Everton and Arsenal have confirmed the shock news that an icon of both clubs, Kevin Campbell, has died after being hospitalised last month because of illness. He was 54.
Campbell cemented his place in Goodison folklore and the hearts of Blues fans with a brilliant loan spell at Everton late in the 1998-99 season when he fired nine goals in as many appearances, a contribution that almost single-handedly steered the club away from the relegation zone and to mid-table safety that season.
It stands as one of the most significant contributions by any one player in the Club’s history and it paved the way for the Londoner to join the Toffees in a permanent £3m deal that summer. He went on to score 45 League goals for Everton, a tally that puts him fifth in the list of the Blues’ top scorers of the Premier League era.
Born in Lambeth, Kevin began his playing career at Arsenal where won the FA Youth Cup before making his senior debut in May 1988.
He cut his teeth with loan spells at Leyton Orient and Leicester City before establishing himself at the Gunners where he would go onto make 210 appearances, scoring 55 goals, winning the League title in 1991, an FA Cup and League Cup double two years later and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1994.
In 1995, Campbell joined Nottingham Forest in a £2.5m deal to replace Stan Collymore but while he scored an impressive 32 goals in 80 games for the East Midlands club it wasn’t enough to keep them in the top division, although his partnership with Pierre van Hooijdonk where he notched 23 in a season helped Forest earn promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt in 1997-98.
Nevertheless, his move to the comparative backwater of Turkey and Trabsonspor in 1998 seemed to confirm that Campbell’s career was in danger of petering out rather than scaling the heights at a top Premier League club.
However, cash-strapped Smith saw in Campbell a cheap way of acquiring much-needed firepower for his bid to steer Everton away from increasingly real relegation danger. The benefit was mutual — as Kevin was by that point desperate to leave Turkey, having been on the victim of barbed racist comments by the Trabsonspor president who also attacked his scoring record.
Though it took him a couple of games to settle in, Campbell’s impact at Goodison was staggering in those first few weeks as he scored three consecutive braces to lift the Club away from the bottom three. “Super Kev”, as the Evertonians would soon call him, was revered for his time at Goodison Park as a result.
He would go on to score the winning goal away at Liverpool during the 1999-2000 season, the last one at Anfield for Everton for two decades, and eventually left Goodison Park in 2005 when he signed for West Bromwich Albion and later joined Cardiff City on a short-term deal.
He hung up his boots in 2007 but carved out a successful career as a pundit for the Premier League and Champions League and remained a hugely beloved figure, particularly at Everton who the Londoner took to his heart and always regarded as his club alongside Arsenal.