Everton inspired a group of expatriates to form a club in Chile back in 1909. Tomorrow the two sides will meet for the Brotherhood Cup

Wading through university prospectuses is as uncertain a time as there is for the average teenager but for John Shearon his academic future was decided in an instant and for the most unlikely of reasons: a quick read of the match programme on the way home after a third-round FA Cup tie between Everton and Stoke City.

Everton won that game and would make it all the way to the semi-finals but for Shearon the 1977 FA Cup run would be one of his last for a few seasons as he was to apply for and, A-level results permitting, accepted on to the Latin American studies degree course at Portsmouth Polytechnic, and he had a new goal in life.

Year two was to be spent at university in Mexico City, the only course with the option at the time, and Shearon wanted to visit the other Everton whose name had featured in the programme, the one based in Viña del Mar on the Chilean coast. The compliment will finally be returned tomorrow evening when the South Americans will be present at Goodison Park for a friendly to mark their centenary against the Merseysiders who – by virtue of a summer tour of Argentina and Uruguay undertaken with Tottenham in 1909 – had given the Chilean club their name.

The Chilean Everton was founded in 1909 by David Foxley, whose grandparents had emigrated from Liverpool, and the club became nicknamed Los Ruleteros (the roulette players) as a thank you for the financial support offered to the fledgling side in the early days from the huge casino in the town. After small beginnings as an amateur side of Anglo-Chileans, they had won the First Division title for the third time in November 1976 and Shearon had seen a letter from an 81-year-old Evertonian, exiled in Santiago at the time, celebrating the fact. Unwittingly it had given the teenager a focus which crystallised with the founding of the Liverpool-based Ruleteros Society, which has been the driving force in arranging tomorrow’s game

In October 1979 Shearon made it to the Mexican capital with a rough command of Spanish and, after seeing out most of the academic year, got himself a crew cut and slipped away from college before the end of the course and embarked on a 6,000 mile trip to Viña del Mar, hitching and bussing it through Guatemala, grabbing a flight from the island of San Andres off troubled Nicaragua and into Colombia before hitching through Ecuador and Peru to Chile. The trip was gruelling and would take a fortnight to complete.

Chile was under control of the military dictator Augusto Pinochet at the time and was a much more intimidating place than now but Shearon made it to the stadium unhindered to witness a 2-0 home defeat by Universidad de Chile. He was put up for a week by the club, who had a youth hostel at the ground, before stopping in Lima, Peru, for three months teaching English until he found a ship’s captain who allowed him to work his passage back to the UK. He got back to Portsmouth on 7 October, the day before year three began.

Last Sunday Everton Viña del Mar arrived at Heathrow with around 80 supporters and the town dignitaries having had last and this Friday’s domestic games postponed by a far-sighted league which sees the chance for one of its clubs to play in England as an opportunity to increase exposure of the game in Chile, one of the few sides to attack and impress in South Africa last month when they reached the last 16 of the World Cup.

“We nagged the life out of Everton to get the game on and eventually they said, ‘OK, let’s do it,’” says Shearon, who has been back to Viña del Mar five times to research the club’s history and also visited unrelated Evertons in Argentina and Uruguay. He also managed to locate a document which shows that the iconic Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist leader removed by the US-backed coup which installed Pinochet in 1973, was a member of the Everton sports club back in 1923, when he was a youthful long jumper.

Things have moved on a lot since then and Everton sent a telegram of congratulation when Viña del Mar won the league in 1950, as they did for a fourth time in 2008. Although this season is proving to be more difficult, it should provide an interesting workout for both sides as it is Everton’s only home friendly of the close season and the clubs will compete for the newly inaugurated Brotherhood Cup. Mark Halsey, the referee who is in remission from throat cancer, will take charge, having officiated at Goodison in his last Premier League game before standing down for an operation and chemotherapy.

“The fact that the match is finally going ahead is fantastic and everyone needs applauding,” adds Shearon, who, along with other members of the Ruleteros Society has been putting up the youth team coach, Mario Salas for the past week and took him to the Sheffield United v Estudiantes friendly on Sunday. “They have put on an official dinner for the Chileans on the eve of the game and I’ll be there, of course, but for me it’s as much about the obsession as the football.”

They may raise a glass to the former Everton director EA Bainbridge, who, along with the board, travelled with the team on the 1909 tour and on their return reported his observations in a letter to the Liverpool Echo.

“We are pleased to say the Everton football club has contributed something to the sport of nations and, in a measure, has broken down many of the old standing prejudices peculiar to foreigners. When a team has travelled 24,000 miles in 10 weeks to introduce and develop first-class football, and returns with a clean bill of health, and a clean slate, and at no cost, it has something to be proud of.”

Tickets for the game are available for £10 for adults and £3 for concessions from Everton.

EvertonFriendliesMark Tallentireguardian.co.uk

• Move scuppers hopes of Manchester United and Arsenal
• Teenager’s signature is a boost for manager David Moyes

The highly rated Everton midfielder Jack Rodwell will today sign a new five-year contract at Goodison Park to scupper any lingering hopes Manchester United and Arsenal retained of securing the talented teenager this summer.

The 19-year-old, an England Under-21 international, played 36 times for David Moyes’ side last season having progressed through the youth ranks at the club. Negotiations over the new deal have been protracted and the contract is worth around £30,000 a week, reflecting his value in the squad, with Rodwell following Tim Cahill and the young full-back Seamus Coleman, on loan at Blackpool, in extending their stays on Merseyside.

United had hoped to lure Rodwell away from Everton as they did the 18-year-old Wayne Rooney back in 2004, with Arsène Wenger also a keen admirer of a player comfortable both in central defence and midfield, but Moyes has managed to persuade the teenager that he will benefit more from regular first-team football at the club. He has already played more than 50 games for Everton and scored his first senior goal as a 17-year-old, and his manager has compared his development to that of the new England captain, Rio Ferdinand.

“He’s so comfortable on the ball,” said Moyes. “He is best in central midfield at the moment but, by the time he’s 23 or 24, he may be a top centre-half. Rio started in central midfield and eventually moved back. Jack has similar qualities.”

The Everton manager will be reassured at retaining a player around whom this club can shape its future. Everton are expected to open contract talks with Leighton Baines, most likely after the World Cup should the left-back be retained in Fabio Capello’s squad for the finals, and are confident of warding off interest from rivals in their Spanish midfielder, Mikel Arteta.

EvertonPremier LeagueDominic Fifieldguardian.co.uk

The Everton defender says he likes the passion and aggression of the English game

It is not difficult to understand why John Heitinga has settled swiftly at Everton. In many respects he is a stereotypical Dutch interviewee: calm, considered, engaging and with an ability to dissect a tactical master plan more articulately than his managers might appreciate. But he is also a defender who longed for the ­passion and aggression of the English game while at Atlético Madrid, and who left that club partly on account of the ease he collected yellow cards in Spain. It is, therefore, not entirely surprising that to him the ­Merseyside derby represents “a nice game”.

Scousers do not consider their derby “nice”; most would recoil at the suggestion, although they have not shared Heitinga’s experience of being abused by opposition fans from the age of seven. Or feeling under siege whenever the Ajax academy graduate and lifelong fan ventured into Rotterdam. He may have been schooled in the beautiful game during almost 18 years with the Amsterdam club but his will to win was forged on ferocious rivalry. Hence, when he lines up opposite Dirk Kuyt, Ryan Babel and his former Atlético captain Maxi Rodríguez this lunchtime, their friendships will cease the moment Everton and Liverpool emerge from the Anfield tunnel.

“We are friends but that doesn’t ­matter in football,” says Heitinga, a £6m signing from Madrid last August. “Whether it is in the Dutch league or in Madrid last season, when there were a lot of Dutch players for Atlético and Real, when the game starts I want to win. It doesn’t matter how. If I have to kick someone because he is going through on goal, I will kick him.

“After the game I will shake hands and go for a drink with them but, in the game, there is only one winner and for me that is Everton. It is a derby and I think it is a nice game for us, because if you see the way Liverpool are playing it is a time when we have a chance to beat them. It will not be easy but it is better to face them now than when they won the Champions League, for example.”

Heitinga and Kuyt are in frequent contact – although not this week – and the Everton man is yet to arrange a reunion with Rodríguez following the ­Argentinian’s recent move to Anfield. “It was hard for me in the beginning at Atlético because he doesn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Spanish but if I argue with him on Saturday it will be in Spanish,” the Dutch international admits. “It will be a lot easier for me because there are a lot of Spanish people in the Liverpool team.”

Heitinga also has ties with the former Liverpool player Boudewijn Zenden, now at Sunderland, whose sister he will marry in July. “He’s a professional and Liverpool aren’t the only team he’s played for so I hope he’s supporting me on Saturday,” he says.

Zenden has warned his future brother-in-law what to expect at Anfield but you suspect that even without the experience of Liverpool’s 2-0 win at Goodison in November Heitinga will be unperturbed. “This is a derby and it is a nice game, whereas Ajax-Feyenoord is more like history and hatred, the fans really hate each other,” he says, obviously unaware that the Merseyside derby is no love-in. “For example, if you go from Ajax to the ­Feyenoord stadium there will be a police helicopter above the team coach and police cars outside. You feel like you’re in a movie when you travel to these games with police helicopters overhead. When you reached the city the main roads would be blocked off with police, too, and this was all for a football game. It is not normal.

“Here, there is more respect and ­nothing should happen inside the stadium. In ­Holland there will be a big fight between the fans. Last weekend it was Feyenoord-Ajax and the Ajax supporters were not allowed inside the stadium. There is more hate from the supporters. I played 18 years for Ajax and never lost a game against Feyenoord once I turned professional. I thrived on those games, but it was something I was used to from my youth. I started at Ajax when I was seven and played many times against Feyenoord, and we even had problems at that age level with fanatical supporters who would come to these games and cause problems. Even kids’ games. Unbelievable.”

It is more than a hardened edge to his game, however, that has earned the 26-year-old 51 caps for Holland, a mosaic tribute at the Amsterdam Arena for his last appearance with Ajax, an £8.8m move to Atlético and a place in David Moyes’s plans to take Everton further than two successive fifth-placed finishes in the Premier League. Heitinga’s assured performances have been instrumental in the side’s recent rise, having overcome a difficult start in which injuries required him to fill several positions and cramp forced a few ­premature substitutions. “That wasn’t me, it was my brother,” he says, joking. “It was the speed of the game. It is harder here, more box to box, and it doesn’t ­matter whether you’re playing Chelsea, Stoke or Hull, they’re all hard.”

Heitinga finally found respite at centre-half, one of his favoured positions along with defensive midfielder, but in 23 appearances for Everton he has worked with three different defensive partners – Sylvain Distin, Lucas Neill and Philippe Senderos – in a disrupted campaign. The rousing reception received from travelling Evertonians at the end of last Saturday’s 1-0 win at Wigan, Everton’s ninth consecutive league game unbeaten, suggests he has coped admirably.

“This club has made me happy,” he says, having struggled to adapt as easily to Spanish football. “From the people upstairs to the dressing room, I’ve been one of the team from the start. Maybe I should have come to England straight from Ajax. I had a good year in Spain but I already had the ­feeling in Spain that I wanted to play in the ­Premier League.”

The hunch he would be better suited to the top flight of English football is ­beginning to pay dividends. “With the strikers Atlético have – Diego Forlán, Sergio Agüero and, in the past, Maxi Rodríguez and Simão – they are expected to score the goals and everyone else is expected to defend. Here everybody works together. In the last few games you will notice that the defending starts from the front with Louis Saha and Tim Cahill. They play so well for the defenders that it is easier for us defenders to defend against the team we are playing against.

“It is always long balls in the ­Premier League and with a player like Felli ­[Marouane Fellaini] in front of you he can head and kick all the balls away. It’s good for the team. In Spain it is more about ­playing football from the back, there is more ­football, while here it is a ­combination of playing football and a lot of passion, fighting. I prefer it in England.”

EvertonPremier LeagueAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk