Two Tribes_Liverpool, Everton and a City on the Brink

by Tony Evans

  Leicester were never going to be able to hang on to such a splendid talent and in the summer of 1985 Lineker was in demand from England’s leading clubs. Liverpool considered a bid but they still had Rush. The Welshman had been the subject of a remarkable £4 million offer from Napoli in the summer of 1984 and had been unsettled in the subsequent season, scoring only 14 times. Dalglish was betting on his strike partner’s return to form, though. Manchester United and Everton were much likelier destinations for Lineker.

  ‘I tried to sign him for United,’ Ron Atkinson said. ‘We had a deal lined up with Leicester for £600,000. The board said yes but I’d have to sell one of my strikers to raise the money.’ The United manager could not shift any of his players quickly enough to get the cash together. ‘Howard sold Andy Gray to Aston Villa and got in first,’ he said ruefully.

  Howard Kendall was indeed quicker on the uptake. He set in motion a deal to send Gray back to the Midlands while negotiating with Leicester.

  It was a bold move and not a popular one. Gray had been one of the players instrumental in turning around Everton’s fortunes. His arrival at Goodison was the catalyst for the team’s revival. It would not be a stretch to say that the 30-year-old had saved Kendall’s job. The manager, however, had no sentiment when it came to improving the side.

  Gray was expecting to stay on Merseyside. He was moving into a new house in Formby when, on a Sunday morning, Kendall realized that he had secured Lineker for Everton. He went round to his striker’s new property and saw that a fitter was installing a cooker in Gray’s kitchen. Not quite sure how to tell a man who had changed the course of the club’s history he was surplus to requirements, Kendall got straight to the point. The manager gestured towards the workman and said, ‘Tell him to stop.’ Gray got the message immediately. He was on his way out of both house and club.

  Kendall had added the first division’s best up-and-coming goalscorer to his battle-hardened title winners. It made an already powerful team more formidable. The price, set by a tribunal, was cheap: £800,000. The British transfer record was £1.5 million and Leicester might have expected to raise more cash for their prize asset.

  Atkinson was left to ponder what might have been. ‘Lineker would have made the difference for United,’ he said. ‘The one thing I never had was blistering pace in the side, someone who could run in behind defences. If we’d have got Gary, who knows …’

  As United’s season continued to fall apart, Lineker’s was going from strength to strength.

  Everton were England’s best side. No team relished playing the Blues.

  Kendall had put together a squad that balanced skill, physical power and mental toughness perfectly. They came very close to winning a treble in 1985. They had already sealed the Cup-Winners’ Cup and the first division championship when they were beaten 1–0 in the FA Cup final by Manchester United, the winning goal coming after 110 minutes of an attritional match at Wembley.

  Their ambition was to bring the European Cup back to Goodison. Lineker’s recruitment was plotted with this aim in mind. Heysel changed that. Now it was all about domestic dominance. They had the team for it.

  Everton had been known as the Mersey Millionaires in the 1960s but the club had fallen on harder times since. It took Kendall three years to mould a group of players into a team that could challenge their neighbours for honours.

  Money was tight but the board at Goodison were professional. The directors were mostly connected with Littlewoods, the pools and retail business created by the Moores family. The club would give Kendall a budget and target attendances, which covered wages and expenses. Any gate receipts above the agreed mark – and profits from cup runs – would go into the pot to buy players.

  The problem in the early days of Kendall’s tenure was that gates were poor. In the bleak days of 1983 and 1984, they often dipped below 15,000, well beneath the break-even point. ‘Times were hard,’ Peter Reid said. ‘It wasn’t a lack of support. People just couldn’t afford it.’

  When Kendall arrived at Goodison, Bryan Robson was top of his wish-list. There was no possibility that the club could pay the £1.5 million it took to take the midfielder to Old Trafford.

  Money was tight but Kendall had good people around him. His right-hand man was Colin Harvey, his one-time midfield partner and now closest lieutenant. Harvey demanded perfection and was a constant complainer about the standards of training at Bellefield. He kept the players on their toes. ‘In training, Colin was a nightmare,’ Neville Southall said. ‘He wanted to be the best player. He hated losing. It was always a battle in a good sense. It was never nasty. He never let his standards drop, so you wouldn’t let yours slip.’

  ‘With Colin it was good cop, bad cop,’ Sharp said. ‘Howard was more jovial. Colin was the studious type and the taskmaster.’

  While Kendall dealt with bigger issues, his assistant micro-managed individuals. After a game, Harvey would sit and rewatch the match on a VHS machine, note the counter numbers and sit down with players to show them their mistakes or suggest improvements.

  Kendall’s methods were different. ‘He was a players’ manager, very approachable,’ Sharp said. ‘Howard knew what he wanted. He wasn’t the bullying type. He very rarely lost his temper.

  ‘He’d be great mates with you and then drop you without a second thought. You’d be angry and try to kick him in training. He never minded.’

  The Everton manager’s preparation was always thorough. Sharp recalls the build-up to the pivotal Anfield derby early in the title-winning season. The 1–0 victory against the European champions gave the Blues the belief that they could go on and win the league and Kendall’s attention to detail gave his players an edge. ‘Liverpool used adidas Tango balls,’ Sharp said. ‘Everyone else used Mitre. All week we trained with the adidas ball.’

  During the game at Anfield, Sharp was 30 yards from goal when the ball dropped into his path. Normally, he would have taken it under control but he saw his chance. ‘The Tangos were lighter and you knew they’d fly. When the ball sat up for me, I thought, “I’ll have a go here.” It sailed in.’

  That victory made the Everton players feel that the tide had turned on Merseyside. They were a tough and committed group. The team ethos came from Kendall, Sharp believes. ‘Howard said, “You’re mates on the pitch and off it. Act like it. Act like someone picked on one of you in the pub.”’

  Southall was the best goalkeeper in the first division. He was not an athletic netminder – he appeared overweight and would lumber on and off the pitch – but his movements were remarkably quick when a ball was heading goalwards. His unkempt, just-out-of-bed demeanour belied his single-minded work ethic in training. The Welshman was uncoachable in the best sense: he would tell Kendall how he wanted the defence to line up at set-pieces. At first the manager was sceptical, believing that the conversations should have been the other way round, but he was soon won over. It worked. One of Kendall’s great strengths as a manager was that he was open to ideas. ‘Howard listened,’ the goalkeeper said. ‘Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?’

  Southall’s approach to training was unusual but there was something else strange about the man nicknamed ‘the Binman’. He was a teetotaller in a squad of avid drinkers.

  The defence was a mean and effective unit. At right back, Gary Stevens had come through the ranks at Goodison and was schooled in the Everton ethos by Harvey. Because he had started off as a winger and been converted into a defender, Stevens was a potent threat going forward.

  The left back was very different. ‘Psycho’ Pat Van Den Hauwe grew up in south-east London and aspired to be a hard man almost as much as he wanted to be a footballer. His first club was Birmingham City, which was becoming a finishing school for some of the game’s wildest characters. Van Den Hauwe was among the worst.

  Once, on an Everton foreign trip, a flight attendant caused some consternation by claiming one of the players had exposed himself on the plane. No one would admit to the act. Two de
cades on, Van Den Hauwe admitted it to Kendall, who retold the story in his autobiography.

  It seems the defender had noticed an attractive young woman in a row behind him with a vacant place next to her. Van Den Hauwe popped into the toilet, stripped naked and went and occupied the empty seat. The squad stuck together and denied any knowledge of the incident so Psycho got away with it.

  If only the manager had known at the time that Van Den Hauwe had previous. He had been detained by security while waiting for a connecting flight on a Birmingham tour to South America for exposing his penis.

  Sober, he was merely aggressive. Drunk, he was uncontrollable. His entire career was pockmarked with tales of brothels, nightclub brawls, fractious relationships and thuggish associates. Nevertheless, Kendall paid £100,000 to Birmingham to bring a bit more menace to his side. Van Den Hauwe replaced John Bailey, a local boy who was considered one of the manager’s closest allies.

  The centre backs were Derek Mountfield and Kevin Ratcliffe. Mountfield was an underrated, reliable stopper with a knack of scoring goals. In the title-winning year, he got 14, a remarkable tally for a central defender.

  Ratcliffe was the captain, another strong character on the pitch and a natural leader. The Welshman was quick and read games superbly.

  Ratcliffe was not a smooth, technically gifted player but he had plenty to recommend him. He was left-footed, which was always a bonus, and aggressive. As skipper, he kept the dressing room in order. In a squad full of big personalities, the centre back had a knack of imposing control.

  The midfield powered Everton to greatness. Kendall was always looking for versatility, players who could shift around positions. He wanted men who could perform a number of roles. With this in mind, he put together a powerhouse unit.

  Peter Reid was central to Kendall’s plans. The midfielder cost £60,000 from Bolton Wanderers and Everton had to change their bank to buy him because the Midland would not extend their overdraft for the purchase. The TSB did and Evertonians everywhere were grateful.

  Reid had a magnificent passing range, a delicate touch and a terrorizing tackle but initially Kendall thought he’d made a mistake. The man from Huyton was injury-prone and even Harvey wrote him off at one stage.

  There were few players around as clever as Reid. He worked out that his crunching tackles had the potential to hurt himself as badly as his opponents, so he restyled his game. The Scouser became more adept at intercepting balls, at closing down rivals and reading the game. He could still leave the opposition battered and bruised but he became cuter and less obvious in his methods. Sliding challenges and block tackles became a thing of the past as he learnt to protect his fragile knees but playing against Reid was never easy.

  You had to be tough to compete with the Huytonian. His teammates needed a thick skin, too. The Scouser had a devastating repertoire of quips. When things were going wrong, he was an inspiration.

  He hunted in a pair with Paul Bracewell, who came from the Wirral but had cut his teeth at Stoke City and Sunderland. Kendall had been player-coach at Stoke and knew the midfielder had magnificent stamina and a great positional sense.

  On his own, Bracewell was good. In combination with Reid, he was exceptional. They had an instinctive grasp of each other’s play and the positions they needed to take up. Reid called the understanding ‘telepathic’. There were better individuals playing central midfield in the first division but there was no better pairing in world football.

  The wide men were among the division’s best. Trevor Steven formed a tremendous partnership with Stevens on the right and could operate as a winger, swinging in crosses, or tuck in to supplement the central midfield. He was creative but disciplined and weighed in with his share of goals. Liverpool had scouted Steven at Burnley and thought him lightweight and prone to injury. Kendall decided he would perform better at a higher level of the game and brought him to Goodison.

  On the other side, Kevin Sheedy was a revelation. The Irishman started his career at Anfield but Bob Paisley was frustrated by his tendency to pick up knocks. Kendall didn’t fancy him much either. He was talked into the deal by Harvey, who was very impressed by the Liverpool reserve even though his boss thought the midfielder was lazy. After watching a game where Sheedy had idled through the 90 minutes, the Everton manager asked whether the player could put in more effort. The Irishman answered that he would try harder when he was in the first team.

  Sheedy crossed Stanley Park for £100,000, a fee decided by a tribunal. Liverpool felt they had been severely short-changed and despite Kendall’s misgivings Everton got their man on the cheap. He became the creative hub of the team. His left foot had the Goodison crowd drooling and, though he was never quick nor particularly mobile, Sheedy could turn games.

  Up front, Kendall had options to play alongside Lineker. Graeme Sharp was tall and slim and did not look like a bruiser but few attackers have given centre backs such an awkward challenge. The Scot had mastered the art of backing into defenders and drawing fouls. Liverpool’s Alan Hansen, the best central defender of the era, frequently got walked backwards by Sharp and was forced to foul the Evertonian. In aerial contests, the Everton striker would jump early and disrupt his opponent, either winning the ball or earning a free kick. He was a handful. As well as scoring goals, he was useful as an outlet ball with his ability to hold on to possession when his defenders punted the ball upfield.

  Adrian Heath was the shorter option. Inchy was clever, mobile and adept at opening up space for his teammates. The midfielders loved to play with Heath because he cleared out channels around the box for them to run into and shoot.

  Kendall had made him Everton’s record signing when the manager failed to get Robson. He endured a difficult settling-in period but became one of the most important factors in the Goodison revival.

  There were other members of the squad who could contribute effectively. Alan Harper was a reliable defender who could play in midfield if necessary and Neil Pointon was an option at left back if Psycho picked up too many suspensions or missed too many training sessions. Kevin Richardson was unfortunate that the centre of the park was policed so well by Reid and Bracewell.

  Bobby Mimms, Southall’s backup, would have been first choice in many other top-flight sides, even if his lackadaisical attitude to training and laid-back attitude irritated some. The 22-year-old was sent out on loan to Notts County to get some playing time. No one expected him to replace Southall any time soon.

  This was the group Lineker joined. They were tight-knit and, with the exception of Southall, drank heavily together, which Kendall encouraged. Even though they were disappointed when Andy Gray left they recognized the statement the club were making when they signed English football’s hottest property. Everton were no longer second best, second choice on Merseyside or anywhere else. They were the champions and their swagger showed it. ‘Everyone trusted each other,’ Southall said. ‘Everyone knew what they had to do. If you didn’t, you got told very quickly. The standards were high. If yours slipped, people would let you know about it.’

  Their start had been less impressive than expected but there was no sense of panic in the dressing room. Kendall’s players had the resilience to put a slow opening to the season behind them.

  Howard Kendall had big appetites. He liked to socialize and hold court. In a first division where drinking credentials were almost as important as footballing ones, Kendall was top class.

  He had been one of the best players in Everton’s history, a Gwladys Street hero. He was a key component of the 1970 title-winning side and part of the club’s fabled ‘Holy Trinity’ midfield along with Alan Ball, the England World Cup winner, and Harvey.

  His drinking habits were old school. Neville Southall was stunned when the first question his new manager asked him after the goalkeeper signed for Everton was what he wanted to drink.

  ‘We got on famously,’ Ron Atkinson said. ‘There was great camaraderie between managers. You’d spend 90 minutes cursing each other
and then go for a drink together.’

  Atkinson recalls one particular night out with Kendall in the summer of 1985. ‘We’d won the FA Cup, beating them,’ the Manchester United manager recalls, ‘and Everton won the league and the Cup-Winners’ Cup. A mate of both mine and Howard’s was opening a clothes shop near Bury. He asked if we’d go down.’

  So the managers of two of Europe’s biggest clubs made the trip to small-town Lancashire to attend the opening of a boutique. If they were not a big enough attraction, they took some props with them.

  ‘We went and took all the trophies,’ Atkinson said.

  ‘At the end of the night, we were going for a drink and wondered what to do with the cups.’ No plans had been made to transport the precious prizes home, so the two managers improvised. ‘A young Man United fan we knew was there and he said he’d take them home and keep them safe,’ Atkinson said. ‘So we said OK.’ The welfare of the trophies was placed in the hands of a supporter while the managers headed off to get themselves a drink. ‘He put them in the back of a Hillman Avenger.’ Atkinson chuckles at the memory of the humble mode of transport. ‘Some of Europe’s most prestigious silverware was lying in the back of an Avenger. Then we went and had a few. A great night.’

  You needed a strong liver to share a session with Kendall but he did not let alcohol get in the way of management. He was ruthless.

  ‘He was an amazing man, an amazing player, an amazing manager,’ Derek Hatton, a long-time friend and admirer, said. ‘He was at the peak of his powers in the mid 1980s.’

  Kendall knew how to hold both his drink and a team together. He was always looking to improve the side and sometimes even his closest friends knew that he was unrelenting in his pursuit of success.