Howard Kendall funeral date set

, 21 October, 15comments  |  Jump to most recent
The funeral of Howard Kendall will take place on Thursday 29th October at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral beginning at 1pm, the club have announced.

Blues fans still dealing with the sudden loss of the club's greatest ever manager will get the chance to pay their respects to Howard who died last Saturday aged 69.

A statement on the official Everton website says that more information about the service will be announced in shortly.  



Reader Comments (15)

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Ian Jones
1 Posted 21/10/2015 at 16:45:42
Imagine the Cathedral will be packed. Still can't believe it. Never met him but seemed such a decent guy. Like many of us on here, I will not forget the mid 80s!
Kevin Johnson
2 Posted 21/10/2015 at 23:25:48
Hope most of the Blue army turn out to honour this man who was Everton FC . We will never ever forget you, Howard. RIP
Mark Andersson
3 Posted 22/10/2015 at 01:45:49
RIP, Howard Kendall. I once met him while singing in a restaurant in Formby. He called me over and thanked me for doing a good job, even bought me a drink.

A great bloke who is well respected in the football world. I was lucky to have witnessed those 80s glory years.

It would be nice to rise to those heights once again, we can all live in hope.

Graham Mockford
4 Posted 22/10/2015 at 12:21:38
You may have seen this doing the rounds but if you haven’t it’s the best tribute I have read

I’ve written to two sports 'celebrities’ in my life. The first was to Richie Benaud after he’d announced his retirement. I wrote to him to thank him for being the calm rational voice of my cricket summers and with good grace he responded. The second letter I wrote was to Howard Kendall when I was a 23-year-old. That wasn’t such a nice letter.

I first watched Howard Kendall when him, Harvey and Ball formed the classiest Everton midfield I was to ever experience (and probably ever will). I was 11 in 1970, when Everton won the league and in those days troops of 11-year-olds (and younger!) would still go the game in numbers and unsupervised without it becoming a child neglect issue. (In fact, the only dilemma I’d ever face on match days was whether to spend my bus fare home on a bag of chips and a walk back to Huyton or risk a clip around the head by the conductor for bunking on the bus.) I still remember the brilliance of that midfield, though through the haze of 50 years.

In 1981 Kendall rejoined Everton as manager and at first the signs were not promising. By 1982-83, tempers were frayed and the ‘Kendall Out!’ chants became a small but significant presence at home games. After one particularly disappointing game I reached for the Basildon Bond and fountain pen (blue ink not green) and poured out all of my frustrations to the manager.

I can’t remember the wording of the letter, but the gist was that I wasn’t happy with his management, he wasn’t motivating the players, they were lazy and I was particularly scathing of our young Welsh left-back, who was the most useless defender I ever had the misfortune to watch. I ended the letter that, if I was ever given the chance to play for Everton, you’d need the trainer to carry me off the field as I’d have used every last drop of energy during the game.

He responded. He offered me a trial.

I took the opportunity and as a not very good alehouse player was so far out of my depth it was embarrassing. After it, he treated me to lunch, a tour of the facilities and the chance to meet the players - he offered me tickets for the next Everton home game, which I declined as I was a season ticket holder already, so he arranged for me to have two tickets sent to my address for Everton’s next away game (Arsenal). He never mentioned the letter I’d written once except to say as we parted – 'You see (Sid), we are trying our best.’

The manager I roundly castigated went on not only to win my respect but to become the most successful manager in Everton’s history. The Welsh left-back I was scathing about was Kevin Ratcliffe, playing out of position, who became Everton’s most successful captain and certainly the quickest central defender I ever watched.

So thanks Howard wherever you are for the best 10 footballing years of my life both watching you as a player and your first spell as a manager. Most of all from a very personal note - thanks for teaching me the value of humility.

Jim Burns
5 Posted 22/10/2015 at 12:56:28
Graham - that's quite possibly one of the best posts I've ever read on here - well done for putting it on.

I'll be there next Thursday - just to say thank you from the bottom of my heart, and to wish the man - rest in peace - your work here is done.

Brian Denton
6 Posted 22/10/2015 at 13:44:20
Graham, yes I've been reading that thread in The Guardian online. I wonder who 'SidFish' the original poster is? Is he a TW regular?
Harold Matthews
7 Posted 22/10/2015 at 15:56:16
Thanks Graham. Wonderful story.
Guy Hastings
8 Posted 22/10/2015 at 16:12:01
The Sid Fishes thread on the Guardian is a corker - some lovely tales. A must-read. Dalglish in particular comes over as a real charmer, as you might expect...

Link

John Atkins
9 Posted 22/10/2015 at 18:55:57
Gutted, I’m away next week so I can’t be there to say goodbye.

RIP, Howard. Thanks for the memories, some of the best moments of my life.

Stephen Brown
10 Posted 22/10/2015 at 19:03:06
Loved that Graham! Nobody has a bad word to say about Howard Kendall! Truly an Everton Giant!

Some cup silverware this year would be a fitting tribute and a holy trinity statue next to Dixie!

Ian Riley
11 Posted 22/10/2015 at 23:34:18
Thank you, Graham. How lucky we are to have so many great ex-players and managers with such respect and love for our great club. Mr Kendall appeared to have no airs or graces, only great love for the club and fans. How lucky we are to be chosen to support Everton Football Club!
Gavin McGarvey
12 Posted 22/10/2015 at 23:58:58
I’d like to go and, unfortunately, it’s not impossible. I do live a long way from Liverpool and my family would wonder what the hell I was doing.

I met Howard back in the glory days. His son was in my brother’s football team. Obviously he was as nice as all the fans have said. Consequently, it’s left me feeling really sad.

I probably won’t drag my family halfway across the country but who knows. Anyway, if we don’t give a guy like him – a real, true, unarguable gent of the highest order – a good send off, what class do we have?

On the other hand, Howard was such a great guy, he probably wouldn’t have wanted too much fuss. It would be nice if we won a game sometime soon. I think he would have liked that.

Ken Finch
13 Posted 23/10/2015 at 00:59:29
I am a child of the 1960s and started to go matches at Goodison in the later part of the decade when Harry Catterick struck gold with the 1969-70 team. Superstars in the likes of Alan Ball and Ray Wilson (the best left back that I have seen in my opinion) were there; great players, skilful and internationals also played (West, Wright, Labone, Harvey [albeit not enough caps], Royle); robust and never say die (Morrissey); fragile but skilful (Husband) and the unsung heroes (Hurst and Kendall).

Of all of these, I favoured Kendall who was the glue for the team and the best midfielder never to have been capped. He was unfortunate to be around at the same time as Alan Mullery who was less talented but possibly a bit more ruthless than Howard. However, Howard was the man for me.

Track on several years later after I had stopped going to Goodison as I played pretty low level local football and then took up refereeing.

My schoolboy idol worship then came to catch me up after I moved to North Wales where a charity match was organised in Llandudno following bad flooding in 1993. Neville Southall was able to arrange for an Everton team to come to play and, although I wasn’t refereeing regularly then, I was in a position to influence the match arrangements so I refereed the match.

I was like a kid in a sweet shop – big Nev in goal, team mates were Harvey, Gabriel and Kendall. I can’t remember the rest but 4 greats were enough for me.

Sadly Everton lost 3-2 despite the award of a dodgy penalty by me in the last minute! The Angel Gabriel’s attempt was saved by Lee Williams and whilst I did think of saying it should be retaken, I would have pushed my luck!

My other undying memory of the match was of Howard Kendall coming to speak to me in the first half about a local lad in the Llandudno side who was ’putting himself about’. He said that he was unhappy with the lad’s attitude and would I do anything or would he. I left him to it and didn’t see what happened but it had an effect!! Great skill.

After the game, a reception was being held but big Nev had said things needed to be ready at the time the coach pulled up otherwise Howard and others would have a few drinks and would ’lose’ track of time. Sure enough, there was a delay so the bus party happened.

The point I am trying to make is that, from boyhood hero to seeing skills albeit after his playing career and how he approached a friendly game to how he enjoyed himself, seems to back up other recollections of Howard’s approach to football and life.

I feel privileged to have been involved in a small way.

RIP Howard Kendall.

Anthony Dwyer
14 Posted 23/10/2015 at 22:23:16
R.I.P Howard, you are a legend in every sense of the word.

Thanks too to Graham 4 for a truly fantastic post.

Tom Clarke
15 Posted 27/10/2015 at 15:11:56
I have been watching "The Everton Show" on Bay TV. Good, with lots of topics covered. Last Friday's edition dealt mainly with the sad passing of Howard Kendall, with contributions from former players and particularly Joe Royle.

I was surprised that there was nothing from Mr Kenwright; following Dave Hickson's death, he was one of the first to offer his memories of the "Cannonball Kid". There have been rumours of an illness, but nothing from the club. I wonder if he will attend the funeral on Thursday?


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