Age is no barrier to Richard Gough as he prepares to play in his first Merseyside derby with Everton.
An Interview by Louise Taylor of the Sunday Times, 26 September 1999.  

 RICHARD GOUGH

 ON A MERSEY MISSION

"I wouldn't be surprised if Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler are laughing at the prospect of somebody as old as me chasing them," he mused. "I saw Robbie at our Worthington Cup match against Oxford [Everton lost, Gough was rested] and he said he had an ankle problem. I told him, 'I hope you're fit for Monday', and meant it. Fowler's the best finisher in the country and I want the challenge of facing him."

Gough's intimidating and stabilising presence is a principal reason why Everton, who recently sold £15M-worth of players while Liverpool spent £25M, have begun the season unexpectedly brightly.

"When you're 37, people are waiting for you to fall flat on your face," he said with evident relish. It was Thursday lunchtime and, still in shorts from the morning session at Bellefield, Everton's training ground, Gough leant back in his chair and stretched out two of the longest, leanest, strongest legs in football. He insists he "loves good wine and good food", but many twenty-something internationals would be chastened to learn just how little body fat and how much muscle a man dubbed The Phenomenon boasts. "The press have been surprised how well I've done. When I arrived I got the feeling they were sceptical, but anybody who knew me would have told them I wouldn't embarrass myself.

"It's been fortunate that I've been playing consistently well but when I have a bad game, which will happen, I know people will say it's because of age. I had the odd bad game at 24 though."

By 34, retirement beckoned. "You say you're going to retire at the highest level so people can remember you as a really good player," Gough smiled. "And I left Glasgow Rangers for America after nine championships when I'd just turned 35."

While waiting for a coaching job in San José, California, to begin in June this year, Gough - who had already answered one SOS from Glasgow, temporarily returning to turn out 30 more times for Rangers, and was becoming bored with interim US playing assignments – studied the English Premiership table, noted Nottingham Forest were bottom and dialled the City Ground.

Ron Atkinson took the call and the bait and, despite Forest's subsequent relegation, Gough promptly "attracted three or four Premiership offers". Increasingly aware that he was not only an adrenalin junkie but somebody who "badly needed the dressing-room crack", he told his wife Fiona, by now domiciled in San José with their two infant sons, that retirement was postponed.

"She was disappointed," admitted a man born in Sweden, raised in South Africa and imbued with the restlessness common to many long-time expatriates. "But she's intelligent and told me to get Britain out of my system." Gough's family have remained in California.

Happily, the pecuniary compensations at Everton are handsome. Having been offered a reputed £10,000 a week by Walter Smith, manager at Goodison Park and his former Ibrox mentor, the former Tottenham Hotspur and Rangers captain said: "I thought, 'I'm not going to make that type of money again in my life'; I didn't want to regret not taking this chance.

"And I like Liverpool. It's a bit like Glasgow; it's another goldfish bowl except the media spotlight is probably even more concentrated. There's a lot of strong opinion, a lot of people putting their oar in, but that's good." Gough regards criticism as an occupational hazard, an inevitability roughly on a par with the gaping head wound he received as Everton held Manchester United to a Premiership draw in August.

Remarkably, the man who played 61 times for Scotland has had only one full season among England's elite. At least it was a memorable one, Gough being part of David Pleat's 1986-87 Tottenham ensemble which finished third in the League while reaching the FA Cup final and League Cup semi-final: "We had Hoddle, Waddle, Ardiles and Clive Allen, a fantastic team. I still talk to David Pleat and he tried to help sign me for Spurs from Forest in March. David tells me that, by staying in Scotland, I never really fulfilled my true potential, but I say that I had times at Rangers that will stay with me for ever."

The Rangers side he played in would, he says, "easily finish in the Premiership's top three". A top-10 place represents Everton's present target but achieving it will not be easy. "If we pick up injuries we ain't got much strength in depth," Gough explained. "That's why we played a skeleton team against Oxford in the Worthington Cup. The manager was fearful of seeing key players injured.

"A lot of people in Scotland said Walter just spent a lot of money but he's improving players here. The training is different from Rangers, he does more tactical work; at Ibrox, the players didn't need so much coaching." Yet Everton are not exactly devoid of ability.

"Nick Barmby is a fantastic talent," enthused Gough. "He's got a lot of confidence now but he needs it, because it's a lot easier to do my job and rip the picture up than it is to paint it. I've spent my career ripping the picture up. If people see me kicking the ball into row Z they say well done, brilliant defending, but it's a lot harder to be a creator like Nick."

Similarly, many people say it is far tougher for a late thirty-something to be playing in an Everton back four as opposed to a three, but the man who has successfully shackled the likes of Paolo Rossi, Marco Van Basten and Jürgen Klinsmann demurs: "I prefer a flat back four. The last few years at Rangers we used a three, but that was because we had Gascoigne and Laudrup. I've never had to do as much defending as with those two around. In a three you do less running, but I've always been a decent athlete.

He added: "At the end in Scotland, some writers said I was only motivating myself for big games, and maybe I sometimes went through the motions, but self-motivation is coming pretty easy now. There's a new challenge every match; one week it's Cole and Yorke, another it's Di Canio and Wanchope. On Monday, it's the pair who can be England's front two for years.

"I've only played one competitive match at Anfield. It was in autumn 1986 and Tottenham won 1-0, Clive Allen scored." If Everton repeat the feat tomorrow, Gough will go a long way towards fulfilling his wish that "when I leave, I want people here to remember me with affection. Hopefully, when I go in May they'll say, 'He did a good job'."

Ironically those critics who initially proved so sceptical are urging Smith to sign Gough up for a second year. "No, I'm going back to America in May, well at least I'm 99% certain I am," he grinned.

"You'll have to ask me in April."