World Book Day: 5 Everton Books

1 – Highs, Lows and Bakayokos by Jim Keoghan

Jim Keoghan is the man behind ‘Highs, Lows and Bakayokos: Everton in the 1990s’. The book remembers those brushes with relegation, financial ups and downs, stunning derby wins over Liverpool and the FA Cup in 95′.

#2 – Looking for the Toffees: In Search of the Heroes of Everton by Brian Viner

In 1977-78, Brian Viner was a season ticket-holder in the Gwladys Street End at Goodison Park, home to his beloved Everton. In front of him were the stars of the day: striker Bob Latchford, creative midfielder Duncan McKenzie and goalkeeping hero George Wood. There were no airs and graces then: Viner would regularly see Latchford in the local pub, and even once saw Wood mowing the field at his school, so asked him to come and join his classmates for a kickabout, which he did. It would never happen now.

But as well as nostalgia for that period, Viner reveals how this was a time when so much was on the cusp of change: in football the first wave of foreign players would arrive the next season, with Ossie Ardiles and Arnold Muhren among them; on Merseyside, the era of punk would soon give way to Thatcherism; and even Viner himself, at 16, was on the verge of adulthood. But little of what happened next could ever have been predicted.

Viner’s investigation of that year in the 1970s, based on many interviews with the players of the time, not only reveals a vanished era, but also shows how football often fails to look after its own, as the life stories of what happened to the players afterwards shows, but how the spirit of the sport will always shine through.

James Oakley reviewed Brian Viner’s Everton Book, Looking for the Toffees: In Search of the Heroes of Everton for us here.

#3 – Goodison Memories: Looking Back Before Moving Forward by Steve Zocek.

As the Toffees prepare to move to the waterfront, Goodison Memories celebrates that legendary stadium with vivid recollections not from Evertonians, but from opposition players, managers, officials and sports journalists. The result is a collection of candid interviews that capture the essence of Goodison Park. Listen to their tales of the Everton players they remember with fondness, priceless anecdotes and memories of the atmosphere and features of the stadium. Have you ever wondered what it was like for the broadcasters to sit on the TV gantry, the press to work from the press box? What was it like for match officials to take charge of the game and handle the characters on the Goodison turf? Goodison Memories holds all the answers.

Pre-order this book here.

#4 – Here We Go: Everton in the 1980s by Simon Hart

Wembley became a second home for Howard Kendall’s team, the club won two league titles, an FA Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup.

In his book ‘Here We Go’, Simon Hart, a lifelong Evertonians who has been reporting on European football for more than a decade for UEFA.com, interviews some of the best-loved Everton players from the 1980s.

#5 – Everton Greatest Games: The Toffees’ Fifty Finest Matches – Jim Keoghan

Evertonians know what it is to experience greatness. Since the club first came to life in 1878 there have been titles won, European adventures and trips to Wembley. The fans have seen records broken, legends make their mark, matches of undeniable class. Every decade that Everton have been in existence has yielded moments of wonder, games that supporters at the time have cherished for their entire lives and which fans of subsequent generations have looked back on with undeniable pride. From the earliest days, when St Domingo’s first morphed into something recognisable as a modern football club, the whole span of Everton’s narrative is covered here. Those earliest title wins, those earliest finals, Dean, Lawton, Hickson, the Holy Trinity, Latchford, the glory of Kendall, the agony of Wimbledon, the joy of Royle and restoration under Moyes. Everton Greatest Games is more than just a selection of the moments that have stirred the soul of Blues. It is the story of Everton, the tale of how a church team grew into an English giant.