Everton History

1966 and All That

When the family of Tom Kelly were going through his things following his passing last December, they came across an essay he had written a decade ago recounting his life as an Evertonian, going back five decades. It’s a lovely, evocative piece of writing, worthy of a wider audience.

Introduction by Ben Kelly

My Dad passed away of a heart attack in the back of the car on his way back from the Manchester City game just after Boxing Day. I know he would have enjoyed the game despite sharing everyone’s frustrations with handball decision and the result. Perhaps as “Everton" a game as you could get for your last one. 

He took me to my first game in November 1985, a home draw to Nottingham Forest, a very disappointing result given our ambitions to win the league. It’s been a bumpy ride since then, although we had the highs of the 1995 Old Wembley Cup Final and the 2009 New Wembley Semi-Final together. Incredible memories of which I wish we’d had more.

Being an Everton fan, perhaps by necessity, isn’t all about winning. In a letter he wrote to me during Covid, he said one of the things he most missed was sitting together watching football – “a real dad bonus”. I think this says everything.     

Latterly a season ticket holder in the Top Balcony, he’d been attending games at Goodison Park for over 60 years since being first taken there by his older brother. As excited as he was by the new stadium (we have a stone), his great love was Goodison Park and he dreaded the day we’d leave…

This piece was originally written by my Dad for the fanzine When SKies Are Grey in 2014 prior to the World Cup in Brazil. I’m not sure whether it was ever published. I re-discovered it following his death and wanted to share it as a first-person account of Goodison and of being a football fan in 1966. As another piece of history worth noting, fate also dictated that Franz Beckenbauer died the day I found this. 

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1966 and All That

For its 50th anniversary, I went to see a digitally remastered screening of A Hard Day's Night. Luckily, it was also a rest day for the 2014 World Cup, so the film – while still in black and white (its synaesthetic colour provided by the songs) – offered welcome relief from the uniform gloom of the Everton-bashing TV media. It made me think of when Goodison hosted the World Cup and how, for a 15-year-old college pudding from Scottie Road, the 1966 tournament turned a grey world into vibrant colour. Yellow, Cherry Red and, of course, Blue.

I was Everton daft, besotted by Alex Young. My only ambition was to manage Everton or, failing that, marry the ugly daughter of a board member in the hope of inheriting his shares. My Dad, a lukewarm Red, had abandoned me and my elder brother to our passion and we had not long come back from a first ever visit to London and that triumphant FA Cup Final. Now we had the pleasure of block-booking tickets for all of the Goodison World Cup games. 7s/6d each and in pastel shades. Three eighth-finals (really); one quarter-final; and a semi.

As an 11-year-old, my parents had left me to sit up late and watch the 1962 World Cup Finals from Chile. The games were recorded and flown over to be shown on the BBC with Alan Weeks. The Battle of Santiago, Garrincha and, best of all, Pele. Now he, miraculously, was on Merseyside. Sod the GCEs, I lapped up every written word there was and waited for the party to begin. Football, as well as being in black and white, wasn’t relentlessly on the telly in 1966. There were no foreigners playing in England, so you had never seen these players play, which alone made them legends.

So yeah, I was excited getting the bus to Goodison for the first game. People didn’t wear kit to the match or anywhere but when you played. The majority of fans seemed like the usual Everton crowd, identifiable by the scarf. (I did briefly have an Everton shirt but someone robbed it off our washing line, which is a good trick in a second-floor tenement.) The anti-hooligan banking around the goal ends had been painted blue. It was 7.30 pm in July but I swear the floodlights were on. Goodison was at the time the best stadium in the country outside Wembley, chosen to host a semi-final. Things change.

I saw Pele score a goal. Garrincha’s bandy legs added a second as Brazil, at half-pace, beat Bulgaria. Hungary lost to Portugal in Manchester. After England’s boring 0-0 draw in the opening game, the tournament was on.

The next game was Brazil against Hungary. Pele apart, I had formed an attachment to Hungary. Puskas and the ‘Match of the Century’ in 1953; the crushed rebellion of 1956; the violin playing; and the really cool retro kit. I approached Goodison, however, with the feeling I’d lost my heart to a gallant loser (something I learned to get used to in subsequent years).

Night games at Goodison have a noble history and this game is up there with the best. Pele was missing, having come into the tournament injured. Hungary had Florian Albert, a Number 9 in name only, who floated across the pitch like a thing of beauty, and Janos Farkas, who scored the goal everybody who has ever kicked a ball dreams of (like Cahill’s goal against Holland, only miles better). And my Hungary beat the mighty Brazil, 3-1.

This left Brazil needing to beat Portugal in the final group game at Goodison to stay in. A hobbling Pele was recalled and subjected to a thorough beating by the Portuguese that fit he would have found difficult to cope with. I saw Eusebio and Pele on the same pitch. Our Goodison pitch. But I couldn’t bring myself to like Portugal or even Eusebio. I was an Alex Young man. I preferred the feint to the muscular surge, the chip to the bludgeoning power. That said, Eusebio was a sight to behold. Portugal won but left a bad taste in the mouth.

Portugal’s quarter-final against North Korea was a mad game in the sunshine. The Koreans were of varying stature but all seemed small against the towering Jose Torres (known as O Bom Gigante to the Portuguese) and Eusebio, The Incredible Hulk in a red shirt. The Koreans went 3-0 up but they shouldn’t have made him angry. Eusebio scored four in an eventual 5-3 win and the fans were lucky the net maker was a craftsman.

I should have had an England-Portugal semi-final to look forward to but the host nation pulled a fast one and switched the game to Wembley. Some things don’t change. Instead, I got to watch another mythic figure in the all-black wearing Lev Yashin, goalkeeper for the Soviet Union (conquerors of my treasured Hungarians in the quarter-finals). But, as usual, the Germans won, with a goal from a young Franz Beckenbauer. 

My World Cup had overflown. It didn’t matter that I didn’t even see the final as my cousin married a Scot that day and the family three-line whip was on. My interest in England extended to the fact that Ray Wilson was playing for them. Though I was delighted that Alan Ball signed soon after. I could look forward to some purring football for a couple of years. Not to mention psychedelia; the Isle of Wight festival; and Jimi Hendrix.

The game has changed. Modern World Cups have twice as many teams. Every foul, every spit, every gesture is replayable a thousand times from ten different angles in vibrant HD. There’s shaving foam and multi-coloured boots. But do I long for the monochrome world of 1966 and those carefully preserved technicolour memories? Of Pele and Garrincha? Of Eusebio and Beckenbauer? Of Albert … to Bene … to Farkas … Goal? Nope. As fantastic as 1966 and all that was, I’d always rather watch the Blues at Goodison.

Tom Kelly

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Related: 1966 World Cup Special Podcast

 

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