The great escapes.

[Tubey]

94 unquestionably. People forget Wimbledon were an in-form team that were about to finish 5th or something if they beat us. 2-0 down and wormed our way back into it with a dive and a wonder goal.

By comparison 98 was positively comfortable.

 

[Thetigerblue]

Unlike all the other threads, this thread makes me feel anxious and a bit ill. I remember those two days with a mix of fear, resignation and absolute fury that we were in that state. We were lucky in both games but luckier in ‘94. Lord I hate Everton some times.

 

[Black Belt Jones]

The Arsenal away before the Coventry game in 98 was a bad one - went to that and prob the worst I've felt watching us (saying something). Went in full of ale and optimism, took about 5 mins to realise we were going to get wasted. 4-0 and it could have been 8. Players (Bilic apart) didn't lay down so much as get completely outclassed by a v strong Arsenal side.
Took our destiny out of our hands and was just a really horrible atmosphere.

 

[macst]

Shamefully, the club released a double dvd of the full matches of both the Wimbledon and Coventry games. You can find it on ebay. Just type in Great Escapes Everton.

Yeah, I remember that DVD coming out. I refused to buy it!
Did Myhre have any saves to make after the 1-1? Any missed chances by Coventry?
Just interested to know how close it actually was in the end. Have literally no recollection of anything after Dublin scored!

 

[Black Belt Jones]

Apart from a couple of clubs who created dynasties that lasted 2 decades, it was common place for championship winning teams to break up and then that club would struggle to replicate the success while other teams came to the fore. If you think about it when you reach the top the only way is down!

As you say we bought players like Cottee and Ferguson who were, or not many pounds off British transfer records at the time. They just didn't have the effect that we were hoping and as every buy is a step down that eventually shows in the results. You also have the added pressure of the ghosts of the past, the expectations of the supporters and the fact that the current crop do not match the legends you once had. You can see this with utd now or an even better example is the Welsh rugby teams after the 70s, some of those early squads weren't bad but would wilt under the pressure.

What really amazes me is around that time we were one of the biggest spenders in Europe but we really munsoned it up. With one or two different decisions and a bit of luck we could have been up there.

You're right a winning dynasty is very much the exception, and not the norm just because a team wins the league. I think we just picked the worst possible time for things to go pear-shaped - when football was at its max rate of change through the start of the premiership era.
Harvey appointment, HK II - easy to criticise in hindsight and not terrible appointments, but they were comfy, un-ambitious decisions that sowed the seeds of decline.

 

[catcherintherye]

Yeah, I remember that DVD coming out. I refused to buy it!
Did Myhre have any saves to make after the 1-1? Any missed chances by Coventry?
Just interested to know how close it actually was in the end. Have literally no recollection of anything after Dublin scored!

It was the last minute of normal time I think, right at the end. What surprised me, was the Barmy penalty looking back was quite near the end as well. In my mind I had that down as the middle of the 2nd half. It just dragged.

I think the summer is fair from what people are saying too. I was too young to really know about the abilities of the 94 team, but the 98 team was in terrible terrible shape. We had plunged in 97, Royle had left, we hardly won a game (didn't win away for a year). It was miraculous how we survived.

I mean Watson and (particularly) Southall fell off a cliff. Lads like Limpar, Ablett, Horne, Ebbrell, Rideout were all of an age where they were moved on as they were towards the twilight of their careers in 95 even.

Of the players of a good age, Kanchelskis was sold the season before, Parkinson got injured (who was a massive miss), Unsworth and Stuart Kendall sold as he didn't fancy them. We also sold Hinchcliffe and Speed during the season. This all happened within a 12-18 month period, the entire squad was decimated really.

On top of that you had a manager in Kendall who was well pas it at that point, and hardly had any money to spend. What little he had he spent badly really, Danny Williamson for 3 million quid got injured and didn't play (we essentially swapped him for Unsworth). Oster was a flop. Farrelly scored a great goal but was a poor player. He didn't really get the best out of Hutchison and Barmy.

Ferguson scored some crucial goals but outside of him we were reliant upon rejects from other teams (Madar and Spencer) or young lads Ball, Dunne, Cadamateri and a little Jeffers. Without those young lads we would have gone down.

His one good signing looking back was Myhre bought in for a pittance. I saw we got 27 points from 22 games under Myhre. He did really well on the whole that season, calmed the defence and allowed us to keep clean sheets. Under him we conceded 29 goals in 22 games. We conceded 27 in the previous 16 games.

It was really touch and go looking back.

 

[edge]

98 worse for me 94 I had a bit of hope.
Went the Coventry game with little hope of staying up, thought that team and the club in general were at an all time low
felt sick most of the game and thinking if we go down I wouldn't want to be one of those Coventry fans that had come up, couldn't really believe they were that daft to even be there.
Dublin was trying to his best to send us down hated him and Coventry ever since.

 

[macst]

It was the last minute of normal time I think, right at the end.

Yeah it was the 89th minute but we wouldn’t be us if we didn’t give our fans a heart attack in injury time. And I also remember (from the highlights) Andy Gray saying that HK would now “have to endure 2 or 3 minutes of absolute hell”.
So did we play out the injury time calmly? Or did they make us sweat? I honestly can’t remember.

 

[Mitch Ward's Minder]

It was the last minute of normal time I think, right at the end. What surprised me, was the Barmy penalty looking back was quite near the end as well. In my mind I had that down as the middle of the 2nd half. It just dragged.

I think the summer is fair from what people are saying too. I was too young to really know about the abilities of the 94 team, but the 98 team was in terrible terrible shape. We had plunged in 97, Royle had left, we hardly won a game (didn't win away for a year). It was miraculous how we survived.

I mean Watson and (particularly) Southall fell off a cliff. Lads like Limpar, Ablett, Horne, Ebbrell, Rideout were all of an age where they were moved on as they were towards the twilight of their careers in 95 even.

Of the players of a good age, Kanchelskis was sold the season before, Parkinson got injured (who was a massive miss), Unsworth and Stuart Kendall sold as he didn't fancy them. We also sold Hinchcliffe and Speed during the season. This all happened within a 12-18 month period, the entire squad was decimated really.

On top of that you had a manager in Kendall who was well pas it at that point, and hardly had any money to spend. What little he had he spent badly really, Danny Williamson for 3 million quid got injured and didn't play (we essentially swapped him for Unsworth). Oster was a flop. Farrelly scored a great goal but was a poor player. He didn't really get the best out of Hutchison and Barmy.

Ferguson scored some crucial goals but outside of him we were reliant upon rejects from other teams (Madar and Spencer) or young lads Ball, Dunne, Cadamateri and a little Jeffers. Without those young lads we would have gone down.

His one good signing looking back was Myhre bought in for a pittance. I saw we got 27 points from 22 games under Myhre. He did really well on the whole that season, calmed the defence and allowed us to keep clean sheets. Under him we conceded 29 goals in 22 games. We conceded 27 in the previous 16 games.

It was really touch and go looking back.

Agree completely with this. Myhre was probably the best player we had that season and he only played half of it. Made a lot of crucial saves from memory and carried on his form into the World Cup. Dunc came up with some crucial goals, like his hatrick vs Bolton and the 2 vs Chelsea, which on the face of how the season was going should've been an Everton-esque 0-1 point rather than the 6 picked up. Madar was another decent signing that galvanised the team for a short period helping to pick up some points. Other than those guys and some of the youth players mentioned, we'd have been dead and buried on par with Palace!

 

[adi dassler]

You're right a winning dynasty is very much the exception, and not the norm just because a team wins the league. I think we just picked the worst possible time for things to go pear-shaped - when football was at its max rate of change through the start of the premiership era.
Harvey appointment, HK II - easy to criticise in hindsight and not terrible appointments, but they were comfy, un-ambitious decisions that sowed the seeds of decline.

Whilst the appointments of Harvey and Kendall mk II won't be looked back on with any degree of fondness I think both were good, sensible appointments at the time. I wouldn't say they were unambitious. Harvey was an obvious choice to take over from Howie to carry on the good work, very much in the mould of that lot across the park who had 15 years of unprecedented success promoting from within. And I don't know one blue who wasn't over the moon when we got HK back after he was doing a great job at Man City.

Neither worked out unfortunately as Harvey wasn't cut out for the top job and HK's powers seemed to have waned along with some personal problems. Plus I don't think HK was helped by the boardroom upheaval during his second spell and the fact we didn't have a pot to pi*s in from 91-93.

 

[adi dassler]

It was the last minute of normal time I think, right at the end. What surprised me, was the Barmy penalty looking back was quite near the end as well. In my mind I had that down as the middle of the 2nd half. It just dragged.

I think the summer is fair from what people are saying too. I was too young to really know about the abilities of the 94 team, but the 98 team was in terrible terrible shape. We had plunged in 97, Royle had left, we hardly won a game (didn't win away for a year). It was miraculous how we survived.

I mean Watson and (particularly) Southall fell off a cliff. Lads like Limpar, Ablett, Horne, Ebbrell, Rideout were all of an age where they were moved on as they were towards the twilight of their careers in 95 even.

Of the players of a good age, Kanchelskis was sold the season before, Parkinson got injured (who was a massive miss), Unsworth and Stuart Kendall sold as he didn't fancy them. We also sold Hinchcliffe and Speed during the season. This all happened within a 12-18 month period, the entire squad was decimated really.

On top of that you had a manager in Kendall who was well pas it at that point, and hardly had any money to spend. What little he had he spent badly really, Danny Williamson for 3 million quid got injured and didn't play (we essentially swapped him for Unsworth). Oster was a flop. Farrelly scored a great goal but was a poor player. He didn't really get the best out of Hutchison and Barmy.

Ferguson scored some crucial goals but outside of him we were reliant upon rejects from other teams (Madar and Spencer) or young lads Ball, Dunne, Cadamateri and a little Jeffers. Without those young lads we would have gone down.

His one good signing looking back was Myhre bought in for a pittance. I saw we got 27 points from 22 games under Myhre. He did really well on the whole that season, calmed the defence and allowed us to keep clean sheets. Under him we conceded 29 goals in 22 games. We conceded 27 in the previous 16 games.

It was really touch and go looking back.

You're right that there was a massive squad overhaul over the 18 month period preceding the 98 escape. I thought Myhre, Hutchison and Madar were all very good signings by Kendall. Tiler wasn't too bad either from what I can recall. The rest were disasters, including Bilic bought for big money before Kendall came in. The likes of Williamson, Farelly, Tony Thomas and Mitch Ward should never have played for Evertion. We even had Beagrie back on loan towards the end of that season FFS

 

[catcherintherye]

Agree completely with this. Myhre was probably the best player we had that season and he only played half of it. Made a lot of crucial saves from memory and carried on his form into the World Cup. Dunc came up with some crucial goals, like his hatrick vs Bolton and the 2 vs Chelsea, which on the face of how the season was going should've been an Everton-esque 0-1 point rather than the 6 picked up. Madar was another decent signing that galvanised the team for a short period helping to pick up some points. Other than those guys and some of the youth players mentioned, we'd have been dead and buried on par with Palace!

I never took to Madar mate, thought he was awful.

 

[Black Belt Jones]

I never took to Madar mate, thought he was awful.

He could play football but was a bit of a journeyman beaut. Think Danny C said it knocked his confidence back seeing Madar get picked ahead of him - although this might have been under Smith (would fit his style to play no one under 30).
Whatever you think of Cadamarteri he was a promising player at the time, with long term potential, whereas Madar was never going to offer much to the club in the bigger picture. Played 19 games in 2 seasons for us.

 

[Cameron Manning]

I seem to remember my Dad telling me the Wimbledon keeper got done a few years later for match fixing? Judging by our last goal, could well have been during that that game. Could you imagine staying up due to match fixing!

Grobbalar got off with match fixing, have a look at his effort trying to save Everton’s second goal at Anfield in a 2-0 loss!!

 

[StreetEndBlue]

He could play football but was a bit of a journeyman beaut. Think Danny C said it knocked his confidence back seeing Madar get picked ahead of him - although this might have been under Smith (would fit his style to play no one under 30).
Whatever you think of Cadamarteri he was a promising player at the time, with long term potential, whereas Madar was never going to offer much to the club in the bigger picture. Played 19 games in 2 seasons for us.

Madar was a bit of a beaut agreed, but he scored some crucial goals during our relegation fight in 1998 which got us draws at West Ham and Tottenham plus he got the winner against Blackburn at home.

Cadamarteri, by contrast, didn't score for a year after his derby goal earlier in that season. After his initial burst when he first got into the side he quickly faded.