Robert Exley
(Flashbacks for Everton at home can be found here and here, while yesterday’s edition can be found here.
Everton’s opening fixture of the 1985/86 season would be an avenging of their FA Cup Final defeat, with a a 2-0 win over Ron Atkinson’s Man United. This however would be the last piece of league football coverage on British television for the next five months due to Football League’s dispute with the TV companies. One piece of footage that we’re forever thankful would never be in the archives would be Arsenal’s visit to Goodison Park in November that season, as Everton inflicted a 1-6 defeat on the Gunners with goals for Graeme Sharp, Trevor Steven and two apiece for Gary Lineker and Adrian Heath (to make matters worse Everton were considered to be ‘injury hit’ and at the time were even level on points with Arsenal in sixth place).
After a run of eighteen games without loss, Everton returned to the top of the old First Division (a run which included winning at Anfield by two clear goals – the last team to do that until you know who!). A 0-2 defeat to relegation candidates Oxford United at the end of April however meant that Everton were relying on Chelsea to defeat Liverpool in their final fixture at Stamford Bridge to effectively set up a title showdown with surprise title challengers West Ham at Goodison forty eight hours later. Despite a thumping 6-1 win over Southampton on the last day of the season, Everton would be pipped to the title by their Merseyside neighbours, as well as the FA Cup a week later.
The other side of the coin to the 1-6 drubbing of November 1985 with regard to the lack of TV coverage for top flight games during the mid to late 1980s, are that many important turning points during the modern game went uncaptured and Arsenal’s visit to Goodison in early October 1986 is one such moment. After accruing just two wins from their first eight games, George Graham’s Arsenal faced a daunting away trip to Everton laying fifteenth in the table, while Everton would be four points off of the top in third. As described by Jon Spurling in ‘All Guns Blazing’: ‘after four games without a win, he (George Graham) called for greater commitment and effort. He got a frantic, rabid defensive display, with an apoplectic Steve Williams bollocking all and sundry for 90 minutes. To be frank we were pulverized by an Everton team who did everything but score; John Lukic denied the furious scousers with some daring point blank stops’.
The Gunners pulled off their first significant win under George Graham with a thirty yard drive from Steve Williams and, as Spurling states: ‘outplayed, seemingly outclassed but winning 1-0; George was starting to get what he wanted’ (if only there were footage of this game to show you!). Within three weeks, three straight wins for Arsenal and three straight losses for Everton put the two sides on level points. By the end of October Arsenal were two points from the top of the table. By Christmas, Arsenal were five points clear at the top and six clear of Everton in fourth. A post-Christmas collapse for Arsenal however saw the 1986/87 League title back at Goodison, along the way with a 4-0 win over a West Ham, which were a shadow of the side that challenged Everton for the title a year earlier.
Everton secured the League title on Mayday bank holiday Monday with a 1-0 away win over Norwich and finished the season sixteen points clear of Arsenal in fourth place. There were suggestions in some quarters, refuted in this article, that Everton were the best of a bad bunch in 1986/87. The Toffees however have not scaled such heights again since, with Howard Kendall leaving to manage in Spain in the summer of 1987, with his assistant Colin Harvey taking over with much less success. Their trajectory seemingly the opposite of an Arsenal side on the rise. Two games of note for their novelty value involving Everton in 1987/88 are the Mercantile Centenary Challenge match against German champions Bayern Munich and the ‘British Championship’ tie with Scots Champions Glasgow Rangers in Dubai.
The former included Mark Hughes on loan from Barcelona, as well as German Italia ’90 stars Lothar Matthaus and Andreas Brehme, with the same result as their Cup Winners Cup Semi Final second leg tie of two and a half years earlier (minus the atmosphere) a 3-1 win for Everton. The British Championship tie however, against a club who would in the coming years raid Goodison for Gary Stevens and Trevor Steven in the gradual break up of the ‘Class of ‘85’, saw the Toffees defeated on penalties to Rangers. One tie however which signified the differing directions of Arsenal and Everton had been the League Cup Semi Final in February 1988, with the first leg at Goodison Park. Arsenal took the lead through a Perry Groves strike after ten minutes.
In the second half, a penalty awarded against Arsenal sent several Gunners players apoplectic with the referee. The resulting penalty however was skied by Everton’s Trevor Steven, leaving Arsenal players having to hold back the normally mild mannered Niall Quinn from goading the referee in celebration. This match also saw the emergence of Michael Thomas in the Arsenal midfield, ousting Steve Williams who would move on from Highbury during the summer. Arsenal held out to take a 1-0 lead back to Highbury and would triumph in the second leg, 4-1 on aggregate, but lose the final 2-3 to Luton Town.
Arsenal returned to Goodison Park on the final day of the season. Everton had been languishing in fourth place and ten points off of their Merseyside neighbours who had won the League title at a cantor. Arsenal meanwhile finished a relatively low sixth place. With no European places to play for due to the Post-Heysel ban, the final fixture at Goodison would be a relatively meaningless one but for the final appearances in an Arsenal shirt for former captains Graham Rix and Kenny Sansom. Meanwhile making his first team debut had been the star of the 1988 FA Youth Cup winning side Kevin Campbell. The 1987/88 season would wrap up with a 2-1 win for Arsenal, with goals from Martin Hayes and Michael Thomas, while Everton’s goal came from Dave Watson.
The other noteworthy thing about this game is that, as I am unable to find any clips from this game on any video sharing sites and it is not listed as appearing on either Match of the Day or the Big Match, this game must have been Arsenal’s last League match where footage of which was never captured by the TV cameras. Over the close season of 1988, as both Arsenal and Everton finished trophy-less, both looked to bolster their squad with new additions and were in the running to sign West Ham’s Tony Cottee. Arsenal looked odds on land him, however at the last minute Cottee chose to head north to Merseyside for a record breaking £2.2 Million fee, topping the previous record set by Spurs signing Gazza from Newcastle just weeks earlier.
The Toffees also added Chelsea’s Pat Nevin and Gazza’s old team mate at Newcastle, Neil McDonald, with expectations high at Goodison. It would be against Newcastle where Cottee would mark his debut with a hat-trick in a 4-0 win for the Toffees. In late October, Everton would also appear on the first edition of ITV’s ‘The Match’ (rebranded from ‘The Big Match’), which in 1988/89 would be the first regular weekly run of live games exclusive to one channel (and almost exclusively involving one of the ‘big five’ of Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Spurs and Man United – the Toffees playing the latter here), which ended in a 1-1 draw.
Cottee however would not significantly improve Everton’s fortunes in the League, as at the time of Arsenal’s visit to Goodison Park in mid-January the Toffees would be languishing in sixth place, while Arsenal were two points clear at the top of the table over second place Norwich with a game in hand. Arsenal’s performance at Goodison that season would be one of ‘shock and awe’, the opening goal from Paul Merson resulting from a ten second burst from one penalty area to the other, looking not too dissimilar to Michael Thomas’s winner at Anfield just a few months later. A brave header from Alan Smith on the end of a David Rocastle cross made it two, while former Toffee Kevin Richardson would put Arsenal into a three goal lead.
Dave Watson would pull one back for Everton (which barely at all looks as if it crossed the goal line), but Arsenal secured the points with a 3-1 win. In 1988/89, Everton would finish even further down in the table in eighth place, though reached two Cup Finals, losing the Simod Cup to Nottingham Forest 3-4 and another FA Cup Final against Liverpool, which however ended in another defeat. After the first six games of the 1989/90 season, bolstered by new signings such as Arsenal legend Martin Keown, Mike Newell and Norman Whiteside, Everton would top the old First Division.
By the time of Arsenal’s visit to Goodison in mid-October, fourth placed Everton would be one point behind Arsenal in second. After being rocked by a 1-2 defeat to Spurs in the week, the Gunners would crash to a 0-3 defeat with goals for Neil McDonald and two for Pat Nevin, which would put Everton back to the top of the table, with Arsenal slipping to fifth. The Everton renaissance however would not last, as just two weeks on the Toffees suffered a 2-6 hammering away at Aston Villa live on ITV, though finished slightly higher in sixth position.
Everton’s opening game of the 1990/91 season resulted in a 2-3 loss to newly promoted Leeds United, with a bizarre half time protest from goalkeeper Neville Southall sitting out half time on his goal line after Everton went three nil down. Everton’s next home game would be against Arsenal where they would fare better, gaining a 1-1 draw with Perry Groves on target for the Gunners, while Mike Newell would score for Everton. The Toffees finished the season in ninth position, but reached the ZDS Cup Final (increasingly meaningless after English clubs’ readmission to European competition that season) after beating Leeds United 3-1 in the Northern final, though lost the final itself 1-4 to Crystal Palace at Wembley.
Reigning champions Arsenal would visit Goodison Park for the second league fixture of 1991/92 and endured their first League defeat since February with Everton inflicting a 1-3 loss on the Gunners, with West Ham old boys Tony Cottee and Mark Ward (twice) on the score sheet, making it three straight defeats at Goodison for the Arsenal. The only bright spot for the Gunners being an excellent strike by Nigel Winterburn, though it was little more than a consolation goal. Arsenal’s winless streak at Goodison would actually stretch to six straight games, with a 0-0 draw on Mayday 1993, as well as back to back 1-1 draws with Paul Merson and Tony Cottee on the score sheet in February 1994, as well as David Unsworth and Stefan Schwarz the following October.
Arsenal finally got their first victory at Goodison Park during the 1990s in what was also Arsenal’s first win during the Bruce Rioch era, with a first goal for new signing David Platt as well as Ian Wright on the score sheet in a 2-0 win in August 1995. It would be back to back 2-0 wins at Goodison as Arsenal, now under Arsene Wenger’s stewardship, took all three points in March 1997, with goals from Dennis Bergkamp and Ian Wright. The following September, early on in Wenger’s first Double season, Arsenal took a 2-0 lead again with first half goals from Ian Wright and Marc Overmars. However second half goals from Michael Ball and Danny Cadamarteri gave Everton a 2-2 draw.
In March 1999, in Arsenal’s last visit to Goodison during the twentieth century, goals for Ray Parlour and Dennis Bergkamp gave the Gunners a 2-0 win. This victory kept Arsenal in the title race four points behind Man United, a key moment in this game however would be the sending off of Emmanuel Petit for two bookable offences by referee Uriah Rennie, which saw him suspended for the FA Cup Semi Final tie with Man United after just returning from injury. Manu stated that: ‘I tried to see Mr Rennie after the game at Goodison last Saturday because I wanted to hand him my shirt. It wasn't intended as a sarcastic gesture - I meant it’.
In the aftermath of this game Petit started to make threats about leaving the English game, quoted in the Daily Mirror as claiming that ‘referees seemed to be treating star players as a kind of trophy, and that they go home to their wives and say `Guess what - I sent off that Emmanuel Petit today’. Manu also stated that he was ‘fed up’ and that he was: ‘not even sure that winning the Double again this season can make me change my mind about leaving’. Petit’s threats would actually be followed through around eighteen months later, moving on to Barcelona with Arsenal team mate Marc Overmars whose goal against Everton in late April 2000 gave the Gunners a 1-0 win and a sixth straight season unbeaten at Goodison Park for Arsenal.
Seven months on, Everton managed to achieve their first win over Arsenal at Goodison in nine years with goals from Danny Cadamarteri and former Gunners striker Kevin Campbell that inflicted a 0-2 defeat on Arsenal and allowed Man United to open up a five point gap at the top of the Premiership. Arsenal however would be back to winning ways at Goodison in early February 2002, as a Sylvain Wiltord goal secured a 1-0 win as Arsenal would be on their way to a third League and FA Cup Double.
The Gunners next visit to Goodison Park eight months on would be the first of the David Moyes era. Arsenal had remained unbeaten in domestic football during the interim period and took the lead again through a Freddie Ljungberg goal. Everton equalised with a goal from Tomasz Radzinski. Going into the last minute of the game, Arsenal’s unbeaten run looked to be extended for one further game until sixteen year old substitute Wayne Rooney hit a thirty yard shot from out of the blue to steal all three points for Everton to inflict a 1-2 defeat on the Gunners. ‘Remember the name’ screeched excitable commentator Clive Tyldesley (if only we could have forgotten it in the years since!).
