Having swapped Merseyside for France, where he bought a 33-acre carp fishery on the outskirts of Reims after hanging up his boots, these days a 41-year-old Tony Hibbert plays football for fun with amateurs ES Louzy. However, a decade ago, the Everton stalwart enjoyed a memorable night against Greek club AEK Athens at Goodison Park as despite failing to net in 328 competitive games for the club, he scored in his testimonial.
“Hibbo scores – we riot!”
That was the mantra among Evertonians. They said it to each other, they had it printed on t-shirts and banners and when he finally did, they were good to their word, albeit in an understandably jubilant rather than angry way.
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Home-grown hero Tony Hibbert was one of their own. A lifelong Blue, living the dream and playing for his home city club.
He was also a throwback to the days when full-backs defended first and foremost and weren’t overly concerned with what they did in the final third of the pitch. England 1966 World Cup winner Ray Wilson never scored for Everton in 154 appearances but as a full-back he was considered the doyen in his field and was once picked in Saint and Greavsie’s all-time World XI alongside the likes of Alfredo Di Stefano, Diego Maradona, Johan Cruyff, Pele and Ferenc Puskas.
Delving even further into history, Warney Cresswell, generally considered the Blues best player in his position before the Second World War and dubbed ‘The Prince of full-backs’ netted just once in 308 games for the club. While Hibbert couldn’t claim to have operated at quite the same kind of levels as those two, he was the last of his kind in many ways.
Football was changing, with the evolution of full-back attacking player one of the biggest developments in the early decades of the 21st century and Hibbert’s successor in the Everton side would be the marauding Irish international Seamus Coleman has gone on to net 27 goals for the club, including seven in the 2013/14 season alone. Hibbert’s 328 games were the most appearances from an Everton outfield player without finding the net but curiously he’d played further forward as a junior and was still primarily a midfielder when he was part of the Blues’ 1998 FA Youth Cup-winning squad.
After over a decade of loyal service, Hibbert, who usually shunned the limelight, rarely doing interviews and feeling more at home enjoying the solitude of angling, was awarded a Goodison Park testimonial. Would this be his chance to finally shine?
Before the match against AEK Athens, Hibbert dismissed suggestions he’d be resorting to a cheap way of finally breaking his duck. He said: “I don’t know why everyone is saying I should take a penalty. It’s an easy way of scoring, isn’t it? If I’m going to do it, I want it to be a 30-yarder!”
When his big moment came along, he wasn’t far off. Hibbert’s long-awaited blockbuster was so significant it even put his Goodison debutant team-mate Steven Naismith’s hat-trick in the shade.
The Scot, signed on a free transfer after his contract at Rangers was deemed void due to their financial collapse that forced them to reform, netted just 30 seconds into his home debut, lobbing the goalkeeper, and despite Taxiarchis Fountas volleying the Greeks level soon after, two more Naismith goals before the break, a header and a close range effort from a rebound put the hosts 3-1 up. Hibbert’s moment of destiny arrived in the 53rd minute.
The ECHO’s Greg O’Keeffe wrote: “In the end, nobody can say they weren’t warned. Tony Hibbert scored for Everton and Goodison rioted. Never mind Jessica Ennis or Usain Bolt. Take no notice of people who boast of being there when Mo Farah won Olympic gold.
“The sporting highlight of the summer arrived last night – and 17,508 Evertonians witnessed Tony Hibbert score for the first time in 309 games spanning 10 years of his loyal Toffees career. There was a rumble of expectation around when the right-back strolled purposefully across the field to take a 20-yard free kick.
“The man of the moment had already unleashed a fierce effort over the bar in the first half and maybe, just maybe, this would be that fabled time. Perhaps there were many who didn’t expect what happened next too.
“But sure enough Steven Pienaar teed it up and the defender rifled the ball through the wall and past Dimitris Konstantopoulous in the Gwladys Street goal. It would have been churlish to save it, not that the AEK Athens goalkeeper had a chance.
“‘Tony Hibbert will score when he wants,’ sang the jubilant supporters as almost 1,000 fans poured onto the pitch to enjoy their good-natured and long predicted riot.” Meanwhile, manager David Moyes quipped: “It was a genuine goal. I’ve been putting the wrong guy on the free-kicks for too long!”
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