Monday 12 September 2016 19:23, UK
As Everton enter a new era under Ronald Koeman, Johnny Phillips rewinds the clock with author Simon Hart to the 1980s to compare the current crop to the club's glorious past...
A new manager, a new owner and fresh investment - these are exciting times to be an Everton supporter.
Ronald Koeman has made a promising start to his tenure at Goodison Park. It has the feel of a new era there and fans are once again talking about their aspirations for the future after the frustrations of the previous two campaigns.
But for many Evertonians, it hasn't just been the last two years that have brought barren times. Think three decades, to the last time Everton won the league, in the 1986/87 campaign.
In this, the 30th anniversary of the last title-winning season, Blues supporter and author Simon Hart has written 'Here We Go', the story of Everton in the Eighties, told by the players themselves.
It was the most successful decade in the club's history as the team stepped out of Liverpool's shadow to lift two league titles, an FA Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup, as well as contesting four other Wembley cup finals.
"It feels like ancient history today," says Hart. "Since 1987 Goodison Park has witnessed just one new etching on the honours' board - the 1995 FA Cup. In other words, in the past 29 seasons, the blue half of Merseyside has seen as many major trophies as Birmingham, Luton, Portsmouth, Swansea and Wigan.
"Everton were a great team then, with a great story," says Hart. "It was a young team that came from nowhere. Everton were in the doldrums in late 1983 - lowest scorers in the English pyramid, lowest attendances since World War One - and yet 18 months later were named the European Team of the Year. The pity is they never had a chance to play in the European Cup."
Everton were in the doldrums in late 1983 and yet 18 months later were named the European Team of the Year.
Among those interviewed are Everton's star players of the day, naturally including captain Kevin Ratcliffe and big Neville Southall, the decade's greatest keeper.
But it is the words of the less-celebrated stars that are just as important. There is the touching tale of Mark Higgins, a defender who should have captained the team throughout the decade but succumbed to career-ending injuries after playing many games with painkilling injections while not fit during the troubled early days of Howard Kendall's reign.
Higgins couldn't bring himself to return to Goodison for many years, such was the heartache he felt at missing out on the golden era.
The team was defined by its bond; a band of brothers who watched out for each other's backs on the field and socialised extensively off it. Everton in the Eighties also had more than a sprinkling of stardust. "The 1984/85 title-winning team is one of the last even neutrals of a certain age can reel off from one to eleven," Hart adds. "Southall, Stevens, Mountfield, Ratcliffe, Van den Hauwe, Steven, Reid, Bracewell, Sheedy, Sharp, Gray."
So how many of the current crop would get in that team? "Leighton Baines at his best would push Pat Van den Hauwe for a place at left-back - but don't tell Pat that! Romelu Lukaku has probably got the ability but whether he's got the attitude is a moot point. Looking the other way, Adrian Heath would be perfect for the modern attacking game, as one of the three forwards behind the striker.
"Koeman has reinstated already some of the Everton virtues that were lost under Roberto Martinez, who turned them into a soft touch," Hart continues. "Already you can see that they are organised, they press the opposition, and they go forward with more directness.
"The pressing is important - this was a key ingredient in their mid-80s success with Reid and Bracewell harrying opposition midfielders tirelessly. They're also better organised at set pieces in both boxes and Koeman is making them a fitter team. Peter Reid told me Everton 'could win in different ways' back then, and happily Koeman has already shown he has a Plan B - something Martinez failed to do in three seasons."
It was Kendall's astute coach Colin Harvey who first introduced the midfield high-pressing game to Everton's play back in the Eighties, and Harvey explains in the book that one of his players took to it like a duck to water. "Reidy was always on at me saying, 'Why do I have to track back?' So I said, 'Well, don't! Go to the ball but make sure their other man doesn't have time to play the midfield player in."
For Reid, one of several local boys in the team, the success is something that had huge significance for the city. "The 1980s was not an easy decade economically for the city of Liverpool and I was well aware of that," he remembers.
"All my family lived in Liverpool and the football kept them going in my opinion. There was a strong music scene but football was the biggest thing - Everton and Liverpool were probably the best two teams in Europe at the time and, but for unseen circumstances with the European ban, we might have underlined that."
So can Hart ever see a return to the glory days of three decades past? "In a word: no. When Everton won the Cup Winners' Cup final in May 1985 their starting XI included seven players under 25. They were all from the British Isles. They'd grown up together. Fifteen or more of them went out for a drink in Liverpool together every Tuesday night. That side of it has gone - and not just the social side.
"If Everton are ever to win the league again, it'd almost certainly be with huge funding from a billionaire owner and probably the impetus of a new stadium behind them. I know the Leicester miracle happened but, as we all know, that was such an anomaly in the modern game."
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