Some 60 years ago today, Everton’s first-ever game in European competition produced what the ECHO’s Horace Yates described as “the most nakedly ill-tempered match I have ever seen” as instead of testing themselves against exotic opponents, the Blues scrapped it out in their own ‘Battle of Britain’ while the world stood on the precipice of the threat of a nuclear war. Organised continental club competition started in 1955, but following on from their reluctant stance during early editions of the World Cup (England did not enter the first three tournaments in 1930, 1934 and 1938), the Football Association was initially hesitant to let teams from these shores take part.
Despite securing their first League Championship in 1955, Chelsea were blocked by the FA from taking part in the first European Cup in 1955/56 with Matt Busby’s Manchester United becoming the first English entrants in the competition the following season. The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup – a forerunner of the UEFA Cup and now UEFA Europa League – which was to provide the platform for Everton’s European debut some seven years later, did have two English-based teams in it from the start but bizarrely they were Second Division champions Birmingham City and a combined London XI, who reached the inaugural final which wasn’t played until three years later!
By the time of the Blues first entry in 1962, the formats had become more standardised. The Cup-Winners’ Cup – which in 1985 became Everton’s only European trophy to date – was added in 1960 but an arbitrary ‘one club per city’ rule that would deny the Blues qualification in 1967, 1968 and 1969 usually remained in place for the Fairs Cup.
