Tim Howard in 'The Times'

Blue Lou · Nov 17, 2012

A fully clothed Tim Howard is discussing the virtues of male nudity and handlebar moustaches and the conversation turns to size. “Our biggest players have the smallest egos and that’s hard to come by,” he says before realising the relief that the word “ego” has provoked and dissolving into laughter.
Howard is one of a dozen Everton players who have posed in various states of semi-nakedness for a charity calendar called Twelve Shades of Blue, the proceeds from which will be ploughed into the club’s awardwinning community work.
The spin-offs do not only extend to charitable good causes in Howard’s opinion, though. In his eyes, taking part in fundraising initiatives such as the calendar and Movember — the moustache-growing event in aid of the battle against prostate cancer — is one of the generators of a team spirit and a togetherness that he feels have helped propel Everton into the Barclays Premier League’s top four.
“From the day I walked in here, and I have been here seven years now, this has been an easy place to come to work,” the American said. “For a new guy coming in from a foreign country it’s an easy place to come and adapt. Everyone gets along and the egos are very few and far between, which is different to most clubs.
“We have said before that with clubs spending exorbitant amounts of money, and us not being able to do that, we still have more fight and spirit and we show it. Shooting the calendar was lots of fun and in that respect it was positive for us as a group and for our team spirit.”
The sense that Everton are a band of brothers has been particularly evident in recent weeks when they became the first team in Premier League history to go behind in six successive games and lose none of them. Their unity promises to take them a long way this season with qualification for the Champions League now considered a genuine possibility and Howard believes the lion’s share of the credit for the strength of the group should go to one man: David Moyes.
“The manager’s recruitment is the biggest part of that,” Howard said. “He monitors the medicals and watches [potential signings] in terms of talent and quality, but he also thinks the character is very important. The one thing he’s going to be able to do is even if he brings in a guy who maybe does have a suspect character, he believes in his own ability to get him to conform to our ways.
“Of course you’re not always going to get it right. You’ve got a bunch of athletes with a lot of ego and pride, which we’re trying to gel together and have that mesh. But the manager has done a great job in terms of not being scared to say ‘you’re not a good fit here, get going’. That shows a real strength of character.”
That Moyes is in the final year of his contract is a concern in the Everton dressing room, albeit not an undue one as there are no indications that the Scot has any intention of leaving. “I’m in no great hurry,” Moyes said yesterday. As far as Howard and his team-mates are concerned, though, the sooner talks begin and are brought to a successful conclusion the better.
“The next person who comes in after David Moyes is going to have a very difficult job because the gaffer has done brilliant here,” Howard said. “Obviously for us to go forward and have what we have, we need him to be steering the ship. It’s vital to keep him.”
Everton continue their assault on the top four today away to Reading and will again be without Tony Hibbert, Darron Gibson and possibly Phil Neville, who has a knee problem.
• Twelve Shades of Blue is available at evertondirect.com priced £10.
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http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/article3602906.ece

ChrisSSBB · Nov 18, 2012

Didn't know Timmy was tatted up so extensively. Almost halfway to Queequeg.

Good read (the Times article, that is.)

Blue Lou · Nov 18, 2012

They're done by a girl from a US show.

fingersave · Nov 19, 2012

Hey, someone out there want to get rich?

Develop an inexpensive and universal system to remove old tattoos. There's going to be a couple of generations of professional and wannabe athletes who have tattoos that look like Dali pieces that weren't intended to.