The moment football history snubbed Everton, the struggles of Billy Bingham and Gordon Lee to steer the club back on top of England’s pile, and Howard Kendall’s 1980s glories are captured in a book reviewed by Eric Brown…
BY ERIC BROWN
It is the most infamous moment in Everton history, the moment their fans believe set the club back years and allowed the Liverpool bandwagon to roll on unchecked.
At centre stage in this dramatic incident were a heroic Irishman and a despised Welshman whose catastrophic decision, Everton fans still insist, robbed their club of glory.
Everton looked poised to overshadow their city rivals at last towards the end of the 1970s when they seemed to have triumphed in a tense and enthralling FA Cup semi-final Merseyside derby.
On 23 April 1977, the teams traded blows and were locked at 2-2 as time began to run out at Maine Road when substitute Bryan Hamilton scrambled a Ronnie Goodlass cross helped on by Duncan McKenzie into the Liverpool net.
Cue delirious Everton celebrations cut short when the players realised referee Clive Thomas was the only person on the pitch convinced an offence had occurred.
Liverpool defenders had already begun an inquest when Thomas unaccountably ruled out the goal.
The Treorchy whistler originally explained he’d given offside, though on different occasions he named McKenzie or Hamilton the culprit.
Subsequent study of video shows this could not be the case, with Liverpool’s Joey Jones standing on the goalline. Emlyn Hughes, covering Goodlass, is also playing Hamilton onside.
Hughes later met Thomas on holiday and claims the referee admitted he “might” have made a mistake.
Thomas later enlarged on the offside theory by saying he was convinced Hamilton had handled the ball anyway.
Many years later, I asked Hamilton about this over a hotel breakfast. “Clive Thomas was guessing,” he maintained. “My body blocked his view and when he saw the ball divert, he guessed I’d handled it.
“But it diverted in off my hip. It wasn’t offside either. He was just guessing.”
Everton, highly fancied to win the FA Cup, lost the replay and faced many more years of playing second fiddle on Merseyside.
It may seem odd writing now in such detail about a long-ago controversy, but the fact that it still rankles on the blue half of Merseyside is emphasised by seven pages being devoted to it in a club history.
Gavin Buckland’s “Boys from the Blue Stuff” not only delves deeply into this incident but meticulously charts club history from the mostly dark period of the 1970s into Howard Kendall’s 1980s glory days.
After Harry Catterick retreated with illness, Everton turned to their former winger Billy Bingham, then workaholic Gordon Lee from Newcastle, to put them back on top of the First Division pile.
Neither were first choices. Why these appointments didn’t work out provides perhaps the most intriguing part of the book.
There were different reasons, the author asserts, but with one common denominator – the failure to bring in a top-class goalkeeper.
Unsuccessful attempts were made by both to sign Peter Shilton. They ended up with the unpredictabilities of error-prone record signing David Lawson, George Wood, Dai Davies and Jim McDonough. Hardly performers to help capture the League crown like dependable Shilton.
Both men missed out on key signings, perhaps in part, the author theorises, because of the shadow of the “other lot” across Stanley Park. Bingham set his sights high, with Johan Cruyff on his wanted list along with Mick Channon, Kenny Dalglish and Stan Bowles. All declined his overtures, but he did sign Bob Latchford, Martin Dobson, Duncan McKenzie and Bruce Rioch.
Lee’s wanted list included Trevor Francis, Ray Wilkins, Peter Withe, Gary Birtles and a young Ian Rush. Instead, he got Gary Megson, Mickey Walsh, Eamonn O’Keefe and Gary Stanley.
Maybe the quality of the managers deterred certain players. Frustrated Everton had twice been rejected by Bobby Robson, who at first accepted the job on a handshake but within 24 hours changed his mind about an unprecedented 10-year contract.
Lee’s slight unworldliness provided a stack of gags for Everton historians. Taking the team into Europe, he disembarked from a plane, looked up at an airport sign and remarked: “We’re here to play Dukla Prague but they’ve brought us to a place called Praha.”
At a press conference, he was asked the nationality of striker Imre Varadi. “He’s Uranian,” said Lee. In a hotel restaurant, he spotted striker Latchford with a fingerbowl alongside him and asked, “What are you drinking there, Bob?”
Bingham and Lee never suggested they would capture the league title, and it was not until a desperate Goodison board turned to Kendall that substantial silverware finally filled Everton’s trophy cabinet.
Gavin Buckland has provided a worthy successor to his previous book “Money Can’t Buy Us Love”, which concentrated on Everton in the 1960s.
The club’s official statistician quotes extensively from legendary journalists like the late Brian Glanville, David Lacey and Patrick Barclay, among many others, especially those writing for the local Liverpool newspapers.
His attention to detail and intimate knowledge of the subject make this a superbly researched, compelling, beautifully written club history.
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