Media Articles, 2000/01

Selected Everton-related news reports and articles from the media are reproduced on this page occasionally during the season, under the Fair Use copyright convention.

 PAGE CONTENTS

 Everton are still paying the price for Heysel

Day had a habit of standing 30 yards from goal when play was up the other end and east London spent most of the match imploring him to get back in position. When the inevitable happened, all club loyalty aside, most West Ham fans felt like laughing.

Maybe because my first job on a national newspaper in Manchester coincided with the year Everton won the title by 13 points. I was staying in The Brown Bull pub in Salford and going to a match every night because the alternative was dinner for one or washing my hair in the cleaner's Fairy Liquid (I had run out of shampoo and kept forgetting to buy more). The game that most stands out was a European Cup Winners' Cup semi-final: Everton 3 Bayern Munich 1.

I still remember the tremendous tension, the frantic pace of the game and the fact every time Andy Gray jumped up with a Munich defender the opponent went down clutching the side of his head. The referee must have been an Evertonian, too, because I don't think he penalised him once.

A little while later Everton won the league, the following month I watched them collect the European Cup Winners' Cup on the telly at The Red Lion pub in Prestwich, where I was now renting a flat. And by the following week I had my own TV to view the unfolding horror at the Heysel Stadium, the disaster from which the blue half of Merseyside has never recovered.

Which is why I have a soft spot for Everton Football Club.

Of course, it should go without saying the real victims were the 39 Italian fans who failed to return from the European Cup final in Brussels, their families and dependents. But, beyond that, there was a club which, through no fault of its own, found its dreams shattered.

Everton were among the best teams in Europe and ready to fly. They had claimed the league by a record margin, a European trophy in the same season and would perhaps have been the first Treble winners had a draining fixture programme not contributed to FA Cup final defeat by Manchester United. The following year they would have entered the European Cup with, many believed, a reasonable chance. Yet with the post-Heysel ban on English clubs the rug was pulled from under them. Players left to pursue the challenge of football in Europe, as did manager Howard Kendall. The money which would have taken the club to stage two by matching the finances of their biggest rivals never arrived. Everton slipped slowly, sadly, back into the pack until now they sit almost at the bottom.

Last week's 3-0 defeat by Tranmere Rovers must rank as a new low - and there have been a few contenders. Remember Kendall, on one of many ill-advised returns, all but scrapping with his players as they left the field after a midweek defeat at Coventry?

And yet this weekend, while John Gregory left Villa Park and the scene of calamity against Leicester City on a motorbike with 10 minutes to go and Sir Alex Ferguson blamed defeat by West Ham on a rugby league match played on his pitch two months ago, outside Goodison an hour and a half after the final whistle, vice chairman Bill Kenwright was on the pavement absorbing the frustrated rantings of fans. His train to London was halfway to, well, probably Runcorn the way the service is these days, but you get the idea. And he stood and he listened and he clearly cared. Which is another reason I have a soft spot for Everton. Because there must be something right with a club which inspires that loyalty through thin and thin.

Joe Royle still has it. Talking last week after Manchester City's match with Derby he referred to Everton as "my club" and it was not a slip of the tongue. I remember the night his team beat Liverpool 2-0 at Goodison and I spotted him diving into the Winslow pub across the road to keep a promise made on the day he took the job. The place exploded with cheers which shook the street. That kind of direct communication is not commonplace. And then there is Walter Smith. Now suffering demands for his dismissal, with no money and a crippling injury list (nine first-team players missing against Tranmere), he is not one for complaint. He rekindled the career of Nick Barmby, helped win his England place and was rewarded with a march across Stanley Park to his greatest rivals. He has a romantic belief that Paul Gascoigne has one great season left in him. He commands the respect of contemporaries who appreciate the constraints of his job. And given just a fraction of the advantages of some rivals - let alone GBP 50million of them - he could surely take Everton to a better place.

Which is not to say they are anything more than a lousy team playing lousy football right now. Just that they shouldn't be. And in all probability wouldn't be were it not for a terrible tragedy at a match in Brussels nearly 16 years ago. Which they lost grandly without even playing.

 Dunne in search of new dawn with Dons

When Richard Dunne wakes up this morning he won't know whether he is coming or going. Everton's manager Walter Smith may select him in his preferred position of centre-back for this afternoon's game at Leicester, but tomorrow Dunne looks likely to drop down a division and sign for Wimbledon, who will play him in the centre of defence every week.

Dunne's career is beginning just as it ends at Everton. Despite his impressive performance for Ireland in Holland last month, it seems that Walter Smith wasn't watching. "The boss has told me that he likes his centre-backs to be more experienced. He says he often played Richard Gough at right-back when he was younger.''

But Dunne is too eager to wait and Everton are not making any offers he can't refuse. When he wasn't named in the squad for Wednesday's League Cup tie (in order that he could play in later rounds for another club) Dunne knew he wasn't going to stick around much longer.

Last Thursday he removed his boots and belongings from Everton's Bellefield training ground and began to prepare to leave the club he signed for just after his 16th birthday. Wimbledon were still interested and Dunne was ready to fly to London on Friday to complete the deal. The night before, the move was put back until tomorrow. Probably.

When we met after training on Friday (and the club were reluctant to let him talk to the Press), things had changed. "It's strange. It's been a bit crazy the last few days. I'm still waiting to see what's going to happen. After training it looks like I might be playing on Sunday. I don't know because I haven't talked to anybody, nobody's said anything to me. We'll see how things go on Sunday, but as far as I know the move will go ahead on Monday. But I don't think Everton know that I'm leaving on Monday. Maybe they do, but they haven't mentioned anything to me.''

Even if he does play against Leicester, Dunne is aware that his chances of playing in the centre will be reduced when Richard Gough returns from injury and his confidence will be diminished by further performances at right-back.

Despite some outstanding games in that position last season, notably in the Merseyside Derby at Goodison, Dunne does not want to run the risk of what repeated exposure to players like Ryan Giggs could do to his mental state.

Last Saturday didn't help. Dunne was selected after missing the start of the season through suspension. He expected to play at centre-back but instead Steve Watson, the new right-back, moved into the centre and Dunne found himself facing Giggs and Manchester United in frightening form on the wide plains of the right flank.

"I was very down after last week's game because I thought that was my chance. United are the best team in the league and I thought that if I played well against them at centre-half, I can play well against anybody. I geared myself up to play centre-back and then it was a bit of a downer to be told I was playing at right-back, facing Giggs instead of Sheringham and Solksjaer. I know I'm more suited to playing at centre-back and after playing for Ireland there, I thought Walter Smith would give me a chance.''

Smith's reluctance means that Dunne will leave sooner rather than later. The prospect of playing right-back does not appeal. "In the long-run, if I keep playing there it will ruin me. I don't like playing there. It's not that I won't play there, if I'm asked I'll give it my best shot and some days it goes well and some days it doesn't. The manager won't play me centre-half because he thinks he has better options. He wants me to play right-back and in a couple of years' time move into centre-half. It's fair enough playing every week, but at the moment I think it's doing me more harm than good. I'm getting bad press and the fans are getting at me because I'm playing out of position. They're saying I'm not good enough and it's getting me down. If I play centre-half I hope I'll be able to prove to people that I can play. I can hear the boos in matches. It's very hard, it's your home ground and you want to feel confident going onto the pitch and I don't. At centre-half I feel confident in myself. I don't feel comfortable at right-back and if something goes wrong, straight away the crowd are on my back and then I'm like a nervous wreck.''

If nerves play a destructive part in Richard Dunne's game, for much of Ireland's match in Amsterdam he didn't show it. A phone-call from Mick McCarthy the week before had given Dunne a clue that he might be playing, then Phil Babb's fall from grace sealed it.

"Mick rang me at home one day and asked me how I was and was I fit. He said he was going to have a look at me in training and I had a feeling then that I might be playing. There's a space in the Irish team and I'd like to establish myself there. One of my main aims is to play in the Irish team, but to do that I've got to play first team football.''

Dunne's selection was a decision that McCarthy didn't regret as the 21-year-old grew into the game alongside Gary Breen who gave his best performance in an Irish shirt. "The whole game was an amazing experience. From the moment we walked out and saw one end covered in green and everywhere else in orange. The match was flying, we were playing great football and then they came back at us. I enjoyed it to play in and when I came back and watched it I thought it was a really good game.''

Immediately afterwards, Dunne was quoted as saying that he blossomed in the second-half once he stopped listening to others and started played his own game. "It was natural that people talked to me as it was my first game. Everything was whizzing by me and they were keeping me on my toes. But in the second-half I felt more relaxed and I was shouting at people, playing my natural game.''

His most worrying moment was in injury time when Patrick Kluivert got free in the box, only for Dunne to make a crucial interception. "It was a bit scary. The ball got knocked over my head and it was in behind me and I thought 'Shit, I better tackle this guy or they're going to blame me'. I was lucky that he took the touch, but it would have been very unfair to lose it then.''

Apart from his physical presence, Dunne can give a team vocal encouragement. "I think when you play centre-half it's a necessity that you make yourself heard. You're the focal point of the team and you need to be organising things. You're not shouting at them just to give out to them. It's constructive.''

The Irish team is where Dunne has drawn comfort during his uncertainty at Everton. He admits that he was concerned about dropping down a division, but he said he is not tempted to wait and see what else is on offer. "It's been a few weeks now and you can't wait for ever. Wimbledon is perfect. It's first team football.''

Some more street-wise members of the Irish squad have expressed the opinion that Dunne might get 'lost' in London. The player himself holds no fears. "I've talked to Kenny Cunningham and Mick McCarthy and they've both encouraged me. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to playing.''

Of course, if he plays today and plays well, what could happen? Dunne is frank. "I have no idea what's going on. I never wanted to leave Everton and the manager asked me last week was I leaving and I said no, but then I was left out of the squad in midweek and the move got resurrected. I thought I might as well go because I'm not going to get a chance here. Then I came in this morning and it looks like I might be playing. Everton agreed a fee five weeks ago, but then it died. It's not up to me to tell the manager I'm leaving. I'm sure the chief executives of both clubs have talked, but nobody has told me. My relationship with the manager has always been fine, it's business-like. He is my boss.''

 An Interview with Richard Dunne

For Richard Dunne, Saturday afternoons have meant nothing but heartache all season.  Suspended harshly for five matches on the back of a disciplinary record last term which earned him two red and four yellow cards, the Dubliner has had to sit and wait while his Everton team-mates did their thing.

When Saturday comes this weekend, that will all change.  Dunne's lengthy suspension is at an end, Everton are playing Manchester United at home and Dunne is ready to play his first league game in four months.  At least that's the plan, and if he fails to play tomorrow, Dunne will head straight for Walter Smith's office on Monday morning and ask for a transfer.  A planned £2.5M move to Wimbledon fell through, but if he is not in the side tomorrow, the 20-year-old will be on the list – and on the move.  Wimbledon, Celtic and Sunderland are more than interested in the outcome of that chat as Dunne tries to sort out his future.

"We have a few injuries so I have a chance of playing against United tomorrow.  We're missing Abel Xavier, Richard Gough and David Unsworth, and the boss wants someone to come in and play centre-half.  I played in a reserve match against Qatar's national team on Wednesday and that went well, so hopefully that's a sign.  

"The Wimbledon deal has gone off the boil a bit, but there are a few other things in the background.  I'm just waiting to see what happens this weekend and whether I will be involved with the first team.  If not, I will have to move because I spoke to Mick McCarthy about it and he made it clear that he wants me playing first team football.  If I am not getting that here I will have to move and get it somewhere else – and I need to be playing centre-half. 

"It's so long since I played for Everton – the last Premiership game was back in May – that Everton fans probably won't remember me and might think I left in the summer," he jokes.  

"It's been a pain in the arse, to be honest, and the worst part is Saturday's.  That's usually the high point of the week for a footballer, you're at home on a Saturday morning and getting ready for the game.  All season I've been doing nothing, just going in on a Saturday morning to train on my own, training with the YTS kids on a Friday.  I'm just glad it's all over now.  It was even harder, because I finally had a chance to get in and play centre-half because of the injuries.  Unfortunately for the club - but fortunate for me – the injuries are still there and I have a chance to get in, do well and make the centre-half slot mine."

It's two weeks since the 2-2 draw in Holland but Dunne is still on a high after playing a starring role in his competitive debut for Ireland.  Having shackled Patrick Kluivert in the Amsterdam Arena, the prospect of marking Cole and Yorke holds no fears for Dunne.  

"I really enjoyed the Holland game and it gave me a lot of confidence.  I came back to the club after that game thinking to myself 'I've proved now that I can do it at this level,'.  Cole and Yorke are the best around, but I know I have marked Kluivert so hopefully I can handle anyone now. 

"Myself and Gary Breen were taking turns to mark Kluivert, and I think we handled him well.  We never let him turn or take a run at us, and we got stuck into him.  One of the first things I did when I came home from Holland was to watch the game again on video, it was great to watch."

Dunne knows that the centre-half berth is his for another two games at least, as Kenny Cunningham is struggling to be fit for next month's World Cup qualifiers against Portugal and Estonia.  McCarthy was more than impressed with Dunne's contribution.  Yet Dunne cannot afford to be complacent.  Andy O'Brien is about to graduate from the U-21 squad and will do so once the Bradford man recovers from injury, while there is also a threat to Dunne's place from one of his best mates, fellow Tallaght man Jason Gavin, who has played in Middlesbrough's last three games and is in line for a start in Sunday's Premiership game against Manchester City. 

"Andy, Jay and Kenny will all be challenging for places, and if I'm not playing I'll be low down on the list.  That's why the United game is important to me. I have a taste for the senior side now and I want to stay there."

 Signing Gazza for nothing a gamble? More like winning the Lottery It's All Balls!

Paul Gascoigne's career really kicked into gear when he began crying during the World Cup semi-final in 1990. Now it looks like it will all end in tears at Everton.

At least that is what the experts will tell you. Gazza is a walking calamity, a sad tale of promise unfulfilled and self-destruction. When he broke his leg in the 1991 FA Cup Final after a moment of madness, he effectively pulled the rug from under the feet of his career.

He had three average years at Lazio following a £5.5m move in 1992 and, when his friends and admirers began to desert him in droves, he departed to the wastelands of Scottish football.

So has Walter Smith taken an almighty gamble? The answer is no. In fact, he has made a tremendous signing. Gazza may be 33 and past his best, but how can signing a player with his undoubted ability for free constitute a risk?

If he gets himself fit then he will be a great asset to an Everton side which is hardly brimming over with flair following the departures of John Collins, Don Hutchison and Nick Barmby.

Gazza's move has been greeted with the same sort of ridicule and smirks which accompanied Stan Collymore's switch to Filbert Street.

The papers were full of stories about how Collymore would single-handedly destroy the spirit that Martin O'Neill had created and lead his team-mates astray.

It was a load of rubbish of course, although the hysterical reporting that followed the La Manga episode attempted to use the incident to validate the prejudice.

Collymore was not a gamble. Anyone with an iota of sense could see he still had a lot of ability if someone could just nurture it and offer some encouragement, rather than slating him via the media as was John Gregory's wont.

At City, Collymore made a stunning start to his career and has exuded an infectious, positive and professional attitude as he has fought his way back from a broken leg.

He has impressed Peter Taylor and Colin Murphy so much that they are already suggesting he could win back his England place.

Gazza's England days are surely over, but he can still do a job in the Premiership if he is motivated. The fact he is now reunited with Walter Smith, the man for whom he did so well at Rangers, suggests he could rise to the challenge.

As a long-term fan of his talent - he is still the most naturally gifted midfielder we've had since the 1970s - I hope he follows Collymore's lead and proves a lot of pompous pundits wrong.

Gazza has never been as bad on the pitch as these people have made out. When he was on song, he was so much better than the likes of David Beckham that it makes you weep that he did not achieve what he should have.

But don't be fooled into thinking that taking on one of Britain's greatest midfielders of recent times for nothing is a gamble. It's more like winning the Lottery.

 Heart of Oak

And this from the Sunday Times, May 2000:

Mined from a rich seam of talent, the Hearts full-back is set for his Scotland debut.  By Jonathan Northcroft.

The mines of Midlothian lie derelict now, but precious material is still being hewn from the area.  Gary Naysmith, a lad from Loanhead, is in line to make his Scotland debut this week.  Another from the seam is Michael Stewart, raised in Corstorphine but now of Manchester United and Scotland Under-21s.  Also at Old Trafford are Darren Fletcher (Dalkeith) and Alex Notman (Mayfield), while Grant Brebner, their former clubmate, hails from Danderhall.  Then there is Kenny Miller, whose hometown is Musselburgh, just a few miles across the boundary into East Lothian.

Hibs cherish Miller; Manchester United hope for much from Stewart and Fletcher, but it is Naysmith's employers, as befits their name, who are currently getting the most from Midlothian.  Hearts can also count in their first-team squad Bonnyrigg's Gary Locke and another Loanhead boy, Grant Murray.  Their success in the area is just another of the ways in which they are leading the field of youth development.  They're young, at Hearts.

Last Saturday the club lifted the Scottish Youth Cup, a few days after winning the SPL Under-21 League in which they beat Rangers 5-1 and 3-0, Celtic 4-3, 3 2 and 3-0 and Hibs, who finished second, 4-1 and 6-1.  David Weir and Paul Ritchie are absent, injured, but among Scotland's party for Tuesday's game with Ireland are others who have been at least partially developed by Hearts – Steven Pressley, Neil McCann, Colin Cameron, Allan Johnston and, of course, Naysmith.  "I know I'm still called a young player," says the left-back, "but there are so many great players at Tynecastle younger than me, who are keeping me on my toes, that it honestly doesn't feel that way."

Indeed, Naysmith is a veteran fledgling, with more than 100 first-team appearances at just 21, demonstrating Hearts' ability to promote young talent as well as identify it.  He is familiar to SPL watchers as a fleet, flinty full-back with an attacking bent and a deft left foot, but it was at Tynecastle that he was channelled that way.  When he played boys' club football in Loanhead, Naysmith was a little poacher, whose heroes were Ally McCoist and John Robertson. He once scored 100 goals in a season.

"I've worked my way back in my career. By the time I joined Hearts, I played in central midfield," Naysmith says.  "It was Walter Kidd, when he was a youth coach, who first saw me as a left-back.  I was surprised, but soon started to enjoy it. The play's always in front of you and you can still attack.  Now I wouldn't choose anywhere else."

Kidd is just one named by Naysmith as being important to Hearts' success with young players.  When paying tribute to those who shaped his career, Naysmith sounds like a winner at the Oscars ceremony.  There are Jim Jefferies and Billy Brown, naturally, Craig Levein and Paul Hegarty, the early influences, Peter Houston and John McGlynn, the current coaching heads, and Bert Logan, who, when not fixing prices as a bookmaker, is improving the odds on Hearts' prospects in his other job as sprint coach.

There are also the scouts who funnelled Naysmith to Tynecastle at a time when the bit was being champed by rival clubs.  Naysmith has trained with Hearts since he was nine, but also used to go for coaching at Hibs and his father's favourite team, Rangers.  Aged 16, he was being flown to London on Sundays to play for Chelsea's youth team.  "Their set-up was brilliant," he remembers. "I played 10 times for them, with people like Jody Morris, and Glenn Hoddle was manager.  If Chelsea had been in Edinburgh, I'd have signed.  But I couldn't see myself moving away from home."

Eventually Naysmith did – as far as Musselburgh, where he lives with Gillian, his fiancee, and their baby daughter.  He is still near enough Loanhead to enjoy the prop of family and friends.  It makes him a grounded person, able to cope equally with being Young Player of the Year in his first full season, and a poor run in which he lost his place to Rab McKinnon in the next.

"My family would never let me get carried away," he says.  "Gillian wouldn't criticise how I play, but my dad and my sister – who's Hearts-daft – would. I had great support when I was growing up.  My dad's a lorry driver, and often couldn't take me to training, so my uncles did."

Having teammates around with whom he has grown up – like Scott Severin, a peer at Tynecastle since their early teens – also keeps Naysmith normal, despite being someone who had a Fila clothing contract at 18.  Jefferies and Brown have been expert in ensuring his attitude is right.  "Jim has always known when to make me push myself harder and when to put his arm round my neck.  The best thing, for a young player, is knowing he'll play you if you're doing well enough and not mind your age.  Nowadays, he reminds me I'm not a young boy any more, and I can't expect to get away with mistakes.  I'm treated just like Colin Cameron or Darren Jackson."

Like other youngsters to emerge from Tynecastle, particularly Ritchie and Locke, Naysmith has a feisty streak.  "I don't like to get beaten.  I wouldn't say I'm an aggressive player, but if a tackle's there to be made, I'm up for it.

"You get brought up to have that competitiveness at Tynecastle, because the Old Firm have got the money to buy better players, so we've got to work harder to keep up."

The more cerebral aspects of football – particularly, for defenders, positioning – are hardest for young players to acquire.  Naysmith's early travails included "roastings" from two old pros, Pat Nevin and Kevin McAllister.  "When Kevin did it to me, it was a Scottish Cup semi-final, and though we won the game I was really down afterwards.  I read the papers the next day and felt even worse.  It's part of growing up and something you have to learn from.  Now, if someone like Andrei Kanchelskis has a great afternoon against me, I try to remember he's done it before, to better players."

Naysmith expects playing for Scotland to involve yet more lessons.  The 18 caps he won at Under-21 level, including several as captain, taught him much.  "They're quicker and that bit better with the ball at international level.  I've seen how people have come on after playing for Scotland."

He has two more years of his deal to go at Tynecastle and Hearts are unlikely to repeat the errors made with Ritchie, Johnston and Weir who, because of Bosman, left cheaply, or for free.  The ideal for Hearts is to become, like Real Mallorca, their former Uefa Cup foes, a club which stays at the top by creating a virtuous circle where they buy and rear the best young players funded by profits made on selling the previous crop.

Meanwhile work is progressing on a youth academy, on which Hearts are spending £3.5M of the £8M received from Scottish Media Group. "The next to come through will be Robbie Neilson and Andy Kirk, who's a frightening finisher, the best John Robertson says he's seen in years," Naysmith said.  They're chipping them out by the hundredweight at Tynecastle, just like they once did the black stuff in Loanhead.