Merseyside derby Can Everton end 18 years of hurt at Anfield?
Francis Jeffers believes his old club can finally end 18-year wait for win at Liverpool’s ground
In September 1999, on the morning after a 1-0 victory at Anfield, Walter Smith gathered his triumphant Everton players, marched them out of the Everton training ground and promptly ordered a fry-up at a nearby café.
As the victorious players paraded through the West Derby area of Liverpool – acknowledging the congratulatory hoots of car horns – none would have believed that the club’s wait for their next victory at Anfield would enter its 18th season with today’s fixture.
“We walked out of the [old] training ground, Bellefield, and down Eaton Road towards Alder Hey Hospital, got in a café and had a bacon sarnie,” recalls Francis Jeffers, the club’s former striker. “Walter would have paid. That was the treat for beating Liverpool. It was great.
“I remember walking out and all the cars were beeping as the whole squad went to this café, fist pumps out of the window and all that. It was what it was about: giving the Evertonians something to shout about.”
Jeffers shone in that victory, providing an assist for Kevin Campbell’s winner, but was also sent off following an altercation with Sander Westerveld. On reviewing footage of the incident, you find history is less than kind to the Dutch goalkeeper. “You’d like to think so, he was 6ft 5in,” laughs Jeffers.
“He got more stick than me. We had had a little run-in earlier in the first half. I had a chance, I was through, beat the offside trap and put it wide – a poor finish. He said something to me after that and, five or 10 minutes later, I went through and sort of collided with him. Before you know it, a few handbags and off you go.
“If the keeper grabs you by the neck, you are not going to just take it and say, ‘oh, sorry about that, mate’. Regardless of who you are playing, if you get grabbed by the neck, you are going to react, whether it is in a Sunday league game or a Merseyside derby.
“It was probably one of the only times I played well for Everton! We deserved to win, I remember I fancied us strongly that night, looking at the two teams. We were quite strong at that time and had started the season well. The win put us sixth and they were in the bottom half of the table. Me and Kevin Campbell had struck up quite a good partnership and looked like we had a goal in us.
“It was an early goal, around four or five minutes. I think Barms [Nick Barmby] cut one back from the left and I scooped it into Kev’s path and he finished it off. He was giving the upsies to the Kop.”
Liverpool’s dominance in the home fixture since is a curiosity. For much of that time, they have had a superior side. But on occasions when Everton have finished above their neighbours in the Premier League, they wilted when arriving at the Shankly Gates. It has been suggested that players suffer from a mental block.
“There is no reason why it has been so long,” says Jeffers. “Sometimes you have grounds you don’t win at or don’t play well at as a player. I don’t know if it is psychological. Players come and go. You would have to ask the players, but what tends to happen in the build-up is that it gets mentioned a lot, so players who probably haven’t been here and who have signed in the summer see it and think, ‘that’s an interesting stat’. But there is no reason why we can’t go there and win.
“I have been impressed with the team. Why can’t we win? We have probably got our best squad that we have had for a long time, we have Rom [Romelu Lukaku], the best striker in the league barring no one. We are well equipped to win there, we can win there, but we have been equipped to win there in the past and for some reason we have not done it.
“Last season was a nightmare, wasn’t it? We never started well and got a bit of a battering. [Liverpool won 4-0.] This year, I think we will be a bit more solid. That is one thing you can say under Ronald Koeman – that we think defensively as well as offensively. We have players who can win the game.”
In 1999, Jeffers was one of Merseyside and England’s best prospects, along with Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher – both of whom played for Liverpool on the night of Everton’s victory.
Two years later, Jeffers joined Arsène Wenger’s great Arsenal side, yet never went close to reaching the heights for which he looked destined. Now 36, he has completed his Uefa ‘A’ licence, and works as a specialist striker coach at Everton’s academy. He is honest about his career.
“I didn’t fulfil my potential,” he says. “I don’t have to hide that. I should not have ended up with just one England cap, but for one
‘If the keeper grabs you by the neck, you are not going to just take it and say, oh, sorry mate’
reason or another… it is all different things. Myself, a bit of luck, wrong move at the wrong time, injuries. You can go on. But you know what? I still played for England. If you had asked me about that when I was 10...
“It was never going to get any better for me than playing for Everton. I was on the terraces so that was as good as it got. But I should have done better.
“It is not having a go at the club but, at that time, this football club was different to how it is now. It was not going in the direction it is going.
“We were selling players. And then Arsenal come for you, the best team in the league. If I was coming through now there is no way I would be leaving this club. Why would you? Especially being an Evertonian, a young scouse lad dreaming of playing for them.”
Jeffers is certain that Koeman can succeed where his predecessors Roberto Martínez and David Moyes failed and bring success to the club.
“We’d like to get rid of the hoodoo of Anfield but, in the bigger picture, we are ambitious and want to be winning things now,” he says. “We need to be winning things. We have the calibre of players to be winning things.”