My Goodison No.37: 'You're Playing Tomorrow'

I absolutely remember my debut here for Everton. It was a European game against Feyenoord in 1979. Unfortunately, we lost 1-0 but it was a brilliant experience for me. It was my first game, it was in Europe and I thought that would happen all the time for me – but it was a one-off!

I found out the day before the game that I would be playing. I drove into Bellefield and a reporter asked me how I felt about "playing tomorrow". I had no idea! Gordon Lee had obviously told the press before he told me. We stayed in a hotel the night before and I roomed with Mick Lyons, who was the captain at the time.

It was special to play for the first team at Goodison and I remember a lot of the youth team games, too, because we did pretty well in the FA Youth Cup when I was here. We got a final and a semi-final – but running out in front of 30,000 was very different!

Goodison is a special place. We played Ipswich Town in the FA Cup in 1980 in the quarter-final and they had beaten us here 4-0 in the league a couple of weeks earlier, they absolutely hammered us. In the Cup, it was a misty day and the atmosphere here was just incredible and we beat them 2-1. That was some result because that was a brilliant Ipswich team. They were a full team of internationals. The fact that we’d had such a going-over a few weeks earlier was in our heads and we knew we certainly couldn’t let it happen again.

A third game? Well, I was lucky enough to score in a Merseyside derby, so that was special. It was in the Gwladys Street end against Liverpool and it doesn’t get better than that. It put us 2-0 ahead but as we all know, Liverpool were a decent side at that time and they came back to draw 2-2. I actually scored a last-minute header at the Park End but it was disallowed for offside.

I’ve had some special memories here and I haven’t been back for a long time but I was determined to get back here one more time, so it was special to do that for the 1-1 draw with Arsenal earlier this month.

By Joe McBride, former Everton winger (1979-1982)

A series of first-hand accounts describing moments that made us fall in love with Goodison Park, My Goodison - supported by the Club's Main Partner, Stake - is a new weekly offering here on evertonfc.com, bringing you the most-treasured memories of fans, players, and staff both past and present, for our final season at the Grand Old Lady.

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