I was due to go to the game but Iived in the south at the time. An urgent legal document was required so I ended up listening to the game on the radio whilst working. At 2-0, I turned the radio off but was so gutted I couldn’t concentrate. I left home to pick up my son from his friend’s house at 6pm and found out they were staying up by my son and his friend’s rendition of “we’re staying up, we’re staying up” shouting and jumping up and down as they greeted my car arriving at his friend’s house. I sat in the car and as realisation hit me, I let the tears flow.

I was in Portugal on the day so didn’t get to see the game live. I remember when it went to 2-0 I just thought “fuck this, I’m going in the pool!” I jumped into the freezing cold water and sank to the bottom, staying there for as long as I could without air. My Dad came outside a little later and said, “I don’t want to get your hopes up but it’s 2-1.” Obviously, the rest is history. As Horne says, amazing that a year later (and I was once again in Portugal with my folks), we won the FA Cup. This time my old man and I were in a bar full of United fans (you know, all southerners) and about 4 fellow blues. At full-time there were only the 6 of us left in the bar, at least 2 of the group sobbing! One of the lads had a copy of our ‘Altogether Now’ FA Cup song with him on CD and we got the barman to play it continuously on loop until he’d had enough of us! Happy memories!

“Oi, wot you lookin’ at, Harvey?!”

I seem to remember Harvey’s notes in the first program of his time as Everton manager. If my recollection is correct, he said that he was on a caravan holiday in north Wales when he got word that he was going to get the job. Even at the time, the way he wrote suggested that he wasn’t just surprised to get the job but also didn’t think he deserved it. Some people are just better at being ‘number 2’. Harvey was hugely important to the club and it’s a shame that he was thrust into a position he clearly wasn’t comfortable with.

Is the book any good, Michael? You’ve summarised the background to the Harvey appointment and subsequent years in charge but not given an opinion on O’Hagan’s written account. Thanks.

I cried at the final whistle Paul,sobbed like a baby. I was a lot more emotionally involved then mate

I was at this game. When Ablett put through his own net to make it 0-2, I felt physically sick. A guy must have been in his 60’s got out of his seat in tears saying he can’t watch anymore and walked out. I’d loved to have seen him after the match. Best and worst game I’ve ever been to.

Colin’s recruitment was shocking. McDonald to replace Stevens, Nevin to replace Trevor, Newell to replace Sharp, Cottee for £2.3m!!!- Wilson and then Beagrie to replace Sheedy for heavens sake!! He was unfortunate that the team fell apart with injuries to Ratters, Reid and Pat and the younger players wanting to move on but trying to copy the Liverpool boot room by making the coaching team an Everton old boys club was a huge mistake. A shame because he should be remembered as one of the best footballers ever to grace Goodison Park!

Dave just seen you replied to my comments about Colin unfortunately I cant see all your post as when I click on I only get 6 or7 posts and on the other thread regarding our midfield despite it saying there are 24 posts despite hitting the see more posts button I only get to see 12 posts obviously I am doing something wrong.

Michael, I know you and Harry have been as frustrated as us posters with the new set up especially th erecent comments post which are all over the place. I click on articles yet for some reason cant see the posts on the recent comments page. Have you any idea when the changes to getting the comments on each post back to chronological order will happen.

Good post Brian that sums it up for me — not sure if Howard would have lasted much longer at Everton if Colin hadn’t have joined him when he did.

Good post Margaret— by the way are you any relation to Billy who was a very good amateur and professional boxer?

Go along with that Steve— there are several players to use in rotation during the game but Moyes’s mind works in a straight line and he can’t see round it.

Howard was on th eway to being sacked and it was only when he replaced Mick Heaton as the coach and appointed Harvey did his and Everton’s fortunes change. The first thing he did was to push the players 10 yards further forward which had an immediate reaction. The football became slicker and faster and you could see the difference in the players within weeks of Harvey being made head coach. Howard quite rightly get most of the praise for our success during that period but without Harvey none of it would have happened. When Howard left the board asked Colin to take over knowing he wouldnt turn it down, but for me coaching was his strength not managing although if memory serves me right we were 6th when Colin was sacked. I just wish after a year or 2 away the club should have got Colin back looking after the coaching of all the younger sides. Colin was a great footballer and a great coach and we should all be thankful fo rthat.

To be fair to Harvey. He did say some years after leaving the club, he should never have took the managers job. But he just couldn’t turn it down.

Totally Steve mate. Moran’s lad went to St Marys. Nice lad. They lived in a semi-d in Thornton. Moran senior was a boss fella. Key to their success. Down to earth and loved the blue/red banter. I’d forgotten, but TD as coach … anyone else remember the throw-in TD took in front of the Enclosure by the Park End and it landed at his feet.

Blimey Dereks that explanation has my head spinning.

Moyes mindset in a nutshell Ian. Lets not make subs to win a winnable game in case someone gets injured. Ever the pessimist

Harvey was the Moran figure and shouldn’t have took it !!

Paul, reading the book reminded me that he hired a coaching team of Terry Darracott, Mike Lyons and a PE teacher. Plus as ever, the recruitment was terrible. They were trying to follow the Liverpool boot-toom model but there was no Ronnie Moran to support Colin.

Brennan Johnston should be rotated out of the side. He has contributed 1 goal and 1 assist this season, and we have quality replacements in Dibling, George and Rohl. My assumption was Brennan was getting selected to track back to support Maitland-Niles, but there is no comparison with the work Ndiaye did to cover the full-back. He looks short of confidence.

There are a lot of options in midfield, but my preference would Garner as defensive midfielder, Dewsbury-Hall box to box and Hackney as the advanced midfielder. Rohl should be getting more minutes off the bench as he gives us energy and pace. There is no point discussing Norgaard until he is fit.

Josh, do you understand the 3 window substitution rule? If he brought on dibling and alacaraz 10 minutes earlier, then he risked playing with 10 men for the last 20 minutes of play, away from home if a player was injured. There is being gung ho and there is being reckless. The issue wasnt the substitutions. The issue was the quality of performance of the players, questionable selection (keane, Johnson), and the ludicrous situation of relying on the quality and dependency of Mykolenko and maitland niles. Who are both absolutely shite.

Agree Hewey 100 per cent. The greatest living Evertonian was always a coach in the old sense of that word. But the real reason behind 1988-1990 was that we could not stop that team from splintering

Excellent, Michael. Thanks for the position statement and thanks for the all the efforts. What’s that you’re pushing uphill?!

Something beautiful Dave

It seems Eric that MK et al are at the mercy of their technical team and now this Arena lot. Meanwhile, Toffeeweb could – could – seem to be drifting apart from some – some – of us as a consequence. The third musketeer is this gambling landscape.

armstrong need hacney it balances out better kdh on the left of them 2 gardner behind no jhonston he may improve but not now and defensavley moyes has to stop playing his mates and make the right call at centre half he has done well explaining the situation but lets make some football desisions chelsea will give them 2 if he plays keean and tycovsky a torid time there front line up is to fast for them

To better monetise the website I guess, or to reduce the owners own IT input. Or both. Follow the money.

You can understand why the club went for Harvey. But they really should have gone and got a better manager. We were the best team in England at the time. Bobby Robson would have been ideal.

Is Arena a newly formed company? I’m thinking that if they were an established platform running for several years all these teething problems would have been sorted long ago and it would pretty much be plug and play. Is it this lot (www.arena.im)? They seem to have launched this in 2024 if so and should have the bugs ironed out by now. They also say it’s customisable, which doesn’t seem to be the case if changes have to be reviewed and approved by them.

I don’t beleive that Paul and it’s not what I said. Other websites will be using Arena, it’s not exclusive to Toffeeweb, so it’s my bet that another customer asked for Best first and that’s why they changed it.

It’s not as good as Reddit

Eric, do you really believe that ‘some’ on here wanted things to be sorted by ‘best’. My hunch is that nobody wanted this and that none of us were asked for our input. ‘Best’ is the dictates of these Arena people for whom this is convention mate.

“They assess feasibility and impact on everyone.” This is the problem. We want Oldest first, some other customers want Best first. They change for one they change for all. Not everyone is going to get what they want. I don’t mind viewing Newest first but it would be nice to have it as default as it was when the system first went live. I guess some customers asked for the change to Best as default. Arena are not going to change it back and forth every week so we’re likely to be stuck with some unpopular options.

Erm Norgaard is the only genuine 6 that we have. I’m not defending erm someone who has yet to kick a ball for us in the PL, but ‘worst signing we’ve made in a long time’ is utter bollocks.

What did Dave say Dale? I can’t find it mate.

Agree on Grealish Derek

Staring Colin Harvey?

Easy, Sean. The lowest cost option may still be here. This is somewhat a coordination problem with the inertia being, we are already assembled here. Move around, you get fractures and defections. There may be some ways to ignore certain functions, keep posting routines tight and make our way through this phase without losing too many in the community. Give it some thought, make some serious well-phrased suggestions to Michael and Harry. I’m thinking they just bought a setup that could make sense for an academic type blog where profound comments deserve a sidepath with responses and running discussion. Except for the width offered on that, can”t make sense of that at all.

Does Moyes even know what his ‘best’ 11 is – there were plenty of times in his 1st term that it seemed that way (do we for that matter?…some might say its the 11 that despite Moyes – wins the most points) Let’s say Moyes plays A in position Z, is he there as a Sq.peg /Favourite or is he a genuine Zer So we now have players ABCDEF & H+ G (G being Grealish obvs) trying for positions VWXY&Z But if the Midfield is actually G + WXY&Z??? Moyes hates too many options at the best of times, so God help him with all those permutations, then you add a tendency to shoehorn in his favourites. My perfect world solution is Moyes & Grealish out – which, with Ownership issues, won’t happen this season…and maybe not even then! Let’s hope Moyes stumbles on to/is forced into a formula that works

Eddie Howe at the end of the season. It’s clear to see

Does anyone here have any IT brains who can start our own site? I’ll donate to a crowd fund to get it going… surely we could do better than all this malarkey…. The game’s gone, now the fan site’s have gone too… why can’t we chip in and start another new site with the focus around fan discussion and not advertising betting companies for a working class team. You know, “the people’s club” and all

This. Is . Wank… the old system was fine and actually felt like a chat room at times when people could have conversations. Now it’s just a copy of Reddit.. Maybe we’ll get used to it but crikey now I have to click around to see comments etc. Up The Unbeaten Toffees!!!!

Oh!!! I don’t believe it! Another incredible strike. No idea who the hell he is either. Just an absolute beauty! 4-1 Mfuni … who the fuck? Man City reject. Excellent win for Coventry City!! That’s 2 wins now after losing all 4 at the start.

Asante with a fabulous shot, keeper beaten, smacks off the face of the post! I’ve never heard of most of these players.

Oh my goodness… Ellis Simms smacks one after a penalty appeal and a clear foul! Incredible advantage played by the referee. VAR not getting involved. They would for sure if that had been us! Coventry 3 – 1 Newcastle!!!!

But what an absolute rocket from Botman. Struck it so sweetly… roof of the net. Fantastic strike. This game has gone crazy… the lilac pink Skunk Maggots throwing everything at Frank’s fledglings. Ellis Simms on now for Cherif.

Ooo.. that bloke Cherif hit the ball so crisply there, and it fairly flew into the Newcastle goal! That goalie Nick Pope was well beaten. Oh but what a terrrible miss just then! Someone once said, “It’s a funny old game…”

With all due respect to Soren, I don’t think that his post is the best so far! Sorry Soren.