Nigel Groome – Everton and Me

As told to Rob Sawyer

Nigel Groome grew up in Nottingham and was determined to follow his father – who had played alongside Tommy Lawton – into professional football. Joining the Toffees as an apprentice in 1974, the teenager immediately fell in love with the club. It’s a love affair that has lasted over 50 years and shows no signs of ending, in spite of Nigel living in Australia since 1979.

I was born in 1958 and raised in West Bridgford, Nottingham. My father played for Notts County in the fifties, but as a kid I was more of a Forest supporter. My dad, Pat, was the last surviving player that played with Tommy Lawton, and was also managed by Tommy. Dad, who passed away in January 2020, once told me how County were playing against Forest at the City Ground when they were in the same division. My dad played at left-back and was directly behind Lawton as the ball came over; he was probably 20 yards out and headed the ball – a heavy one in those days – into the top corner. It was unstoppable; Dad had never seen anybody head a ball like that.

I was a good footballer as a kid. As a midfielder, I captained the Bluecoat School team and played for Nottingham Schoolboys as a sweeper. Alan Hill at Forest was a family friend and at 14 or 15 I played in charity matches alongside my dad if they were short. Apart from Alan, there were players like Jeff Whitefoot and other great ex-players. I remember playing against Peter Lorimer in one of those games (I’m not sure what he was doing playing, as he was still at Leeds) and Rod Stewart, who fancied himself as a bit of a player. He wasn’t bad actually, but I remember one of the old pros sorting Rod out and singing “Wake up Maggie” as he walked away. It was a great experience. I loved it!!

When I was 14 and 15, I used to go down and train with Forest in the school holidays and that really kicked me on. The apprentices those days were players like Tony Woodcock, Viv Anderson and Jimmy McCann. I ended up playing against them for Everton Reserves against Forest Reserves a couple of years later. There was never any question about me going into football. My mum has kept my school reports which stated, ‘If he could take his mind off football he would do much better in school.’ There was no way I’d be staying at school for A Levels.

Apart from Forest, Ipswich were the first club to contact me about going for a trial. I remember being taken to Portman Road for the Ipswich v Manchester United game, before playing in a trial on the Sunday. Ipswich had a great side then and beat United 5-1 that day, I think. I remember Mick Mills scoring a screamer from outside of the box. Then, along came Manchester United who asked me to go for trials through their local scout, Bill Barrowcliffe. Bill was an ex-player and knew my father well. The United head scout, Gordon Clayton, used to collect me from school and take me back to our house where mum would give him his tea and they’d all discuss me signing for United. They had me up training in Manchester at The Cliff in my school holidays and I looked destined to sign for them when they sent a letter offering me a contract when I left school at 16. I wanted to sign, but Mum and Dad said that I couldn't sign for anybody until I’d done my O Level exams. Another friend of my dad was Ronnie Mann; they had played together at Notts County, and he was the Everton scout for the area. Everton asked if I’d come up for 3-4 days of trials and I did really well there. I played against Liverpool Schoolboys and scored a really good goal. Billy Bingham was watching and the next thing, I was being offered a contract; so, I had the choice of Everton or United.

Left: the article that led to a Bellefield court case; Right: Nigel is released by Everton

One thing I did also remember was when Everton and Man United were trying to get me to sign, United invited my parents and I up to Old Trafford for a first team game and Everton had us at Goodison for a game where they played Leeds United, this would have been in the 1973/74 season. We sat in the Directors’ Box and after the game went down to the players’ lounge. There, we were introduced to Dixie Dean. He gave me a picture of himself holding the FA Cup and signed the picture. I still have that signed picture.

I don’t know why, but since being a kid I’d had a soft spot for Everton. When they won the FA Cup in that famous game against Sheffield Wednesday in the 1960s, I watched the game on TV. Also, the Everton coach was Stewart Imlach – I’d grown up playing football in the park with his sons as he’d been a Forest player and at the time was living in Nottingham. Bellefield helped to sway me – it was state-of-the-art with beautiful facilities, whereas United trained at the Cliff, which was awful in comparison. There were a couple of players at Everton that I knew I’d be playing with if I joined, like Mick O’Halloran, who I thought was a great midfielder, and Barry Wellings up front. I always thought that I’d love to play with those two lads. My dad wanted me to choose the team that was going to be best for me and, in the end, I chose Everton.

I moved up there in the summer of 1974 on turning 16. I got there a couple of weeks after the rest of the lads had started, which was really difficult at first – with a name like Nigel and having been at a grammar school I was an easy target! I was still a kid and was thrust into this environment of ‘every man for himself’ and went through the initiations and having the ‘court cases’. There was a Liverpool Echo article featuring an interview with me which covered my schooling, football career to date, who my favourite footballers were and what my ambitions were. So, that automatically qualified me for a court case! There was a judge and prosecution; I had no defence. It was purely a question of how guilty I was and what the punishment was going to be. So, they all grabbed me, dragged me out into Bellefield had me doing a full lap, naked in the freezing cold, through the muddy goalmouths. As I was walking back into the changing rooms, I met Gordon West, he just looked at me but I couldn’t look at him. He just shook his head and said, ‘What the f*** have you been doing?’ Westy’s ferocious reputation was legendary, so I just put my head down and kept going. I had to cop for some things that you would not get now – but I don’t look back with any malice. You learnt to stand up for yourself and the more you did that, the more you were left alone and accepted. It shaped me and it was just part of the culture then.

The class of 1974 reunited in 2018

After moving up I had first lodged with a Mrs Cunningham in Aintree at the Black Bull. Dave Esser was there too as they tried to place you with another apprentice who was a year older. Dave and I are still close mates and we speak regularly. When Dave bought a car and started commuting from Cheshire, I wanted to be closer to the training ground, so I moved in with the McNamara family on Marlfield Road in West Derby, and spent a happy two-and-a-half to three years there. Ken and Helen and their three young daughters were fantastic and became like a second family to me. The girls describe me as the brother they never had. The McNamaras lived in an old, terraced house with a bedroom and lounge room on the top floor, so I would eat with the family but we’d also have our own space. I was staying there with Jimmy Milne. I became the senior person, and Jimmy came for a while as an apprentice – and then a guy called Richie Williams, who came on trial from the US, stayed with us while he was at Everton.

Ken and Helen have passed now – and so has Claire, the middle daughter, sadly, due to breast cancer, but I remain in touch with Dawn and Lee and visit them when I’m in England.

For my first couple of Everton games, I was with the B team (the fourth team) but soon moved to the A team. We had an unbelievable team in that first season – we now call ourselves ‘The Invincibles’ as we went that whole season without losing a Lancashire League game and we won a tournament in Germany at the end of the season. We played Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United A teams plus the reserves teams of the likes of Wigan, Tranmere and Crewe, so you were playing against men, which helped our development. The only match we lost all season was in the FA Youth Cup semi against Huddersfield, we were one up with ten minutes to go but lost two-one.

The team was a mixture of a few scousers and people from around the country like Tom Sharp, Drew Brand (a fantastic goalkeeper) and John Brogan. Then there was Martin Moet, a centre-half from Edinburgh, was signed by the club ahead of choosing Billy Wright and Alvin Martin. When I came to the trials, I was really impressed with Alvin and was amazed that they let him go, and he went to West Ham, of course. I didn't know Billy at that time; he went and did an apprenticeship as a mechanic. Then they signed him as a pro, directly and he didn't come through as an apprentice. Billy and I became best mates. Our girlfriends knew each other so we often all went out. I caught up with Billy when I came back for the West Ham game last season. It was great to see him and we had a good chat about old times. The left-back was Ray Deakin – he went to Burnley and passed away a few years ago. Mark Higgins was part of that era and I spent a number of weekends with Mark in his hometown of Buxton. Sid Wallace and Dave Esser played up front. They called themselves ‘Smash and Grab’ – they scored an amazing number of goals between them.

Nigel with Sid Wallace in 2014

In those early days as an apprentice, I can remember Joe Royle, giving us a lift from Goodison to our digs. He wouldn't remember that now, but I do clearly! I used to look after Bob

Latchford’s boots when he first came. He was sponsored by Gola, and he gave me a pair of soft

kangaroo leather boots and in my first game wearing them at Old Trafford, in a FA Youth Cup game, a stud went into my right boot and it split. I did ask if he’d give me another pair, but he declined!

Eric Harrison was our youth team coach. When us lads get together these days, we always end up talking about him. He was as hard as nails and we were all scared of him, but he was a man of the times. The game was different then and he instilled in us a pride in that nobody could beat us and he taught us how to look after ourselves when we were playing. He would show us how not to get hurt and how to ‘look after’ someone if they were trying to kick you. I have only seen one player stand up to him and that was Mark Higgins. I was gobsmacked – but Mark was Mark!

Billy Bingham was the manager then and was regularly involved in watching the youngsters, I remember a few times when Billy would wander over during training and watch for half an hour. Gordon Lee replaced Billy after a couple of years.

There might have been guys ten months ahead of me in physical development, but I held my own, did well and was selected for the reserves while still 16. Ray Henderson picked me for a match at Ewood Park which we won 2-1 and I played really well and then had a run in the reserves. I remember Ronny Goodlass and Ken Macnaught playing in that game. My Goodison debut was in a night game and I played well; there might have been a small crowd there but I remember running onto the pitch and it was a buzz, but once the game started the crowd didn’t register and I was just playing the game.

The Central League was a big one, back then. It was a senior league and with only 12 players on the teamsheet, it meant every week you were playing with and against first team fringe players and those coming back from injury, as well as up-and-coming youngsters. Apart from Ronny and Ken I remember playing with Mick Buckley, Terry Darracott, Steve Seargeant, Bryan Hamilton, Duncan McKenzie, George Telfer, Dave Jones, Neil Robinson etc. The two goalkeepers before George Wood came in were Dai Davis and Dave Lawson. One would be in the first team, the other one was in the reserves, as there was no goalkeeper on the bench, unlike today. I remember playing against Lou Macari, Mike Summerbee, Colin Bell, Jimmy Johnstone, Martin O’Neil, Tony Woodcock, Viv Anderson, to name a few. When the mini-Derby was on, it was full on. I’d known Dave Fairclough and Sammy Lee from A team matches, but we put a full team out and so did Liverpool. There were players like Sammy and Dave, Peter Thompson, Joey Jones, Alan Hanson, Alex Lyndsey, Jimmy Case. It wasn’t based on age groups like under 18s and 21s. If you were good enough, you played.

Everton squad, 1976. Nigel seated on chair far right

In my early days in the reserves, there were a lot of the guys who had been in there a long time, like John Smith, Billy Kenny and Alan Wilson. Many of those players eventually got released and then we took their place as young pros. That was the production line and you had to be moving into the first team squad by the age of 19 or 20. If you did ok, they might push you forward and have you train with the first team. It would give you a taste and then they would push you back down again. It was great experience.

The good thing about it was that everyone at the club played, whether it be in the first team, reserves or A team. I normally played right or central midfield – and I once had to play a run of games at full-back when there were injuries. I didn’t mind it too much, as I was quite quick and there was space ahead of me to run into. People keeping me out of the first team were the likes of Mick Buckley, Bryan Hamilton, Andy King, Mick Bernard, Martin Dobson. I can see why it was so tough to break in! After a good season in the reserves, the closest I got to the first team was being 13th man for the February 1977 game at Stoke City. Sometimes, a 13th man was taken to away matches for experience but didn’t get changed into the kit or anything like that. Martin Dobson got the winner for us against Peter Shilton and I got a first team bonus, which really boosted my wages that week! I met Martin in March at The Everton Heritage Society with Rob Sawyer, and reminded him of that goal. He talked me through it and I thanked him for the extra wages I got. He signed his biography for me and I recommend the read.

When Mick Pejic came to Everton from Stoke, he was good. Also, I got on well with Duncan Mackenzie, who was from Nottinghamshire too. I sometimes used to go for lunch with Duncan and George Wood at the 300 Club on a Friday. After Bill Shankly retired, when Jim McGregor was the Everton physio, he had a shoulder problem and would come to Bellefield for treatment. I remember a couple of times when I was getting some treatment and I’d be on the bed next to him. It was amazing, he just wanted to talk about football. He was so passionate and would talk forever.

One ‘funny’ story is that I killed a pigeon at Old Trafford. I was playing wide on the right, and I didn’t even notice that I stood on the pigeon that had been on the line by the main stand, as I ran past with Ashley Grimes chasing a ball. Unfortunately, the pigeon got carried off and succumbed to its injuries! Ashley was laughing as I was getting stick from their supporters.

Nigel and Rob at Goodison in 2015

As with the reserve team players before me, I knew that my release from Everton in 1978 was coming, but I was still devastated when it happened. I’d had a run-in with Eric Harrison who had, by this point, moved up from coaching the apprentices to the reserves. Eric had been fantastic when we were apprentices – he had turned us into men – but I think he still saw us as kids. By then, we were 19 or 20 and starting to have our own voices. I questioned him once; he looked at me and his eyes turned black. Within a couple of weeks, I was back in the A team training under Colin Harvey. After that I was between the A team and the reserves – having been picked in the reserves all the time from 17-and-a-half. When I was put in the A team, with the likes of Kevin Ratcliffe and Steve McMahon, I never eased off. I gave 100% for Colin and he made me the captain. I loved playing for him – he was fantastic.

But, in spite of all that, if I am asked who the most influential person in my life has been, apart from my father, it was Eric Harrison. Looking back, in my first year at Everton it was the only time in my life playing football that I would walk out onto the field feeling invincible and knowing that we wouldn’t/couldn’t get beaten. Eric instilled that in us. When we won the Lancashire League, he drilled us and drilled us – we only conceded 14 goals. That stayed with me throughout the rest of my football career.

My last reserves game was at The Hawthorns against West Brom. At the end of the season 1977/78, I knew what was coming. Gordon Lee called me into the office and told me that he was releasing me. When I asked him why, he said it was because I was too slow, which I couldn’t understand. But, as I said, I knew it was coming. As mentioned, me and Billy Wright were best mates at the time as our girlfriends (Anne and Gaynor) were best friends and we’d go out as a foursome. By then, he was just breaking into the first team. I knew I was being released when Billy and I were invited to visit some children in hospital and we got asked to be interviewed on the hospital radio station. Billy was talking about the next season with the Blues. I didn't know where I was going at that stage, but the hardest thing was to admit publicly that I wouldn't be an Everton player anymore; it was devastating. It's funny how you remember those little moments in your life, but it was key, especially at that age. To play for Everton had been what I had been working towards since 16, and I had got so close.

Billy Bingham was manager at Mansfield, so I went there for a little while and stayed with my aunty and uncle; Mick Coffey was there at the time too. It’s only when you leave a club like Everton that you understand the concept of how elite it was there. I really struggled with the change to the lower level – it sounds arrogant, but you’ve had these expectations drilled into you.

I then signed a two-year contract to play for a club called St George’s in Sydney. Before I flew over in January 1979 I played a few games for Kettering Town – I then went from a British winter to an Australian summer!

Nigel and his daughters, 2025

It was a massive culture shock for me over there and it took a while to adjust. The money was okay but you also had a job away from football and I got into insurance. The club trained on four nights a week, so you’d get to training after work and you’d be tired. It was so hot and humid, I remember training on one occasion, and it was 38 degrees. I had gone from being on the verge of the Everton first team and playing with and against top class players to playing in front of two men in the dog on rock hard pitches in 30-degree heat.

Eventually I left St George and moved down to a State League club, a really good team called Sutherland Sharks. I did really well there for a number of years. I played at various levels football until I was 47, the last few years for an over 35’s team full of Pommies who, like me, came over to Australia after not fully making it in the UK. We meet regularly and it's funny how the older you get, the better you were, looking back!

I started an insurance business and eventually that became more important than the football. You begin to realize that you are no longer a professional footballer. In my passport, my job was shown as a professional footballer. But when I changed it, I had to change the occupation listed to insurance salesman. In the early days, the plan had always been to go back to England, but it got to the point where we had bought a house and put down roots. The lifestyle becomes ingrained and then, before you know it, you've been here 20 years, have a family and are settled. Now it’s 46 years, but life has been good to us here.

In Oz, it’s mostly United and Liverpool supporters – but there are plenty of Evertonians. I went to a restaurant recently and the Italian chef turned out to be an Evertonian. The other day I went into a chemist wearing my Everton bomber jacket and the lady serving me said, ‘Oh, my husband’s a big Evertonian’. Then there is Mick Lyons in Perth, a legend of the club. When I was a player, we all looked up to him – he was a great bloke and had time for the youngsters at Everton. He was so accessible, there was no side to Mick Lyons, maybe as he had come through the ranks himself. In about 2015 I was over in Perth on business and football came up in conversation and one guy said that he knew someone who reckoned he had played for Everton and drank at a pub he went to. When I asked for the guy’s name, he replied ‘Mick Lyons or somebody’. I said, ‘Do you know who you're talking about?!’ A week later I had a phone call from Mick, as this guy had passed on my number. After that we’d meet for a drink whenever I was over in Perth before his health deteriorated.

Nigel with Billy Wright on a stadium tour

Something had been pulling me back to Goodison before the last men’s match there, it was so important for me to come back. I got over for the West Ham match in March. I got there early and just enjoyed walking around the outside of the ground and getting nostalgic. A few days later I did the stadium tour with my mate Billy Wright. As I said earlier, when we spoke on the phone last year for 45 minutes it was like old times – and it was the same when I saw him in April at Goodison. We messaged each other after the tour (which the club didn’t have to do for us) and he said, ‘I loved that’.

I love Everton, it’s hard to explain just how much. My obsession with them started at 16 and has increased as I have got older. There is blue everywhere in the house, I can’t wear anything red and I have bought one of those name tiles at the new stadium, as well as one of the seats from Goodison – my wife is a bit bemused by it all, but I try to explain that I had my formative years with Everton and once you have worn that blue shirt it stays with you forever.