Howard Kendall was involved in many memorable victories for Everton over Liverpool.
Only two days after the 21-year-old Tynesider - already one of the most sought-after young players in the country having become the FA Cup final’s youngest player at 17 - had spurned Bill Shankly and Anfield for Harry Catterick and Goodison Park in March 1967, he was in the crowd to see Alan Ball decide a titanic FA Cup clash between the current holders and reigning league champions before, less than a year later, firing home the only goal in front of the Gwladys Street to decide his first Merseyside derby on home turf.
Kendall would have to wait until Bruce Grobbelaar’s own goal in the Charity Shield at Wembley in his tenth derby as Everton boss for a first victory as manager over Liverpool, Graeme Sharp’s iconic volley at Anfield two months later confirming the shifting of the balance of power on Merseyside and setting in motion the greatest period in Blues history.
His second, less celebrated spell at the helm began in earnest with victory over the old enemy in an epic FA Cup triple-header in February 1991 and sparked a decade-long unbeaten home run in derbies while even his largely-lamented final season in charge in 1997/98 featured a memorable triumph over the Reds 25 years ago this week, which came at the end of a rollercoaster few days and encapsulated the turbulent times the club were going through while proving to be arguably as valuable as any of Kendall’s previous derby wins.
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It seemed midway through the 1990s that the Blues were on the road to recovery after a difficult opening to the decade following the glory of the mid-80s. Only a year after the terrifying last-day escape from relegation against Wimbledon in 1994, Joe Royle’s ‘Dogs of War’ side had recorded a memorable FA Cup victory over Manchester United at Wembley and followed it up the following campaign with a sixth place Premier League finish which would have been one higher and brought UEFA Cup qualification but for Dennis Bergkamp’s late goal for Arsenal which saw the Gunners snatch fifth.
The following October, Everton broke their club transfer record for the third time in less than two years to bring in £5.75m attacking midfielder Nick Barmby from Middlesbrough to bolster a squad already featuring £4m Duncan Ferguson and £5m Andrei Kanchelskis in addition to the likes of Gary Speed, Andy Hinchliffe, Graham Stuart and Neville Southall, and a late Barmby winner at Derby County shortly before Christmas took the Toffees up to seventh and even prompted talk of Royle’s men being dark horses for a title bid in the new year.
It never materialised however and by the time Royle’s side next recorded a league win at the start of February over Nottingham Forest, they had been dumped out of the FA Cup at home by lower-league Bradford City and the manager’s reign was beginning to unravel. Only one more victory would follow before in late March, with Everton only five points clear of the relegation placings and Royle stymied by club owner Peter Johnson in his attempts to re-sign Barry Horne and bring in Norwegian pair Tore Andre Flo and Claus Eftevaag having seen Kanchelskis sold to Fiorentina, the 1970 title-winner resigned with veteran centre-half Dave Watson taking over as caretaker boss for the last seven games of the campaign.
‘Waggy’ managed to engineer six points from his charges to ensure the Blues finished 15th and survived by a mere two points, a bullish Johnson promising concerned supporters a ‘top quality, world class’ manager would be appointed in the summer. Former England manager Bobby Robson, who had just led Barcelona to the European Cup Winners Cup, was a reported early target but could not be persuaded to leave Catalonia before attention to Andy Gray. The Blues’ 1980s striking hero had carved out a successful career as a pundit with Sky Sports after a brief spell coaching Aston Villa at the end of his playing days but was seemingly keen on returning to active involvement in the game until an improved offer from Sky saw a late change of heart.
With the Blues squad only days away from returning for pre-season, Johnson turned to the one man he knew could never turn Everton down and Kendall was appointed manager at Goodison for the third time on 27th June 1997. The Goodison hero, whose first spell in charge between 1981 and 1987 - after a stellar playing career which saw him make up the ‘Holy Trinity’ midfield alongside Alan Ball and Colin Harvey - had brought the most successful period in the club’s history with two league titles, an FA Cup and the Blues’ first European success in the Cup Winners Cup, had returned to Toffees’ dug-out in November 1990 to replace his old number two Colin Harvey but resigned just over three years later having been unable to replicate his early triumphs and had earlier that summer led Sheffield United to the brink of the Premier League before last-minute Wembley play-off heartbreak to Crystal Palace.
Ironically the first game of his third Everton reign would be against the Eagles and it proved a portent for the campaign of toil the Blues would endure, Steve Coppell’s newly-promoted side winning 2-1 at a sun-baked Goodison to puncture what little early-season optimism there had been amongst the Blues faithful. Johnson had claimed supporters would be ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the signings the club would make that summer but, aside from £4.5m Croatian centre-back Slaven Bilic who arrived from West Ham, the acquisitions of Mitch Ward, Carl Tiler, Tony Thomas, Gareth Farrelly and Danny Williamson did not inspire confidence and it soon became clear a season of slog lay ahead.
Although Kendall’s side won their second match of the campaign, also at home, against West Ham and beat newly-promoted Barnsley at Goodison before showing great character at the end of September to come from two goals down to snatch a point against an Arsenal side who would go on to win the league and FA Cup double the following May, a 3-1 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday the following weekend dropped them into bottom three for what would not be the last time that season.
After a ten-day international break which saw Glenn Hoddle’s England gain the point they needed to qualify for the following summer’s World Cup finals in France, the Blues would return to action with a midweek third round League Cup tie away to Coventry City. Gordon Strachan’s Sky Blues had only preserved their own Premier League status the previous May with an unlikely last-day victory at Tottenham to finish 17th by a point and had not pulled up any trees in the early months of the new campaign, sitting six places and four points above the Toffees in 12th.
The hosts were without the suspended Dion Dublin and injured trio Noel Whelan, Darren Huckerby and Paul Telfer but, with rookie strikers Simon Haworth and Kyle Lightbourne in tandem up front, tore into Everton from the kick-off and could already have scored three times before they took lead after only six minutes. Blues keeper Paul Gerrard had made a smart near post stop from Haworth and clawed out Paul Williams’s close-range effort from a corner as well as seeing Andy Hinchcliffe head a John Salako chip off the line but he was given no chance when left-back Marcus Hall controlled Williams’s cross-field ball and cut inside before thumping a 25-yarder home with his right foot for his first Coventry goal.
Lighbourne and Salako again went close to doubling the hosts’ advantage but Everton made them briefly regret their profligate finishing by scoring with their first meaningful attack on 16 minutes, Nick Barmby heading home his second goal of the season after Hinchcliffe had played Graham Stuart’s right-wing centre back across the box. The visitors briefly gained a foothold in the game and veteran goalkeeper Steve Ogrizovic kept out Danny Williamson’s long-range effort but were behind again shortly after the half-hour mark when Gerrard couldn’t hang on to Lightbourne’s fierce drive and Salako was left with a tap-in.
It put back the hosts back in command and they should have extended their lead before the break, Hall coming close to a second but seeing his volley deflected inches wide off the heels of Slaven Bilic and Lighbourne heading a chance back across goal when it looked easier to score. Everton, no doubt on the back off a half-time dressing-down from Kendall, briefly stepped up a gear after the re-start but, with their attacking ideas largely limited to predictable long-balls aimed at an out-of-sorts Duncan Ferguson, Coventry soon regained control and put the tie beyond the Blues with two goals in three minutes either side of the hour mark.
After Lightbourne had again gone close, Williams and Gary McAllister combined to send Salako running down the right and cut inside past Dave Watson before floating a chip beyond Gerrard, and two minutes later Haworth scored his first goal for the Sky Blues when Bilic’s weak back-pass enabled the forward to scorch past the 35-year-old Watson and fire his shot through Gerrard. It could have got even worse for Everton in the final half hour with Lightbourne and Hall both hitting the woodwork and when referee Steve Dunn blew for time to bring the Blues’ miserable evening to a close, the Everton manager marched on to the field to make it clear to his players, and the travelling Toffees, just what he thought of their abject showing.
Having given his under-performing side a finger-wagging dressing-down in the centre circle, Kendall began to lead them towards the emptying away section when defender Craig Short cut away from the group and began to walk back towards the tunnel. A row ensured between the former Derby defender and the Blues manager, with skipper Gary Speed intervening, before they all trooped back to the dressing room, an unedifying end to a deeply dispiriting and concerning evening.
"I wanted them to stay out there to warm down, as usual, that's what I was telling them”, Kendall explained afterwards. “I instructed Craig Short to join the rest of the players in that when (assistant manager) Adrian Heath brought it to my attention that there were a few fans on the field. Gary Speed and Nick Barmby had already started their warm down but after seeing people on the pitch I decided to bring them all off for their own safety. There was no row. That's all I am saying on the matter. It's not a big thing and you can write what you want to write on it but I'm not going to dwell on it any longer. Whatever needed to be said was said in the dressing-room.
“Of course, after a performance like that I am very disappointed and I am very disappointed for the fans as well. We could have been 2-0 down in the first three minutes and defensively we were very poor all night. We made so many elementary mistakes and although we passed the ball well in stages we didn't hurt them enough. It hurts me to see such a performance and we can't carry on like that."
Everton had the perfect chance to put their Coventry horror show behind them with the first Merseyside derby of the season taking place at Goodison Park only three days later. Roy Evans’s Liverpool had won their midweek League Cup tie at West Brom but, although a home win over Chelsea in their last game before the International break had moved them up to sixth, they had already shown signs of the frailties which saw them finish fourth in the previous season’s two-horse title race and which would lead to French coach Gerard Houllier being brought in to ultimately replace Evans the following summer.
With Liverpool being without a derby win at Goodison since the start of the decade and one anywhere in over three years, Kendall made three changes from the side beaten at Coventry with 39-year-old Neville Southall returning in goal, Earl Barrett replacing Slaven Bilic and teenager Danny Cadamarteri - who turned 18 only the week before and had scored his first Blues goal in the previous month’s fightback against Arsenal - preferred up front as Duncan Ferguson’s partner instead of Barmby.
After days of newspaper headlines and radio phone-ins debating the Everton ‘crisis’ and ‘mutiny’, an expectant full-house at Goodison on a bright autumnal day demanded a positive reaction from Kendall’s men and they got one, with the Blues’ passion and commitment to put things right evident from virtually the first whistle as they out-fought and ultimately out-thought their local rivals. Graham Stuart picked the afternoon’s first yellow card after only three minutes after a crunching tackle on Patrik Berger with Ferguson also rattling the visitors’ new captain and self-styled ‘Guv’nor’ Paul Ince early on.
Cadamarteri’s pace and energy in attack was giving the Blues an added dimension and he almost caught David James out when the Liverpool goalkeeper casually idled over a back-pass. Robbie Fowler and Karl-Heinz Riedle both spurned half-chances but Everton’s more direct approach always looked more threatening, with James forced to beat out teenager John Oster’s shot and Ferguson’s follow-up before Cadamarteri dragged a shot wide when well-placed. Craig Short did well to block a Fowler effort and, along with Barrett, kept a tight rein on Steve McManaman whose promptings looked like providing the visitors’ best chance of success and the Blues got the reward the first half efforts deserved on the stroke of the interval.
Another surging Cadamarteri run into the box down the inside right channel saw James and Neil Ruddock rush out to block and concede a corner and from Andy Hinchcliffe’s flag-kick, James - under pressure from Cadamarteri - could only graze a weak punch onto Ruddock’s shoulder and the ball flew off the former Tottenham man into the back of the net to spark wild celebrations in front of the Gwladys Street.
The second half continued in a similar vein with Short continuing his rehabilitation after the previous Wednesday night’s antics at Coventry by forcing a back-pedalling James to save his header and, after one of a number of surging runs out of defence, setting up Cadamarteri for a shot blocked at full-stretch by Norwegian defender Bjorn Tore Kvarme. Southall made a crucial block at the feet of McManaman who, despite being man-marked by Graham Stuart, was still threatening to drag Liverpool back into the game, also setting up 17-year-old substitute Michael Owen who couldn't find the target.
The visitors always looked vulnerable on the break though and, after Oster blazed over and Earl Barrett survived a handball shout from Ince’s header, the Toffees doubled their lead and secured the three points they desperately needed fifteen minutes from time, Cadamarteri robbing the dawdling Kvarme just inside the Liverpool half and racing into the box before cutting inside Ruddock and rifling a precise shot inside James’s near-post.
“The sight of Everton arrogantly playing keep-ball in the dying moments as those bedecked in red filed to the exits was the day's abiding memory”, the Guardian reported. “Everton tore their neighbours to shreds and, but for the sense of calm that Steve McManaman instilled into his side’s always pedestrian football in the latter stages, the final margin would surely have been far greater. Liverpool were outplayed, overrun and ultimately humiliated.”
A relieved Kendall spoke after the match of his satisfaction at his side’s performance but also of the need for his players to show that same level of commitment on a more regular basis.
"Yes, we played very well. It's changed the mood in the club. It was great for the fans and gives us something to build on. It was almost everything you would have wished for on the day. But it's consistency I'm after. It's no good doing it for one match. I knew we would play better against Liverpool; we had to because we really could not have played any worse than we did at Coventry. I think the incident on Wednesday shows that I care and maybe that my players don't.
“They picked themselves up for this game, but then you expect commitment in a derby. The players need to show me consistency, because I know they can play. Look at Duncan Ferguson. The big man was awesome, he won everything, he worked hard and showed real commitment. But I don't want a No 9 who just plays in derby games and the big games. I need one who will give it to me every week. Certain players have now set themselves standards and they need to maintain them. Now we have to show more consistency, especially away from home.”
A quirk of the fixture list sent Everton back to Highfield Road for their next Premier League match the following Saturday and a far more respectable performance than the previous visit ten days earlier earned a goalless draw but the victory over Liverpool did not lead to the hoped-for upturn in form and it would five days before Christmas - by which time the Blues had slumped into the relegation placings again - before Kendall's side managed another victory through Gary Speed’s penalty at home to Leicester City.
That was the first of a run of four victories in five league games - including an ultimately critical Duncan Ferguson-inspired 3-2 win over Bolton Wanderers - but Everton would only win only two more matches between mid-January and the end of the season, a 4-0 hammering at Highbury on the penultimate weekend of the season which clinched the title for the Gunners plunging the Toffees into the bottom three for the first time since late December and meaning, just four years after the Wimbledon fightback, Goodison Park would again stage a last-day fight for survival where the Blues’ fate was not in their own hands.
Kendall’s men trailed 17th-placed Bolton Wanderers by a point and had an inferior goal difference but, with the Trotters having to travel to Chelsea and the Blues at home to Coventry, Kendall’s men knew if they could better the Lancashire side’s result in London they would be safe. Gareth Farrelly’s superbly-taken 7th minute half-volley gave the early hope a desperately-anxious Goodison needed and, when Gianluca Vialli finally put the European Cup Winners Cup finalists in front at Stamford Bridge after 73 minutes, the Toffees could almost taste survival until Dion Dublin’s 89th minute header equalised for Coventry and set nerves hideously jangling again on Merseyside.
Although Jody Morris added a second for Chelsea in stoppage time, a late Coventry winner would still have condemned Everton to second-tier football for the first time in 44 years but moments later referee Paul Alcock blew for time to spark a pitch invasion and tears of sheer relief all round the ground. Kendall himself would later break down in a Goodison back-room as the unbearable tension of the afternoon began to ease and his last spell in charge of the Blues would end by mutual consent soon afterwards but he would be able to look back at his eighth and final win as Everton manager over Liverpool as being as important as any of the other more celebrated ones which preceded it.
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