IAN LADYMAN: To see Everton, a super, storied club, in such a sorry mess is just deeply sad

Every time I sit in the press box at Goodison Park my eye is drawn across the field to a hoarding at the front of the Lower Bullens Road Stand.

It was where the late great Ray Wilkins came and perched during a break in play when QPR played Everton in November 1993.

Reports from the day say he actually signed an autograph before taking a corner. I don't remember that but I do recall him sitting and talking to the supporters as my father and I were there, a few rows back.

I'm not an Everton fan but I used to go occasionally when I was younger. It was 40 minutes from our house and Everton always played decent football. Or at least they tried to.

So I was there when Howard Kendall's buccaneering team of future champions beat Sunderland 4-1 with that bravura performance in 1985 and, more sombrely, the foggy night Jim Beglin broke his leg in a Merseyside derby less than two years later. I was even there on the day Efan Ekoku scored four in a 5-1 Norwich City win. Some chap called Chris Sutton scored the other.

It is because, at least in part, of these memories of a throbbing, humming Goodison Park that I feel so sad when I look at Everton right now. That super old stadium - crammed in on all sides by houses, a school, a main road and street of pubs and chip shops - still looks the same.

It still points so unapologetically to that storied past. But Everton won't be playing there before long. Sometime next season they hope to have the keys to what promises to be a quite stunning new home down by the water. But what will become of Everton between now and then? I really do shudder to think.

They play Wolves at home on Saturday and, after two games of the new Premier League season, are bottom of the table. Two games? Usually it means