Howard Kendall interview

[Khalekan]

This is a good point. Whilst the Heysel ban was a blow to us, we must remember that we were not the ONLY club to miss out during the years of the ban. Arsenal missed out and it doesn't seem to have damaged them for nearly 30 years.

Here's the difference.

We had our best team in a generation.....possibly the best team we ever had.

A young team which as the following two seasons showed, had the potential to get even better.

Then we lost the man who masterminded it, due in no small measure to the ban.

If the ban had happened ten years earlier when we were a workmanlike, functional team under Billy Bingham it wouldn't have had the same devastating effect on the club's morale.

We would have just taken it in our stride and moved on with no sense of what might have been if the team of Steve Sergeant, Gary Jones and George Telfer had been allowed to play in the UEFA Cup.

(I revere the memory of those lads BTW....but they were no Stevens, Steven or Sheedy )

The Arsenal team of the era was pretty average......wouldn't even have been in the European Cup never mind win it.

They were denied a UEFA Cup spot after winning the Coca Cola Cup or whatever the League Cup was called then.

But imagine the Invincibles had just wrapped up the Title in 2007 or whenever it was and English clubs had been banned from Europe following the Kopite night of shame in Athens.

And the team proceeded to disintegrate over the next few years as a result.

It would have been a longer way back for them in that circumstance.

The Heysel ban affected Everton more than any other team in England because we were by far the best team in the country in 1985.

In short.....we lost the most because we had the most to lose.

But you are right in suggesting it was more than the Heysel ban which done for us.

Peter Johnson completed the job of leading us into anonymity when he got his hooks into us.

But if we had been allowed to play in the next season's competition and won it....or even gave a great account of ourselves in it and over the next couple years.....who knows how the following six or seven years might have panned out?

The profile would have been lifted, proper investors might have been attracted to the club.

Peter Johnson might never have got anywhere near the joint.

And when the Sky Express left the station circa 1993 a proper commercially managed EFC might have been in the First Class carriage instead of standing on the platform waving goodbye to the big time.

It is all conjecture, I know.

But the one concrete fact is a great Everton team was stopped dead in its tracks by the Heysel ban.

In the very moment we thought we had everything football could offer us as fans it was all snatched away from us.

And I believe it dealt a bodyblow which left a decade long hangover which left us lagging behind Manchester United and Arsenal......teams who had not won as many Titles as us before Howard's team of '85 had its heart ripped out.

And we all know what the last twenty years have been like.

 

[McMagic]

I have learned something today from Walken, it is how to spell the word 'Blert', I have often wanted to use the word myself but refrained as it is not in my dictionary, I thought it may be Blurt, Blirt or even with a double R. I can now sleep easy, if that bloert of a dog next door shuts up.

 

[mythbuster]

Here's the difference.

We had our best team in a generation.....possibly the best team we ever had.

A young team which as the following two seasons showed, had the potential to get even better.

Then we lost the man who masterminded it, due in no small measure to the ban.

If the ban had happened ten years earlier when we were a workmanlike, functional team under Billy Bingham it wouldn't have had the same devastating effect on the club's morale.

We would have just taken it in our stride and moved on with no sense of what might have been if the team of Steve Sergeant, Gary Jones and George Telfer had been allowed to play in the UEFA Cup.

(I revere the memory of those lads BTW....but they were no Stevens, Steven or Sheedy )

The Arsenal team of the era was pretty average......wouldn't even have been in the European Cup never mind win it.

They were denied a UEFA Cup spot after winning the Coca Cola Cup or whatever the League Cup was called then.

But imagine the Invincibles had just wrapped up the Title in 2007 or whenever it was and English clubs had been banned from Europe following the Kopite night of shame in Athens.

And the team proceeded to disintegrate over the next few years as a result.

It would have been a longer way back for them in that circumstance.

The Heysel ban affected Everton more than any other team in England because we were by far the best team in the country in 1985.

In short.....we lost the most because we had the most to lose.

But you are right in suggesting it was more than the Heysel ban which done for us.

Peter Johnson completed the job of leading us into anonymity when he got his hooks into us.

But if we had been allowed to play in the next season's competition and won it....or even gave a great account of ourselves in it and over the next couple years.....who knows how the following six or seven years might have panned out?

The profile would have been lifted, proper investors might have been attracted to the club.

Peter Johnson might never have got anywhere near the joint.

And when the Sky Express left the station circa 1993 a proper commercially managed EFC might have been in the First Class carriage instead of standing on the platform waving goodbye to the big time.

It is all conjecture, I know.

But the one concrete fact is a great Everton team was stopped dead in its tracks by the Heysel ban.

In the very moment we thought we had everything football could offer us as fans it was all snatched away from us.

And I believe it dealt a bodyblow which left a decade long hangover which left us lagging behind Manchester United and Arsenal......teams who had not won as many Titles as us before Howard's team of '85 had its heart ripped out.

And we all know what the last twenty years have been like.

All good points that I agree with, but as you say, it can't be used as an excuse for our relative lack of success in the 30 years since.

Just for the record, Arsenal missed out on the European Cup when they won the title with THAT Michael Thomas goal. It was just a few years after the ban was introduced.

As for the timing of the ban though, we definitely suffered the most.

 

[Khalekan]

All good points that I agree with, but as you say, it can't be used as an excuse for our relative lack of success in the 30 years since.

Just for the record, Arsenal missed out on the European Cup when they won the title with THAT Michael Thomas goal. It was just a few years after the ban was introduced.

As for the timing of the ban though, we definitely suffered the most.

That is true about them missing out a few years later but everyone knew then that there was no Europe on offer for the champions so it wasn't the shock to the system it was to us four years previously.

But Michael Thomas......

We have so much to thank him and Demba Ba for

 

[Joey66]

This is a good point. Whilst the Heysel ban was a blow to us, we must remember that we were not the ONLY club to miss out during the years of the ban. Arsenal missed out and it doesn't seem to have damaged them for nearly 30 years.

Yes but that new ground trophies have dried up for Arsenal we lost the kings dock because BK could not raise 30-40 million or something peanuty like that!

 

[allezlesbleus]

Here's the difference.

We had our best team in a generation.....possibly the best team we ever had.

A young team which as the following two seasons showed, had the potential to get even better.

Then we lost the man who masterminded it, due in no small measure to the ban.

If the ban had happened ten years earlier when we were a workmanlike, functional team under Billy Bingham it wouldn't have had the same devastating effect on the club's morale.

We would have just taken it in our stride and moved on with no sense of what might have been if the team of Steve Sergeant, Gary Jones and George Telfer had been allowed to play in the UEFA Cup.

(I revere the memory of those lads BTW....but they were no Stevens, Steven or Sheedy )

The Arsenal team of the era was pretty average......wouldn't even have been in the European Cup never mind win it.

They were denied a UEFA Cup spot after winning the Coca Cola Cup or whatever the League Cup was called then.

But imagine the Invincibles had just wrapped up the Title in 2007 or whenever it was and English clubs had been banned from Europe following the Kopite night of shame in Athens.

And the team proceeded to disintegrate over the next few years as a result.

It would have been a longer way back for them in that circumstance.

The Heysel ban affected Everton more than any other team in England because we were by far the best team in the country in 1985.

In short.....we lost the most because we had the most to lose.

But you are right in suggesting it was more than the Heysel ban which done for us.

Peter Johnson completed the job of leading us into anonymity when he got his hooks into us.

But if we had been allowed to play in the next season's competition and won it....or even gave a great account of ourselves in it and over the next couple years.....who knows how the following six or seven years might have panned out?

The profile would have been lifted, proper investors might have been attracted to the club.

Peter Johnson might never have got anywhere near the joint.

And when the Sky Express left the station circa 1993 a proper commercially managed EFC might have been in the First Class carriage instead of standing on the platform waving goodbye to the big time.

It is all conjecture, I know.

But the one concrete fact is a great Everton team was stopped dead in its tracks by the Heysel ban.

In the very moment we thought we had everything football could offer us as fans it was all snatched away from us.

And I believe it dealt a bodyblow which left a decade long hangover which left us lagging behind Manchester United and Arsenal......teams who had not won as many Titles as us before Howard's team of '85 had its heart ripped out.

And we all know what the last twenty years have been like.

I think that is really well written. We have definitely contributed massively to our own drift through rubbish boards and lack of ambition in the PL era but the impact of Heysel was massive on us. The first time in a generation we had a team good enough to make a hit in Europe and create a dynasty of success that our rivals had done which we had never managed was snatched from us in a flash, made all the more galling that it was the RS who did it and we had been models of good behaviour in Rotterdam just a few days earlier. No club that has the likes of David Marsh chairman is going to flourish but we were stopped dead in our tracks by Heysel, it was not done to us and the punishment on the club was unjustified. Harsh also on others banned but harshest on us.

 

[Dario Terracotta]

For me it was the arrogance that displayed when they marched back in after the ban,no apologies,if they had offered up their place to any other club affected by the ban not just ourselves,it would have shown a level of remorse but nothing,also their "celebrations"at goodison in that screen sport joke cup in 1986,typically classless.

 

[vagant59]

A good article but once more I find myself saddened that a legendary Evertonian, following in the wake of Neville a few months ago, implies that Heysel was just about the state of the stadium ergo rampaging Kopites were not the cause of the catastrophe but merely football fans who had "a great trip ruined by watching people die" as the plaque over at The Pit likes to put it.

Yeah, like Peter Robinson is going to say Kopite's culpa when he can point the finger at UEFA.

Speaking of Heysel, I wonder will the event be marked at PL grounds in any way.

This is the 30th anniversary and I haven't heard of any TV documentaries up and coming.

Though if there are, I am sure the revisionist version will the tale that is told....the one where a crumbling stadium caused it and the anti English lobby in UEFA gleefully used it to ban our asses from Europe.

You see here's the thing.

That ban knocked the stuffing out of our club and stopped us dead in our tracks just at long last we were proper contenders again.

Younger fans wondering what happened to the giant football club they hear us arl arses going on about and how it went from Howard's class of '85 to the wilderness they have known can look to Heysel as the starting point of the fall from grace.

And all because that horrible shower over the Park started a riot.

No riot, no crumbling walls.......simple as.

Still bitter about it?

You fecking betcha.

If I remember rightly, the stadium in Rotterdam was not in the best of health.

 

[mrb85]

For me it was the arrogance that displayed when they marched back in after the ban,no apologies,if they had offered up their place to any other club affected by the club not just ourselves,it would have shown a level of remorse but nothing,also their "celebrations"at goodison in that screen sport joke cup in 1986,typically classless.

Not only did the RS not show any remorse, the media didn't either. In fact the BBC covered all their European games on their return under the programme banner 'Liverpool Back In Europe'.

 

[mrb85]

Let's not forget either that the ban meant that clubs like Wimbledon and Coventry lost their one and only chance to compete in Europe.

 

[mrb85]

Love the crowd reactions in the Sportsnight piece. Also had to chuckle to myself at the way the attendances were consistently understated in those days. The Sunderland game shown in it was a classic example. A crowd packed like sardines in Gwladys St and all round the ground bar for the away Park End section. A capacity at the time of 52,000. The official attendance? 35,978!

 

[No8Bally]

As Heysel unfolded and it became clear that EFC were penalised more than the vermin, that was the point when I moved from just disliking the RS to loathing them. My hatred of everything that is the club of LFC grows stronger each year.

 

[Groucho]

Here's the difference.

We had our best team in a generation.....possibly the best team we ever had.

A young team which as the following two seasons showed, had the potential to get even better.

Then we lost the man who masterminded it, due in no small measure to the ban.

If the ban had happened ten years earlier when we were a workmanlike, functional team under Billy Bingham it wouldn't have had the same devastating effect on the club's morale.

We would have just taken it in our stride and moved on with no sense of what might have been if the team of Steve Sergeant, Gary Jones and George Telfer had been allowed to play in the UEFA Cup.

(I revere the memory of those lads BTW....but they were no Stevens, Steven or Sheedy )

The Arsenal team of the era was pretty average......wouldn't even have been in the European Cup never mind win it.

They were denied a UEFA Cup spot after winning the Coca Cola Cup or whatever the League Cup was called then.

But imagine the Invincibles had just wrapped up the Title in 2007 or whenever it was and English clubs had been banned from Europe following the Kopite night of shame in Athens.

And the team proceeded to disintegrate over the next few years as a result.

It would have been a longer way back for them in that circumstance.

The Heysel ban affected Everton more than any other team in England because we were by far the best team in the country in 1985.

In short.....we lost the most because we had the most to lose.

But you are right in suggesting it was more than the Heysel ban which done for us.

Peter Johnson completed the job of leading us into anonymity when he got his hooks into us.

But if we had been allowed to play in the next season's competition and won it....or even gave a great account of ourselves in it and over the next couple years.....who knows how the following six or seven years might have panned out?

The profile would have been lifted, proper investors might have been attracted to the club.

Peter Johnson might never have got anywhere near the joint.

And when the Sky Express left the station circa 1993 a proper commercially managed EFC might have been in the First Class carriage instead of standing on the platform waving goodbye to the big time.

It is all conjecture, I know.

But the one concrete fact is a great Everton team was stopped dead in its tracks by the Heysel ban.

In the very moment we thought we had everything football could offer us as fans it was all snatched away from us.

And I believe it dealt a bodyblow which left a decade long hangover which left us lagging behind Manchester United and Arsenal......teams who had not won as many Titles as us before Howard's team of '85 had its heart ripped out.

And we all know what the last twenty years have been like.

Well I reckon that's pretty much spot on.

It was a combination of Heysel and boardroom level mismanagement in the subsequent years that did for our hopes then.

And it's a long road back to that point.

 

[dead_soft]

A good article but once more I find myself saddened that a legendary Evertonian, following in the wake of Neville a few months ago, implies that Heysel was just about the state of the stadium ergo rampaging Kopites were not the cause of the catastrophe but merely football fans who had "a great trip ruined by watching people die" as the plaque over at The Pit likes to put it.

Yeah, like Peter Robinson is going to say Kopite's culpa when he can point the finger at UEFA.

Speaking of Heysel, I wonder will the event be marked at PL grounds in any way.

This is the 30th anniversary and I haven't heard of any TV documentaries up and coming.

Though if there are, I am sure the revisionist version will the tale that is told....the one where a crumbling stadium caused it and the anti English lobby in UEFA gleefully used it to ban our asses from Europe.

You see here's the thing.

That ban knocked the stuffing out of our club and stopped us dead in our tracks just at long last we were proper contenders again.

Younger fans wondering what happened to the giant football club they hear us arl arses going on about and how it went from Howard's class of '85 to the wilderness they have known can look to Heysel as the starting point of the fall from grace.

And all because that horrible shower over the Park started a riot.

No riot, no crumbling walls.......simple as.

Still bitter about it?

You fecking betcha.

Yeast, the big tragedy of Heysel was that a football club didn't get to take part in a competition