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Here We Go: Everton in the 1980s: The Players' Stories
For Everton FC, the 1980s were the most successful decade in the club’s history. It was a time when Wembley became a second home for Howard Kendall’s band of brothers as they stepped out from Liverpool’s long shadow to take their neighbours’ mantle as the country’s best team, winning two league titles, an FA Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
In Here We Go, Simon Hart interviews some of the Blues’ best-loved players from that era – along with the most controversial and the unsung heroes too – to provide a vivid, colourful portrait of a period when a group of unheralded young footballers came together to achieve something special with a rare, intoxicating mix of raw talent and team spirit.
The players featured include Kevin Ratcliffe, Adrian Heath, Gary Lineker, Pat van den Hauwe, Mark Higgins, Kevin Richardson, Paul Power and Pat Nevin, along with Colin Harvey, Kendall’s No2 during the glory days and subsequently manager himself by the decade’s end.
Thirty years on from Everton’s last championship-winning campaign of 1986/87, they remember the Wembley highs and heartbreaks, and the epic derby duels in an age when Merseyside, for all its troubles, stood at the very forefront of English football. They also recall the boozy nights, the bold pranks and the bad haircuts, and their recollections capture just what it meant to be a footballer in a dramatic decade for the English game.
Together they explain not only the Blues’ rise to greatness but the decline that gradually set in after their European exile; they also offer a nostalgia-laden celebration of the teambuilding skills of the man who made it the late, great Howard Kendall.
In Here We Go, Simon Hart interviews some of the Blues’ best-loved players from that era – along with the most controversial and the unsung heroes too – to provide a vivid, colourful portrait of a period when a group of unheralded young footballers came together to achieve something special with a rare, intoxicating mix of raw talent and team spirit.
The players featured include Kevin Ratcliffe, Adrian Heath, Gary Lineker, Pat van den Hauwe, Mark Higgins, Kevin Richardson, Paul Power and Pat Nevin, along with Colin Harvey, Kendall’s No2 during the glory days and subsequently manager himself by the decade’s end.
Thirty years on from Everton’s last championship-winning campaign of 1986/87, they remember the Wembley highs and heartbreaks, and the epic derby duels in an age when Merseyside, for all its troubles, stood at the very forefront of English football. They also recall the boozy nights, the bold pranks and the bad haircuts, and their recollections capture just what it meant to be a footballer in a dramatic decade for the English game.
Together they explain not only the Blues’ rise to greatness but the decline that gradually set in after their European exile; they also offer a nostalgia-laden celebration of the teambuilding skills of the man who made it the late, great Howard Kendall.
317 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 28, 2016
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 12, 2020
Great read - and surprising too.
I'm an Everton fan and grew up during the eighties on Merseyside - listening to Gordon Lee's team on the radio in bed under the covers, later being taken to Goodison for games during Kendall's brilliant first spell - and although I thought I knew the story of those times inside out, there were plenty of surprises in this book for me. I think it would appeal to anyone who enjoyed English football back then, not just Evertonians.
I won't say who is interviewed as it's easy enough to find out and I quite liked not knowing who was coming up next, but some highlights for me were Pat Van den Hauwe's section, including a coked-up, gun weilding altercation in a Cape Town bar, and the revelation that Pat Nevin listened to the Cure and New Order in Colin Harvey's car, is a fan of The Fall, and used to sit in with John Peel on his radio programme. There's all the football memories, too, of course, tons of them and good ones, and the interviews are always informative and interesting, taking in the player's career as a whole, not just their Everton years.
All in all, a good, satisfying read - you end up wanting more.
I'm an Everton fan and grew up during the eighties on Merseyside - listening to Gordon Lee's team on the radio in bed under the covers, later being taken to Goodison for games during Kendall's brilliant first spell - and although I thought I knew the story of those times inside out, there were plenty of surprises in this book for me. I think it would appeal to anyone who enjoyed English football back then, not just Evertonians.
I won't say who is interviewed as it's easy enough to find out and I quite liked not knowing who was coming up next, but some highlights for me were Pat Van den Hauwe's section, including a coked-up, gun weilding altercation in a Cape Town bar, and the revelation that Pat Nevin listened to the Cure and New Order in Colin Harvey's car, is a fan of The Fall, and used to sit in with John Peel on his radio programme. There's all the football memories, too, of course, tons of them and good ones, and the interviews are always informative and interesting, taking in the player's career as a whole, not just their Everton years.
All in all, a good, satisfying read - you end up wanting more.
Displaying 1 of 1 review