On this day in 1995 an Everton side threatened by relegation pulled off a shock result against high-flying Mancunian visitors to Goodison Park with the result proving to be a crucial turning point to galvanise the Blues’ season.
An omen for this weekend as Pep Guardiola’s side head to the ‘Grand Old Lady’?
Frank Lampard, who now employs Duncan Ferguson, the match-winner from 27 years ago as his assistant manager, must surely be hoping so.
Back then, Everton went into the fixture even closer to the drop zone – a single point rather than the still uncomfortable two point ‘cushion’ they currently occupy – but their morale-boosting victory against the reigning Premier League champions not only boosted them in their fight against relegation but ultimately helped give them the belief to achieve Wembley glory against the same opponents in the FA Cup final three months later.
Manager Alex Ferguson would dominate English football with Manchester United for much of his namesake and compatriot Duncan’s two spells at Goodison Park but if there was one thing Everton’s tartan talisman loved to do it was giving the biggest teams in the land a bloody nose.
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Initially brought to the club on a three-month loan to escape the Glasgow goldfish bowl as he awaited a police charge for headbutting Raith Rovers’ Jock McStay (an on field offence he’d later be jailed for), Ferguson seemed to have little idea of the football romance that lay ahead for him on Merseyside when he first arrived.
Asked in a Bournemouth hotel bar ahead of a League Cup tie at Portsmouth by the ECHO’s David Prentice if he’d be staying long-term, he replied: “I wouldnae thought so.”
However, something changed very dramatically in the months ahead for both Ferguson and Everton.
Under Mike Walker, the manager who initially brought him to the club, the Blues played pretty but ineffectual football but the 6ft 4in target man would thrive when new boss Royle, a former centre-forward at the club himself, started playing to his strengths.
Adored by the Gwladys Street, the centre-forward would often rise to the occasion in the big games.
After Ferguson had stunned Manchester United, the headline in the ECHO asked: “Is this the new Dixie Dean?” adding that Blues fans were “smitten by an outbreak of Fergie fever.”
Prentice reported: “Two thoughts will be mulling through Evertonian heads this weekend – one stimulating, one appalling.
“Firstly, could Duncan Ferguson really become as revered a centre-forward as Dixie Dean?
“And more worryingly, will other strikers be tempted into copycat imitations of the Scot’s (shirtless) goal celebrations?
“The thought of Micky Quinn or Peter Beardsley performing the dance of the seven veils, half-naked around a Goodison corner flag is a bone chilling one.
“So too was the prospect of relegation three months ago.
“That is receding all the time now, although still a long way from being completely banished – and one of the leading lights in that renaissance has been Ferguson.
“Comparisons with Dean are inappropriate, if not irrelevant, but it was easy to see just what manager Joe Royle meant when he said after the defeat of Manchester United that Ferguson could become ‘the biggest thing here since Dixie Dean. He’s that popular.’
“The big Scot scores regularly at home – especially in the big matches.
“The enthusiasm which manifests itself in outrageous goal celebrations is almost Andy Gray-like and lapped up by the fans.”
Kick-off was delayed by 20 minutes after travelling United fans were delayed by congestion on the M62 but pumped up for challenge, Everton’s number 9 was quickly moving up the gears and causing trouble for his opposing centre-backs from the start.
Prentice wrote: “Ferguson easily won his first two aerial challenges against Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister (afterwards in the tunnel, the latter would acknowledge a simple but sincere: ‘Well played, big man.’”
The Blues had earned a fearsome reputation under Royle for the danger posed from inswinging corner-kicks from Andy Hinchcliffe and sure enough it was from such a set piece that they’d net the only goal of the game on 58 minutes.
Prentice proclaimed: “Hinchcliffe’s excellent corner was missed in the air by Peter Schmeichel and Ferguson buried a header at the far post before tearing his shirt off and charging towards the home fans to celebrate.”
The abiding memory of Everton’s 1994/95 season of course was their victory over United by the same scoreline some 85 days later in the FA Cup final but the trip to Wembley would have seemed futile if the Blues had not secured their Premier League status.
Similar sentiments will be on Lampard’s mind now as he prepares his side to face City.
