It was the spectacular goal that swung the pendulum in Everton’s favour during the title race that culminated in their last League Championship, but has Wayne Clarke still not watched it back?
As long-range strikes go, they don’t get much more special than Clarke’s 35-yarder against Arsenal, which he netted on this day in 1987. While Everton are currently battling just to remain in the top flight and avoid what would be the club’s first relegation in 72 years after narrowly avoiding the drop last season with the joint lowest equivalent points total in their history, the mid-1980s were a golden era for the Blues when they were still able to compete for the biggest prizes in the game, even in the face of great adversity.
Blighted by injuries throughout the season, Everton went into March three points adrift of leaders Liverpool but a sequence of seven consecutive victories saw them charge to the summit after the Wolverhampton-born striker’s arrival. Arguably their most impressive result during this spell was a 1-0 win at Highbury on March 28 which gave Howard Kendall’s side the belief they could reclaim the title they’d won two years earlier – especially given that the Reds crashed to a 2-1 home defeat to Wimbledon on the same day.
