Goodison’s Greatest Games: United 5-0
When Everton took on Manchester United at home towards the end of October 1984, few in the ground could have expected that they were about to witness a level of performance that is as close to perfect as you could ever hope for.
On the back of a moral boosting win at Anfield, Everton had played a Cup Winners Cup tie a few days later away against Inter Bratislava, in the old Czechoslovakia. The days of shifting fixtures to accommodate tired players were still some way off. Everton were expected to face title favourites Liverpool, deal with their Slovak opponents away and then head back to Goodison to take on another title favourite, Manchester United all in the space of seven days.
Although not the all-conquering, trophy-gobbling behemoth that would later emerge under Alex Ferguson, United were still a difficult side to play against. With Ron Atkinson at the helm, (a manager who back then could be termed ‘colourful’ without it sounding ironic) they had finished in the top four in each of the past three seasons. And with the likes of Gordon Strachan, Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes in the side were, along with Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal, considered serious contenders for the title by bookies and pundits alike.
By contrast, despite winning the FA Cup and besting the champions in the Charity Shield, Everton were not thought to be capable of mounting a serious title challenge.
‘I don’t think we were fancied that much by anyone. You sort of could understand why from one perspective, after all Everton had been under-performing as a club for several years. But there was a sense of change about the place. For most of 1984, the side had been great, reaching two finals, winning one and beating Liverpool in the Charity Shield. I think people outside were slow to pick up on something the fans had known for a while, that under Kendall it felt like Everton were, finally, going places’ argues Dave Prentice, who was covering the Blues for the Echo at the time.
This particular head-to-head pitted third against fourth in the league and the form of both sides was good. Everton were coming into the game on the back of that morale boosting victory against Liverpool, United and had just dispatched Spurs. A tightly fought contest was predicted.
But that wasn’t what transpired. Instead, as Kendall later wrote in Love Affairs & Marriage: ‘What followed that afternoon wasn’t so much a win, but a rout’
Everton started the game strongly and after a few minutes should have been 1-0 up when Mountfield shot over the bar after Sheedy had lofted a perfect free kick into the box.
‘That was the season when I couldn’t stop scoring’ remembers Mountfield ‘but even I missed the occasional chance!’
Not that it mattered. Just a few minutes later Everton were ahead when Sheedy channelled his inner-Andy Gray.
‘I remember’ he recalls, ‘Gary Stevens putting a cross into the box, just around the edge. If it had been a few inches lower I would have contemplated volleying it. But it was a bit high. Anyone who followed my career, knows that I’m not exactly a prolific header of the ball but the height was right so I gave it a go. The next thing I remember is being on the floor and the ball had flown into the back of the net. I later learned that Kevin Moran, who had jumped with me, had butted the back of my head, his way of putting me off as he couldn’t reach the ball. In the end, it was the force of that which had made the header unstoppable. It still remains one of my favourite goals to this day.’
It was a tenacious leap by the Irishman, one that left him with a gash on his forehead so bad that he would eventually have to leave the field and be substituted. But not before he had put Everton 2-0 ahead.
‘Inchy put the perfect pass into my path. I ran onto it and smacked the ball into the opposite corner’ recalls the Irishman. ‘There were only 20 minutes gone and we were in complete control’
Just 12 minutes later, Heath then scored his eighth goal of the season when he was the first to react to a Trevor Steven cross amidst a slew of United defenders and belt the ball past a hapless Bailey to put Everton 3-0 up and the game out of sight.
‘Teams can come back from being 3-0 down but nothing United had offered suggested they would. I can’t remember them even having a chance. We were completely dominant and playing great football. It could have been five by that point!’ remembers Kevin Ratcliffe.
Shouts of ‘Ole!’ accompanied every Everton pass as the fans prepared themselves for a massacre. United were as poor as Everton were good and any sense of these two teams being near peers (with United the senior partner) appeared to be wholly misguided.
‘It was a perfect first half performance’ says Rob Sawyer, author of Harry Catterick: The Untold Story of a Football Great. ‘We had rolled them over. It was as simple as that. When you look back on Everton’s history and think of all the outstanding performances that have taken place, those 45 minutes stick out. They were breathaking.’
For a side with title hopes, United’s response after the break was surprising. There was no attempt to use their abundant talents to match Everton and instead there was merely an apparent acceptance that the game was done. It became an exercise in face-saving.
‘United were lucky that Everton took their foot off the gas slightly as the game went on’ thinks Graham Ennis, former editor of When Skies Are Grey. ‘Inevitably, being so dominant, so in control and in turn facing nothing from United, the impetus that had been so evident in the first half dissipated a bit. Although, even playing at less than full throttle, chances still came’
Heath had a header cleared off the line by Arthur Albiston as Everton continued to pour forward, the Gwladys Street eagerly expecting more goals to come.
And they did, despite Everton only operating at 80 per cent. With ten minutes to go Stevens picked up the ball from around 30 yards out, shimmied past an onrushing United defender and then struck a low, hard drive into the bottom left corner.
‘That was one of the great things about Kendall’s side that season, the goals were shared around. As good as the forward line was, the side was not reliant on them. Goals would pop up from all sorts of places. I think that was attributable to the quality of attacking football that the side played and the sense of confidence that coursed through the team’ says Simon Hart, author of Here We Go.
4-0 was a scoreline that befitted such an imperious performance; although also one that slightly flattered Manchester United. 5-0 would have been better.
And, as full time inched nearer, ‘the ball came in from the left and I managed to get a flick on it and steer it into the bottom right corner’ remembers Graeme Sharp, whose goal represented his eighth in nine games. It was just reward for Sharp who all afternoon had troubled the United defence, unselfishly put his teammates into great positions and exemplified the quality and passion evident in Everton’s performance.
‘When Sharp had first come to the club from Dumbarton, he’d only performed well in snatches’ recalls lifelong Blue, Phil Redmond. ‘Although he clearly had potential, his true quality had only made itself consistently apparent toward the latter half of the 83/84 season. He seemed to be growing in confidence and was perhaps surer of what he could contribute in a Blue shirt. Whatever the reason, it was evident by that point in the season that Everton had a centre-forward in Sharp who could make most defenders endure a miserable afternoon.’
When the 90 minutes were up, Evertonians could feel privileged at having been there when one of the truly great performances had taken place; one that the legendary Joe Mercer, who was sitting in the director’s box, described as the ‘most complete’ he had ever seen by the club.’
It was also one, when taken into consideration with the vanquishing of Liverpool the week before made the world outside Goodison sit up and take notice.
‘It was around that time that people began to take Everton seriously. The idea of us winning the title began to be talked about in places other than Goodison. We had beaten Liverpool at their place and then murdered United. And that’s what that latter performance was. We destroyed them. It was starting to become clear how good this side could be’ remembers Graham Ennis.
For those who had played in the game, the result and the style of the victory had a profound impact, as Kevin Sheedy recalls:
‘In the dressing room afterwards we felt that something momentous had happened. Personally, that was the moment I thought we had something special here, that the side was capable of going all the way. We had beaten our title rivals convincingly and that gave us an enormous sense of self belief. Confidence is so important in football and that game proves it. The win gave us the belief that we could push on. I can honestly say it was one of the best performances I played in. But more than that, it was also probably the catalyst for what followed.’