The tale of legendary Everton manager Harry Catterick:

[Cameron Manning]

Thanks for that, fascinating history.

My dad is long gone & from what I recall, he seemed to think Johnny Carey was hard done by because the team was building. He should have been given more time, & furthermore deserved some recognition. I kind of had the sense that dad didn't overly like Catterick - even though he obviously liked Everton's success.
As you point out Catterick inherited some good players & brought in some himself - pity about Tony Kay. Wasn't there a film made about him?

I guess it's a flick of the coin between Catterick & Kendall as Everton's best manager. Kendall won more in a shorter period & who knows what he might have gone on to achieve if we weren't banned from Europe.

Yes your dad wouldn’t have been on his own in disliking Harry and Johnny Carey was very easy to like, but John Moore’s wanted winners and Catterick had proved to be a tough ruthless manager with Sheffield Wed. so that suited Mr. Moore’s ambitions for Everton.
Howard Kendall gave us four great years and then Heyshel happened and ended Kendall’s first term with us, I think it would have better if he had never come back again both for us and Howard himself.

 

[tommytowne]

It was before my time but I think the consensus at the time was that they relatively underachieved.

They didn't turn up for the '68 Cup final, and they probably should have won the title after 1970...and got further in the '71 EC. The sale of Ball by Catterick and his own ill health appears to have killed that fantastic team off.

Absolutely spot on. The Ball episode akin to Paisley selling Dalglish.

 

[Joey66]

Really interesting to hear the new main stand undermined transfer dealings.

I'm sure I'm putting two and two together and making five, but is it possible that paying for the main stand played a role in Alan Ball being sold? After all, he was only about 26 so Cattericks line about 'getting a good price while we can' feels a bit disingenuous.

It cost £1 million that new Goodison main stand - We went on to sign dud players like Keith Newton, & Henry Newton for big fees, so I guess Ballys sale was nothing to do with the new main stand IMO..... the Catt letting him carry on as captain forced an issue - plus Bally as a Manager his record was poor to say the least .... after he finished playing ... HK was the opposite .....

 

[davids]

How we only drew the home leg against Panathinaikos still puzzles me to this day.

 

[Davideeyore]

Too young to know HC but was at the game he died in v Ipswich in the cup.

 

[Cameron Manning]

How we only drew the home leg against Panathinaikos still puzzles me to this day.

Battered them throughout the game, shots and headers kicked off the line and they defended like their lives depended on it especially after they took the lead, David Johnson saved us with that late goal and equaliser.

 

[Cameron Manning]

Really interesting to hear the new main stand undermined transfer dealings.

I'm sure I'm putting two and two together and making five, but is it possible that paying for the main stand played a role in Alan Ball being sold? After all, he was only about 26 so Cattericks line about 'getting a good price while we can' feels a bit disingenuous.

Ball didn’t want to go, it shocked him that Catterick was willing to let him go, on the other hand I remember Alan’s dad saying in the Daily Express, the day after Alan signed for Arsenal, how happy he was with the contract his son had just signed which included a big pay rise, so there are always two sides to every story, I doubt Catterick would have let him go without fighting for him if he really wanted Alan to stay.

 

[paultheblue]

Battered them throughout the game, shots and headers kicked off the line and they defended like their lives depended on it especially after they took the lead, David Johnson saved us with that late goal and equaliser.

I remember not being sure if Johnsons goal had even counted as I don't think another ball was kicked after he scored.
After the 70s side won the league it was expected in the media that we would be at the top of the tree for the next 5 years sadly it wasn't to be.
Should Moores have recognised that Harry's health was waining earlier ?

 

[Joey66]

Just reading his autobiography of Harry Catterick in a chapter of his football factory, i.e. fetching youngsters through at Bellfield the likes of David Johnson & Dario Darracott -had stood on the KOP supporting the other lot - Bellfield blew their minds away & they signed there & then for us - for @Dario Terracotta .....

The Catt had helped the architects to design Bellfield on land we already owned for about £140,000 in 1964 his window overlooked the main training pitches plus it had baths, & an indoor pitch .... state of the art back then - the Brazil team visited & trained & were very impressed....in 1966 -

The Catt was constantly twitching his blinds, spying on the players training he noticed Gordon West & Frank Darcy had gone missing - he shot down got a pair of stepladders outside the gents & spotted the pair of them sharing a cigarette smoking - he went down walked in embarrassed them & the both got fined £10 out of their wages each -

After training, the snooker table balls & ping pong balls were in his secretary draw & had to be signed in & out .... plus the TV remote

Terry Darrocott stated - thinking back, we were there to learn, & he was the boss .....

 

[Dario Terracotta]

How we only drew the home leg against Panathinaikos still puzzles me to this day.

Probably because it was my first ever game attended,Dario the Jonah

 

[Dario Terracotta]

Ball didn’t want to go, it shocked him that Catterick was willing to let him go, on the other hand I remember Alan’s dad saying in the Daily Express, the day after Alan signed for Arsenal, how happy he was with the contract his son had just signed which included a big pay rise, so there are always two sides to every story, I doubt Catterick would have let him go without fighting for him if he really wanted Alan to stay.

My old fella always reckoned he came back from the Mexico world cup literally burnt out,it didn't help his case the type of player he was, full of energy and a ball of fire!!his form dipped with the added burden of captaincy and I believe he suffered a bad groin injury too,he was never the same player for us after the title win,who knows,nowadays he may have been given a couple of months off and he may have recaptured his form.

 

[Cameron Manning]

My old fella always reckoned he came back from the Mexico world cup literally burnt out,it didn't help his case the type of player he was, full of energy and a ball of fire!!his form dipped with the added burden of captaincy and I believe he suffered a bad groin injury too,he was never the same player for us after the title win,who knows,nowadays he may have been given a couple of months off and he may have recaptured his form.

Yes I mentioned the Mexico World Cup,,in a previous post, having a poor affect on the Everton players who came back and starting the season very badly, Alan was one of four or five Everton players in that World Cup, and fantastic energy plus skill was a big part of Ball’s game, not sure his temperament was suited to being a captain.

 

[Harry Catterick]

The only football manager to have an army garrison named after him

 

[allezlesbleus]

The year we won the league the FA made Don Revie Manager of the year a certain William Shankly told then that decision was a disgrace as they had failed in ever competition so why was their Manager getting the best Manager of the year award .....

The pair of them went far back as they both managed Yorkshire teams - in their rise to the top -


Harry Catterick as a player was only signed first as a semi pro player no 9 - evidently he was in a poor team after Tommy Lawton had left along with Joe Mercer & the great TG Jones after the 2nd world war .....

There is a book by Rob Sawyer recently published called ‘Broken Dreams’ all about the team that won the league in 1938/39 and the struggles immediately after the war. You might enjoy it. Same guy who wrote the TG Jones book I think you mentioned in the past.

 

[allezlesbleus]

Boss thread!!
Short answer imo is yes, but it wasn’t for the want of trying!! The WBA 1968 defeat was the most obvious throw away because we had beaten them so comfortably twice that season already.

Late defeat in semi final in 1969!! (City at Villa Park )

Threw away a two goal lead in QF in 1967!!!!! ( Forest away)

We battered Panathanaikos first leg in March 1971 but missed chances galore (@Dario Terracotta) and were robbed by dodgy ref in second game. Would we have gone on to win it? Possibly! Ajax in final would have been tricky but it was at Wembley so I think 60000 Blues might have swung it!! Our best play was still excellent but we showed it rarely that season.

The RS semi was catastrophic! Snatched defeat from jaws of victory. But it’s also fair to say Arsenal in the final would have been no pushover. They won the double, after all!! But it was a dagger through the whole club’s collective heart AND gave that lot a tremendous boost that a power shift was underway. They had been mainly talk and hot air for a few seasons but were starting a golden age as we were starting to fade.

Catterick was clearly a fantastic manager but he missed a trick with media relations and lacked a passion for European football which, like it or not, was crucial to the development of the game and club profile. We just never got going on it in that era.
He was confident that, because he had built sides before, he could re-build the 69/70 team which definitely suffered from the Mexico World Cup, Labone aging and struggling with injury and Ball’s time as captain.

But his own ill-health contributed and his decision-making wobbled in my opinion. The replacements he brought in were just not as good as the peak performance of the guys they replaced, even if those guys had not been at that peak since the league win.

I think the cost of the main stand might have been a factor in the background but we still spent quite big on players in the early 70s. They just weren’t good enough and there was a few too many of them in a relatively short space of time 71-73. It was sort of the same strategy as he had used before-a mixture of local lads and a couple of pricey signings- but it just didn’t work in the same way.

The late 60s to 1970 team was fabulous!!! It disappeared before our very eyes in just a couple of seasons.
And there was no proper successor in place when Catterick became ill so we stood still while other teams were on the rise.