Everton legend Paul Bracewell celebrates his 60th birthday today but Peter Reid, his partner in the Blues engine room reckons that a player who he believes operated at the same level as the likes of the more-celebrated Bryan Robson, Glenn Hoddle and Ray Wilkins doesn’t get the credit he deserves beyond the confines of Goodison Park. Signed from Sunderland for £250,000 in May 1984, Bracewell soon established himself at the heartbeat of Everton’s most-successful side and within 12 months, he had won both the League Championship and European Cup-Winners’ Cup.
Three England caps followed in 1985 and Bracewell looked like he might force his way into Bobby Robson’s plans for the World Cup finals the following summer. However, while the Everton quartet of Gary Lineker, Trevor Steven, Gary Stevens and Reid all boarded the plane to Mexico, Bracewell, still only 23, had been seen out the season in agony since limping off at St James’ Park on New Year’s Day.
After X-rays proved inconclusive, Bracewell soldiered on, playing in 38 First Division matches that term but his bravery came at great cost. Eventually, the problem was traced to a piece of loose bone but after playing in the 3-1 defeat to Liverpool in the 1986 FA Cup final, Bracewell wouldn’t pull on the royal blue jersey again for more than 18 months.
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Despite making just two starts in two years, Bracewell finally re-established himself as a regular in the Everton midfield in the second half of the 1988/89 season but with Colin Harvey now reshaping the side, he went back to Sunderland after more Wembley heartbreak when the Blues were beaten 3-2 by their neighbours in the 1989 FA Cup final (having also lost 1-0 to Manchester United in 1985, the Heswall-born player who was in the Sunderland team defeated 2-0 by the Reds in 1992, holds the unwanted distinction of most appearances in the showcase match without winning).
Reid though is in no doubt over his fellow Merseysider’s class and told the ECHO: “When Howard Kendall first bought Paul after we won the FA Cup, I thought I might have been going out because Kevin Richardson was a really good player and we had Alan Harper but as soon as we played together, and this might sound ridiculous, it was like a telepathic understanding. I knew when he went and he knew when I was going to get a second ball and when I was on the ball, he was always available.
“I think he’d say the same if you asked him the same thing. We got on well off the pitch too even though he’s a miserable sod and he smiles about once a year, I used to get into him and he used to laugh and I think that helped us as well.
“We ended up being two crocks because I failed my medical but I think we were intelligent midfield players and before he did his ankle, he was sensational, a very skilful player. Don’t forget there were some great midfield players back then like Bryan Robson, Glenn Hoddle and Ray Wilkins and Brace was up there with them all, without a doubt.
“That Everton team we had then had great balance. Trevor Steven added an extra element in the wide area of midfield and there was Kevin Sheedy on the other side.
“Sheeds always said that he used to make forward runs because he knew either Brace or myself would win the second ball or know where it was going to bounce so that gave him the licence to go in there so Brace and I had that. Everyone talks about his ball against Sunderland but I was the one who nodded it down in the middle of the park and he’s just hit this volley and he meant it, anyone who knows him realises that, and Trev has got a touch because he knew he was going to find him. Sunderland’s Nick Pickering, who was an England international, didn’t read the pass but that was the essence of Brace and myself being together and Trevor Steven on the move.”
When describing his merits in his book Everton Player by Player , Ivan Ponting wrote: “When paeans of praise are sung to Everton’s most revered combination of modern times – the men who brought League, European and, so very nearly, FA Cup glory to Goodison in 1984/85 – the name of Paul Bracewell tends to languish in the shadows, perhaps mentioned only as an afterthought. Yet that is a gross injustice to the midfielder whose career was moving into overdrive just when a mysterious injury knocked it out of gear.”
Reid agrees wholeheartedly and said: “I think if you ask Evertonians, they will say that Paul Bracewell was up there as a top player even if the national media didn’t give him the accolades that he deserved. In 1985 I was fortunate enough to be named PFA Player of the Year and Neville Southall won the FWA Footballer of the Year but Brace was up there and if you ask anyone else in that side from the time, they’ll say to a man ‘what a player.’
“Even after those horrific injury problems, when I first got the Sunderland job permanently, he was my first signing from Newcastle United. Even then, when I was into my managerial career, he was the one I went for because I knew what I was going to get. Obviously because of the ankle injury, he wasn’t mobile but in terms of being a professional, handling the football and knowing the game, Paul Bracewell was my man.”
But whereas as Everton’s trophy-winning sides of the past have included plenty of big personalities, Reid is left lamenting the huge sums squandered in the transfer market by Farhad Moshiri with seven managers since 2016 and the Blues left clinging on to their top flight status last season as they narrowly avoided a first relegation in 71 years with the joint lowest equivalent points total in the club’s history and he acknowledges they need to change the type of player they’re bringing in to improve an under-achieving squad.
Reid said: “It was imperative that we stayed up but the recruitment over the past six years has been average for the money we’ve spent. We’ve got to get the recruitment right and get players in there who have got character.
“When the likes of myself and Andy Gray were signed, people said we were crocks but we had character. When we won the FA Cup and had been on a great run, Howard went and signed Paul Bracewell and we were like ‘wow, he’s got another midfielder here, what’s going on?’
“That’s where Everton have got to get though. Getting players when we’re in a position of strength but you’ve got to start somewhere.
“The recruitment has got to be spot-on in identifying players who can handle the football club but most importantly are mobile and have got the desire to win football matches. You’ve got to get into the character of players.
“We all make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes as a manager with signings but I’d like to think I got more right than I got wrong and getting Paul Bracewell as my first signing through knowing his character was one that I got right.
“ James Tarkowski is a good buy, I like what I’ve seen of him, but we need that strength throughout the team and with Richarlison gone, he’s got to go and get one who can stretch teams. I think Anthony Gordon has been a massive bonus and that’s what you need, kids coming through as well as recruitment, but I’m sure that’s one thing that Frank Lampard will be looking to do.”
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