Mystical types call it the Saturn Return - and most football fans will call it utter tripe. It takes Saturn about 29 years to complete one full orbit of the Sun and return to the exact position it was in when you were born. And when Saturn returns, a cosmic food blender of positives and negatives falls upon your shoulders.

The aforementioned mystic types, therefore, reckon that between the ages of 27 and 30 some funky bizarre stuff happens to us.

 The Saturn Return is most famously associated with musicians, and in particular The 27 Club, an unsettlingly large group of musicians who died at the age of 27. From mythic Delta-Bluesman Robert Johnson - who was said to have sold his soul for his intricately brilliant guitar skills - to the famous five of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain.

'Next time you're watching your team, watch out for those 27-year-olds'


I find it somewhat strange that this myth about the Saturn Return hasn't swung over to football. Certain players rise and fall like Icarus, and I've always thought that Dixie Dean's stellar 60 goals in one season, followed by the loss of both his legs late in life, points to some kind of shadowy Faustian pact. Personally I thought it was all a load of wacky 60s rhubarb - until Tim Cahill returned for my Everton.

Cahill's return is now surely reaching its peak, with a sublime goal on Sunday against Chelsea. I have to admit that up until last weekend, my memories of Chelsea games have all merged into one giant hemorrhoidal pustule.

Wafer-thin charcoal biscuits masquerading as burgers, Chelsea fans popping up off their seats to laugh at a foreigner in the Toffees team - smugly unaware of Chelsea's own phalanx of foreigners - gippy little goals which come back to haunt me again and again like a persistent pop-up error message on a computer screen (Mutu's handball!).

I even witnessed what can only be described as an Everton roast - no, not the Newcastle United kind - where a 'Chelsea MC' scuttled onto the pitch before the game and ripped into Everton for five minutes, boozy guffaws echoing back at the comedian with the mic.

For us Evertonians, who have more history in our nose hair, watching Chelsea beat us over the past few seasons is like an aged Peter O'Toole jealously watching as Callum Best waltzes off with a bevy of beauties. Chelsea, on the other hand, don't do history, for them the past is only a distant cousin, marked by a few splutters of success amidst the tepid treading-water.

 What you can judge from the above passage is that Chelsea lack class. They are the Michael Carroll of football teams, lottery louts who are suddenly in the money, with an utter lack of scruples but an ocean of roubles. Cahill's late equaliser was the perfect antidote to this mess, for a sweet second the Aussie was the same way up as his countrymen Down Under with an honest and brilliantly executed bicycle kick.

And this returns me to the Saturn Return; Cahill - though a strong player before his injury lay-off, has come back even better; he is 27 years of age - perhaps his Saturn Return has brought him more focus and resolve? There are other examples, too; Ronaldinho, in all his distilled, buck-toothed glory, has also had his Saturn Return - and the first major slump in his career.

George Best, the Manchester United legend, who was too differently skilled for even the word 'unique' to adequately describe him, quit the Red Devils at 27. So next time you're watching your team, watch out for those 27-year-olds.