Leicester City 2 - 2 Everton

4 March 1995

Scorers

Leicester: Draper 60, Roberts 82

Everton: Limpar 6, Samways 45

Yellow cards

Leicester: Grayson, Galloway

Everton: Southall, Limpar, Unsworth, Parkinson

Sent off:

Everton: Samways (49), Ferguson (61)

Lineups

Leicester: Poole, Grayson, Lewis, Hill (Lawrence 69), Willis, Parker, Galloway, Draper, Roberts, Robins, Lowe

Everton: Southall 8, Hinchcliffe 7, Barrett 8, Watson 9, Samways 8, Ferguson 8, Horne 7, Limpar 8 (60. Stuart 7), Parkinson 8, Barlow 7 (69. Jackson 9), Unsworth 8

Subs not used: Gee, Ward (Leicester), Reeves (Everton)

Officiating

Referee: P A Durkin (Portland, Dorset)

Linesmen:

Attendance: 20,447

Overview

Sly Foxes outsmart Everton.

Trip report

Leicester is the half-way point of the M1. this makes it easy to find and not too far to travel. The touble is that it sprawls over an area the size of a city with 2-3 times its population. Also the road system as a spaghetti nightmare with no signs to either the football or rugby grounds, and the city centre traffic is very heavy.

Additionally, The City Stadium, Filbert Street is hidden away in a quiet suburb, making the task of finding the ground one of the worst nightmares in the country. The best advice I got was that like Bradford City, the ground is not far from the City Centre. Unfortunately 'not far' means 20 minutes walk, if you count the station as the centre.

The station at least is easy to find, and I recommend the 'Royal Mail' pub 2 streets west of it, next to the (free!) station car park. %-}

On the cold & windy walk to the ground, I heard crowd noise. A game was definitely on! A stared hard at my watch which insisted it was only 2.45. Fortunately the noise was the famous Leicester Rugby Union ground (only 0.5 miles from the footy ground, and easier to spot!) - they were beating Wasps, and had more fans than City.

Match report

It's quite a while since I used the footy cliche' "game of two halves", but this one calls for it, albeit under circumstances I've never seen before in football.

The first half on a sunny but cold Leicester afternoon was football which was 'nice'. Competitive, with Everton the better team deserving a half time lead of at least one goal, and everything poised for an equally entertaining second half. It must however have had the neutral press reporters twiddling their pencils in boredom.

Keeping the same formation as against United, with the same starting team except Samways for Ebbrell, Everton got off to a slowish start, but easily repulsed the attacks of the feeble foxes. It was a wonderful surprise then when despite not having had a decent run down either wing, Everton scored. Limpar found himself in acres of space in central midfield and had all day to pick a spot and hit the net from 30 yards. Unusually for that distance, this was no long range blast. Anders was so happy he ran to the packed Everton section to his left and gave some of them high fives. The picture of smiling happy teammates only 10 feet away from me will stay with me a long time.

Both teams mounted a half dozen attacks each after that, but none looked dangerous or called for a good save. Half time approached. I went in search of coffee. From the queue, the view was obscured by a series of panals. As the queue shuffled, one's view changed, but used the crowd noise to tell if things were worth watching.

I'd just got far enough to see City's goal when a steward slid a sliding door across the opening, blocking our ^panals view! Listening carefully to the They weren't celebrating long, but our first 2-goal away lead of the season made the fact that the queue stopped dead for most of half time due to lack of hot water (again! this happened at Leeds!) seem like a forgivable blemish on a Royal Blue day. (TV showed a superb passing buildup to the goal, Limpar feeding Hinchy's storming overlap).

As I queued, I remember thinking that I might report that Leicester had not shown the unsavoury aggression that had coloured their promotion season last year. I got served as the 2nd half kicked off, but also missed the Sending Off, so here is the insert, based on Match of the Day slow-motions. Only about 3 minutes in, everyone is turning to head to midfield as Neville has the ball, when Galloway, a Celtic player on loan to City, attacks Samways with a two-fisted punch to the neck about 4 feet behind the retreating referee's back. Vinny reacts by kicking the Celt up in the air as he passes, but by now in sight of the ref. The linesman also missed the assault, so Vinny has to go & Galloway gets off free.

Ten-man Everton held out for about 10 minutes but looked to be holding the balance easily enough to see out the win, but then they had a bit of luck - a soft low cross from the right found their only threat Draper in a forest of white shirts and he pushed it between more white shirts to score. The change was dramatic. This half Leicester had a clear policy - to niggle & fight and argue and sledge our players and try & provoke reactions.

Card sstarted flying all over the place, and Galloway was flapping his mouth at everyone, especially Ferguson. The mood was therefore already ugly when Ferguson was sent off. An innocuous ball from midfield to Duncan on the right wing saw two players rise to head. The blue one dropped as if poleaxed, and the white one got sent off. About fifteen slow-mo replays prove what we already knew so convincingly that even Mr Rednose Handball Hansen agreed - the Red Card was a travesty. W

hen the ball was played to Duncan he was alone, and the 'victim' Willis was 10+ yards deeper. Willis rushed in and reached to challenge as DF executed a perfect turn-around jumping header, but Willis ran into Duncan's raised arm. Ferguson had no idea Willis was there, and had no idea where he was approaching from, having not laid eyes on him until he was on the deck, feigning death. For Ferguson to have deliberately elbowed him was impossible - a fact which everyone except referee Durkin saw. Obviously he's one of these sponges who believes the BS stories about reputations instead of assessing things on his own. The givaway was that the standful of Leicester fans behind the incident did not even appeal for a foul until their man was down. Willis of course got up and carried on without a mark on him.

Even as Ferguson left the field, Galloway had not finished, and tried to get Duncan to have a go at him. Now the numbers were looking hopeless. No Ferguson, No Vinny. Anders had been subbed off for Stuart. No attack, a hole in midfield and only Jackson on the bench. JR opted for the Alamo tactic, took off Barlow and put Jackson in pushing Barrett into Right midfield.

Everton could do nothing. They hadn't enough men to risk going forward and just booted it upfield. Nev was booked for timewasting. Under seige with no means to counter, City had time to mount as many as 20 attacks. The game was over, ruined by cynical tactics and a pet referee. The only question was how many goals City's seige of Neville's goal could get them. Nine-Man Everton held out for another ten minutes, during which Nev pulled out two top-drawer saves, but at last one of the endless attacks was scrambled in for a messy equaliser.

Left winger Lowe who had supplied the cross should be getting official complaints this week for running the whole length of the Everton section pointing and laughing at us. It was inevitable because he had mysteriously been the loudest target for boos, though it was Willis not him who'd got Duncan dismissed. Perhaps it was Lowe who dived to try and get another card earlier.

This still doesn't excuse the taunt, and why he was not pelted in missiles can only be a miracle. Five minutes of normal time, plus an unsurprisingly generous EIGHT minute injury time, City failed to get a winner. Everton's huge contingent gave huge applause to their 9 heroic defenders and huge abuse to the retreating officials and City cynics.

The final score in cards was Leicester 2 (including Galloway, who now has had 4 yellows in 6 games.. what a surprise!) Everton 6 (incl. 2 red). I think all of these were second half. The premier league will be hugely better off now that that team is going down. Not only are they garbage - they're ungracious garbage. What a disgrace to a club famous for producing great and HONEST players.

I certainly blame Galloway for creating the situation which then turned ugly. Whether he was under orders, or whether he hates Rangers, or whether he's just a poisinous little nark, Evertonians will remember that name if the two points he scuttled for us become important. It was unfortunate the ref fell for it and the linesmen didn't help, but there were no mistakes that could not be put down to pressure.

Team Performance = 7

Their football was excellent but too many of this team let themselves be rattled by the destructive tactics. Joe's got to sort this out because inferior teams will do anything to upset your rhythm, and refs are suckers for reputations.

Player by player

Southall

Two blinders, one horrific mistake. VERY busy.

Barrett

Much better most of the game.

Jackson

Saved a point with stonewall defending.

Hinchcliffe

Good the few time he got forward. Corners weak again!

Watson

A great man to have in a crisis.

Unsworth

Much better in the air today.

Parkinson

An excellent game - coming on in bounds.

Horne

Not as dominating as he can be.

Samways

Dominated midfield. Galloway picked a vital target.

Limpar

Really settling in now that things are going his way.

Barlow

Speed caused panic. If the coaches can develop this role he can still become a great player.

Ferguson

Great performance but got no goalthreatening service.

Stuart

Main job was to take the ball upfield and use up time. Contributions

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