Gordon Lee was a fine football man whose Everton legacy deserves new perspective

If he’d have operated in another era then Gordon Lee might now be revered as a successful Everton manager but this fine football man instead found his legacy measured against others on both sides of Stanley Park.

Evertonians are currently trying to digest the traumatic events from Monday night’s debacle at Tottenham Hotspur where they capitulated to a 5-0 defeat.

Now the morning after the night before also brings the sad news that their former boss Lee, 87, passed away yesterday evening.

During his four-and-a-half year tenure in the Goodison Park dugout, the man from Cannock in Staffordshire had one of the least-enviable tasks in football as he tried to revive Everton’s fortunes at a time when neighbours Liverpool – who secured their first European Cup just five months after his arrival – were going from strength to strength.