Everton will be hoping the passion of their supporters can help cheer them to Premier League safety again over the next five weeks but ahead of the move to their new 52,888 capacity stadium, there is a great example of fan power from the only previous season in the club’s history that they averaged gates of over 50,000.
Some 60 years ago today, Goodison Park enjoyed one of its most-pivotal matches as Everton took a giant step towards winning the first of their post-Second World War League titles in front of a huge and vociferous crowd. This was the game that signalled the start of a bright new era for the Blues in the Swinging Sixties – albeit under the stewardship of their straight-laced manager Harry Catterick and owner John Moores.
If you spend prolonged periods reading the largely London-based national media then you might be lulled into thinking that Tottenham Hotspur are somehow the footballing kings of the universe when in truth they’ve won less than a quarter of the League Championships on Everton’s honours list with their two titles puts them behind such luminaries as Huddersfield Town (3) in the all-time rankings. That’s half the number of fallen giants such as Sheffield Wednesday and Newcastle United (both 4) and a third of Sunderland’s total (6).
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However, unlike Everton, Spurs have done the League Championship and FA Cup double (in 1961) and most of that great side were still around two years later when they pushed the Blues for the title, netting 111 goals in 42 matches. Although he didn’t play at Goodison Park on this occasion, captain Danny Blanchflower, by now 37, was still going and would lift the European Cup-Winners’ Cup the following month as Tottenham became the first British side to win a UEFA competition.
Those who did face Everton included Scottish trio Bill Brown, John White and Dave Mackay, a hard man who could also play and the ‘heartbeat’ of their side; long-serving full-backs Peter Baker and Ron Henry; Welsh winger Cliff Jones; fellow wide man Terry Dyson and up front Bobby Smith had been joined by the most prolific goalscorer of his generation, Jimmy Greaves who signed for £99,999 in December 1961.
Everton – who would finish the 1962/63 season unbeaten at home for the first time – started the campaign strongly and were at the summit by the time of the ‘big freeze’, a brutal winter (the coldest in the UK for over 200 years) that ensured they wouldn’t play a League game between December 22 and February 12. The enforced break delayed the debut of club record signing, half-back Tony Kay, a £55,000 purchase from Catterick’s previous club Sheffield Wednesday – who was paraded on the pitch alongside fellow 1962/63 title-winner Derek Temple before last Saturday’s game against Fulham – while the Blues boss also used the fallow period to snap up Rangers winger Alex Scott for £40,000.
Everton went into the game in third place, below Spurs and leaders Leicester City in the table but Alex Young’s goal ensured they leapfrogged both to return to top spot where they would stay for the remainder of the season. The 1962/63 season was also the first and only time to date that Everton’s average home crowd topped 50,000 (51,603), a figure they’ll be hoping to eclipse when they move into their new stadium on the Mersey waterfront at Bramley-Moore Dock, where they yesterday held a ‘topping out’ ceremony to mark the completion of the structure and some 67,650 (the Blues enjoyed some 20 larger home attendances previously but have had none bigger since) crammed into Goodison Park to watch this title showdown.
The ECHO’s headline proclaimed: “The game that lived up to its label” with Leslie Edwards enthusing: “Tottenham not-so-hotspur! That was the way of it at Goodison Park where Everton, now fractional leaders of the First Division, won by a goal to nil.
“Sixty-seven thousand people, many of whom must have feared the tension of this vital League match might spoil it, went away delighted with the football in difficult conditions; satisfied that Everton’s championship claims are legitimate and sorry only that the margin of a goal gave no hint of the hammering Tottenham had to take.”
He added: “Tottenham, usually directors of the football scene, were forced to leave that role to Everton. I don’t say that Spurs were not more polished artistically, the occasional bursts of applause from ‘enemy’ supporters proved that they were, but they were firmly run off their feet on a heavy, grassless pitch which the strong wind (initially with Everton) made even more formidable as a test of stamina.
“The game was a sustained, non-stop serial of fine football: hair’s breadth Everton misses and general excitement. When the goal came, after sixteen minutes (Tottenham’s best sixteen of the match), the applause literally shook the place. I’ll swear the Press box moved inches up and down from the reverberations of the din.”
Catterick’s paranoia over allowing cameras into Everton matches – he feared it could give opponents insights into how his side played – ensured that many highlights from this era are lost to posterity but Edwards’ words paint the picture of the match-winner from fans’ favourite ‘The Golden Vision.”
He said: “Jumping half his own height, Young soared over one opponent, John Smith, edged the ball, almost gently, high over the line. If he never scores again he will always be remembered for this historic score.”
A 1-1 home draw with Arsenal followed four days later but then four successive victories saw Everton crowned champions six points clear of Tottenham, although they had to wait until their 4-1 win over Fulham in their final game on May 11 to clinch their sixth league title.
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