The ECHO’s Chris Beesley concludes his daily series of articles on Everton and the World Cup running throughout the tournament in Qatar.
Alan Ball is one of two truly great footballers to have played for Everton and was a complete one-off reckons his former midfield colleague Colin Harvey. Along with the Blues' most-successful manager Howard Kendall, Ball and Harvey were immortalised in a statue of ‘The Holy Trinity’ – the Blues’ most-celebrated midfield trio – unveiled outside of St Luke’s Church in the shadow of Goodison Park back in 2019.
However, as far as Harvey – who made 388 appearances for his boyhood club, scoring 24 times before serving them as a coach and manager – is concerned, they broke the mould when it came to his old pall Bally. He told the ECHO: “Alan was a complete one-off. I’ve never seen anyone like him since and I don’t think there was anyone like him before.
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“In my mind there were two great players who played for Everton and by that I mean really great. One was Dixie Dean, who I never saw play, but if you look at his goalscoring record, it’s absolutely amazing and then the other one was Alan Ball.
“People say ‘what about Neville Southall?’ Nev was the best goalkeeper in the world but goalkeepers aren’t footballers.
“He was an out-and-out winner. He didn’t play many long balls, it was all give the ball to someone and get the ball back off them and go again.
“Everything was played at 100 miles an hour which is the way I like to play and what I like to see. I can’t stand modern day football, it’s so boring.
“During England’s group game against USA, the passing rate for the two centre-backs was nearly 200 and it was just to one another, the full-backs or back to the goalkeeper. You watched it and thought ‘for goodness sake, play it up so one of the midfield players can do something’ instead of across the back four, I find it very depressing to watch to be honest.”
Everton handed over £112,000 to Blackpool for Ball – a record fee paid to an English club at the time – in the month following his amazing display for England in their 4-2 win over West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final. The timing of the transfer would later be of much amusement to Kendall, who joined the Blues from Blackpool’s neighbours Preston North End the following March to complete the trio.
Harvey said: “It was a bit of a joke from Howard about Harry Cooke. He said: ‘he’s a really good scout, he spotted Alan Ball playing in the World Cup final!”
Just 10 weeks before England secured their only World Cup to date, Harvey had been a Wembley winner himself as he helped Everton to become the first side to recover from a two-goal deficit to lift the FA Cup when they came back to defeat Sheffield Wednesday 3-2. However, on July 30, the date of the World Cup final (along with the first in Uruguay in 1930, the latest that the final has been until this year in Qatar – because the BBC had outside broadcast commitments to cover the tennis at Wimbledon between June 20 and July 2 then the Open Golf Championship at Muirfield between July 6-9), Harvey found himself out in Cheshire.
He said: “My mother was going to Northwich to stay with her sister for a couple of days and I ran her through but I wouldn’t have had time to get back so I watched the game at my auntie’s house. My auntie and uncle had both been to Wembley a few weeks earlier to watch me play in the FA Cup final and we were all cheering for England.”
At just 21, Ball was the youngest member of manager Alf Ramsey’s side but his energetic display on the stamina-sapping Wembley turf when team-mates and opponents alike were out on their feet remains one of the most-remarkable aspects of the game. The man from Farnworth in Lancashire both won and took the corner-kick that led to Martin Peters’ goal while he also supplied the cross for Geoff Hurst’s controversial second in extra time.
Harvey said: “I watched it back a couple of times and while Geoff Hurst of course scored a hat-trick, Alan was still the man of the match in the eyes of many people, he ran himself into the ground. To be the best player on the pitch against the Germans with their efficiency, ruthlessness and defensive organisation but they couldn’t keep up with him.”
While Everton might have indeed ‘spotted’ Ball playing in the World Cup final, they didn’t make their move until over a fortnight later after suffering Merseyside Derby disappointment on a grand stage. Harvey said: “We played Liverpool in the Charity Shield at Goodison when we displayed the FA Cup and they had the League Championship trophy while Ray Wilson ran around the pitch with Roger Hunt, carrying the World Cup. Liverpool only beat us 1-0 but they absolutely murdered us, if it had been 5-0 it would have been about right.
“The following Monday, Harry Catterick went out and signed Alan Ball from Blackpool. We played again a fortnight later in the First Division and the difference was Ball as he scored two goals and we won 3-1, he was absolutely magnificent.
“Howard and I were a bit more defensive and Alan could just go off and do his thing. At that time he was the best in the world for doing it, he was like a bolt of lightning.
“He’s get fouled, he’d put himself on the ball and go again. It was impossible for the opposition to keep up with him.
“The minute he walked into the place, it was just such a lift as he was a World Cup winner. He set the bar so high, we all had to work so hard to try and get to it.
“We never did but it made us all better players because of him. You had to strive to be that much better – I know I did – even though I never got to be anywhere near as good as him.”
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