With Martinez talking about a global market and scouting players all around the world, sparking various debates about the wisdom of buying foreign vs buying from england (basically english experience costs you but it's also valuable) I thought it might be a good time to talk about our history of buying players from outside the british isles.
In the early years of the club, players were mostly local. When the league started and things became a little more organised, we started bringing in players from other english clubs and soon from scottish and welsh clubs. Even in the very early days of football, there was loads of movement of footballers throughout great britain.
And by the early 1900s we were regularly bringing in players from ireland as well.
The first time we looked beyond these islands for a player was in 1925, when Thomas McIntosh, the man who signed Dixie Dean, picked up David James Murray, a South African international playing in their league for the team Western Province (now a rugby team) after he'd impressed in a south african tour of ireland, scoring the equalizer as they beat northern ireland 2-1.
This sort of thing was not as rare as it might seem, it was common practice at the time for the colonial sides to send touring teams to britain and for the best players to sign on with english or scottish clubs. The first foreigners in the league originally came over as part of the canada team to tour britain on the weekend the football league started and similar things had happened with egyptian and australian tours in the 1900s.
Indeed our loveable neighbours would snap up another two of that same south africa side. Gordon Hodgson who went onto score 241 goals for them and is still their third highest goalscorer of all time and Arthur Riley , who played more than 300 games for them as goalkeeper.
Murray on the other hand, couldn't settle in england and went home after only playing three games.
McIntosh didn't look abroad again. There was a decent amount of movement between the english and french leagues during the 1930s but everton's only involvement was incidental. An ex player, Fred Kennedy, moved to paris after let go by oldham and won the league there while Peter Dougall was bought in from Sete but he only arrived at Goodison via Highbury after Arsenal had recruited him from France.
The ban on foreign professionals, non british or irish players had to either already be a resident or sign solely on amateur terms, prevented Everton from looking abroad again until the 60s when Catterick managed us.
By that time movement of footballing players was all too common but it mostly went the other way. As british footballers, frustrated at the maximum wage sailed off to play in italy or colombia or, mostly, the USA where the pay was better. Indeed in 1960 everton midfielder Bobby Collins was loaned off to south africa while at the club during the offseason summer months in order to top up his income playing there.
By the 70s and 80s you could find ex everton players in iran, finland, malta, brunei, hong kong, portugal, belgium, holland, australia, south africa, greece, sweden, spain, france, turkey and more. And while most were past it and not up to the english league any more, some ex league players were still capable and it became worthwhile to scout the world to bring expats back home.
The second player everton bought from outside the british isles was probably tommy jackson a northern irishman who Catterick picked up in 1967 from the detroit cougars, a sister club to northern irish club glentoran who regularly picked up glentoran players and played them in north america before selling them onto bigger clubs to get around the rules which prevented irish clubs charging a fee when selling amateur players. He was a proper foreign player in that he had never played in england before though he did at least know the british game.
The next two players on this list, bought in by Bingham and Lee, were even less of a risk, Duncan McKenzie picked up from belgian team anderlecht in 1976 had already impressed in england with Leeds, while Gary Stanley, bought in from the usa in 1979 was surely purchased based on his performances at chelsea. In the 90s you can argue similarly for john collins, kevin campbell and mark pembridge.
Eamonn O'Keefe, also bought in 1979 is an interesting sidenote, in that after struggling to get his break in english football he became the first european footballer given a professional contract in saudi arabia as part of an attempt by a predatory homosexual sheikh to lure him into bed. But he'd already been back in england and playing in non league for 3 years when we signed him.
By 1989 the restrictions on foreign players had long since been dropped, as had the maximum wage and so Colin Harvey was able to look abroad and bring in Jason Kearton from Brisbane Lions in Australia, Stefan Rehn from Sweden's Djurgården (the first everton player for whom english wasn't his first language) and Ray Atteveld from Haarlem in Holland. When Kendall took over for his second spell he continued where Harvey left off, bringing in Robert Warzycha from Zabrze in Poland and Preki from the States. It was up to Mike Walker to bring in our tenth player bought from outside the british isles, and by far our highest profile, when he splashed 3 million on Daniel Amokachi, a nigerian star playing in belgium.
Which bunch of misfits, Kearton, Rehn and Atteveld struggled to even get games, rather set the tone for everton's shopping abroad. Everton have had some excellent foreign players but most of them, arteta, cahill, saha, yakubu, distin, limpar, kanchelskis, jelavic, howard etc, had already got used to british football by playing at another british club first.
If you're looking at truly successful buys of players with no prior british experience the list is rather short. Gravesen, Yobo, Pienaar, Fellaini and Mirallas. Amokachi, Radzinski, Dacourt and Donovan are honorable mentions but their successes all come with asterixes.
It is in a great many ways still very much a new market for us and one we've by no means mastered.
In the early years of the club, players were mostly local. When the league started and things became a little more organised, we started bringing in players from other english clubs and soon from scottish and welsh clubs. Even in the very early days of football, there was loads of movement of footballers throughout great britain.
And by the early 1900s we were regularly bringing in players from ireland as well.
The first time we looked beyond these islands for a player was in 1925, when Thomas McIntosh, the man who signed Dixie Dean, picked up David James Murray, a South African international playing in their league for the team Western Province (now a rugby team) after he'd impressed in a south african tour of ireland, scoring the equalizer as they beat northern ireland 2-1.
This sort of thing was not as rare as it might seem, it was common practice at the time for the colonial sides to send touring teams to britain and for the best players to sign on with english or scottish clubs. The first foreigners in the league originally came over as part of the canada team to tour britain on the weekend the football league started and similar things had happened with egyptian and australian tours in the 1900s.
Indeed our loveable neighbours would snap up another two of that same south africa side. Gordon Hodgson who went onto score 241 goals for them and is still their third highest goalscorer of all time and Arthur Riley , who played more than 300 games for them as goalkeeper.
Murray on the other hand, couldn't settle in england and went home after only playing three games.
McIntosh didn't look abroad again. There was a decent amount of movement between the english and french leagues during the 1930s but everton's only involvement was incidental. An ex player, Fred Kennedy, moved to paris after let go by oldham and won the league there while Peter Dougall was bought in from Sete but he only arrived at Goodison via Highbury after Arsenal had recruited him from France.
The ban on foreign professionals, non british or irish players had to either already be a resident or sign solely on amateur terms, prevented Everton from looking abroad again until the 60s when Catterick managed us.
By that time movement of footballing players was all too common but it mostly went the other way. As british footballers, frustrated at the maximum wage sailed off to play in italy or colombia or, mostly, the USA where the pay was better. Indeed in 1960 everton midfielder Bobby Collins was loaned off to south africa while at the club during the offseason summer months in order to top up his income playing there.
By the 70s and 80s you could find ex everton players in iran, finland, malta, brunei, hong kong, portugal, belgium, holland, australia, south africa, greece, sweden, spain, france, turkey and more. And while most were past it and not up to the english league any more, some ex league players were still capable and it became worthwhile to scout the world to bring expats back home.
The second player everton bought from outside the british isles was probably tommy jackson a northern irishman who Catterick picked up in 1967 from the detroit cougars, a sister club to northern irish club glentoran who regularly picked up glentoran players and played them in north america before selling them onto bigger clubs to get around the rules which prevented irish clubs charging a fee when selling amateur players. He was a proper foreign player in that he had never played in england before though he did at least know the british game.
The next two players on this list, bought in by Bingham and Lee, were even less of a risk, Duncan McKenzie picked up from belgian team anderlecht in 1976 had already impressed in england with Leeds, while Gary Stanley, bought in from the usa in 1979 was surely purchased based on his performances at chelsea. In the 90s you can argue similarly for john collins, kevin campbell and mark pembridge.
Eamonn O'Keefe, also bought in 1979 is an interesting sidenote, in that after struggling to get his break in english football he became the first european footballer given a professional contract in saudi arabia as part of an attempt by a predatory homosexual sheikh to lure him into bed. But he'd already been back in england and playing in non league for 3 years when we signed him.
By 1989 the restrictions on foreign players had long since been dropped, as had the maximum wage and so Colin Harvey was able to look abroad and bring in Jason Kearton from Brisbane Lions in Australia, Stefan Rehn from Sweden's Djurgården (the first everton player for whom english wasn't his first language) and Ray Atteveld from Haarlem in Holland. When Kendall took over for his second spell he continued where Harvey left off, bringing in Robert Warzycha from Zabrze in Poland and Preki from the States. It was up to Mike Walker to bring in our tenth player bought from outside the british isles, and by far our highest profile, when he splashed 3 million on Daniel Amokachi, a nigerian star playing in belgium.
Which bunch of misfits, Kearton, Rehn and Atteveld struggled to even get games, rather set the tone for everton's shopping abroad. Everton have had some excellent foreign players but most of them, arteta, cahill, saha, yakubu, distin, limpar, kanchelskis, jelavic, howard etc, had already got used to british football by playing at another british club first.
If you're looking at truly successful buys of players with no prior british experience the list is rather short. Gravesen, Yobo, Pienaar, Fellaini and Mirallas. Amokachi, Radzinski, Dacourt and Donovan are honorable mentions but their successes all come with asterixes.
It is in a great many ways still very much a new market for us and one we've by no means mastered.
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