Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips: Recalling how Everton won it – Howard’s Way

Howard’s Way is a tribute to the 1984/85 vintage who won the League title, European Cup Winners’ Cup and only missed out on the FA Cup after an extra-time defeat to Manchester United three days after they lifted that European silverware in Rotterdam.

The magnificent St George’s Hall in Liverpool was the worthy setting for a gala screening of the film, which helped raise funds for the charitable work of Everton In The Community. The team of 35 years ago reunited in front of an audience of nostalgic Blues supporters for a look back at just what made them so special.

Director Rob Sloman spoke about why he decided to make the film: “In the years since the inception of the Premier League, certain teams have fallen through the cracks and that team is certainly the one that I think has slipped the furthest from people’s memories.”

It was indeed a phenomenal side, although manager Howard Kendall had endured a difficult start to his reign at Goodison Park. The previous season the club had struggled. Local boy Derek Mountfield remembered the transformation and pinpointed the moment reserve team coach Colin Harvey was appointed first team coach in December 1983 as a crucial one.

“We got to Christmas and we drew with Sunderland and Coventry and were beaten 3-0 away at bottom-of-the-table Wolves,” Mountfield explained. “We were dreadful, the crowd were booing us off. All credit to chairman Philip Carter, he stuck with his man and we went from being 16th at the start of January to winning the FA Cup and finishing seventh. Colin had a massive influence on the boys, he made me a far better footballer, he worked on our weaknesses and turned them into strengths. Howard was a great tactician, Colin was a great coach.”

The following season began with two defeats, but the players quickly turned it around. “There was always a belief in the side,” said midfield general Peter Reid.

“A lot of young lads like Adrian Heath, Graeme Sharp and Gary Stevens grew up overnight. It was a very well-balanced side. If you wanted to mix it – which doesn’t happen these days but back then it did – we could. It was a team that could play football and one that could look after itself.”

Not only was it a beautifully-balanced side, it also changed very little over the season. Neville Southall was arguably the greatest goalkeeper in the world at the time, with a back four of Stevens, Mountfield, Kevin Ratcliffe and Pat Van den Hauwe for protection.

Trevor Steven and Kevin Sheedy occupied the flanks with Reid and Paul Bracewell in the middle.

Up front, two from Sharp, Heath and Andy Gray could be relied upon to deliver. Heath was desperately unlucky to be injured mid-season, ruling him out of the glorious run-in. Gray believes Kendall’s man-management skills were second to none.

“It helped that he had only just retired, he brought a player’s mentality into management,” Gray added.

“He talked to you on equal terms and you couldn’t argue with him because you knew how good he was as a footballer. He might have been a novice coach but we knew how good a player he was.

If he had to leave someone out or disappoint someone, he did it the right way.”

Reid recalled the day he signed for the club in a cut-price £60,000 deal in 1982. To celebrate he had a night on the tiles, only to turn up the worse for wear at his first training session the following day, where he was lapped by his new manager during the shuttle runs.

“Howard called me into his office afterwards,” Reid recalled. “I just said, ‘I’m sorry gaffer I went home, I got absolutely legless, it won’t happen again. I promise’. Howard said, ‘Do you like a drink? You’ve got a great chance at this football club, son’. That was his man-management.”

Stevens acknowledged that one of the great inspirations for the success was what was happening across Stanley Park at Anfield.

“You couldn’t help but look at the success Liverpool had been having in the 1970s and early 80s, and Howard wanted to replicate that but do it better,” he said. “For a while we usurped them. Unfortunately, as a group of players and a club, we never got to experience how good we were. We won trophies but we could have gone further.”

The Heysel Stadium disaster of May 1985 led to English clubs being banned from Europe for the remainder of the decade. Everton went on to win another title two years later, but the side gradually broke up. Kendall himself moved to Athletic Bilbao after the second title victory.

“I wouldn’t be human if there wasn’t a part of me wondering what might have been, because we were really good,” Gray concluded. “We thumped Bayern Munich, who were one of best teams in Europe, in the Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final. We’d have had two goes at the European Cup at least, after ‘85 and ‘87. Who knows, we had the quality to go a long way. There will always be that thought of what might have been, but it was taken out of our hands and we just had to live with it.”

The film collected a broad spectrum of views from an era where the city of Liverpool itself was struggling against the managed decline of the Thatcher government. The players’ erudite opinions were in stark contrast to the fan-boy musings of deeply divisive deputy council leader of the time, Derek Hatton, who clung desperately to the coat tails of his playing heroes as his shambolic tenure in public office wreaked havoc on the city.

Perhaps Reid summed up the period of football best of all. “The football club was the most wonderful, wonderful place to be, on and off the pitch,” he told an audience which included current caretaker boss Duncan Ferguson and Kendall’s widow, Lil.

The present-day Everton team look as far away as ever from bringing the glory days back, but it is worth remembering that the men who did it Howard’s way had a stumbling start of their own.

The stars of Howard’s Way will be appearing on Sky’s Soccer Special programme on Boxing Day.