Everton and technical partner hummel are proud to collaborate to present My Everton, a weekly series of first-hand accounts describing the most-treasured memories of fans, players, and staff both past and present.
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I’m not from Merseyside. Let’s get that one out the way first. I didn’t spend my youth playing football in Stanley Park, I couldn’t hear the Goodison roar from my back garden. But I’m still a Blue. The experience of supporting Everton is slightly different for all of us no matter where you’re from, but for those 90 minutes it’s the same. My Everton is your Everton, too.
It could’ve easily been so different. Like my dad, I was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. In 1989, he got a new job and we moved 30 miles across the county border into Derbyshire, settling in Chesterfield. I was three years old.
Chesterfield isn’t famous for much, if anything it may be the questionable workmanship that led to the iconic Crooked Spire on the All Saints Church, but football fans of a certain vintage may remember Chesterfield FC gained national attention in 1997 when reaching the FA Cup semi-finals.
The third tier side faced a Premier League Middlesbrough team containing such household names as Juninho and Fabrizio Ravanelli. An epic encounter finished 3-3 with Chesterfield’s captain, a no nonsense centre half by the name of Sean Dyche both scoring and giving away a penalty. The gaffer likely remembers the day better than me, as I was one of the only people in the entire town that didn’t attend the game. Chesterfield was my local club, but they weren’t my team. FA Cup magic had already cast its spell on my family years previously and it was the Blue of Everton, not of the plucky Spireites that adorned my walls.
The roots of my Everton following stem from before I was born, all the way back to a historic event at the old Wembley Stadium in 1966. It would be another two months until Toffees' left-back Ray Wilson hoisted the Jules Rimet trophy for England and for now his immediate chance at glory was in the FA Cup final. Standing between him and a winners' medal that day was Sheffield Wednesday. Everton were yet to concede a goal in the competition, and their lineup contained the likes of Gordon West, Alex Young and Brian Labone.
An eight-year-old John Rutherford was looking forward to the game. It’s hard to imagine now but back then the FA Cup final was one of the few televised football matches each year. Understandably this was quite the occasion, so with his brothers and his friends he set off for the only house on the street with a TV. In that room full of Yorkshiremen most shouts were in favour of the Sheffield club and when the Owls took a two-goal lead it appeared that the famous old trophy was heading to the White Rose county.
Instead something astonishing happened.
Everton became the first team in history to win an FA Cup Final in 90 minutes from 2-0 down. What a comeback! What a victory! What magic! Even at that age John was not one to follow the herd, the Blues had been undeniable, and from that day forward Everton were the team for him. Young John grew up to be my dad.
Fast-forwarding almost three decades to the era of Brit-Pop, Forrest Gump and Michael Jordan, there is a different eight-year-old sitting down to watch a match. Me.
The 1995 FA Cup semi-final is live on the BBC from Elland Road, Everton versus Spurs. My dad sits in his chair urging on the Blues to make the showpiece final and end their eight-year trophy drought.
We watch together, me an interested observer as Daniel Amokachi subs himself on with the score at 2-1 and my dad instructs me to pay close attention because “that fella’s gonna score a hat-trick”. He doesn’t quite, but a brace of late goals sees my dad dancing round the room and me heading outside to play football with the lads.
“I’m glad Everton won,” said my neighbour, but this was no show of solidarity. “Because now it will be easier for United to win the Cup”.
Like most people I knew, he was a Manchester United fan - and they were fresh off doing the double the previous season.
A town whose only professional club hasn’t played in the top two divisions since 1951 leaves a glory-shaped vacuum for bigger, more successful clubs to fill. Many folk supported their local side whilst also leaving room for a top-flight team. At least five of the households on our little cul-de-sac had filled that hole with Alex Ferguson’s Reds.
For some reason that wasn’t for me. I loved football and played every single day, at school, on the small patch of grass on our street or alone on our back yard. We couldn’t afford Sky Sports so didn’t see many games on TV, my first memory of televised football is getting sent to bed before kick off of the USA ‘94 World Cup Final. With my dad spending matchdays working at local football clubs, aside from a few rare trips to lower league grounds, I hadn’t seen much live action at all. Eight years old and still awaiting a moment for a team to grab me. Until now nothing had seemed to fit.
The player I pretended to be on the playground was Ian Wright. The Arsenal striker seemed to play the way I thought all players should play. Committed, with as much desire and effort as the fans in the terraces, but with no shortage of skill and quality. Subconsciously, values had already struck a chord with my younger self, having had them drilled into me by my working class, union member of a father. Wanting to be like Wrighty, I asked him for an Arsenal shirt. He calmly said no. He wouldn’t force me to support any particular team, but as a proud Northerner, London clubs were off limits. The trajectory of my sporting future remaining undecided and I needed a sign.
FA Cup final day was sunny and that morning's newspaper was full of big match build up. Everton had done well to get there, apparently. Mark Hughes was confident of a United victory. So, it seemed, was everyone else. Everyone except my Dad. I’d never seen him quite like this before. Was he nervous, excited, anxious or determined? In those days the terrestrial TV coverage of the Cup Final began early, we sat down together and watched it all.
My abiding memories of the match itself are fleeting. Graham Stuart hitting the bar. Paul Rideout rising to head the ball. A defender on the goalline blocking Peter Schmeichel. Joe Royle’s wink. Neville Southall’s moustache. A young player called Paul Scholes. An older player called Dave Watson. A team playing in Blue who were committed, with desire, effort and skill.
But it wasn’t the heroes on the famous Wembley pitch that day who made me an Evertonian. It wasn’t Big Dunc’s Blue nose, nor the flags nor the fans nor the joy nor the classic underdog story of Everton’s victory. It wasn’t actually the win at all. It was my dad. Stubborn and proud all week in the face of what everyone said would be a defeat now he was singing and dancing and beaming like the world had somehow righted itself. A lone Blue in our neighbourhood he was at one with an entire fan base of Toffees on the other side of the screen.
Seeing him so happy was the sign I’d been waiting for. This time I asked him for an Everton shirt. This time he said yes.
Eventually he took me to Goodison. We sat in the Top Balcony for my first game as the Blues beat Southampton 4-1. I remember the steepness of the steps, the thrilling noise of Z Cars as the players came into view. With each goal and the resulting cheers came feeling of belonging, of being part of something bigger than just us two. Like a lot of father-son relationships we didn’t always have the words to communicate effectively. Football brought us together. It felt transformative for us both. Over the next few years we went as often as we could.
I remember 27 seconds into David Moyes’ arrival David Unsworth’s goal taking the roof off The Grand Old Lady, and then a few weeks later my first Everton away game came in a relegation six-pointer at Derby County. My new hero Big Dunc scored as we won 4-3 on the road. Now this was NOISE. This was something else. I was stunned. Instantly obsessed. The following year together we made it to 14 matches. Everton had gripped me. It was to be a lifelong love affair.
Once old enough to earn my own money I bought a season ticket. By that time my dad’s career was taking off, the football stadiums he worked in he was now in charge of on matchdays. With him no longer able to come with me I bought a seat at Goodison Park by myself. Top Balcony, block TB3, just like when we had gone together.
But by now I wasn’t alone. Despite not knowing a single crowd member by name I somehow knew them all. We all shared the same passion, carried the same emotional scars, could reminisce about the same great Everton moments when we had cheered or hugged or sang or fell down the aisles or made the long trip to Wembley. Just mention Jagielka’s penalty or Ferguson’s header or AJ in the derby or Tim Cahill punching the corner flag, these emotions of being an Evertonian had been felt by us all and at once we were All Together Now.
Like a distant cousin who had attended the same birthday parties or wedding receptions long since passed, you share a history, a lineage.
Their remembrance of events may not be exactly like yours. They may have arrived with different people. They may have danced in and different corner of the room. But they were there. They felt the same emotion.
My Everton is theirs. Their Everton is mine.
UTT.
By Rob Rutherford, Evertonian
