Losing to local rivals City gave Manchester United fans an insight into what life is like for Evertonians but in truth it was only a glimpse.
While there have been several all-London FA Cup finals and both Aston Villa and Birmingham City have faced near neighbours West Bromwich Albion in the showcase game, until last Saturday’s all-Mancunian affair, Everton’s brace of defeats to Liverpool in 1986 and 1989 are the only other occasions that the trophy has been contested with a provincial city derby match and for the record it should also be remembered that before them, the Blues lost a League Cup final replay to the Reds at Maine Road in 1984 after their initial Wembley stalemate. No other fanbase has experienced such torment and Everton even came back to a rebuilt national stadium for more pain in 2012 when they threw away a half-time lead to lose 2-1 to their old foes from across Stanley Park in an FA Cup semi-final.
United supporters who in the not-too-distant past were spoilt having been brought up on a diet of blanket success are now having to face up to the increasingly likely prospect that their cross-town upstarts who Sir Alex Ferguson once dubbed “the noisy neighbours” are going to emulate their as of yet unmatched treble of 1999. But there are plenty of consolations to help soften the blow. It’s been a decade since the Premier League title last came to Old Trafford but there’s still a trophy in their cabinet from this season in the shape of a sixth League Cup and the overall signs are positive that manager Erik ten Hag is reversing their long on-the-field decline in the post-Ferguson era.
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Of course it’s not all a bed of roses given the stellar standards United have become used to with club ownership and future renovation of the stadium both bones of contention. Like Goodison Park, which was chosen as a semi-final venue when England hosted the World Cup in 1966, Old Trafford has seen its status as the country’s pre-eminent club ground eroded to the point that it missed out to the Etihad when the venues for the Euro 2028 bid were announced in April. But these are mere trifles compared to where Everton find themselves.
The Blues' new stadium made the cut for a potential hosting of the European Championships in five years’ time and represents a brighter future for the club’s loyal but long-suffering supporters but their iconic future home on the Mersey waterfront risked becoming a half a billion pound financial millstone around their necks had it not been for Abdoulaye Doucoure’s wonder-strike against Bournemouth.
When being interviewed by a US radio station ahead of the club’s survival showdown against the Cherries, this correspondent received something of a left-field question when being asked what the difference between Everton and Liverpool actually was. This should not be a local rivalry akin to Espanyol and Barcelona, although it should be noted that the former were relegated over the weekend with a point more from their 38 La Liga games than the Blues secured this season.
Some 80 years after Liverpool FC were formed, Everton had won as many League Championships as them and a couple more FA Cups. Despite a subsequent period of dominance both at home and abroad, it took another decade for the Reds to move ahead on Merseyside Derby victories.
But little more than a week ago, the senior club in the city came disgustingly close to a first relegation in 72 years, staring over the precipice of the horrors both on and off the field that life outside of the top flight could have brought them. Their paltry return for 2022/23 was the lowest equivalent points total in their 135-year Football League/Premier League history and came a mere 12 months after they posted what was at the time the previous joint worst haul.
Independent economic experts had forecast a distinctly gloomy picture if the Blues had gone down and while ‘fire sales’ of squad members are well-documented in such circumstances, one initially less obvious factor but no less damaging in terms of the fabric of a club – especially one as deeply-rooted in its community as Everton – is the potential job losses among the legions of non-playing staff when an operation used to operating at the elite level for such a long time suddenly finds themselves outside of the game’s most-lucrative domestic division. The closest match to such a doomsday scenario for the Blues would be Aston Villa dropping down to the Championship in 2016 and they made 500 people redundant.
Mercifully Everton have dodged that bullet but after two consecutive near-misses, it’s clear that major changes are required within Goodison Park’s corridors of power to ensure this was actually their nadir and the club start moving on an upwards trajectory. As manager Sean Dyche admitted in his post-match press conference after the 1-0 win over Bournemouth secured the Blues’ survival: “It’s a big club but we’re not performing like a big club.”
The discontent of many supporters with the current regime, including owner Farhad Moshiri, chairman Bill Kenwright, chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale and the rest of the board is clear, and following the dramatic events of recent months it’s difficult to see how bonds of trust can repaired. The potential of new investment and a fresh approach from MSP Sports Capital offers the prospect of a different path going forward but regardless of who might come in or not and whoever is at the helm, it’s obvious for the health of all parties concerned that things cannot continue as they are and a tangible alteration in strategy is required, not empty gestures or platitudes.
Just how long has the malaise existed for though? Moshiri, who admitted last summer “we have not always spent significant amounts of money wisely” is among those in the firing line right now as – before Financial Fair Play restrictions started to bite – seldom has a team squandered so much to become as bad as Everton. But it could be argued that their long fall from grace stretches all the way back to when they lost that last FA Cup final to Liverpool.
It might come as a shock to younger generations of football fans who don’t remember 1989 – the passing of time has lamentably resulted in the vile phenomenon of some rivals mocking the Hillsborough victims as we saw with the arrest of the supporter wearing a “97 Not Enough” shirt at Wembley – but not only did Blues supporters stand shoulder to shoulder with their Red brethren, displaying great dignity both in Liverpool’s first competitive fixture after the disaster (a League encounter at Goodison Park) and that year’s FA Cup final, but at the time their team had won more League Championships than Manchester United. While it was only a couple of years since Everton’s last title, there ended up being a 25-year gap before it returned to Old Trafford.
The subsequent Premier League era has seen United crowned champions on more occasions than the whole previous century but for the Blues it has represented a sharp downwards spiral. Sir Philip Carter might have been the dignified football administrator who alongside his opposite number from Anfield, John Smith, led his team out onto the Goodison turf for that aforementioned inaugural Merseyside Derby after the city’s darkest day, and a chairman now lauded by having his name adorning the Park End of the stadium after he kept faith with Howard Kendall and was rewarded with the most-successful period in Everton’s history.
However, despite being a leading advocate in the creation of the Premier League, his own club appeared ill-equipped for the new age and whether under the subsequent regimes of Peter Johnson, Kenwright or Moshiri, they have mostly found themselves playing catch-up with the game’s elite ever since.
Avoiding the drop last month ensured the Blues retain the distinction of being the only founder members of both the Football League in 1888 and Premier League in 1992 to be ever-presents in the latter but among those half dozen clubs who have contested every Premier League season, they’re bottom of the table with 1610 points behind Manchester United (2441); Arsenal (2225); Chelsea (2182); Liverpool (2176) and Tottenham Hotspur (1847). Indeed, Manchester City – who have now drawn level with Everton on nine League Championships and will surely leave them languishing in their wake in the near future – have more points (1718) despite having played five fewer Premier League campaigns.
When the Premier League was formed in 1992, the Blues were one of the so-called ‘Big Five’ alongside Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur but high-profile takeovers at first Chelsea and then Manchester City saw them drop further down the football food chain while only a year after they were battling against the drop, Newcastle United have shown Everton how to invest a windfall wisely, returning to the Champions League with the prospect of out-spending all of their rivals thanks to having the sovereign wealth of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia now behind them.
The Blues can’t blame all of their struggles on what is going on elsewhere though and they have to scrutinise a potential decline in their own standards. We all know the club’s proud motto of Nil Satis Nisi Optimum (Nothing but the best is good enough) but is such an approach still adhered to?
John Moores once boldly declared: “Everton expects success… if we don’t do well then something should be done about it and something will be done about it,” backing up such words by ruthlessly sacking manager Johnny Carey in a taxi at a time when the team were fifth in the table. However, Blues legend Neville Southall, the club’s most-decorated player, rather bluntly cited the start of the slide as being: “You [Everton supporters] have been sold a vision that finishing sixth is f****** great.”
It’s an idealistic sentiment from a Goodison Park hero who was the best in the world in his position but right now just a season of mid-table mediocrity would be a huge improvement on what has been served up for beleaguered Blues. Any United fans who were crying on their way back up to Manchester would do well to remember that too.
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