13 April 1977
League Cup Final 2nd Replay
Everton
Lawson, Robinson, Darracott, Lyons, McNaught, King, Hamilton, Dobson, Latchford, Pearson (Seargeant), Goodlass
Aston Villa
Burridge, Gidman (Smith), Robson, Philips, Nicholl, Mortimer, Graydon, Deehan, Little, Cropley, Cowans
he 1970s were a challenging time for Evertonians; a time when hope, belief and optimism gave way to the modern Everton tropes of pessimism, frustration and despair.
Catterick left the manager’s post in April 1973 after failing to halt the club’s slide towards the nether regions of the table. Ill health, growing tactical conservatism and discord on the terraces eventually proved too much for the board to tolerate.
His replacement, Billy Bingham initially showed promise. Although the football his sides’ produced was more organised and percentage oriented than Catterick’s, Everton came close to winning the title in 1974/75 (blowing it by faltering as the season closed).
But as the mid-1970s wore on, his approach began yielding diminishing returns. With Everton sliding down the table once again and the Goodison crowd unimpressed by the dire football they were being forced to swallow, Bingham was shown the door.
In January 1977 the board then turned to the well regarded Newcastle manager, Gordon Lee.
‘I always liked Gordon, as did others’, says the former Everton midfielder Martin Dobson. ‘He was honest, had a dry sense of humour and clearly loved the game.’
Lee was charged with bringing back the glory days by the Everton board.And glory was sorely needed. While Everton had underachieved, Liverpool had been dominant in the 1970s, scooping up silverware with disgusting ease.
‘It was a tough time when broad shoulders were needed. As everyone of my era will readily remember there were more than the fair share of gobshites ready to taunt you every Monday morning, the common denominator being that not one of them actually went to the match (it was ever thus)’ says John Black, who has been a regular at Goodison since the early 1970s.
Everton needed success. And when Lee took over, the domestic cups were the only options left available. Fortunately for the Blues, in a campaign when league form had been so disappointing, the cups appeared to offer some respite.
‘I went to every game on the 1976/77 League Cup run and had watched a struggling team in the league vanquish the likes of Cambridge United, Stockport County, Coventry City and Manchester United with ease’, says ‘Regular Street Ender’, Trevor Edwards.
With the club’s new manager in the hot-seat, Everton came through a tough semi-final against Bolton Wanderers to book a place at Wembley, where they would face Aston Villa.
Under the management of Ron Saunders, Villa had already won the League Cup a few seasons earlier and were in the process of becoming a strong force in the top flight (one that would ultimately win the title in the not too distant future). In short, they represented a considerable obstacle. But not one that was insurmountable.
‘I still remained confident we could beat them’, Edwards continues. ‘After all, we had Dobson, we had Latchford, Lyons, Goodlass and King. I remember that my Dad had a banner made for me that said, “Toffees can lick ‘em all” which made the TV coverage. It summed up our confidence. At no point, pre-match could I conceive of us losing.’
When the teams took to the Wembley pitch in early March, nobody watching knew that they were about to witness the beginnings of what would become one of the most epic cup encounters of all time.
Although also, initially, one of the dullest. Despite some of the country’s most exciting attacking talent being on display, such as PFA player and young player of the year Andy Gray and the sublimely mercurial Duncan McKenzie, the match was a stale non-event, the first 0-0 draw since the Final had moved to Wembley in 1967.
‘I remember two things from that match. First, the game had to be stopped because one of the spurs from the marching band was on the pitch. And second, at one point Everton mistakenly put out two players wearing the number two shirt. That’s how boring it was’, recalls Graham Ennis of When Skies are Grey.
A few days later, on the Wednesday, the teams met again, this time at Hillsborough. The game might have improved in quality but as the minutes ticked along, a breakthrough looked unlikely. That is until two Everton players intervened to breathe drama into proceedings.
With ten minutes left, to the dismay of the travelling Blues, Roger Kenyon put the ball into his own net, giving Villa the lead. Focused by the deficit, Everton found the gear they had been searching for since the first ball had been kicked at Wembley and laid siege to the Villa goal. In the dying seconds of normal time, McKenzie played in Pearson, who was then able to pick out Latchford through a melee of players for the Everton number nine to smack the ball home.
‘What a moment that was. You can’t beat a last minute goal. I think we hoped that it would be the catalyst to spur us on into extra time; that it might deflate Villa a bit. But the extra half hour ended without any further goals With the scoreline still level, that meant another replay and the guarantee that this would now go down in the history books as the longest final in British football history’, says Dave Kelly, chairman of the Blue Union.
Due to a fixture pile-up, it would be a further month before the teams met again, this time in mid-April at Old Trafford. In the interim, both sides had been in fairly good form, if not exactly flying then difficult to beat. Gordon Lee had brought some stability to Everton and there was confidence that the cup could still come back to Goodison.
Played with more energy and at a higher tempo than the earlier games, from the off both sides appeared willing to have a go, although Everton were the more dominant. In the first period, half chances came and went, the thousands of Evertonians packed into the Stretford End tense with anticipation.
With the interval nearing, the deadlock finally broke. After a foul given away by Nicholl, the resultant free-kick was looped into the box where McNaught out-jumped his markers and managed to direct a header down in front of the opposition’s goal.
‘It seemed like the entire Everton team were lining up to get the ball over the line. In the end it was Latchford who got the final touch, sweeping the ball past the helpless Burridge in goal. For the first time in this epic encounter, Everton had the lead’, recalls Brendan Flynn, who had been following the Blues since the 1950s
In the second half, Villa, orderly and composed throughout, came back at Everton strongly. The Blues did well to check their opponents’ attempts to force their way back into the match and with just ten minutes remaining, must have felt like they had one hand on the trophy.
And when Everton feel like that, you almost always know what’s coming next. First, Nicholl, from about thirty yards out, let loose a swerving drive that caught Lawson unaware and flew in, just inside the post.
‘Then, minutes later, we watched on with horror as Brian Little outmuscled Neil Robinson in the box and squeezed a shot under the body of the advancing Lawson. That was a horrible moment. You could feel those around you just deflate’ says Flynn.
But amazingly, the twists and turns were not over. Not long after, improbably, Everton fought back. With the Villa fans jubilantly singing ‘We Shall not be Moved’ an Everton corner was swung into the box.
After some head tennis, the ball fell to Lyons. ‘Amongst a scramble of players he managed to put it past their keeper and the whole of The Stretford End exploded. It was a wonderful moment. You couldn’t help thinking, as the celebrations were going on, that the advantage, mentally, was with us now’, says Dave Kelly.
When the whistle went, it had been 300 minutes play and still the sides were level. And that meant another period of extra time.
Perhaps that last extra bit of effort had taken it out of Everton because as the additional period wound along, it was Villa that looked the stronger. Yet, despite their growing dominance, chances were few. Everton were still in the game and as the final minutes approached it looked as though nothing would separate these two sides.
And then Villa got a huge slice of luck. Attacking the Everton end, a cross came in from Smith out on the right.
‘I think it took a deflection off Ronny Goodlass, bobbled into our six yard box and there Darracott, Robinson and the keeper, all left it for each other. Brian Little, unmarked, reacted faster than anyone else and smacked the ball into the back of the net. The goal came so late, that we had no time to respond and when the referee blew a few minutes later, that was that’, recalls Martin Dobson.
After five hours of play, it was a desperately cruel way to lose. ‘I’d got myself convinced that year that our name was on the cup’, says Dave Kelly. ‘So it was a devastating blow that we had fallen short. But I suppose it set me up for a lifetime as an Evertonian.’
Everton had been part of a titanic struggle and participated in arguably the most memorable League Cup Final to have ever taken place. But they had emerged with nothing.
Ten days later, the Blues had a second chance to go back to Wembley when they faced Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final at Maine Road.
With ten minutes to go in that game and the score 2-2, Brian Hamilton deflected a Duncan McKenzie header into the net. To everyone watching it was a perfectly legitimate goal. Alone, the referee, Clive Thomas believed an infringement had taken place and ruled handball, despite having no clear sight of the incident. The game ended 2-2 and Liverpool went on to win the replay 3-0.
‘You could sum the 1970s up in those few games. It was a decade of sheer frustration. We had our moments back then, times when success was within touching distance. But it just never seemed to happen for us’ says Brendan Flynn sadly.
This is an edited extract from Everton’s Greatest Games
JIM KEOGHAN 