1986 was a good but also difficult year for me.
I was still accommodating to being a northerner living in the south. Officially the southeast - Oxfordshire - though I daresay plenty of metropolitan types would consider that part of the country fairly provincial. After a significant job change which involved relocating and also having two young children I'd decided it wasn't appropriate to find a new football club to play for and had hung up my boots at the comparatively early age of 33. Oh, I was sorely tempted by the nearest club as we went past on our walks - a neighbour was at the club and the standard looked just about right. But I'd made a deal with Mrs H: new job, new house in a new area, one child under two and another due shortly after we were due to move. OK, finding a new club and playing football might not be entirely fair, love.
But then there was Everton...
No longer playing on a Saturday (no Sunday games for Everton then, kids) meant in principle I could go to more games, but relocating to the south increased the journey by a factor of twenty. So it was still just a few games a season.
Everton was in the middle of its golden 1980s period, the most concentrated period of success in its history. They won the FA Cup in 1984, then the Division 1 (pre Premier League, kids) title in 1985 together with the European Cup Winners Cup. Everton were named 1985 European team of the year by France Football magazine*.
So Everton had a genuine claim to be the best team in Europe going into season 1985-86. English clubs were barred indefinitely from playing in the European competitions after the events at Heysel Stadium at the 1985 European Cup final, so Everton didn't get the chance to prove it.
On the pitch everything was going well. This was the "Lineker" season, Gary having been signed from Leicester in the summer of 1985. The season when we wore those strange but memorable shirts with a white bib, sometimes referred to as the "Lineker bib", as modelled here by Gary himself:
By the end of March 1986 Everton were two points clear of Liverpool at the top of the table with 8 games to go. Both Merseyside teams were in the FA Cup semi finals and a week later had both won, setting up the first all Merseyside F A Cup final. Everton were favourites for the double. What could possibly go wrong?
In the league Liverpool went on a great run, eventually winning all their remaining eight games, while Everton won five, drew two and lost one of their remaining seven leaving Liverpool two points ahead when the fat lady sang. The game Everton lost was at Oxford, in 1986 my nearest league ground. I got a ticket for the Everton end and went. Everton were strong favourites as Oxford were in the bottom three, though their team included John Aldridge and Ray Houghton, both of whom went on to play for Liverpool, and ex Spur Steve Perryman. It was a scrappy game, which seemed to be heading for a goal-less draw until Oxford scrambled a late winner, which proved to be important in their survival that season.
However, a bit earlier in that second half, Prince Gary had been put clean through. A golden chance but the keeper saved. While goal-less draws away at Manchester United and Nottingham Forest were arguably equally to blame, those results weren't as damning and the Oxford game, with just three games to go, was decisive. The lost three points cost us the league. Lineker's miss is still fixed in my mind as I was behind the goal he was shooting towards. He seemed to scuff the ball, the keeper saved and we tumbled down the terraces as you did in those days when the ball came to the near end. The chance was gone and in due course the league was lost.
Lineker has noted many times how he had a difficult start at Everton (though only for a couple of games) with fans not warming to him instantly as crowd hero Andy Gray's replacement. I remember some in the crowd at Oxford groaning, with some critical remarks and others noting "but he's been great for us this season" as we stepped backwards to return to our spec on the terrace. Though Lineker won the golden boot that year with his 40 goals in 57 games and was the football writers' footballer of the year, Gary was and still is a little bit marmite for Everton fans.
Never mind, there was still the F A Cup Final. Against Liverpool. But now it was their double to play for.
I had a ticket for Wembley in the Everton end. And a much shorter journey! I headed off through the bucolic Oxfordshire countryside on a sunny May day looking forward to meeting up with friends from my old football club. However, they didn't show at the rendezvous (no mobile phones then, kids). It turned out their borrowed minibus had broken down several times on the journey from Merseyside, though they did get to Wembley Stadium with 20 minutes to spare.
The match went well, at least for the first half. Lineker scored to put Everton 1-0 up. Early in the second half Everton came close several times. Then Liverpool goalkeeper Grobelaar and left back Beglin got in a huge tangle, nearly conceding possesion at the edge of the penalty area. Words were exchanged and Grobelaar gave Beglin an angry shove in the chest. The Everton fans behind that goal, where I was standing, roared in confident derision - but I felt uneasy. We were only 1-0 up. Yes, this lot might look a shambles but there wasn't an hour gone. And before the hour had gone Everton right back Gary "Shagger" Stevens (so nicknamed by the crowd because of his reputation for, er, playing around) had conceded possession in the Everton half with a slack pass down the line, Yan Molboo (well that's how you're meant to say his name) threaded a pass through to Ian Rush and Everton's nemesis** had scored yet again to equalise. Rush got another as Liverpool prevailed 3-1. It was Liverpool's first ever league and F A cup double. And it should have been Everton's.
This was an extremely bitter pill to swallow. A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions! But at least now, all those years later, I have a reason for Lineker's miss in the defeat at Oxford.
My holiday reading this year included a chatty and very readable book by Lineker and Danny Baker called Life, Laughs and Football. In it Lineker confesses that, like many players, he was superstitious. He wouldn't take practice shots at goal the warm up feeling that he might "waste" a good shot. A bit like golfers who can't miss on the practice putting green and then have a nightmare on the course. If Linker had scored in the first half on a rainy day he would decline the offer of a fresh, dry shirt at half time as the wet shirt might be "lucky".
So, in the season he got 40 goals, Gary became very attached to the pair of Adidas boots he'd been wearing since the first half of the season. He would normally get through several pairs of boots in a season and this particular pair would usually have been binned long before the end of April. But this pair were clearly lucky. Though battered by the time he played at Oxford the boots had only four games to go to the end of the season, three in the league and the cup final.
Except, when the kit trunk was unloaded in the dressing room Lineker's boots weren't there. The boots were 170 miles away on Merseyside and he didn't have a spare pair. This doesn't just sound bizarre now, it strikes me as a little strange even then. I admit that, as a player, I wouldn't travel to matches with a spare pair of boots but I did carry spare laces, as they often snapped. I was unusal though and team mates often bummed a lace off me. It didn't make any of them start bringing spares, after all Phil always had some didn't he?
As a pair of boots got rather worn, I'd buy a new pair and break them in at training, reserving them till they were needed and eventually relegating the older pair to training duties. Surely the pros must have done something similar? Most of them would have been buying their own boots at that stage, probably even Lineker, though sponsored boot deals weren't far away. Nevertheless Lineker himself says it sounds amateur and shambolic given his team were going for the biggest prize in English football.
So he had to borrow a pair of boots. The nearest size anyone could come up with were half a size too big. That wouldn't be much difference in an everyday shoe but footballers like their boots to be snug. I certainly did, otherwise you can't "feel" the ball when you kick it. Lineker said he felt like he was wearing clown shoes.
Anyway it was no goals in the borrowed boots and six more goals wearing them again in the last three games. Lineker writes that he's not saying the missing boots cost Everton the league. I'd say it wasn't necessarily the borrowed boots per se but lack of confidence due the absence of the lucky boots. Lineker notes that you can see highlights of the match on youtube (link below) but he says you'll probably notice his scandalously small shorts (see above) more than his oversize boots.
Even so, someone out there possibly cost Everton the 1986 league title. One imagines that some unsung kit man or possibly apprentice professional got it in the neck for not loading Gary's boots onto the Oxford bound coach.
There are two postscripts to this story.
After the Wembley final Lineker's lucky boots developed a split. But he was off to play in the World Cup finals that summer. So he sent them off to Adidas for repair and scored six goals in Mexico, winning the FIFA golden boot. So a double golden boot for Gary but no double for Everton. The boots are now in the Adidas museum in Munich.
But did Gary learn? No. By 1990, having completed his stint in Barcelona, he was a Spurs player - and had a boot sponsor. The thing is, it wasn't a good brand. They were called Quasar, a new brand that I didn't last. One of Lineker's boots split before the match and, once again with no spare pair, he had to resort to cadging. This time one boot from a person who took the same size, which happened to be manager Bobby Robson. Lineker, wearing one Adidas and one Quasar boot, scored the only goal that night but with his head, not either of the boots.
Lineker says this reveals levels of amateurism that would induce fainting fits in the modern game. Though he says Jack Grealish's boots worn in the play off final that got Villa promoted to the Premier League in 2019 looked like a dog's chewy toy "so maybe a bit of amateurism continues in the higher echelons".
I don't think so, Gary. I bet Jack had a spare pair back in the dressing room.
Still at least I now know there was a reason for Everton's defeat at Oxford and some of my 1986 pain. It wasn't just the guy with the big nose and outsized Adam's apple. It was Gary's boots.
Was that cathartic? No, I'm still traumatised.
* Why is a French magazine called France Football, one might wonder? Because that title is actually in French. The magazine, an authoritative weekly digest of world football published in French, was originally the bulletin of the French Football Confederation (Federation Francaise de Football, FFF, "le football" being the French for football or soccer) and has been published since 1946 but became an independent publication a year later. France Football had a European Team of the Year award from 1968 to 1990 when Adidas pulled out of sponsoring the award. It's still France Football that presents the prestigious Ballon d'Or to the world's best player of the year, which has more status than the equivalent FIFA award.
** The guy with the big nose and outsized Adam's apple, aka Ian Rush, scored twice in both the 1986 and 1989 F A Cup finals against Everton. (Yes, I was there in 1989 and that was painful too, but another story). Those 1989 goals took Rush past Everton's Dixie Dean as the record goalscorer in Merseyside derbies. Dean had 19 goals in 17 matches. Rush eventually bagged 25 but in more than twice as many matches as Dean. Some records only show Rush on 20 goals, excluding the five he got in the two legged Screen Sport Super Cup held between the clubs in 1986. This competition was meant to compensate successful teams for not being in Europe but was only held once.
Life, Laughs and Football. Lineker and Baker. Arrow Books, 2020
Oxford 1 Everton 0 highlights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12_zuBWNTCw. To be fair watching this now, Oxford had more attempts on goal than Everton. Gary Stevens made a remarkable goal line clearance from a close range header and stand in Everton keeper Mimms made a superb save from another close range header. But both came after Lineker's "miss" when he took a very heavy first touch running on to a through ball with the borrowed boots and got too close to the keeper to lift it over him. He had a few other chances close to goal but didn't succeed in getting a decent touch on any of them. I think most neutrals would say luck didn't have much to do with the result but I still can't help feeling that, if Lineker had taken any of his chances that night before Oxford scored, Everton would probably have gone on to win the match. And with his lucky boots he'd have felt more confident than he looked. So I'm blaming the boots.
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