🎙ToffeeWeb Podcast: EFC Heritage Society World Cup Special

I think the reference to the forgotten Champions (86-87) could be turned into an article. I might have a go at that one as I went to every home game and quite a few away ones.

My Dad always spoke fondly of watching Eusebio.

On the attendances, I think it's more visible now when a ground isn't as full as you see the empty seats rather than crowds congregating on terraces.

Goodison is past it's sell by date. We failed to invest. Years ago, we could have / should have done what the cousins and Tottenham have done. We could have bought the streets opposite the Bullens Road, offered to relocated the Gwladys Street School and changed the footprint of Goodison.

We didn't and stood still. So now Bramley Moore is the future. It will be different and I'll miss a lot about Goodison, but I'm looking forward to it.

Don't get me wrong, when the demolition mob come in and they start knocking the Old Lady down, I won't be able to watch and it will break my heart.

I remember a friend of mine who who would not leave the lower Gwladys Street on the last game where there was terracing before being replaced by seating until he was forcibly removed. He remained on his speck.

I think on Goodison's last bow, some will want to sleep there overnight. Arguably never leave. But we have to.

When you hear anybody talking of great past managers, the names of Busby, Stein, Shankly, Paisley are always mentioned but very rare do you hear Catterick or Kendall mentioned in these conversations, and I don't understand why.

I also think another great who is hardly ever mentioned is Stan Cullis who managed Wolves, were he won 3 league titles. Many also credit Cullis with the start of the European Cup.

When England were thrashed at Wembley by the great Hungary side, Honved, the top Hungarian club side, were invited to play Wolves and Wolves beat them. This prompted Cullis to declare that Wolves were now Champions of the World.

Wolves in 1957 also played both Spartak Moscow which was televised live and Real Madrid that season. So he was a real pioneer of the game back then, but another that's never mentioned.

Brian Clough and Bobby Robson.

And let's not forget Sir Alex.

Ferguson was a great manager and Robson was good but I don't think he was in the same class as the others I have mentioned.

Yes, Stan Cullis was a great manager for Wolves who were a top club under his reign with an FA cup win in 1949 to add to his league titles.

Bill Nicholson at Spurs was another very good manager, I don't think he won the Championship with them but Spurs won some cup finals while he was manager, another quiet man who just got on with doing his job.

Don't mention his first-ever game as manager of Spurs though, at White Hart Lane, an Everton player scored a hat trick and we still got beat!!

Whisper Joe Fagan, the Liverpool manager, another quiet man who let his honours do the talking and always wore the same size hat while doing so.

I met him a few times at Anfield. Very respectable footballing person.

George Graham built a strong team at Arsenal and rarely gets a mention since Wenger wooed the media.

A pragmatist and the legacy of his "1 - 0 to the Arsenal" chant survives to this day. His found a way of getting a tune and results out of a set of players.

He couldn't continue it though or take it elsewhere. A bit like a more successful Joe Royle or David Moyes given he actually won league titles??

Comparisons with Howard Kendall? League title as a player with the same club he went on to win 2 with as a Manager?

I still can,t believe that Everton side could be beaten 10-4 by any side. I remember listening to the radio and couldn't believe as the score kept getting worse.

Yes a remarkable score and we had some decent players in that team including the great Bobby Collins if I'm not mistaken.

I was watching Everton Reserves at the time and, when the half-time scores were put up, the poor fella who did that job was given some stick by the crowd as he walked back to get some more numbers, the score was 6-1, so we nearly drew the second half!!

I agree in regards to Brian Clough, but you missed the biggest asset Clough had, and that was Peter Taylor.

Those two together were up there with the best; without Taylor, Clough was half the manager he became.

I suppose you could throw Colin Harvey in the mix, for Kendall's success as Everton manager as well.

It goes without saying that Colin Harvey was instrumental in Kendall's success. I probably didn't even notice at the time as I was too busy looking at what happened on the pitch. I didn't study football too much then, I just watched us win seemingly every week. And expected it once it kicked in and we got through that dark winter of 1983 and the "Kendall Must Go" leaflets.

Whether there was an element of timing, fortune, luck or simple alignment of the planets? I guess all of those things played a part, but history will always show it was the key appointment of a top-quality coach that kicked us on to a period of success that will live with me forever.

He never quite cut it as manager and he seemed more comfortable and in his element as a coach. In hindsight, and given my view that it was after our last league title that the club rested on its laurels and started on the downward spiral of poor management, there is an element of feeling he wasn't given the tools or support to succeed as a manager? It is undoubtedly a factor (not the full reason) why that partnership couldn't replicate it again.

But yes, Kendall and Harvey first time around was a dream management team. A shame that events, both in English football and at the club, led to the break-up. Who knows what could have been?

Colin Harvey is probably the greatest Evertonian of us all. But in my view, a hell of a coach, which is where he was best placed. Hindsight (again), would he have faired better under the DoF model had it existed then?

I'm not going to look this up, so pub quiz trivia question. Has any other club had a pairing of manager and assistant that won the title together as players and then later as the coaching staff?