Four Everton title-winning players are to finally receive a League Championship medal.
The Football League recently announced they are able to award backdated medals to players who made at least five appearances during the season in which their team won the title.
This is a change of criteria, following a similar decision by the Premier League a few years ago, and means players who did not qualify at the time now do.
Roger Kenyon and Frank D’Arcy fall into the category from the 1969/70 season, Paul Wilkinson, main image, is now eligible for a 1984/85 medal and so is Warren Aspinall from the success two years later.
Everton, therefore, contacted the EFL to order, and pay for, four medals to be presented to the players.
Roger Kenyon, who played 309 times for the Blues during a 12-year career, but appeared in only nine games during the victorious 1969/70 title-winning team, said: “This is wonderful news. I just missed out on a medal at the time and I’ve always felt a bit aggrieved but this is great. I can’t thank Everton enough, it means so much to me and my family.”
Frank D'Arcy, circled left, and Roger Kenyon, circled right
Warren Aspinall, who made six appearances during the 1986/87 title-winning campaign after joining the Blues from Wigan Athletic, said: “It’s great of Everton to do this. I was so privileged to be a part of that squad and to get a medal after all this time means the world to me and my family.”
Warren Aspinall during his Everton playing days
Frank D’Arcy, a local boy who came through the ranks at Everton, made 17 career appearances for the Club, five of which were in 1969/70.
Paul Wilkinson joined Everton midway through the glorious 1984/85 season, during which time he scored a winning goal for Grimsby Town in the League Cup at Goodison Park, playing six games and scoring two goals, one of which was a Merseyside derby winner!
He later, of course, did get a medal when he helped Howard Kendall’s team to a second title in three years.
The medals will be formally presented to the players at a specially-arranged event before the start of next season.