BLUES BROTHERS
Two brilliant new films recount Everton and United’s
The air turned blue in Liverpool on Monday evening, as St George’s hall, the neo-classical monolith in the heart of the city, was aptly illuminated for the premiere of a stirring new documentary celebrating everton’s halcyon era, the mid-eighties.
With ‘the other lot’ currently sitting eight points clear at the top of the Premier League, the screening of Howard’s Way gave hundreds of evertonians a rare chance to wallow in their own success, albeit from rather a long time ago.
Alas, howard Kendall, the man who masterminded that success — two league championships, the FA Cup and the european Cup-Winners’ Cup between 1984 and 1987 — died in 2015, aged 69. But almost all his players were there to swap memories and anecdotes, many of which are chronicled in director Rob Sloman’s film.
It is a funny, warm, affectionate documentary, but it also acts as a kind of lament for what football has become, with the proliferation of foreign players, silly wages, powerful agents, social media, even fancy headphones, all in their way making it harder for managers now to do what Kendall did and build a band of brothers. he was a charismatic, clubbable man, but tough too, if not as tough as his loyal lieutenant Colin harvey.
The film recalls a match against Derby County which everton led 3-0, only to be pegged back to 3-3.
Afterwards, harvey, the first-team coach, was apoplectic. even-tually, t ll hi his ti tirade d di died dd down, and d as the players undressed, midfielder Gary Stanley, who had a luxuriant mane of hair, asked if anyone had any conditioner. ‘Conditioner!’ bellowed harvey, give or take an expletive or two. The word had tipped him over the edge again.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Stanley had moved on by the time Kendall and harvey forged the title-winning side skippered by defender Kevin Ratcliffe. Before Monday’s screening, Ratcliffe and his fellow centre half Derek Mountfield sat down with Sportsmail to discuss everton then and now.
Ratcliffe refused to be too gloomy about the Toffees’ wretched form this season, with last Saturday’s win at Southampton at least easing some of the pressure on manager Marco Silva.
‘ You’re always hoping there might be something good just around the corner,’ said the Welsh-man, who turned 59 this week.
‘There’s always that little bit of hope.’ he spoke from experience, remembering all too vividly sitting in the main stand at Goodison Park in November 1982, watching everton lose a Merseyside derby 5-0. he wondered what Kendall must think of him, if he didn’t deem him good enough to play in a side battered 5-0.
And, as further indignities followed, he understood why the fans were calling for the manager’s dismissal, screaming the same invective that has recently rained down on the beleagured Silva.
Goodison had idolised Kendall as a player. With harvey and Alan Ball he formed an unforgettable midfield trio, the so- called holy Trinity, that helped sweep the club to a league title in 1969-70. But past glories counted for nothing then, and count for nothing now.
except on Monday, they did. The film explains how Kendall over-came those early setbacks — and his doubts about Ratcliffe — to fashion one of the greatest sides in english football. No less an authority than Brian Clough thought everton would dominate europe for years to come, and they might have done, but for the heysel tragedy and subsequent ban.
Kendall was brilliant at building team spirit, insisting his players all play cards — Chase The Ace, a pound in each — on the way to away games, and all go for at least one drink when they got back to Liverpool. The camaraderie this engendered sometimes had an edgy side.
After the 0-0 draw away to Bayern Munich in the first leg of the 1985 european Cup-Winners’ Cup semi-final, goalkeeper Neville Southall, a teetotaller, was unimpressed when his room-mate Alan harper came in a little the worse for wear.
So he picked him up and locked him in the wardrobe, where harper remained until morning.
‘But that was the thing,’ said Ratcliffe, laughing. ‘We all shared rooms. Derek with Gary Stevens.
‘Me and Sheeds (Kevin Sheedy). Reidy (Peter Reid) and Inchy (Adrian heath). Andy Gray and Sharpy (Graeme Sharp). Despite what Nev might or might not have done, you didn’t share with some-one you didn’t like. Now, when they stay in hotels, they have their own rooms.’
Of course, Kendall wasn’t just interested in rapport between his players. ‘It was all about positional play with howard,’ added Ratcliffe. ‘he used to say to us defenders, ‘What does everyone look for in a game? Space. everyone’s looking to create space to run into. So mark space.” Not everyone is able to do that, so he made sure he had defenders who could.’
‘Mind you, certain things just came together for us,’ said Mountfield, now 57. ‘everyone talks about the Oxford United game (when a poor Kevin Brock backpass allowed everton to equalise and draw a League Cup quarter- final, the fabled catalyst for the start of the glory days).
‘But for me it began before that, on January 2 (1984) under the lights l at Birmingham. We’d had a terrible t Christmas, howard was under real pressure, and we were in the dressing room ready to go out in our grey away kit, when the r referee knocked on the door.
‘he said, “I’m sorry, but that kit’s going to clash with Birmingham’s blue.” I remember someone shout-ing, “So is it skins tonight, ref?” he said, “No, I’ve got you their away kit.” Which, as it happened, was the same as everton’s traditional away strip of yellow shirts, blue shorts and yellow socks.
‘As a lifelong Blue I remembered seeing pictures of Alan Ball w wearing it. Somehow it seemed to galvanise us. We won 2-0, and that got us going.’
Today’s team is a pale shadow of t that one but Mountfield sees signs of things gelling in the heart of the e everton defence, which he and R Ratcliffe, and Southall, helped make so impregnable.
‘Yerry Mina has surprised me, in a good way. And Michael Keane has improved. I know he had to be given lots of heading practice at Burnley, and that’s a fault of the system, because defending is becoming a lost art. They’re taught to keep the ball and pass the ball, not to head it and clear it, which sometimes is all you have to do.
‘Mason holgate has come on, too. Going on loan to West Brom has clearly helped him.’
‘Yeah, just like it did with Nev,’ added Ratcliffe. ‘When he came to everton from Bury he’d get changed quietly in the corner.
‘Then he went to Port Vale on loan and came back a different player. he’d gone there and been a kingpin in the dressing room.
‘So when he came back he was full of confidence, a leader. We had leaders all over the park. That’s what this everton team lacks.’
• Howard’s Way is available now on DVD and digital.