Ah, the memories... so much pain.

For me, it’s the reason why Moyes’s teams generally look so hopeless when they’ve got possession of the ball. They can’t pass it to a teammate because no-one is making space or running off the ball. They take an age over throw-ins for the same reason.

Whoever said the man was a glorified PE teacher whose only method was hard work... followed by more hard work, got it dead right. For me, I’m afraid he simply does not qualify as a great Everton manager.

Ed Note: Shocked that you cannot spell the names of two of our best managers! It's Royle and Kendall.

In the "modern game" DM has us consistently surpassing expectation (ours and the media and other sets of fans). If he had the money he’d be another Catterick... so in context Moyes is second.

Moyes is building a very good team — a young team, with talented individuals; how he is doing it with the financial constraints placed on him like a set of anchors is beyond me — which is probably why his peers keep voting him the best of their bunch.

Harry Catterick built a side that was both cultured and disciplined and he did it as an equal. I respect David Moyes but, frankly, we need someone of inspiration. Someone who will not coast along on the no money excuse. It can be done: Alex Ferguson at Aberdeen; Brian Clough at Forest.

You have to give at least some credit to the manager. Perhaps Moyes has, in fact, done all he can do and maybe it is time for a new manager. But you have to give Moyes some credit for turning Everton FC in to a solid Premier League side.

1. Howard Kendall (1st spell)
2. Harry Catterick
3. Colin Harvey
4. Joe Royle
5. Gordon Lee
6. David Moyes
7. Billy Bingham
8. Howard Kendall (2nd spell)
9. Johnny Carey
10. Cliff Britton

Of course this doesn’t take account of resources available, style of play, or trophies won, so the arguments will rage on! I’d certainly rate David Moyes above Colin Harvey: Moyes has taken the club forward despite having to work with meagre resources compared to several other clubs, while Harvey oversaw the gradual dismantling of a great team.

What’s most striking to me is that in the past 70 years we’ve had fewer managers than Manchester City get through in an average decade!

Until the end of 1970, when we won the league, Catterick's teams played devastatingly good football but then again what a group of players he’d assembled. He couldn’t get Everton’s football to match the the grinding efficiency of Arsenal and modern football as it was becoming and he descended into mediocrity and had a heart attack.

Kendall was brilliant as a player and generally inspirational as a manager although he was less popular than Moyes is now in his initial period. Both Kendall and Catterick had funds available to be competitive... but Abramovich-like we have never been and we always had top competition for the league and new players. Kendall’s true potential was never reached because of the European ban but the sky was the limit for both him and that team.

Moyes has been everything that both his suporters and detractors claim him to be and a great manager he will never be. He is tactically naive and a nasty spiteful piece of work with it. If we could go back and the decision was mine he wouldn’t ever have reached a shortlist.

Walker (a true joke), Bingham and Lee promised but delivered nothing, Smith was a proven good manager but had no chance in the circumstances.

My list is:

Kendall (by a country mile)
Catterick
Royle
Harvey (a great Evertonian and club servant)

The others

Moyes. (I admit to disliking him personally.)

We all know what Kendall would have done... He hardly covered himself in glory in his second or third spells with us. In today's game, which is a completely different animal than it was even 5 years ago, I very much doubt whether either of them would have achieved even close to what Moyes has done at Everton. Something which is recognised by his peers , 3 times during his tenure, a fact which gets brushed under the carpet when you amateur "experts" climb on your soapboxes.

Amongst the reasons why Moyes deserves to be ranked amongst our best managers is what he has been able to accomplish with very limited resources. Catterick and Kendall Mk 1 had more funds and our main rivals at the time were not financially out of sight.

Moreover, last season when we lost both Yakubu and Arteta and I thought that the team would crumble, Moyes was able to squeeze a remarkable effort and performance from a slender squad. Not the sign of a tactically naive manager, or one who cannot motivate.

Cheap personal abuse like that offered by Martin Mason can easily be dismissed. Critics who rightly concentrate on the football should be aware of what is possible given our poverty.

What sums him up for me (one of many examples) was we once bought a winger from United (Blomqvist), one Saturday he was substituted early while playing fairly well and he had a bit of a harmless petulant moment when substituted. Moyes completely lost it and he was then gone at a time when we weren’t bursting at the seam with talent.

His overwhelming sin for me though is his absolute negativity in football matters. I feel that we do well despite him sometimes rather than see him as some saviour figure. I have in the past worried about what would happen if he left and the risk involved. I now feel that the set up is far more important than the individual at the helm. Everton would survive and possibly flourish with another manager — not that I would advocate Moyes going. You can be saved once but afterwards you need look forward to better things.

I agree about Royle btw, he should be part of the Everton set up and he nearly took Everton to a new level. I saw a programme on TV (The Golden Years?) with Royle and Harvey talking about what were golden years for Everton (Was Kendall on the prog too?).

Kendall was also unlucky in that I believe he was a chronic alcoholic.

Everton have been by and large the 5th best side in the English Premier League, and he has done it with the 12th biggest spend. How anyone can compare manangers when circumstances are so different is beyond me, the only way is to say who has won the most.

No, I don't think Moyes is our best ever manager, I think Kendall Mk 1 was, a manager is only as good as his team and Kendall Mk 1 had a great team, including Reidy, the manager on the pitch.

I do believe you are wearing rose-tinted specs with your memories. If Lee was such a talent then he should have been able to get the best out of a truly gifted player, not flog him.

Gordon Lee’s sides did play better football than under Bingham but he was dracula coming out of the dugout in that bloody black coat (did he get buried in that?) Jim, I was in the Main Stand with my uncles at the time.

My four-year-old son’s middle name is Mackenzie after Duncan (yes, I know, different spelling... but that was to appease my Mrs... but most definitely after Duncan). I remember him running off at half-time to have a smoke!

Too young to have seen the Cat’s sides other than on film but what teams. Kendall Mk1 my fave and I too was one screaming for him to get the boot right up to the Oxford game as we were dire, but then what years after, including a trip to Rotterdam I’ll never ever forget.

I think some folk are a bit unfair on Joe Royle too as he was starting to do greater things but got shafted when he asked for a few quid to buy Tore Andre Flo for buttons. He to this day still comes across as a lovely bloke on radio interviews and both he and Colin Harvey have been treated very shabbily by the club.

You can count the number of good performances (as distinct from merely good results) on the fingers of one hand since he came, centuries ago it seems. To even mention him in the same sentence as Catterick is an insult. Catterick’s team played properly and won things.