Everton v Oldham
29 April 1954
Everton
O’Neill, Moore, Donovan, Farrell, Jones, Lello, Wainwright, Fielding, Hickson, Parker, Eglington
Oldham Athletic
Burnett, Smith, McGlen, Lowrie, Naylor, Whyte, Walker, Harris, Hardwick, McIlvenny, Brierley
Everton had ended the 1952/53 season in the doldrums, languishing near the bottom of the league (finishing sixteenth, the club’s lowest ever position in English football). Superficially, the chances of promotion looked remote.
But look a little deeper and the green shoots of recovery were evident. The team was more settled and the genesis of a decent side was beginning to take shape, with the likes of Dave Hickson, John Willie Parker and Tommy Jones growing in confidence.
There was also, as Dave Hickson explained in the Cannonball Kid, an emergent sense of team camaraderie, underlined by a grim determination to reverse the club’s fortunes.
‘After our FA Cup run and the disappointment of finishing so far down the Second Division, there was a real resolve among us to get Everton back where they belonged in the top flight. We sat down at the start of the 1953/54 season and resolved to do it. I think the spirit was all over the club.’
Strong from August onwards, the Blues remained one of a handful of clubs seriously vying for promotion. And, in contrast to the dirge that had characterised recent campaigns, Everton were also playing attractive, swashbuckling football. Along the way, teams were often dispatched by scorelines more redolent of the Dixie Dean-era.
A key element in this cavalier approach was the partnership that developed between Hickson and Parker.
‘He was an excellent inside-forward’, Hickson later wrote of his teammate. ‘We had a good working relationship and with that you always know what the other fellow is doing … John Willie was really my partner in crime. We each knew what we were going to do.’
The pair netted over 55 league goals between them during the campaign, a key element in the push for promotion. With that kind of potency, the Blues should have been comfortable champions. But Everton being Everton, the club nearly conspired to throw it all away. A dip in form during the run-in saw the race go to the wire. As the final game approached, Everton sat outside the promotion positions.
Above them were Leicester City (56 points) and Blackburn Rovers (55 points). Importantly, both had played their final games, giving Everton (who had 54 points) the opportunity to leapfrog Blackburn and in the process get back into the top flight. If the Blues managed the improbable feat of winning win 6-0 that would also be enough to see them crowned champions.
‘There aren’t a lot of Blues left who can remember what it was like to be in the Second Division. It was tough. Ever since, whenever we have been down near the bottom of the top flight, I’ve had cold sweats and sleepless nights because I know what the reality of relegation is like. We had to get out of that league. It was as simple as that. The last game of the season was as important as any that has taken place in Everton’s long history’, remembered John Bohanna, who first began following the club in the 1940s.
In their way stood Oldham Athletic (already relegated to the Third Division North) and an away fixture at Boundary Park. Should Everton achieve promotion, it would restore the club as the kings of the city once more. Although this was still the age of ‘friendly rivalry’, when Blues and Reds would regularly go to each other’s games, there was just enough competitive spirit between the two clubs for Evertonians to take satisfaction from the fact that Liverpool would be heading down just as Everton returned to the top..
That the club was in any position at all to countenance the idea of promotion was thanks to Hickson’s contribution in the season’s penultimate game, as the Liverpool Echo reported:
‘Hickson has scored many extremely valuable goals for Everton but none of greater significance than his splendid header at the 38th minute against Birmingham. Had it not been for that goal, we should not now be caring two straws about the game at Oldham, as Everton’s promotion chances would have been extinguished.’
The game was a late kick off, so the exodus from Liverpool began early. People took the afternoon off and by early evening, Oldham town centre was awash with Evertonians.
‘Oldham had never seen anything like it. We were there mob-handed. They tried to stop people bunking in to the ground by putting tar on the walls. But it made no difference. The young kids just put newspaper over it and climbed over. The tar still got all over them though. There was a report in the local paper the next day that referred to the Blues as the ‘tar babies’ of Everton’ remembers lifelong Blue, Tony Onslow.
Once inside, the Everton enclosure was soon full to bursting point and people were beginning to spill out on to the track that surrounded the pitch. There are conflicting reports regarding how many fans actually turned up to watch the match, but most figures put it around 40,000 (the numbers possibly swelled by followers of Blackburn Rovers too, who had an investment in the outcome).
‘It was certainly packed. And in the end there were many who didn’t get in. It was the kind of thing that you just would never see nowadays’, Tony recalls.
In a boost to the Blues’ promotion chances, Cliff Britton was able to name his strongest starting eleven after Wainwright, Fielding, and Eglington, all of whom had suffered knocks in the previous match, had recovered and come through training unscathed.
Although a win of 6-0 remained a tall order, even against a side to devoid of motivation, early signs of an easy and significant victory were promising, as ‘Ranger’ reported in the Liverpool Daily Post:
‘It was Parker who set Everton on the road to victory when he gave them the lead in the seventh minute after Moore had centred the ball from long-distance and Hickson had headed it forward. Parker took advantage of a partial slip by the Oldham defence to nip in quickly and head it home.’
Everton barely gave Oldham the opportunity to breathe after that. The Blues were rampant and, as if to underscore this, got their second not long after.
The goal came via an error by the Oldham keeper Burnett, who misjudged a speculative long ball from Jones. He failed to reach it and, under pressure from Hickson, flapped desperately at thin air, watching helplessly as the ball dropped behind him into the net.
But Everton weren’t done. Soon after, Parker nipped in to side foot the ball into the net after Burnett had dropped Fielding’s shot. Everton were 3-0 up and Oldham hadn’t even attempted an effort on goal. With only 26 minutes gone, 6-0 suddenly didn’t seem wholly unrealistic.
Before the sides went in for the break, Everton found the time to add one more to their tally when Hickson ran half the length of the field, beat three men and drove the ball out of Burnett’s reach
‘It was a goal that sealed promotion in the minds of anyone watching. Everton had been breathtaking and Oldham non-existent. I think at that point most Blues in the ground thought we could go on and finish top’, says Tony Onslow
The game was all but over. All Everton needed to do now was come out in the second half and maintain the same tempo and the league title would likely be theirs. But Everton couldn’t quite manage that.
‘After the entrancing football which Everton had served up in the first half the second portion was something of an anti-climax. The visitors appeared to slacken off considerably in their efforts and allowed Oldham to take the upper hand for quite lengthy spells’, wrote ‘Ranger’.
Despite Everton’s dissipating momentum and Oldham’s resurgence, the Blues still had chances, with Eglington coming close and Burnett pulling off a couple of fine saves from Hickson. But the zip and swagger had gone from their game and as the match continued the likelihood of a 6-0 victory began to recede.
Not that the assembled Evertonians were too bothered. 4-0 still meant promotion, enabling the club to jump above Blackburn into second place.
‘There were scenes of tremendous enthusiasm as soon as the final whistle went’, reported ‘Ranger’.
The Blues who had invaded Boundary Park let themselves go deliriously.
‘Thousands of them swarmed on to the pitch and hoisted Farrell the Everton captain shoulder-high carrying him in triumph to the entrance to the dressing-room’, he continued
For Dave Hickson, whose goals and work ethic had done so much to get Everton back into the top flight, that moment is one that remained with him for his whole life, as he recalled in the Cannonball Kid:
‘It was the highlight of my career’ he wrote. ‘Even now when people stop me and say, “Hi, Davey”, I think it’s because they look back at the time when we got them back up to where they are now. I think people remember that time, even if they weren’t around to see or experience it. Evertonians are very good with their history and there’s a sense of recognition that I was part of a side that got them back to where they belong. They’ve been very close to going down again a few times, but they’ve got through it. I’m proud that Everton have sat in the top flight for six decades following our efforts.’
JIM KEOGHAN 