Everton Books

Are you training to reign supreme over Everton FC trivia games? If that’s your goal, you should help your chances by reading this brand spanking new trivia and fact book on the famous Premier League club!

The Toffees have been one of England’s most popular and successful since being formed back in 1878, and support for the side is now as strong as ever. All of the squad’s peaks and valleys are included here, from the very first piece of silverware hoisted to their lack of consistency in European competition.   

Included in the book are many of Everton’s most beloved and unforgettable characters, including: Howard Kendall, Duncan Ferguson, Neville Southall, Ted Sagar, Graeme Sharp, Alan Ball, Dixie Dean, Bob Latchford, Thomas Lawton, Wayne Rooney, Joe Royle, Romelu Lukaku, Tim Cahill, Edgar Chadwick, Steven Pienaar, Tony Cottee, and Jose Baxter.

You’ll be able to polish up your Toffees memory by answering compelling and fun trivia questions, such as:

• How many Premier League goals did Romelu Lukaku tally with Everton?
• Everton’s biggest European victory was 6-1 against which club in the 2007-08 UEFA Cup?
• Everton downed which squad in the 1983-84 FA Cup final?
• Who is the oldest payer to score a goal with the Toffees at 38 years and 305 days old?
• Which squad did Everton transfer Mikel Arteta to in 2011-12?

Price: £9.99

Price:/b> £14.99 (Paperback)

Price: £5.99 (Paperback)

Price: –5.00

Price: –9.99 (Paperback)  Order from Jodenoy's.

Price: –16.99 (Hardback)  Order from iBS.

Price:/b> –16.99 (Hardback)  Order from iBS.

It is not stocked in the Megastore but you can get it from the man himself for –5.50 inc p & p (–7.50 overseas) from:

Or –5.00 from George Orr himself outside the Winslow Pub, before home games.

Price: –8.99 (Paperback)  Order from iBS.

Price: –14.99 (Paperback)  Order from iBS.

Thomas Keates' History of the Everton Football Club is one of the classic soccer histories.  Only a handful of famous British clubs published comprehensive histories back in the 1920's. This was among the earliest and one of the best.

The graphic and exquisitely written story takes the reader through the club's complicated birth and the early quest for honours.  Our first FA Cup triumph and three Championships are included, culminating with the very special one in which Dixie Dean scored his unbeatable 60 league goals.

Price: –14.99 (Hardback)  Order from iBS.

The book is available from all good bookshops and the Everton Megastore / Mail Order.  Copies of the book can also be ordered direct from the publisher by sending cheques or postal orders for –7.49 including postage and packing (UK only) to B&W Publishing at: 233 Cowgate, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH1 1NQ.  The International rate for all destinations outside the UK is  –8.49 – send Sterling cheques or International Money orders in English Pounds to the same address.

"Managers need to recognize that everybody in the team is very different. It's knowing them well, knowing which one needs motivating, which one doesn't, that gets results.

"Pat's told me about the old, traditional manager who has this pre-match clique about spending the last 30 minutes getting your mind in the game. It doesn't work for some. Some are far better with head-sets on listening to music and thinking of anything but the game. They are wound-up enough already."

The expectations of their own media and fans is another factor. "Pat (Nevin) writes in our book of the expectations he found at Everton when he arrived there after their successful period in the late 80s. They actually expected to win the FA Cup.

"Now that's ridiculous expectation and players are effected by it. When it's that high players can become nervous. Pat recalled a player so nervous about a big match that he didn't want to play."

This treasure-chest of information traces the evolution of the club from Tommy Lawton to Andrei Kanchelskis and details the coming and goings of great players like Peter Farrell, Bobby Collins, Alan Ball, and Gary Lineker.  The book chronicles the FA Cup successes of 66, 84 and 95, and the Division 1 triumphs of 62/63, 69/70, 84/85 and 86/87 as well as the tears of the more frustrating campaigns.

Toffee Pages provides season-by-season accounts of the changing faces and contents of programmes involving Everton from the spartan issues available immediately after World War II, to the award-winning magazines which are the pride of Goodison Park today.  The book catalogues all Everton's first-team programmes from 45/46 to 95/96 and includes illustrations of over 200 of the rarer programmes.  Its a pity that none of the more recent programmes are in colour.

The First Edition of the hardback book will be limited to 1,200 copies and can be ordered for –19.95 plus –1.55 postage and packing (UK) from Everton Mail Order or iBS..

Matchday Programme:

The illustrations and biographies on cigarette cards provide reliable reflections of the early development of Everton and British football in general.  Memories of the School of Science are strengthened by the 175 illustrations of Goodison legends included in this book.  

Toffee Cards costs –7.95 and is available from Everton Mail Order or from The MegaStore or iBS.

The Reviews (compiled by Marko Poutiainen):

• "A superb read" : David Prentice - Liverpool Echo

• "Pays homage to Alex Young": The Evertonian

• "Honest & frank, funny yet serious, but most of all a bloody good read" : Gwladys Sings The Blues - Fanzine
• "The best record of that era that I have ever read" : When Skies Are Grey - Fanzine
• "An excellent account, many very interesting and unreported facts" : Speke From The Harbour - Fanzine
• "A very enjoyable book" : Alan Jackson - Radio Merseyside

Originally published as a 40-page personal scrapbook by Blue Blood Publications in 1995, this excellent collection of memories has now been adopted by the Club and republished in a high-quality expanded format as a "proper" book.

Available from the Everton MegaStore for –10.00

Price: –3.95  Order from iBS.  

The life and times of 'TC' are chronicled in detail over no less than 65 short chapters spread over the 368 pages of this tome. A large chunk of the book (26 Chapters) cover his turbulent tenure at Everton, from transfer in to transfer out.

His difficulties retaining a first-team place through a succession of managers form the predominant theme, and he poignantly ends with a table counting the times he was subbed, put on the bench, or dropped altogether.  But he knows he played for a Big Club at Everton, and he knows the fans stood by him.  Interesting reading.

Price: –15.99

It is apparently not going to be stocked in the Megastore as it's not a "proper book".  It has 16 more pages than its predecessor, and costs –4 inc p & p (–5 overseas) from:

Or –3.50 from outside the Winslow before home games.

The emphasis is very much that of a coaching manual, but it includes insight into the game as it is played at the highest level by one of the world's finest goalkeepers.

Available from the Everton MegaStore for –7.99.

Price: –5.99

[No additional information available]

Now, it's the easiest thing in the world to knock something, but the writing in places is discursive, to put it mildly. The first chapter for instance is all over the place, and continuity is not always apparent subsequently. The author is/was a journalist and he doesn't appear to have any commitment to Everton (which may be fair enough).

He goes to great pains to let us know that he knew Howard Kendall 'personally', Harry Catterick 'personally'. He had an in-depth disagreement over nothing in particular with Harry, and of course Harry is not in a position to answer back. He also knew John Moores, Bobby Collins and "all the big names in the Everton team." I guess the non-big names were not worth the effort, or just too boring.

The life of Joe Royle is given full attention, even to the extent of describing numerous things totally unrelated to Everton:

• Denis Irwin , Oldham's bargain , described at some length on pp 128-9;
• Oldham's battle against relegation with Southampton likewise on pp 122-3;
• Royle's spell at Norwich with his wife 'In East Anglia where the land is as flat as a pancake they bought a house..' (p117)
• A description about Ian Branfoot being followed home in his car while manager of Southampton is given on p 108.
• A description of Man City's attempts to sign Graham Taylor as manager is given on p 102.
• A description of Mike England's transfer Blackburn - Tottenham is given on p 70.

The above are hardly in accord with the title. Also in a sub-plot we are whisked from 1977 to the arrival of Joe Royle (1994) in the space of one page (p 93-4).

I got as far as p 130 before I stopped reading and I guess I'll finish it one day, when I've got nothing better to do, but without obvious enthusiasm. There are also enough errors of fact to convince one that he ain't one of us, or he didn't get someone up on the facts to do some proof reading.

The author says that he wrote the programme notes for Howard, among others. The first picture you come across is of Morrissey, I think, surrounded by 3 or 4 Liverpool players and no ball!. All in all, it's pretty turgid stuff, but, far be it for me to discourage would-be purchasers...

Available at –14.99 from the Everton MegaStore.

It has 316 pages, and all but the 12 chapter heading pictures are jammed with type telling of every statistic, transfer rumour, match details and added personal dressing for every EFC match of not only the first team, but the reserves, A- and B-teams, and odd reports from the Lancashire and even North West Counties Leagues.

Yes, there is far more detail than you could possibly wish to read, but it's strength is not so much it's readability as it's invaluable reference and memory-jerking potential.

Price: –5.00 plus –2.00 postage (UK), but the last information was that it sold out some time ago.

It was updated and republished in 1999, covering the 25 years from 1974. David Powter worked on this edition.  Published Price: –5.99 ISBN: 1862230420  Edition: 2 Published By: Soccer Books  Publication Date: 01 October 1999  Format: Paperback, 72pages, 21cm height

Available from the Everton MegaStore for –5.99 or less

• Famous players and stuff
• Complete records of each manager
• Full list of internationals who've played for Everton
• Assorted club records
• and loads of other different topics..

It may contain a few mistakes, but nothing major..

Available from the Everton MegaStore for –5.95, or at a knock-down price of 99p, if your lucky!

The book captures in print a lot of material gathered in a series of interviews with players and fans of the three Merseyside clubs.  The interviews were originally broadcast in a 32-part series on Radio City over the 1992-93 season.

As you might guess, only a third of the book is worth reading – the part dealing with Everton – but that portion does contain some gem-like remembrances.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to separate the blue wheat from the white dross and the red slime.  The good Everton stuff is mixed in with gallingly nauseating trash about Liverpool and boring drivel about Tranmere Rovers.

You end up cursing the unavoidable sight of detested names from Anfield as you try in vain not to read anything that does not deal explicitly with Everton.   On balance though, its well worth a read, provided you learn how to spot, and skip smartly over all the red bits.  Despite this irritating problem, there is some excellent material in here:

• Tommy Lawton and his contemporaries spin yarns about the School of Science
• Brian Labone and others talk about The Catt's first team of the early-sixties
• Eddie Cavanagh describes the passion of his one-man pitch invasion at Wembley in 1966
• Andy Gray and Howie reflect on the success of the mid-eighties

The book contains 32 B&W photos. Original Price: –8.99.

Original Price: –12.99

This is just one of over 60 stories of Goodison Park – the first ever purpose-built football stadium. The stories range from:

• The Great Turnstile Fraud of 1895
• Everton's Biggest Ever First Division Victory
• Dixie Dean's Finest Hour
• Twelve Goals at Goodison in One Day
• Goodison's Greatest Cup-tie Ever
• Lighting Up Goodison Park
• World Cup Memories
• Latchford's –10,000 Jackpot
• Happiness... Crushing Manchester United
• The Pride of Germany Blitzed
• The Match of a Lifetime

...and lots of other match summaries from the past together with plenty of historic photos - all Black and White by virtue of their age.

Original Price: £16.95

An Encyclopaedic nostalgia-fest.

Original Price: –8.95

Price: –13.95  [No additional information available]

The section on Famous Evertonians has notes on 70 former players, plus Big Neville. Then there are details of 10 Famous Matches, from the first FA Cup triumph, to the ultimate European Cup Winners Cup Final win in 1985.

Original Price: –6.95.

Original Price: –8.95.

Original Price: –4.95

Original Price: –8.95

Original Price: –8.95

 Original Price: £8.99.

Lots of detail about almost every season, its hard to concentrate when being bombarded by names and facts that are now the distant past.  He relies a lot on Keates' seminal work, and seems to faithfully reproduce much of that tome in the first half of the book.  It includes a Foreword by Joe Mercer and a reference section at the back that details matches through to 1977.

Original Price: –1.95

It is written in a quaint old style (Walsh was born in 1915 and presumably saw Dean play on occasions) and sheds some fascinating insights into the man himself, Everton Football Club, the way football was played and run in that era, and on British society as a whole before the war.

Obviously, the emphasis is on Dean and his fantastic goalscoring feats which helped Everton to two Championships, the Second Division title and the FA Cup while he was with the club. He comes out as the complete footballer - skillful, deadly with the feet and head, a good passer and link-man but with an appetite for goals unsurpassed since then.

What is truly remarkable about his play was his ability to direct a header with unerring accuracy either goalwards or to one of his team-mates. He posted a goal-scoring average of 0.9 per game throughout his career which is unsurpassed by any player before or since.

The origin of the nickname Dixie seems to be his mop of curly black hair and swarthy complexion which alludes to a resemblance of American blacks in the Southern States. Although he did not like the nickname and his friends called him Bill, the fans chorus was always "Give it to Dixie."

If one can still get hold of this book in the library or at a second-hand book shop, it is worth looking at as an insight into this all-time Everton hero and originator of the Everton centre-forward cult.

Original Price: 4/-

Original Price: –1.00

This book helps us understand why Tommy Lawton, who's eyes were opened wide by his non-combative war experience, fell out with the club in 1945 after scoring with ease through the war years.

Republished in 1997