One of the most glorious and enduring aspects of Everton’s heaven-sent 1984/85 season was the unheralded and modest demeanour of many of the players.
Howard Kendall’s carefully-constructed outfit, having ended the club’s 14-year trophy drought by winning the FA Cup the previous May, produced the finest campaign in Goodison history by storming to the league title with a record 90 points, lifting the club’s first ever European trophy and were only denied a unique treble by Norman Whiteside’s extra-time strike for Manchester United in the FA Cup final.
Often labelled ‘a team with no stars’, Kendall’s ingenious merging of young talent such as Neville Southall, Kevin Ratcliffe, Trevor Steven and Adrian Heath alongside experienced pros already written off by many due to serious injuries like Peter Reid and Andy Gray produced a side rightly revered as one of the best English football has ever produced, which sadly never got the opportunity to fully reach its potential on the continental stage due to circumstances beyond their control.
Twenty years later, Everton were finally able to engineer another opportunity to play in the European Cup with another team of promising hungry bucks coupled with so-called mis-fits cobbled together by a youthful manager, the season’s stand-out moment being delivered by a man whose unsung efforts and self-effacing nature would not have been out of place in that legendary Blues side of two decades earlier.
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It is fair to say Lee Carsley’s arrival at Goodison in February 2002 did not exactly have Evertonians hailing him as the final piece of the jigsaw. The Birmingham-born defensive midfielder had emerged from Derby County’s youth ranks to make his first-team bow at 20 for the Rams on the right flank in a September 1994 Anglo-Italian Cup victory over Cesena, despite - as he humbly described himself - having “no pace, no trick and not being able to cross the ball”. He helped the East Midlands side gain promotion to the Premier League in 1996 before three years later joining Blackburn Rovers for £3.4m but was unable to prevent them being relegated, only four years after lifting the title.
Former Toffees forward Brian Kidd, now in charge at Ewood Park, pushed Carsley into a more advanced midfield role as the Lancastrians sought an immediate return to the top flight and he would enjoy the most prolific goalscoring season of his career with 11 goals although Rovers were unable to finish higher than 11th. After falling out of favour with new manager Graeme Souness, the Republic of Ireland international - who qualified for the Emerald Isle through his County Cork-born grandmother - joined Coventry City in December 2000 for £2.5m but history repeated itself as within months his new club suffered relegation from the Premier League to bring the Sky Blues’ 34-year unbroken spell in the top division came to an end.
So when Everton agreed a £1.9m deal to bring the 28-year-old to Goodison in February 2002, there was the prospect of an unwanted hat-trick given the precarious nature of the Toffees’ fortunes at the time. The early promise of Walter Smith’s early seasons in charge after his summer 1998 arrival from Glasgow Rangers had long dissipated and, after a grim 2000/01 campaign which had seen the Blues humiliated at home by Tranmere Rovers in the FA Cup and only finish two places above the relegation zone, a home defeat to Ipswich Town the weekend before the midfielder's arrival left the Scot’s side only three points above the bottom three and facing another battle for survival.
Painfully familiar territory for Carsley but he was left in no doubt as to the different level of expectation at Goodison compared to his previous clubs right from the start after a memorable introduction from legendary Blues kit man, Jimmy Martin.
“Jimmy introduced himself on my first day at Everton by telling me, ‘This is the best club you will ever play for’”, Carsley recalled to the Blues’ official website in their ‘My Everton’ series. “He likes to get to the point, Jimmy, but he was was right – and I am enormously proud that after a 20-odd-year playing career, Everton is the club people most readily associate me with. Jimmy followed his words by thrusting this big book on the history of Everton into my hands and ordering me to read it. I did, too. I’d go back after training to my room at the Suites in Knowsley and do my studying. I was reading about these great players and matches and achievements and thinking, ‘Crikey, this is not what I am used to’.
“And the expectation around the club didn’t tally with what the team was doing. Let’s be honest, it was a difficult period when I came early in 2002 and I was a thoroughly underwhelming signing. I’d been relegated in two of the previous three years and Everton were in a perilous position. The media interest on the day I arrived from Coventry City, however, provided a clue over the size of the place I was walking into. It felt like the world’s press had descended on the club. But I quickly discovered they were all there for David Ginola, who signed on the same day, which was a bit of a blow. I also found out very rapidly that as an Everton player you were bound by an unwritten rule.
“Regardless of how good you were, you tried your best, you ran around and showed passion for the team and the badge. It means that much to the fans. Players who fall short on any of those counts are worked out in no time. It is not an easy club to play for and better players than me have failed to deal with the expectation and intensity. There are no days off. You have to get your head round that, understand that performing at 70 or 80 per cent, or coasting through a game, is unacceptable. When Everton sign a player, they have to consider, ‘Is this person mentally robust enough to perform at Goodison Park?’ It is a challenge to consistently take the ball and impose yourself on games, no matter the situation or opponents. That part of it suited me down to the ground. I was always going to give everything I had and the Evertonians appreciated that; they could relate to me, I think.”
Carsley and fellow new boy Ginola were thrust straight into the side that weekend as Everton were again beaten 1-0 at Goodison, although this time by an Arsenal side who would finish the campaign having won their second league and FA Cup double in five seasons. The steel in midfield Smith was hoping Carsley would provide was in evidence at Anfield a fortnight later as the Blues earned a creditable draw against title-chasing Liverpool but goals remained in short supply and, after a goalless draw at home to Leeds and a 1-0 loss at West Ham, an abject 3-0 FA Cup quarter-final defeat at Middlesbrough proved the final straw and Smith was sacked with the Toffees 16th in the table but level on points with third-from-bottom Bolton Wanderers with only nine league matches remaining.
His replacement was 38-year-old Preston North End manager David Moyes and he galvanised the club and fanbase immediately, describing Everton as the ‘People’s Club’ on Merseyside in his opening press conference, and putting vital Premier League points on the board to drag the Blues towards safety, David Unsworth’s 27-second thunderbolt getting the Scot’s reign off to the perfect start with a win over Fulham before a 4-3 victory over fellow strugglers Derby County in his second game. The Blues ultimately finished three places and seven points clear of the drop zone, with Carsley scoring his first goal in Royal Blue in the final day 4-3 defeat at newly-crowned champions Arsenal, and the Birmingham-born midfielder couldn’t fail to be impressed by the new manager’s impact on and off the field even if it would be some time before he earned his stripes as one of Moyes’s key lieutenants.
“He was appointed manager about five weeks after I joined and The People’s Club title he coined couldn’t have been more pertinent”, Carsley recalled. “I am not just playing to my audience here when I say, it felt to me that people in the city supported Everton. That the city was behind the team. I lived in the city centre, which was a big deal. I was visible to the fans and I got a sense of how they felt the team was doing. If things were going well, it was brilliant. If not, they told you. I think I gained their respect from never hiding away.
“It took a while to establish myself, though. When David came in, he put me at right-wing and David Unsworth on the left-wing; we went defensive to restore some stability. I had to wait for a chance in the middle of midfield. I spent time as substitute. Or out of the squad altogether, I wasn’t a very good sub, not a player you brought on to change a game. I had to be patient – and at times thought, ‘I am not sure this is going to be for me’. My family were still in Birmingham, while I was living in an apartment block with Tommy Gravesen. Thank God, I persevered with it.”
Carsley had to dig deep into the reserves of resilience Evertonians would come to know and love so well during his first two full campaigns on Merseyside. He made only 24 appearances in all competitions in 2002/03 as the Blues - inspired by 16-year-old sensation Wayne Rooney who was handed his first-team bow on the opening day against Tottenham after leading the Toffees’ youngsters to FA Youth Cup glory the previous May - spent almost the entire season in the top six before losing four out of their final five games and finishing seventh to just miss out on UEFA Cup qualification.
That appearance tally dropped to just 19 the following woeful campaign as Moyes’s side finished just one place above the relegation placings with a paltry total of 39 points, one of Carsley’s run-outs being in the abject final day 5-1 defeat to a Manchester City side one place and two points above them, on the way home from which he was left under illusions by Jimmy Martin as to the significant improvements expected and demanded from everyone at the club.
“Our performance was pretty horrible, we didn’t compete”, Carsley admitted. “But deep down, I felt I’d done okay. The team coach dropped a few players off on the way home, so I moved to sit next to Jimmy. Everyone likes to hear praise and we all seek reassurance, nobody more than footballers. And I thought Jimmy might tell me I’d played well, assure me that amid a bad afternoon for the team I at least had done myself justice. I’d barely got comfortable in my new seat when Jimmy turned to me and asked, ‘How does it feel to be part of the worst Everton performance I have ever seen?’ I didn’t say another word. And that comment sat with me all summer. I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was another reminder of the club I was representing and the standards expected as minimum.”
Moyes’s hopes of emulating his first full campaign in charge rather than his second weren’t helped by Rooney’s starring performances for England at Euro 2004 that summer and, by the time Everton returned for pre-season training, the future of the Blues’ wonderkid - who had earned vitriol on both sides of Stanley Park by selling his life story after his international exploits to the S*n - was dominating the news agenda. With the only additions to the squad being £1.5m Millwall midfielder Tim Cahill and £450,000 Ipswich forward Marcus Bent, many Evertonians shared the bookmakers’ belief the Toffees would be one of the favourites for relegation but what followed was the best Goodison season of the Premier League era, the seeds of which were sown in Carsley’s opinion during the pre-season tour to the United States.
“We had a great trip to Houston where we really bonded as a team”, he told the Athletic’s Gwlad Tidings podcast. “There were rumours Wayne was going to be sold and I remember one training session after he had gone David Moyes got all the players together and basically said, ‘No-one’s coming in and no-one’s going out’. We had a squad of about 16 or 17 at that point, it wasn’t a big squad anyway, and he said, ‘We need to stick together, I’ve got confidence in you, I’ve got belief in you that we can do something this season if we stick together’. And it seemed to really bond us together. You knew you were never going to be too far away from being in the team or out of the team. We were tipped by a lot of bookies to really struggle that season - and we were poor the season before so it wasn’t unfounded - but the way we responded to a difficult start really set us off and we never looked back.”
The fixture list handed Moyes’s men a tough opener at home to the previous season’s ‘Invincible’ league champions Arsenal and a 4-1 defeat - with Carsley grabbing the Blues’ only goal midway through the second half - hinted at another season of slog, as did Mark Hudson’s early strike for Crystal Palace the following weekend when the Toffees travelled to Selhurst Park. But two Thomas Gravesen strikes, one from the penalty spot, and Marcus Bent’s late clincher got that vital first victory on the board and three wins and a draw - away at Manchester United, the day before Rooney completed his club record £27m move to Old Trafford - in their next four matches took Everton up to third in the table after the first half dozen games, which is where they remained by the time the season’s first Merseyside derby came around in mid-December.
Liverpool had endured an indifferent start to their Premier League campaign under new manager Rafa Benitez and, having already lost five of their fifteen league matches, sat four places and nine points behind the Blues, although they travelled across the park boosted by a dramatic Champions League victory over Greek side Olympiacos after Steven Gerrard’s late strike took them into knock-out stages as elimination loomed. David Moyes was still searching for a first victory against the old enemy over two and a half years after taking charge while also wanting his side to underline their top four credentials and Goodison crackled with anticipation on a frosty Saturday lunchtime ahead of the 200th meeting of the Merseyside giants although, as Carsley recalled, the big match build-up had been intense all week.
“Right in the middle of town where Beetham Plaza is now, if you walk up Castle Street there used to be a fruit and veg stall on the corner. Every day I used to take a walk up there and get a coffee with one of the lads, Stevie Finnan or Chris Kirkland or one of the other lads, and the fella running it would always say, ‘Here you are Lee, here’s some grapes or some oranges or whatever’ so I’d often get some stuff off him. He was a great lad, he knew I liked melons so he’d get me some watermelons or honeydews, he was a smashing fella, but he was a red. The week of that derby game, I said to him ‘Hiya mate’ and he goes ‘No, not this week’. I thought he must have been messing around and said to him, ‘What you on about?’ and he goes, ‘It’s derby week, mate’. I said to him, ‘What does that mean?’ And he just went, ‘Don’t talk to me this week, talk to me after the game’. And he carried it on all week. I thought, ‘Is he having a laugh here or what or is he serious?’ but it really hit home about the atmosphere of derby week. Because I lived in the city centre, you could tell the change in the atmosphere even when just going into Sainsbury’s or wherever. The Everton fans that you met would be like ‘You’d better be up for it at the weekend, lad, we ain’t losing to these’ and you’d be like ‘Yeah alright mate, it’s only Monday!’ But it made you realise how important this one was.”
David Moyes made only one alteration to the side who had beaten Bolton Wanderers 3-2 at Goodison the previous Saturday, with Leon Osman coming in to bolster the midfield and Duncan Ferguson dropping to the bench, while Benitez made five changes following his team’s midweek European exploits, leaving out Steve Finnan, Xabi Alonso and Milan Baros and handing rare starts to Josemi, Salif Diao and Neil Mellor. The match began at typically frenetic derby pace with tackles thundering in from both sides, Tony Hibbert and Salif Diao both going into referee Steve Bennett’s book before the half hour mark. Tim Cahill - who had already scored two important winning goals against Manchester City and Portsmouth since his summer arrival - wasted a glorious chance to put the Blues in front when somehow heading wide from Bent’s cross with the goal gaping but, despite the visitors being forced back for much of the half, the Toffees defence had to be alert to deal with their threat from set pieces, Nigel Martyn producing a point-blank save to deny Mellor from Gerrard’s free kick before Alan Stubbs flung himself to block Diao's shot, with Weir doing the same to get in the way of Gerrard's follow-up before Mellor finally headed over the crossbar.
John Arne Riise was forced into a desperate interception to deny the lively Osman creating a shooting chance for Bent before the break but Liverpool began the second half in the ascendancy with Diao half-volleying narrowly over after another Gerrard free-kick was only half-cleared. The Blues gradually reasserted themselves with Carsley, as the ECHO match report put it, “placing an effective restraining order” on the Reds’ skipper and the decisive moment arrived on 68 minutes. Kilbane and Gravesen combined down the left with the latter’s teasing cross only half-cleared by Riise under pressure from Cahill and, when Bent nodded on to Osman, his lay-off was met with a precise low first-time drive from 22 yards by Carsley which evaded his unsighted city-centre coffee mate Chris Kirkland in the Reds goal and found the net to make Goodison explode with joy, the goalscorer being immediately buried under a pile-on of his jubilant team-mates.
Benitez threw on Alonso from the bench as the visitors tried to save themselves and Gerrard twice went close to an equaliser, firing inches wide with Martyn beaten when the ball dropped to him on the edge of the penalty area and then being foiled by a smart stop from the Blues keeper. But Moyes’s men would not be denied the victory they deserved and, when Cahill atoned for his first half miss by scrambling a Djimi Traore effort off the line in stoppage time, the majority of the 40,552 in attendance - Goodison’s biggest crowd for 15 years - breathed a huge sigh of relief, which was soon replaced by throaty cheers of triumph as referee Bennett finally blew for time to confirm the Blues’ first derby victory since Kevin Campbell’s goal at Anfield over five years earlier.
An ecstatic David Moyes, who had seen his side rise to second in the Premier League table and cut the lead to Jose Mourinho’s league leaders Chelsea to three points, said afterwards, “The reason I'm most excited is for the fans. If we are in second place, we have got to be in with a shout of the title, haven't we? I think if it was any other club people would say we were in the mix, but there seems to be a doubt that we have the resources to keep it up. We'll have to see about that. We certainly haven't got the finances to match Chelsea, but by hook or by crook we are trying everything else to bridge the gap. It's great for us. That's the first time in seven years we've won against Liverpool at Goodison, so we've waited a long time for that. It’s not just the three points today; it’s the 33 we got before today that are also important. The team defended so well when they had to. They keep putting themselves on the line and keep picking up wins. We didn’t get many chances to celebrate victories last season and we are enjoying the wins we get and the goals we score. This says we are moving on when a lot of people didn’t think we could do so.. We have an honest bunch of lads and we’ve got great self-belief. Our job is just to keep playing. Tonight will be as enjoyable as the other 10 wins we’ve had this season, and I think the blue half of Merseyside will have a very good night.”
“Everyone’s waiting for us to fall over”, Carsley said afterwards, “but we have a great team spirit here at Everton and everything’s going really well” and he later admitted it was only when he got into the dressing room after the game that he realised just what his iconic match winning goal meant to the Blue half of the city.
“To win that game the way we did was special but the zone we were in at the time, you were just like ‘Right, who have we got next?’ But as soon as we got in the dressing room, you could see how much it meant to Tony Sage and Jimmy Martin and Jimmy Comer and all the rest of the staff, all of them absolutely buzzing that we beat them. And obviously it was a big day for David Moyes, getting one over on Liverpool. I feel a lot more comfortable when everyone else is doing well and I’m part of it but it’s not because of me, so it never sat entirely comfortable with me whenever I got a winning goal, it suited me to be in the background, but unfortunately that Sunday and Monday we were all over the press for beating Liverpool and me getting the winning goal which I’m still really proud of, I still get invited up to talk about it and people remember it so fondly. It wasn’t a good goal though was it! I’ve been on some of these derby heroes nights where you’ve got Graeme Sharp scoring that volley, Kevin Sheedy’s free kick where he smashes it into the top corner and then you’ve got my bobbler… it literally only just hit the back of the net and wasn’t a great strike but it went in. And on the Monday morning the fruit and veg man was nowhere to be seen!”
Defeats in the capital either side of new year to Charlton Athletic and Tottenham Hotspur dropped Everton down to fourth but, bolstered by the January arrivals of £6m striker James Beattie and Spanish midfielder Mikel Arteta, initially on loan, the Toffees stayed there for the rest of the campaign with victory over Newcastle at Goodison on the penultimate weekend coupled with Liverpool’s defeat at Arsenal the following day confirming the Blues would finish in fourth place and feature in the Champions League qualification play-offs the following August. Carsley would be stretchered off - after scoring his fifth goal of the season - with a twisted knee in the final day defeat at Bolton and, although fit to resume pre-season training, he strained medial knee ligaments in a pre-season friendly at Turkish side Fenerbachce which caused him to miss both legs of the infamous Champions League play-off defeat to a Villarreal side, who went on to reach the semi-finals, and much of the following campaign.
The Birmingham-born midfielder was back to his best in 2006/07 and started every league game as the Blues finished sixth and qualified for the UEFA Cup which earned him a new one-year deal, racking up another 48 appearances in all competitions the following season as Moyes’s side went one better with a fifth place Premier League placing. Despite having turned 34, another contract extension was on the table but Carsley decided to call time on his six and a half years at Goodison and returned to the Midlands to join Birmingham City on a free transfer, a decision he admitted was a massive wrench but one he felt he had to take.
“The decision wasn’t made overnight and it took a while for me to come to terms with it”, he told the ECHO months later. “But what really made my mind up was that we had finished in a position that got us into Europe again and we’d had a fantastic season. I’ve got no regrets. David Moyes is a fantastic manager and he brought some great players in after I had gone. Though it took them a while to settle, I still think it was best that I left when I did. I was never a star or someone who would stand out by doing something brilliant. I suppose I’m the type of player that tends to get noticed when I’m not around but things move on. I had a fantastic relationship with Everton’s fans and I think they appreciated what I did for the team – I always put my team-mates first. The six years I spent at Goodison were wonderful and I’ll never forget them. If I’m honest, things couldn’t have ended better as we had got back into Europe by beating Newcastle again and that’s exactly where a club like Everton deserve to be. It was an emotional time. All my family were at the game and a minibus of 14 came up from the Midlands. Everything just felt right about the day, we got the result we needed and it was amazing walking around the pitch at the end. It was the perfect way to say goodbye.”
Immediately installed as club captain, Carsley led Birmingham to a second-place finish and promotion back to Premier League in his first season at St Andrews before returning to Coventry in July 2010 and calling time on his playing days the following summer at the age of 37. He had already began work on his coaching badges whilst at Everton having been encouraged to do so by David Moyes and in many ways it was the logical progression for a man who became something of a self-made footballer, compensating for what he ever-modestly claimed was a lack of natural ability by being a deep studier and thinker about the game throughout his career.
“I always wanted to know what the opposition would do”, he admitted. “I’d watch individuals, my direct opponent but also the strikers who would potentially play behind me. So, when the ball was going into them, I’d know which foot they were going to receive with. Which way they were going to turn. When they shot… did they go to shoot, then drag it, so I wouldn’t sell myself. I didn’t have the ability of a lot of my teammates, so had to make sure I had all the information I needed.”
Carsley turned down a coaching role at Goodison after hanging up his boots to take charge of the Sky Blues’ U18 team, leading them to a runners-up spot in the Premier Academy League and, after being promoted to work with the club’s first team, left to join Sheffield United as Assistant Manager-Technical in July 2013 where he worked alongside former Toffees’ team-mate David Weir. His coaching prowess saw him begin coaching the England U19 team in 2015 under his former Coventry manager Aidy Boothroyd and he has since gone on to a hold a number of positions within the national team’s youth coaching set-up - while continuing at club level at places like Brentford, Burnley and Manchester City - being named appointed head coach of the England U21 side in July 2021.
His international role has seen him work with some of the Blues current youngsters, including Anthony Gordon who remembers watching the midfielder in action from the Goodison stands when he was a schoolboy Blue. “He was a ratter, wasn’t he?”, he laughed to the Athletic. “A very strong midfielder, shall we say! I don’t think he fits into this system but he might give me a bit of stick for saying that! The real top managers can make you feel like you’ve got a personal connection with them and he’s one I can say who has always done that with me. He’s always trying to improve me and I feel like it is sincere.”
Carsley himself retains a strong affection for Everton and admits he would like to return to Goodison one day if the circumstances were right.
“At some point, I would love to go back to Everton”, he told the club’s official website earlier this year. “But I have an idealistic view of how it would be and wouldn’t want to ruin that vision. That is a thought for another day a long way into the future. I adore what I do with England Under-21s and it has been great having Ashley Cole with me. Not only do I have a connection with him, I have a connection with Everton, which is wonderful. I still speak to Tony Sage and, of course, to Jimmy, and I still have a huge affinity with Everton. It is so close to my heart, a club I think about and worry about and am concerned about every day, in the same way any fans cares for their team. And what Jimmy said holds true two decades later: A footballer couldn’t hope to play for a better club than Everton.”
