Remember the Name
Life as an Evertonian had been tough in late 1990s and early 2000s. The brief hope that had sparked into life under Joe Royle had all but been extinguished. Transfer splurges and European football had been replaced by debt, penury and the near constant threat of relegation.
As the four-year reign of Walter Smith ground to an end, an outcome that Evertonians willed with an almost palpable sense of desire, the Blue half of the city was in desperate need for change
‘By the end of the Smith-era things were a mess’, says Lyndon Lloyd of ToffeeWeb. ‘We had aging players, nobody seemed to give a shit and our form was awful. Once again, we were facing a fight for survival in the league. The new manager, David Moyes faced a huge challenge.’
Moyes arrived in March 2002 after four seasons with Preston North End, during which he had dramatically turned around the fortunes of the Lancashire club, taking them from the nether regions of the bottom tier to within a whisker of the Championship.
Inexperienced but with a reputation of being an ‘Alex Ferguson in the making’, the Scot quickly earned respect from the Goodison faithful by steering the club to safety after his arrival. He also appeared to ‘get’ Everton, buying into the history and ethos of the club and did himself no harm after uttering this near-immortal phrase to the Liverpool Echo
‘I have been brought up with Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers and I am now in a city where football means as much as it does up there. I think I am joining a football club which is probably the peoples football club in Liverpool. The people in the street support Everton’
During his first full season in charge, Moyes made few changes. Some of the deadwood, like Paul Gascoigne and David Ginola was cleared out and a few new acquisitions brought in, like as the young Nigerian centre-half, Joseph Yobo, the Chinese midfielder, Li Tie and the English goalkeeper, Richard Wright.
‘But perhaps more important than the limited personnel changes, was the fact that he brought with him a new approach’, says the former Everton centre-half, David Weir.
‘He was a tracksuit manager, Weir continues, ‘always out the pitch with us. He also brought a deeper tactical awareness to our game. We drilled to a greater extent, we were better organised, more of a unit than had perhaps previously been the case. It might not necessarily have been as enjoyable to play under as the previous regime, but it was certainly more effective for a side like Everton at that time.’
Hamstrung by debt and with pretty much the same group of players he had inherited, Moyes’ Everton were a much more formidable proposition than Smith’s. They harried and pressed, kept their shape well, and yet in Kevin Campbell and Thomas Radzinski had enough threat going forward to worry teams
‘The impact he had was pretty immediate’, says Lyndon Lloyd. ‘We seemed to have a new trajectory, new energy and Everton looked like they knew what we were doing, which hadn’t been the case for such a long time. And contrary to the ‘knife to a gunfight’ mentality that seemed to define his later years, early on we produced good football and could really play against anyone. It was an interesting time to be a Blue.’
Moyes had given Evertonians confidence again, something that had been in short supply at Goodison. But as important as that was, the fans also needed a bit of excitement, and for this they looked elsewhere…
‘Wayne Rooney had been causing a buzz around Goodison for some time’, recalls Simon Hart, author of Here We Go: Everton in the 1980s. ‘We’d all endured false dawns before of course, times when supposed ‘wonder kids’ came through and amounted to very little. And we had also watched with jealousy as Liverpool’s kids, like Fowler, Owen and McManaman lived up to their promise. But this one seemed to be different. This time everyone believed Rooney was the real deal.’
Rooney had been with Everton since the age of nine and his record was impeccable. He’d scored freely at youth level, played above his age group with ease, and made no secret of the fact that all he wanted to do was play for Everton.
‘He was one of our own and after years of misery and frustration it was great that we had somebody so exciting coming through the ranks’, says Lyndon Lyond
Aware that he had a potentially exceptional talent on his hands, Moyes was cautious with the youngster. Although included as part of the initial 2002/3 squad, by the middle of October, the 16-year-old had only made three starts and seven substitute appearances, getting his first goals in a 3–0 away win over Wrexham in the second round of the League Cup.
‘When he’d appeared he had looked the part though’, says Simon Hart. ‘I remember he came on away against United in the October. He picked up the ball at one point and just ran at them, bursting past their players like they were nothing. It was exciting, the kind of thing you hadn’t really seen Everton players do for ages. And even though he was only 16, he looked like the age difference meant nothing. He was ready.’
On the 19 October, Arsenal rolled into town. Champions, FA Cup holders and on the back of a 30 unbeaten run in the league (over two seasons), there was talk that the Gunners could go the whole campaign without being defeated.
Despite Everton’s improvement, which had been tangible under Moyes, few Evertonians expected a win or even draw against such an accomplished team. And not long after the sides had kicked off, it was a prediction that seemed prescient.
‘It had all looked so bleak and predictable when Freddie Ljungberg delivered the inevitable Gunners goal by preying on Everton’s defensive frailties to take to 49 the number of consecutive games Wenger’s men have now scored in. David Weir slipped as he tried to defuse Thierry Henry’s deep cross and the ball squirted around the area before falling invitingly to Ljungberg, who swept home from six yards’, wrote Jonathan McEvoy in the Daily Post.
Had this been a Smith side, Evertonians would have been justified in expecting a capitulation following that opening goal.
‘But Moyes brought something different to Everton, certainly in those early days. If not quite fearlessness; then possibly a sense of determination. The side was certainly willing to have a go at teams and you never really saw heads drop. As time passed, you stopped expecting us to just give in when one down and instead started to believe that we could fight back’, says Simon Hart.
In response to going one down, Everton refused to give up. Arsenal were snapped at, pressed and harried. This was a physical Everton, one more redolent of the old ‘Dogs of War’, a sight that had been disappointingly absent from Goodison for too long. But there was more than just bite and snarl to this dog. There was intelligence too, intelligence that brought threat with it. Within minutes, the Blues were level:
‘The equaliser came from a powerful and positive run by Gravesen which took him across the edge of the Arsenal penalty area. He looked to have run out of runway when he looked up and slipped a pass to Carsley. His drive cannoned back of the post but was collected by Radzinski on the edge of the area and he drifted inside before clipping a rising shot into the Gwladys Street net’, wrote Dave Prentice in the Liverpool Echo.
Chances were limited after that and both sides when in at half time level. In the second period, although Arsenal continued to have their rhythm unsettled; chances still arrived. Ljungberg came close on two occasions and Henry uncharacteristically scuffed a shot wide. The away side’s wayward finishing and a dissipating amount of guile on Everton’s part suggested a draw was the most likely of outcomes.
And then on came Rooney. His ten-minute cameo would ultimately be the only thing anyone talked about after that game. There might have been big performances throughout the Everton team, specifically the fullbacks, Tony Hibbert and David Unsworth, and the front line of Kevin Campbell and Tomasz Radzinski, but it was the teenager who would be making all the headlines the next day.
There were just seconds left when Richard Wright launched a goalkick downfield and Kevin Campbell headed it back to the halfway line. A touch from Alan Stubbs gave the ball to Thomas Gravesen who punted it forward.
40 yards out, Rooney killed it and turned, his back to goal. As the Arsenal centre-halves dropped back, monitoring Campell’s sprint into the box, Rooney used his second touch to spin and move towards goal. He knocked the ball forward with his third, looked up and shaped to hit it.
‘The strike was perfect. Seaman reached for it but he had no chance and it crashed into the top corner. Exquisite! The teenager, still a few days shy of his 17th birthday, still on £75 per week, had announced himself to the world’, says Lyndon Lloyd.
Goodison roared and as Everton took the 2-1 victory it felt as though something monumental had just happened.
‘For so long we as Blues had suffered the feeling that we were becoming increasingly irrelevant in the Premier League era’ says Simon Hart. ‘I recall a woman I worked worth saying that she hated Everton because we were so boring. And she had a point (even if ‘hated’ was a bit strong). Yet, from 2002 onwards we became relevant again, reborn almost. And Rooney was part of that. He was young and exciting and, perhaps more importantly, he was something other clubs did not have. For the first time in a long time, other fans were looking at us with envy.’