The final whistle had long been blown and yet still there remained a hardy bunch dotted across three tiers of the Bullens Road Stand at Goodison Park.
A smattering of red punctuating the blue seats, all of whom wanted to soak in the final few moments of a day and night that they would remember for a long time. These kind of cup ties often play out this way, with the plucky underdogs giving the Premier League team a bloody nose before ultimately bowing out.
That was the case for Doncaster Rovers too, but it didn’t deter their supporters – of whom there was nearly 3,000 singing loud and proud all night – from thinking that brighter days lie ahead.
You only needed to take a cursory glance at the teamsheets prior to kick-off to fully realise the seismic difference between these two sides.
Everton’s starting XI saw multi-million pound signings such as Beto, Jake O’Brien and Iliman Ndiaye propelled into the line-up with the sought-after England forward Dominic Calvert-Lewin and £20m midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure among those in reserve on the bench.
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It goes without saying that Rovers’ options were at the opposite end of the scale. Their 20-man matchday squad was comprised entirely of free transfers, loans and a smattering of players picked up for nominal fees.
Thankfully, football isn’t played out on calculators or balance sheets. Rovers, for almost an hour, gave as good as they got and only on brief occasions did Everton threaten Ian Lawlor’s goal in the first half. The closest they came was a James Garner rocket right on half-time that cannoned back off the upright right on the cusp of the break.
Prior to that there was scant little for the Evertonians to cheer about, with the Merseyside air filled almost exclusively with South Yorkshire voices at regular junctures.
Zain Westbrooke up against Seamus Coleman at a packed-out Goodison Park last night.Zain Westbrooke up against Seamus Coleman at a packed-out Goodison Park last night.
Zain Westbrooke up against Seamus Coleman at a packed-out Goodison Park last night.
In fact, it wasn’t until the contest was nearly an hour old that you actually hear the vast majority of this famous old ground.
Tim Iroegbunam tried his luck from distance and the ball found the back of the net via the slightest of touches from his colleague Dwight McNeil.
It was far from deserved but then it often doesn’t take much for these big teams to click into gear. A second arrived thanks to some clever footwork from Iliman Ndiaye before Beto’s scruffy third gave the scoreline an unwarranted complexion.
But a 3-0 defeat did not deter those Rovers fans. They sung loud and proud all night and applauded their players off at the whistle.
They had seen their team give it a real go and there can be little complaints or surprise that Everton eventually got their act together.
Manager Grant McCann, speaking in his post-match conference, declared himself proud of his players whilst admitting that this was a nice distraction from the main business of winning promotion from League Two this season.
“The league’s the most important thing for us, our bread and butter,” he said. “If we were to place the cup competitions in order then this is probably near the bottom. But it was lovely to come here to a tremendous stadium and play in front of 37,000 fans.
“But we’ve got different priorities.”
The hope for Rovers fans after that mesmeric run of form last season was that it could be the start of something good, after far too long in the doldrums.
Last night was a showing that the fans are right behind this team, this manager and the way they want to play the game and approach the challenges that lie ahead.
