Stubbs and Kilbane Chat All Things Everton

Sports Book Festival on a brisk November Saturday morning and at a cost of only £4 it seemed good value to see Alan Stubbs (sporting Movember moustache), Kevin Kilbane and – ghost writer of Neville Southall: The Binman Chronicles and Howard Kendall: Love Affairs & Marriage – James Corbett chat all things Everton for over an hour under the pleasant hosting of Dave Prentice, Deputy Head of Sport at the Liverpool Echo.

So insightful was the event it seemed over just as quickly as it had begun. Dave Prentice went straight into the book titles of all three guests, beginning with Alan Stubbs: How Football Saved My Life. This encompasses the amazing story of how Alan Stubbs first learnt of his fate of contracting testicular cancer during a phone call from his doctor whilst playing golf pre-season. Failing the drug test didn’t make sense though the hormone the test distinguished – usually related to women’s pregnancy – signaled what the problem may be and Alan described his shock of learning his fate and how he then continued his round of golf before – the hardest thing – having to tell his family of the news. He also explained how much it meant to him to receive a supportive phone call from Peter Reid after he was diagnosed. “It was probably just a small thing for him but it meant the world to me” said Stubbs.

Killa: Kevin Kilbane is much more straightforward for a book title, and Dave Prentice teased Kilbane on if he thought of using his Goodison nickname of Zinedine Kilbane as the title. Love Affairs & Marriage: Howard Kendall of course relates to Howard’s famous quote when he dumped Manchester City for Everton in 1990. James Corbett explained how, when watching matches on TV now, Howard Kendall can still spot what is going wrong for teams and is able to explain things in 20 seconds what it will take Jamie Redknapp a lot longer to point out. Dave Prentice also fondly recalled when Howard Kendall, upon noticing the napkins were red at a Sportsman’s Dinner he insisted that they all be changed to blue ones.

On the theme of comebacks, Alan Stubbs was asked about his return to Everton following his short spell at The Stadium of Light. He explained how the disagreement stemmed from Stubbs wanting a two-year contract and Moyes only offering one year following the excellent 2004-05 season. (Moyes only wanted to give over-30s one-year contracts at the time.) Neither could agree so Stubbs left in the summer; however, as soon as November of that same year, it wasn’t working out for Stubbs at Sunderland and, in January, both he and Moyes were quickly able to bury their disagreement and Stubbs returned.

As Howard Kendall has mentioned previously, Stubbs believes Rooney will return to play for Everton one day. When asked about Ross Barkley, he said how he is definitely the best thing to come through at Everton since Wayne Rooney. Kilbane explained how he thinks he is a better, more developed player than Jack Rodwell and that Moyes would have taken him out of the current team by now and that it is better for his long term development that Martinez is letting him play; poor game or not, it is better for him to keep on playing.

On Thomas Gravesen’s brief Everton return and how it didn’t work out, Stubbs shrugged: “Gravesen had amazing technical ability but he was crackers. It can happen. Things don’t always work out.”

One thing Kevin Kilbane said about David Moyes which I simply could not believe was that Moyes was actually one of the practical jokers whilst he was at Preston. “He would be the one who would cut up your socks and stuff like that”. David Moyes... who’d have thought it, eh? You little joker! Kilbane did also explain about how he would always offer good advice, one bit of which was to “Only drink half-pints when you go out so people won’t think you’re a big drinker”.

When asked about their best-ever games as players for Everton, Stubbs said “I know it sounds cheesy but for me it’s every game because I was so proud to play for Everton. It was all I wanted to do growing up,” though he did say beating Liverpool was always great and the feeling of finishing fourth was brilliant. Beating Manchester United 1-0 when Big Dunc scored was Kevin Kilbane’s favourite, citing the unbelievable atmosphere on the day. This lead to comparisons between the 2004-05 team and our current squad. Stubbs explained that, whilst the quality of our current team (Howard – great keeper; Distin – most consistent player in the league; Jagielka – England centre back; Coleman – improving right back; Barry – one of the best professional’s he’s ever worked with; Mirallas – exciting Belgian international; Lukaku – excellent player he’d hate to play against on loan) is better, the 2004-05 squad just could not be beaten for camaraderie and togetherness.

Kevin fielded a question about who they would most like to have played with. Maradona was the answer though he did state that having players around you who would stand up and be counted when things weren’t going well (like Stubbs and Carsley) meant an awful lot as a player.

The talk couldn’t conclude without discussing the upcoming Merseyside Derby, of course. James Corbett encapsulated what we all think of the derby – that we hate watching them. Alan Stubbs told his story of an awful tackle by Milan Baros in a derby which he got sent off for and resulted in Stubbs looking for Baros after the match.”He tried calling me to apologies but I didn’t take his call” said Stubbs. “I’ve always gone in tough on players but fair. I’ve never tried to hurt anyone deliberately”. Dave Prentice grazed upon a red-card double for David Unsworth (who’s ambition is to manage Everton one day) and Robbie Fowler in a 1997-98 Merseyside Derby and Kilbane explained how the two-week break prior to this derby really isn’t any good for the players at all as it is such a long time for players to wait for such a big game.

I wanted to ask Kevin how he felt after the 2005 defeat to Villarreal and if the team felt cheated afterwards but I stuck my hand up too late into the question-and-answer session… I hope it’s covered in the book.

The event concluded with the three gents chatting amicably with fans and signing copies of their books. It was nice to hear from such down-to-earth players and Evertonians and it’s great to know even in this modern game that footballers can be nice, amicable lads after all.

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