It had been four years since Evertonians were told that ‘this’ would not happen again. The brush with death that had been Wimbledon 1994 was meant to be a never repeated event. The club had made promises, the local papers had daubed them all over their back pages and supporters had believed them.
And under Peter Johnson, initially at least, the promises seemed believable. Mike Walker had been replaced by Joe Royle, money had gone into the club, and Everton’s position within the Premier League hierarchy had improved. But the gravitational pull of the bottom three exerted a stronger pull than most fans had appreciated.
Towards the end of 1996, Joe Royle’s Everton adventure started to unravel. When the Blues lost 4-2 away to Middlesbrough on Boxing Day, few could have foreseen the abject slump in form that was to blight the next 18 months. Before that match, Everton were pushing for Europe and possessed a squad that bristled with talent, including the likes of Gary Speed, Duncan Ferguson and Andrei Kanchelskis.
‘But then the wheels had come off and everything had unravelled. Everton made a succession of bad decisions, many of which were entirely avoidable, and turned a club that was full of potential into one that, if we’re honest with ourselves, was bad enough to go down’, says Becky Tallentire, author of Still Talking Blue: A Collection of Candid Interviews with Everton Heroes.
Relegation had been avoided in 1996/97 largely because the first half of the campaign had been decent, a factor of the residual momentum that existed from the successful 1995/96 season. This enabled the club to rack up so many points early on, that the slump in form that characterised the second half of the campaign could be accommodated.
‘But it was plainly evident from the club’s end of season form that something was wrong at Goodison. The appointment of Howard Kendall in the summer, by that point a shadow of his former self, and a restrictive transfer policy that curtailed the club further was no way to answer the problems that had emerged. Since Christmas 1996 Everton had been in freefall and the club had done nothing to stop it,’ argues lifelong Blue, Greg Murphy.
Understandably, optimism of any sort amongst Evertonians was in short supply. The manager seemed an ill-fit for the modern game, the squad was slowly deteriorating in quality, and the owner no longer appeared willing to put his hand in his pocket.
‘At the Wimbledon game there was a sense that we were on the verge of something, if only we could stay up. That wasn’t the case back in 1998. It felt like the club was a mess and that even if we survived, which was far from likely, it would probably only all happen again soon’ says James Cleary, who watched the Coventry match from the Lower Street End.
The pessimism that had blossomed amongst Evertonians even seemed to be reflected in the weather. Wimbledon 1994 had been a beautiful spring day, blessed with clear blue skies and warm sunshine. And that was also the case in 1998. But just not in Liverpool.
I remember leaving university in the north east at an ungodly hour in order to make the four hour journey back home, and despite the earliness of the day, I was jacket-less, resplendent in my horrible Everton home shirt (the slightly lighter blue monstrosity that was emblazoned with One-2-One’s raised motif) as the promise of a balmy day first began making itself known.
As the train crawled across the country, moving from County Durham, through Yorkshire and Lancashire and then finally arriving in Merseyside, the weather gradually became gloomier, clear blue skies incrementally replaced by greyer ones. It was like a meteorological metaphor, a physical manifestation of the despondency that hung heavy over Goodison.
‘The weather fitted the mood’, says Lyndon Lloyd of ToffeeWeb. ‘I remember coverage in the Echo being particularly bleak and filled with doom, which was mirrored by those following the club. It probably didn’t help matters that even if we could pull off a victory, which with Everton that season was often unlikely, there was still Bolton to consider.’
Despite having one of the worst away records in the league (only two wins on the road all season) Bolton potentially had the easier game. Their opponents might have been in the top four, but Chelsea were also due to face VfB Stuttgart later that week in the final of the Cup Winners Cup. There was a fear that Chelsea manager, Gianluca Vialli would rest his key players ahead of this vital match.
‘I think Howard made some crack in the press about Chelsea not bothering, to try and wind them up a bit. We hoped they would put out a strong side but they had their own concerns and our survival wasn’t one of them. It was a sad reflection on the season that we were reliant on someone else’s team selection’, admits the Everton midfielder, Don Hutchison.
As had been the case four years earlier, the supporters’ collective thoughts were centred on how ‘the drop’ would affect them personally; the shame of being relegated, a future playing games against the likes of Oxford United, Bradford City and Huddersfield Town, and the prospect of dealing with the blanket smugness of Kopites. Little thought was given over to how those involved were feeling.
Craig Short: ‘Fear of failure is always there in football, it’s the nature of the sport. But I really felt it that day, possibly more so that at any other point in my career. I was tense beforehand and throughout the game. I understood what this club was, the heritage and the history. I had been here a few seasons and grown to appreciate what the fans loved about Everton and what something like relegation would mean to them. To put it in really simple terms, I did not want to be part of the team that took this great club down. Just the thought of it made me feel sick.’
How does a manager prepare for a game of such importance? Drill the players to within an inch of perfection, go easy in the hope of avoiding injuries, change everything because the current approach is clearly broke and in need of fixing?
‘Howard gave us a relatively easy week in training, which differed from other games that season’, remembers Danny Cadamarteri. ‘I think he knew that we all understood what the match meant and that a week of hard graft and drills probably wouldn’t help us. So there was loads of box work, mini games, and stuff like that. The kind of training that was enjoyable and just a bit of a laugh. I think the key was to make us feel relaxed, hopefully take our minds off things for bit but still keep us sharp for this massive game.’
And it was a ‘massive game’. But not just in emotional terms. Practically, relegation had never been more damaging for a football club. As each year progressed from the birth of Modern Football™ in 1992, and the amount of money sloshing around the top flight increased, dropping into the second-tier became gradually more damaging to the financial prospects of a football club. According to Everton’s own predictions, the cost of relegation would be £4.5m-£5m per year (and that was a figure based on obtaining crowds of 28,000-30,000 in the First Division).
‘Aside from the initial financial loss, the longer a club is down there the more likely it is that crowds will decline and less likely it is that a club can attract the kind of investment necessary to compete with the very best. And it’s never guaranteed, no matter how ‘big’ you are that promotion will happen’, says lifelong Blue, Tony Tighe.
Back in 1994, the last time Everton had been staring down the barrel of a gun, Mike Walker’s immediate preparations for that all-important Wimbledon match appear to have comprised of him simply turning up (probably freshly tanned), picking the side and then sitting impassively in the dugout. For that massively important game in 1998, Howard Kendall did things differently, as Don Hutchison recalls:
‘The night before the game we stayed in a hotel together over the water, which was very unusual for a home side. I think Howard wanted us all in one place, talking, socialising, and just being together. It was all about team unity and preparing to get us completely focused on the job ahead.’
On the Sunday morning, those out for a stroll along the waterfront in New Brighton would have been met by the very unusual sight of Everton’s first team squad joining them for an early constitutional.
‘Howard took us all for a stroll along the waterfront and then we finished up with tea and scones in a cafe around there. I think the whole point of that was to clear our heads and keep it all relaxed. And it worked. It was good example of what a great motivator Howard could still be’ continues Hutchison.
When talking to those managed by Kendall it’s evident that he was held in high regard on both a personal and professional level by many of them. But regardless of this affection and admiration, the manager’s culpability that season still warrants scrutiny.
Without question, his third stint with the club was far from impressive. In the league, Everton played 38, winning nine, drawing 13 and losing 16. Under Kendall, the club had a win ratio of 23 per cent. If you only took that one season into account, this latter figure at the time marked him down as the second worst manager at the club since the war. It’s a record only marginally better than Mike Walker’s (the standard benchmark for Everton managerial failure)
According to Phil McNulty, writing at the time in the Liverpool Echo, Kendall bore some of the blame for this through his constant fiddling with personnel and tactics.
‘Kendall tinkered with team formations and line-ups like a mad professor experimenting with a brand new chemistry set. There were two weeks between the first match of the season and the second – but three unenforced changes. That trend continued from match to match –and even during games.’
But (as is often the case) there were mitigating circumstances for Everton’s malaise. Kendall inherited a side low on confidence and which had only narrowly avoided relegation the previous season. He also, like Joe Royle before him, suffered an unduly high number of injuries. Tony Grant, Danny Williamson, Terry Phelan, Tony Thomas, Michael Branch and Joe Parkinson were all long-term absentees. And, vitally, Kendall also suffered from being at the helm when the chairman appeared unwilling to sanction the kind of transfer spending that had been the case during the past few seasons.
It was something that Evertonians’ were acutely aware of. Prior to that fateful game against Coventry, the talk amongst those who I’d gone to Goodison with and others chatted to in the pubs around the ground beforehand, largely laid the blame for this disastrous season at Johnson’s feet not Kendall’s.
‘From the fan’s perspective, it was he who had got rid of Royle, it was he who had failed to land a ‘world class’ manager and it was he who had starved the current incumbent of funds. Johnson’s fingerprints were all over this terrible season,’ thinks Phil Redmond of When Skies Are Grey
By this point, Johnson was becoming so unpopular amongst elements within the fan base faithful that on that fateful Sunday he was provided with a police escort for the entire day. He was increasingly becoming persona non grata at the club he owned.
‘It was a very difficult time personally’, admits the former chairman. ‘I wanted Everton to succeed and I’d provided investment and helped modernise the club but matters on the pitch just weren’t working out.’
Animosity towards Johnson was one of the only things that could animate Blues before the game. As Main Stand regular Rob Waine remembers, beforehand there was a lot of gloom amongst Evertonians.
‘We used to go to the Carisbrooke before the match and it always had a great atmosphere, especially before big games. But I remember it being really flat that day, a lot quieter than usual. When the team was announced in the pub some bloke started a half-arsed chant of “we want Farrelly out” that no one took up and it just fizzled out. There just seemed to be no spark, like people just wanted it over with. Strangely, my dad turned to me at that point and said he fancied Farrelly to score that day. I think I told him he was off his head and returned to moodily sipping my shandy.’
Gareth Farrelly had joined Everton from Aston Villa in the summer, one of Kendall’s first acquisitions. For the young midfielder, the move had been a dream-come-true:
‘As an Evertonian, as soon as I heard that there was interest in me I was keen on the move. There were a number of other clubs that had also been mentioned but ultimately I wanted to join the club I had supported as a boy. It was as simple as that.’
Like a lot of players in that side, Farrelly struggled at times during his debut season. As a ‘ball-player’ rather than a ‘grafter’ his contribution sometimes appeared lightweight in a side that needed ‘fight’ more than any other quality. But during his appearances he had shown a stubborn and admirable willingness to get on the ball and a desire to have a go on goal (even if his efforts proved fruitless).
‘It’s difficult coming into a struggling side’, he admits, ‘but I was learning all the time and like everyone in that squad, despite how pressurised that last game was, I was desperate to feature because I felt like I could play my part in saving this great club.’
His inclusion that day very nearly didn’t happen. Writing in Love Affairs and Marriage: My Life in Football, Kendall discussed his team selection and a last minute change that would ultimately have long term consequences for Everton.
‘The night before the match I had an epiphany. Gareth Farrelly couldn’t find the back of the net all season. His form had been patchy and he was in and out of the side. I’d had a little meeting with my staff the night before – we stayed away from home the night before the game – and agreed on the team. Then I changed my mind during the night. I woke up and thought, “He’s due one”, and went back to sleep. I don’t know for what reason, but I went down next morning to the staff and said, “I’m playing Farrelly”.’
‘That was a great moment for me’, admits Farrelly. ‘I was a supporter, not just a player and it was important for me that I could get out there and hopefully contribute to staying up. That was the only goal. Give the fans something to cheer about.’
Not that much ‘cheering’ initially appeared to be on the cards that afternoon. Perhaps no better example exists to illustrate the subdued feeling amongst Blues at the time than in how opposition coaches were treated prior to each relegation showdown. In 1994, Wimbledon’s coach was burnt out. Its replacement then heckled as it approached Goodison. In 1998, Coventry arrived in silence, barely an insult thrown their way.
You couldn’t blame Evertonians for this jaded sense of resignation. The club had asked a lot of the fans and they had endured it all, the mediocrity; the misery, the false dawns; turning up in ever increasing numbers despite everything. As Z-Cars piped up and the teams poured on to the pitch, you could forgive the supporters if their welcome was not as uproarious as it had been four years earlier.
But despite the despondency, the near acquiescence to our fate, the feeling that we might even deserve to drop, something had changed as kick off approached. You could feel it in the air, like a tingle rippling through the crowd. I was sitting in the Lower Street End and watched as the faces of those around me became more animated. Men and women who until a few minutes earlier had been idly flicking through the pages of When Skies Are Grey, sipping absentmindedly on their tea or chatting amiably with their mates, slowly became more focused on the pitch, inured to anything surrounding them. You could see their jawlines tighten, their bodies tensing and the first appearance of that telltale sign of anxiety, the involuntary jiggling knee.
By the time Z Cars rung out the place was transformed. It was as though every Blue in the ground had gradually remembered why they were there. The whole point of going to the match was to try and make a difference and not just sit impassively. But interestingly, as the crowd awoke from its slumber, it was with a sense of fury that had been entirely absent four years before.
‘In amongst the feelings of despair, there had been a growing undercurrent of anger all season. Evertonians were f**ked off with the club, specifically Peter Johnson. And that fed into the atmosphere. There was real anger’, thinks Phil Redmond.
For those coming out on to the pitch, the switch was a welcome one.
Craig Short: ‘Goodison crowds are always special but that day was something else. Despite the season the fans had endured, they were all hugely supportive. You never know how a game like that will be viewed. After some of our recent performances it would have been understandable if Goodison might not have been at its best. But the supporters were amazing. I’m not sure I’d ever heard noise like it.’
Don Hutchison ‘I was blown away by the noise. It was incredible. And it was exactly what we all needed. Without Goodison at its best, home advantage would have counted for nothing. We needed to get out there and get at Coventry, start on the front foot and get them rattled. A big crowd behind us would only help that.’
In stark contrast to what had occurred four years earlier, this is exactly what happened. Everton were lively from the off and after seven minutes a combination of this energetic beginning and Howard Kendall’s midnight epiphany bore fruit.
‘I’d been taking chances all season but that goal wouldn’t come. I remember a game against Leicester a few weeks before the Sheffield Wednesday match when a chance that I really should have scored hadn’t gone in. There had been boos from the crowd at that point. For me that was hard to deal with but I still wanted the ball and I still felt that I could score’, remembers Farelly.
His willingness to get on the ball paid off that day. Farelly would be the one to start the move that would ultimately put Everton ahead, when he clipped a high-ball towards the penalty area. There, Duncan Ferguson met its looping arch and knocked it back towards the edge of 18 yard box, where an onrushing Farrelly met it on the second bounce with his chest.
‘When the ball came to him I shouted, like most of the crowd; “FOR F**KS SAKE DON’T SHOOT!” Luckily, and with his wrong foot (and there’s a case to be made that both of Farrelly’s feet were the wrong foot) he chose to ignore 40,000 fans’, remembers Tony Shaw, who was sitting in the Top Balcony.
Farrelly had been calibrating his shots at the Park End for some time, finally choosing this most opportune of moments to get it just right.
‘You hit lots of shots that you’re convinced will go in but they never do’ he recalls ‘On that occasion I caught it with my right-foot and it spun off at a right angle. The keeper didn’t get near it and the ball flew into the back of the net. Over time and because Everton haven’t been in that position since, that goal has probably grown in significance in people’s minds. But back then, for me, it was just great to score.’
Goodison exploded when the ball smacked into the back of the net. In a rare similarity with 1994, a strike of genuine class from a most unlikely of sources had given Evertonians hope. My brother, a person usually hostile to the notion of physical contact between strangers began hugging people around him with the emotional intensity of someone who had just taken his first ‘E’.
The goal was a statement of intent, a marker that had lain down the home side’s desire to take command of the game. For the next 40 minutes Everton harried, pressed and out-fought Coventry in every department and were unfortunate to not go further ahead. From two corners the away side rode their luck. Coventry had their keeper, Magnus Hedman to thank for an extraordinary save from Madar and later their defender Roland Nilsson, who cleared Carl Tiler’s goalbound effort off the line. The Blue’s performance in that first half could not have been more different to that of the week before at Highbury.
‘There was urgency to our play that had been lacking for some time’, admits Don Hutchison. ‘Every player there was up for the occasion and for once we were showing what this side could do. The atmosphere, which was incredible, helped. You can’t fail to be motivated by that. But we also seemed focused in a way that we hadn’t been for while. I imagine Coventry didn’t know what had hit them.’
As good as Everton were playing and as welcome as the lead was, it would be for nothing if Chelsea didn’t lend a hand.
‘I had a Walkman (remember those?) and although I had it turned right up, I couldn’t hear a bloody thing over the noise. Every now and then you’d hear cheers from different parts of the ground and you’d think “Chelsea goal?” but it was more difficult in those days to find out what was going on’ remembers Becky Tallentire.
As half-time approached, Everton’s attacking potency was starting to wane and a degree of tiredness was evident in the side’s capacity to press. Despite this, Coventry remained shut-out from the game and as the whistle went, the team and the fans could be satisfied with a good 45 minutes of work. Everton were leading and Bolton were drawing. Unlike four years earlier, as matters stood at the break, the Blues were safe.
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | PTS | |
| Everton | 38 | 10 | 12 | 16 | 41 | 55 | -14 | 42 |
| Bolton | 38 | 9 | 14 | 15 | 41 | 59 | -18 | 41 |
Compared to the Wimbledon game, half-time felt different. In 1994, the experience of a relegation battle was so new and the first half such a rollercoaster of emotion that I remember feeling raw and filled with a massive amount of nervous energy. In 1998 I just felt worried. Doing things properly, dominating the first-half and taking a deserved lead made me anxious about us throwing it all away.
For the crowd, the only distraction from mulling over a potentially negative outcome was Neville Southall’s lap of honour, a much deserved emotional send off for one of Everton’s greatest ever servants. The club needed to compensate for his rather low key exit earlier in the season and provide Southall with one last moment in the sun (even if the sun was nowhere to be seen).
For the players still with the club, half-time represented a chance to regroup and take stock of a job half done.
‘We were happy with our performance’, says Don Hutchison. ‘Howard’s game plan from the off had been to stifle Coventry and not give them time to play. And that had worked perfectly. It was also clear that the occasion hadn’t got to us. Despite the tension, and believe me there was plenty of that, we were playing good football, in fact we were probably playing better than we had for some weeks. But we all knew that there was still 45 minutes to go and we couldn’t afford to let our momentum falter.’
The side came out from the break to another rapturous reception. The atmosphere hadn’t ebbed all afternoon and with the club facing another vital 45 minutes, each Evertonian in Goodison seemed determined to give everything they had for the cause.
The only change to the starting 11 was Cadamarteri, who replaced Madar minutes after the interval.
‘Their centre halves weren’t the quickest, so it was my job to get in behind them, wear them out. Get them doubting themselves and hopefully making mistakes. Howard was looking to keep up the pressure we’d built up during the first half and put this game beyond Coventry’s reach. There was no sense of sitting back and defending our lead’, he remembers.
But ‘sitting back’ was exactly what Everton ending up doing for much of the half. The home side’s performances in each period could not have been more different. Before the break Everton were quick, aggressive and bubbling with creativity. In the second half by contrast, the side was timid, ponderous and devoid of any creative ideas except launching the ball forward for Ferguson to head or Cadamarteri to chase.
‘Although Coventry were much better in the second half, it was mainly because we stopped playing’, thinks Craig Short. For him the cause of this was a growing nervousness that crept into Everton’s play. ‘We could probably have done with not having half-time because up until that point we were on top. I think the break helped them and hindered us. It was like the importance of the game, and the fragility of our lead suddenly became more real and we lost the momentum to our play that had been there in the first half.’
Coventry were much improved from kick-off and early on came very close to levelling on a couple of occasions. It took a last ditch tackle from Dave Watson to deny Darren Huckerby, who was on the cusp of pulling the trigger when through on the Everton goal. Then, minutes later, a speculative shot from Roland Nillson from outside of the box, which was heading wide, was nearly put into Everton’s goal by John O’Kane.
‘How many times have Evertonians felt sick with anxiety?’, asks Lyndon Lloyd. ‘We were 1-0 up, we had Coventry sussed and things were going well for us at Stamford Bridge. So what do Everton do? They come out in the second half and decide to make things as uncomfortable as possible for every Blue following the game. From kick off it just seemed a case of when, rather than if, Coventry would score. It was like we were inviting them to level.’
In the first half, Kendall’s decision to field three central defenders hadn’t impacted on the side’s creativity. The full-backs, Michael Ball and John O’Kane had linked effectively with the midfield three of Hutchison, Barmby and Farrelly to trouble Coventry throughout.
But in the second-half, Coventry began to pin back Ball and O’Kane and gradually swamp the midfield in the process. It left Everton’s front two of Ferguson and Cadamarteri hopelessly isolated and the home-side unable to put together anything resembling a coherent attack.
This was always the downside of lining up in this way; what you gain in defensive solidity you often lose in attacking threat. Everton could only hope that the back line would be strong enough to weather Coventry’s growing confidence.
‘Defensively, the second half was tougher than the first’, admits Craig Short. ‘Although Coventry didn’t get many clear cut chances, balls were constantly coming into the box; Dion Dublin was a permanent threat. We had to be at our defensive best.’
With Coventry looking more and more dangerous, thoughts increasingly turned to the other vital game taking place that afternoon.
‘I had a crappy old Walkman that got a good reception for Radio City so I had that on constantly with people around me wanting updates from the Bolton game, obviously the longer it went on the tenser it was getting and the volume was ramping up so it got harder to hear much. There were rumours swirling all around, one bloke was saying Bob Taylor had scored for Bolton, then another was saying Nathan Blake had got one, then you had a bloke saying Chelsea were in front. It was madness’, remembers Rob Waine.
Around the 70 minute mark a cheer went up, erupting in pockets around the ground.
‘I’d decided to stick my headphones back in and try to see if I could make out what was going on and after about 30 seconds Vialli found the net and I jumped up like Everton had scored, as did a fair few others around me. Instantly you’ve got dozens of people around you wanting to know and then you’re shoving the headphones deeper into your ears to make sure you’re right and not about to be lynched!’ Waine recalls.
Everton might have been struggling but as things stood, matters could not have worked out better. Not only were the Blues ahead but Bolton were behind. Even an obdurate pessimist such as myself could recognise this as a positive development. Although that’s not to say I was free from worry. This was Everton after all, the one side you could count on to never do things the easy way.
‘I think by the last 15 minutes we felt that we’d seen off the worst they had to throw at us and as the match wound to a close you got the sense that Coventry were running out of ideas’, remembers Michael Ball, someone who by that point shouldn’t have even been on the pitch.
‘One of their defenders had taken me out and done my knee in a bit. I’d been told to go off and was visibly upset when Howard caught my eye and asked if I was alright. I said I wanted to stay on, so he nodded back to the pitch and said “go on then”. After the game I got a slap off the physio and the doctor for doing that and I was on crutches for weeks but I think Howard wanted players on the pitch who cared and, as a boyhood Blue, I clearly did.’
Although it looked as though the match was petering out, and that neither side (but specifically Everton) would score, improbably the possibility of a goal for the Blues originated from nowhere.
‘I remember the ball breaking kindly for me’, says Danny Cadamarteri, who had hustled and bustled tirelessly since he’d come on.
Uncharacteristically, Everton had strung together a coherent attack. The ball had ricocheted across to Barmby in the middle of the Coventry half, who had then threaded a headed pass that split the visitors’ centre backs in half and fell kindly into the path of Cadamarteri:
‘I was through on goal, trying to control the ball while jostling with the Coventry defender. The next thing I know, I’m on my arse and the Ref had signalled for a penalty. I wasn’t sure if it was really a pen but I couldn’t have cared less. I was just elated. We score this and its game over.’
Nick Barmby stood over the ball, in front him the goal and behind that 10,000 Evertonians standing in anticipation, the entire Gwaldys Street waiting to erupt in celebration. He ran up and struck it hard to the keeper’s right. I can still see the balls trajectory if I close my eyes. From the moment it left the spot and the keeper started to move the right way you just knew it wasn’t going in. It was too close to Hedman, too easy to push behind for a corner. Everton’s chance to finish this game had been and gone.
‘I dropped to my knees the tears started to build, I couldn’t believe they were putting us through this. We had a chance to kill them off and we blew it. I actually get sad now just thinking about it’, says Jeff Nolan, who was sitting in the Family Enclosure.
The miss was equally frustrating for the players too: ‘It was one of those moments when your feelings are perfectly in tune with the crowd. You just think “shit”. We were so close and there was so little of the game left. To this day, I’m not sure why Barmby took the penalty. I mean, it took guts for him to take the ball but it was a bad one’, says Michael Ball.
If ever you wanted to illustrate to someone what it’s like to be an Evertonian then show them the closing moments of the Coventry game. In those final minutes the nature of Evertonianism is perfectly captured. The highs, the lows, the way in which the club refuses to give its fans an easy ride.
A few minutes after the penalty miss, with collective nerves still on edge, Coventry did what they had been threatening to do for some time.
‘Burrows swung in a left wing cross, Dublin rose and Myhre, caught in two minds whether to parry or catch, let the ball slip through his hands. It was 1-1 and the entire complexion of the game changed. Goodison’s cauldron of noise was immediately transformed into a mass of jangling nerves and loud whistles as 40,000 people bayed for the final whistle’, wrote Lyndon Lloyd on ToffeeWeb.
Was it too much to ask that on this most vital of days the side could maintain its concentration for a few extra minutes, that our centre-halfs could handle one optimistically pumped cross or that our goalkeeper could manage to palm away a relatively innocuous header? Almost in the blink of an eye, Everton had guaranteed that the closing minutes would be some of the tensest in the club’s history, for players and fans alike.
‘I can honestly say that those few minutes were amongst the worst I ever endured as a footballer. You could feel the tension in the air and the sense of responsibility weighed down upon me. I think all any of us could do was throw in tackles and if we won the ball simply get rid of it and pump it up their end as far as possible’, says Craig Short.
Since their transformation from underachieving yet strangely glamorous London sometimes-rans to global footballing powerhouse, Chelsea have slid down the list of clubs tolerated by fans as a whole. While not yet reaching Liverpool or Manchester United levels of hostility, the men from Stamford Bridge are not particularly liked in most circles and are regarded by many as a club wallowing in self entitlement and followed by a bunch of bandwagon-jumping glory hunters. But on two separate occasions, in 1994 and 1998, Chelsea did Everton a massive favour, not least in providing a rare glimpse of sunshine in those wretched dying moments of the game.
‘I remember standing watching the match, my legs shaking with nerves. Then, in my left ear, where I had my radio, I heard the commentator screaming that Chelsea were two-up. I went mental. That was Bolton finished. All we had to do now was hang-on’, remembers Lyndon Lloyd.
As word spread around the crowd, a wave of cheers briefly broke through the blanket of whistles that had previously filled the air.
‘We heard the cheers but to be honest, everything was a bit of a blur. So much had happened in those closing minutes that it was all I could do to keep concentrating on the game. I think all the players were focused on keeping the ball out of our half as much as possible’, admits Don Hutchison.
When the whistle arrived it was greeted by a deafening roar from the Blues within Goodison. Survival would always have engendered a rapturous response but you got the sense that noise had been accentuated a few decibels because of the way in which Everton had secured safety. The fight to avoid the drop had been hard won in those last minutes, asking more of the fans than the club really had a right to.
‘When that whistle went I was flooded with relief and complete elation. I couldn’t believe that we’d managed to survive when it looked like it could go against us so easily. I couldn’t believe that those last few minutes were finally over. Survival was the outcome I didn’t see happening, I was convinced we’d need the win so it was obviously a sense of ‘how the hell did we manage that?’, remembers Becky Tallentire.
As had been the case after the Wimbledon game, the pitch was instantly invaded by Blues from all directions, everyone eager to get near the players and be part of the congregating mass.
‘Like most of the players I was absolutely buzzing after the whistle went. The relief was immense. And I felt that way right up until I saw thousands of Blues streaming towards me. I panicked and legged it as fast as I could. I was all for celebrating but we were about to be mobbed’, laughs Danny Cadamarteri.
It was during that time on the pitch that I experienced one of my most bizarre and cherished memories during 35 years of following the club. My brother and I had managed to navigate our way down from the back of the Lower Street End and eventually, probably as part of the second wave, got ourselves on to the pitch. We headed towards the centre circle, where most fans had congregated.
At the time, our dad was a steward in the Park End, one of the many charged with stopping such an invasion from taking place. Ahead of us, and I might be remembering this through slightly dramatically-tinged spectacles, the crowd seemed to divide and through the parting waves of happy Blues my dad walked towards us, like Moses through the Red Sea, but Moses in a high-vis jacket. With a smile and a nod he told us to, “get off the f**king pitch”.’
It was around this point, that I recall the mood of the gathered crowd changing perceptibly. Initially, the songs that had filled the air amongst those on the pitch and the stands had been Everton’s stalwarts. They were songs that celebrated the club and our sincere belief, in the face of a huge amount of evidence that suggested otherwise, that we really were the Greatest Team the World Has Ever Seen. But almost in an instant it was as though everyone remaining in Goodison suddenly put aside celebration and moved instead to blame. Cries of ‘Johnson Out’ filled the air as the mood inside Goodison transformed. Although an increasingly familiar refrain at home games, hostility towards the chairman had never been this vocal or so palpable.
‘It’s hard to believe, with the benefit of hindsight how Johnson was let anywhere near our club. I interviewed him a few times for Liverpool L!VE TV and he was exactly as you’d imagine, wet-lipped and charmless. He shouldn’t have been let into Goodison, let alone allowed to take control of the club. By that point Johnson’s position amongst the fans was finished. It was clear now that an awful lot of Evertonians had simply had enough’, remembers Becky Tallentire.
It’s hard, with the benefit of hindsight to disagree that Johnson had mishandled the season. Regardless of the money provided in the past and the modernisation plans put in place, the 1997/98 campaign had been a disaster largely of his making. It was understandable that the fans were disgruntled. Everton has nearly been relegated again. And that was something that wasn’t supposed to happen.
As had been the case in 1994, eventually the crowd began to dissipate, off to savour and celebrate top flight survival. They departed Goodison relieved, exhausted and with enough turf in their pockets to collectively piece together a decent size pitch of their own.
Behind the scenes, the players were in the mood to celebrate a job done (if not exactly well-done).
‘We all had a few drinks after the game. Although just avoiding relegation wasn’t something to necessarily celebrate, specifically for a club like Everton, it had been a long season and tough match and we needed to blow off some steam’, says Don Hutchison.
One figure conspicuous by his absence was Howard Kendall. ‘We all wanted Howard to be there’ says Don ‘so I went to try and find him. After a brief search I eventually discovered him sitting in the dark in the boot room just quietly crying. When I asked him what was wrong he just told me how much he loved this club and how devastated he would have been if it had been him who had taken Everton down. I don’t think anyone really realised the pressure Howard was under. He wasn’t just any old manager; he was the club’s most successful boss and someone who was actually a fan. I think the relief of survival was almost too much for him to cope with.’
According to Craig Short, it was a survival that many might fans not realise owed something to the generous refereeing of Stephen Lodge several months earlier.
‘Although lots of things happen in a season, great saves, missed chances, poor decisions, and each can have a bearing on a club’s final position, I think one event sticks out because it affected both teams, Bolton and Everton.’
In early September 1997, the Blues visited Bolton at the Reebok Stadium; two teams who at that point had no idea they would eventually be matched in a fight to the death.
‘About half way through the second half’, continues Short, ‘Bolton pumped a ball to our back post where Nathan Blake put it in the net. Only he didn’t. Although it actually crossed the line, by some distance, it was cleared by Terry Phelan and put out of play. All the TV angles after the game showed that it was a goal and the Bolton fans behind were going mad. But it wasn’t given and the game ended up 0-0. We got a point and they effectively lost two. Those two points would have made the final table look very different had it not been for the referee’s decision.’
As it was, that result, and those on the final day, had gone Everton’s way, leaving the table looking like this:
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | PTS | |
| Everton | 38 | 9 | 13 | 16 | 41 | 56 | -15 | 40 |
| Bolton | 38 | 9 | 13 | 16 | 41 | 61 | -20 | 40 |
| Barnsley | 38 | 10 | 5 | 23 | 37 | 82 | -45 | 35 |
| Crystal P | 38 | 8 | 9 | 21 | 37 | 71 | -34 | 33 |
After a quick drink to celebrate that final outcome, I had to make the trek back to Durham. The long journey gave me plenty of time to mull over the season just gone. It seemed clear that Everton were once again at a crisis point, primarily at a boardroom level. A year earlier there had been talk of stellar players arriving, the installation of a ‘world class’ manager and the club creating a new San Siro. Instead, we had narrowly bested Bolton in the fight for Premier League survival with the worst squad of players in Everton’s modern history, a manager who seemed ill-equipped for the job and in a stadium that was slowly falling behind its rivals.
With the cheque-book apparently shut and the fans hostility growing, rumours had circulated that perhaps Johnson had tired of his side project and that his time at the club was nearing an end.
‘I believe around this time, Peter, who was a decent man if you met him, gradually started to think that maybe he didn’t have enough money to turn Everton around. The club probably needed a billionaire not a millionaire. I think he was still emotionally invested in Everton. The plans for a new stadium prove that. He was thinking long-term about ways the club could compete by maximising commercial revenue. But I do believe that the team’s failures, the fans hostility and the fact that despite spending heavily Everton were no further on all conspired to take the shine of his involvement a bit’, thinks Tony Tighe.
With rumours about Johnson’s commitment to the club building, Everton’s chairman put out a statement as a rebuff to those who thought he might jump ship after the Coventry protests.
‘When I became chairman four years ago I said that I wanted to make Everton great again and that came from the heart. I am still committed to achieving that aim” it read. Going on to say ‘as far as my own position is concerned, I have been the subject of a great deal of criticism this season, some constructive but much of it unjustified and divisive. No doubt the criticism will continue, but the critics should be aware that it has not and will not affect my love for the club or my commitment to it.’
Privately though, Johnson was finding the daily grind of the chairmanship more difficult than the statement suggested:
‘It was a challenging and at times thankless job. And one not helped by the fans turning against me, which was hurtful. Despite what people thought, I was trying my best to turn Everton around and I was as disappointed as anyone that it wasn’t working.’
What remained clear to those who followed the club was that something had to give. Another season like that could not be endured again. Johnson would have to invest and if Kendall wasn’t trusted to spend the money, then he needed to get in a manager that could be.
A few weeks after the Coventry game, a decision was made. The Everton board met and together endorsed Johnson’s resolution to sack Kendall. Surprisingly (and some would say disgracefully, considering what a loyal servant he had been to the club), news about the decision was leaked to the press prior to the manager being informed.
‘The first I knew about it was when a journalist phoned me on holiday in Spain to ask me for my reaction to the rumours’, wrote Kendall in Love Affairs & Marriage: My Life in Football.
Once the news was out, Kendall was invited to fly out and meet Johnson near Lake Como in Italy. ‘I got there expecting the worst, but what followed was just the strangest meeting’ he later wrote. ‘There was a plate of sandwiches awaiting me, and he offered me one. I declined. We chatted in general terms for 20 or so minutes, and I sat there waiting for him to sack me. But he didn’t. It was as if he was unable to face up to doing so. I returned to England in this kind of limbo. I had to wait several weeks for the telephone call that told me I would no longer be manager of Everton Football Club. A total of six and a half weeks had passed between the Coventry City game and the day of my dismissal, 24 June 1998.’
Kendall’s third stint as manager had not gone well. The old adage ‘Never Go Back’, has some foundation in truth. What made a manager great the first time around is very rarely repeated a second and almost never a third. Kenny Dalglish couldn’t manage it with Liverpool, Mike Walker couldn’t do it with Norwich City and Kevin Keegan couldn’t conjure up the old magic with Newcastle. With each return Howard Kendall seemed to move further and further away from what had made him so magnificent first time around.
Allied to this, there was a pervading feeling of diminishing returns with regards to Kendall’s managerial abilities. ‘Howard was a great man manager and he still knew his stuff but the game was changing. A new generation of managers was emerging that were much more into modern fitness techniques and eating and drinking the right things. They were also tactically different, often incorporating more ideas from Europe. I think by the late 1990s, maybe Howard’s time had just passed at our level,’ thinks Danny Cadamarteri.
With Kendall gone the search was on for yet another manager. Rather than cast his net far and wide, Peter Johnson took a glance northwards instead. And it was a glance that made sense. In the ten seasons that preceded the 1997/98 campaign, the English top flight had been won by a side managed by a Scotsman on eight occasions. Scotland might have been waning as a footballing nation but its managers still seemed to understand what it took to achieve success. For Johnson, the answer to his problems appeared to lie north of the border.
This a chapter taken from from Highs, Lows and Bakayokos: Everton in the 1990s
JIM KEOGHAN 