most extensive memorabilia catalogue of any football club, and of the EFC Heritage Society.
But had fates conspired, Dr France could have found himself front and centre in shaping Everton’s destiny when the chance to head up the club’s executive operations arose on two occasions.
“I’d have done it for free. [The club said] ‘I’m afraid we’re not in your league’ and my response was ‘Come on, let me drag you into my league!’,” he reflects.
“I could see we were going the way of the NFL, the way of television and football celebrities earning vast fortunes and the power being with those people.
“But we were a country club, a mama and papa organisation – we were like all football clubs at the time. We were quite comfortable in our own little world.”
To this day, Dr France remains a highly-sought authority on the fibres of Everton’s history.
Minutes before he sat down with Click Liverpool, one supporter had requested his expertise on the medal of legendary centre-forward Fred Geary from the club’s inaugural championship in 1890/91.
With the continued support of wife Elizabeth, whom he hails as ‘the most decent person in the world’, his Everton obsession remains as strong as ever and appears to have no end in sight.
The launch of ‘Everton Crazy’ encompassed a number of events, including a celebratory evening at the Anglican Cathedral, and one attended by first-team players Idrissa Gueye and Mason Holgate.
An extensive ‘Toffee Men’ project has also been in the works for the past four years, depicting all of the close to 2,000 players that have turned out for the club in their current 138-year history.
The DVD release of ‘Alex The Great’, the highly-anticipated sequel to Ken Loach’s iconic 1968 docu-play ‘The Golden Vision’, will be launched next month.
January will see a celebration of Everton’s contribution to American soccer with its own ‘Hall of Fame’ taking place in Las Vegas, just two months before the original event returns to Liverpool.
He will once again sit in the city’s Hilton Hotel when Gwladys Street’s Hall of Fame will make its comeback following an eight-year hiatus.
“Alan Ball said that once (Everton) gets into your blood, you can’t get rid of it. It always has been in my blood,” he admits.
“I say in the book that there’s ‘Dr France’s Laws’; one is that Everton expands to fill the time available – and I’ve been retired for 26 years!
“Since I was 42, I’ve had a lot of time for Everton to fill, with other things to fill that time. Everton becomes whatever you want it to become in your life.
“When I was a kid and I couldn’t read, it was like an escape. It became a crutch to me. Then it becomes your companion, then it becomes your secret friend, your best mate.
“Sometimes I think of Goodison as like my grandmother’s house. It’s got a coat of paint of late but it never changes. It’s always comfortable and it’s always there.
“You know it’s always going to be there and you’re always welcome – like your grandmother’s house.
“That’s not just Everton, it’s a football club in general. It provides that comfort to people and Everton’s done that to me.”
For more information about ‘Everton Crazy’, visit www.decoubertin.co.uk/dreverton