Personal Reflections

I am sometimes asked why it is that I support Everton, when I live in the West Midlands and rarely get to see the Toffees — maybe once or twice a season if I’m lucky. I had first become aware of football in the late 1950s, before the 1958 Cup Final when the Munich disaster decimated the Manchester United team who lost to Nat Lofthouse’s Bolton Wanderers side in the FA Cup Final that year. In fact, at that time I was a sort of supporter of the great Wolves team of that era. 

However, my father taught at Gwladys Street school from the 1950s and into the 1960s and it didn’t take long for the kids in his class to explain to me the error of my ways, helped by the persuasive methods of the Boys Pen. It was true at the time that some of his kids — not many, though, as I recall — supported Liverpool but the red/blue divide was fuzzier then and not really an issue.

I was scarcely conscious of the other lot as an option, not the least reason being that they were in the old second division, and Bill Shankley was yet to make his mark there.

My first game at Goodson was a year or so later, a fourth round Cup match against Manchester City in January 1962, which we won 2-0. I had been very excited at the prospect of watching Everton play but, in truth, I didn’t actually see very much of it because of thick fog!

My dad and I were in the Park End stand and I remember when one of the goals was scored at the Gwladys Street End and we all called out: “Who scored?” as the other end was pretty much invisible from our seats.

Not put off by that, my dad took me to a couple more matches that season, travelling to Goodson in our newly acquired second-hand Morris Minor. Parking was never an issue for us, as he would usually have the school keys with him, and we had the whole playground to ourselves. Failing that, parking on street was easy for us.

“Mind your car sir? Oh, hello, Sir!”

“Yes lad, and if it isn’t here in this condition when we get back after the game you will know about it on Monday morning!”

The following season was one of the most memorable in my mind, most obviously because we won the League. I had to skive off school for the last game against Fulham since I was supposed to be playing sport on Saturday afternoons.

From the Bullens Road Paddock, my pal and I saw Roy Vernon get a hat-trick as we trounced them, 4-1, and I suppose it was then that I first saw what I considered (and still do) the natural order of things, despite much evidence since to the contrary.

There were other highlights that season: the first Merseyside derby in years, which ended 2-2, and our 1-0 defeat of Spurs at Goodison over Easter, which effectively decided where the title would go. I think it was that season when the Z-Cars theme was first heard at Everton, but it may have been a bit later. My recollection is that it was first played to honour the attendance of one of the TV actors at the game; the guy who played Sergeant Twentyman.

He, unfortunately died a few days later - an event unconnected with the game - and as a tribute the tune was played at the next match as well. It must have been seen as a lucky omen for us, if not for the deceased actor, as it has been played subsequently before all our home games except for a period in the 1990s.

The following season I remember being in the Goodison Road enclosure in a massive crowd for the visit of Inter Milan in our first game in the European Cup. We drew 0-0 and lost 1-0 in the return fixture but what I remember most is the crush in our ground. It was widely believed that ticketless fans managed to get entry in large numbers — and who could blame them? — but after the Hillsborough tragedy years later, it seems with hindsight to have been dangerously scary.

In subsequent seasons I was lucky enough to see some excellent games, but the one which sticks most in the memory was the 1966 Cup Final, my first visit to Wembley, courtesy of one of our neighbours in Wallasey who had a season ticket but couldn’t get to the game. We beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-2, after being 2-0 down, when Kenneth Wolstenholme announced on TV that “Wednesday has one hand on the Cup”.

My visits to watch Everton in the following years became more sporadic as I went off to University, and never returned except for holidays and visits to see the family. I lived in Oxford for a number of years in the 1970s and 1980s and I liked watching Oxford United as they progressed through to the First Division.

However, I rekindled my true loyalty at that famous game early in 1984 when Kevin Brock’s back pass saved our season, and perhaps Howard Kendall’s job. United had their revenge towards the end of the 1985/86 season when we needed one win to take the league title again and they beat us 1-0 at the Manor Ground and Liverpool went on to do the double at our expense.

I saw both that game and the defeat at Wembley. That hurt, particularly after we had been kept out of Europe by the behaviour of some red fans at the Heysel stadium the previous year.

More recently, I have benefitted from the televising of live games and so I am now more in touch with Everton than I have been for nearly 60 years. Ok, it hasn’t been great in recent years but I am hopeful that I will see silverware again before I end up under rather than on top of the grass.