What about if you could get one match replayed, knowing that the odds were seriously in your favour, if that match was played again, the mistakes, the quirks of fate, the unfair act of god could not happen again and fate would deem to be on our side.
Let?s open this can of worms, the ?77 semi final and Clive Thomas, Clattenburg?s severe blind spot, the ?81 semi final and Brian Kidd's brain seizure... the list must go on.
Personally, I remember my Grandad telling me about a game he went to and if he was still here would probably say the 1953 semi-final at Maine Rd versus Bolton. 40 minutes gone, Bolton 4, Everton 0, right on half time, Everton get a penalty for supposed consolation and miss the bloody thing. 45 minutes later the match finished Bolton 4, Everton 3. If the match could be rewound and the penalty goes in, who knows? Then again, would fate have us as the bridesmaids to the Matthews final? We will never know.
For me, one game still sticks like a dagger to the heart. 1986... no, not the second half of the cup final, but close. Away to Oxford, late April I think, neck and neck with RS for the title, we had a game in hand for the run in, no last day, all the same kick off, like now... we always were due to play our last game after they had finished their season.
Before kick-off, we had three games to play, they had won the night before, so had two games left and were 2 pts ahead. So if we won our last three games, the title was ours.
Oxford were relegation fodder, had to win their last four games to stand any chance of surviving. Everton had got back on track after a defeat on the plastic pitch at Luton and given Liveroool an opening to crank up the pressure.
The game started and it was total dominance from the Blues. The game plan had changed from last season, now it was a case of 'miss the midfield passing and get it to Lineker'... 25 goals from 35 games ? who could argue with that?
What happened for the next 80 minutes stunned the 10,000 blues crammed into the tiny terracing around the ground. Lineker missed three open goals, wearing a pair of brand new boots, that he decided to wear at the last minute, which in his own words, were binned at the end of the game.
On 81 minutes, Oxford?s Bobby Macdonald, thrashed in the winner from 25 yards. The desolation and silence walking away from the ground, that memory never leaves me.
If I could rewind and replay that game, Lineker would walk away with a hat-trick, we would then still win our last two games, 6-1 v, Southampton and 3-1 v, West Ham and take the title, with Lineker bagging 33 goals in 38 games instead of the history books saying 30 goals and runners up.
Anyone else out there with similar nightmares? Sweet dreams...
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That fat Greek (or who scored in the 85th minute at GP which knocked us out on Away goals and they lost to Ajax at Wembley in the final. Home advantage ? would we have done it even against Cruyff?Carlisle, Oxford, Heysel, Villarreal, Fiorentina and even a win on the first game last season would have meant us 7th and them 8th. 85 Cup Final for sure and 86 as well. 84 League Cup with Lawrenson's hands tied behind his back. 77 League Cup with Villa. Any one of the games in 1929-30 we should have won not lost and which saw us relegated for the first time. The Sandy Brown derby. 79-80 derby at Goodison, the day Dixie died and we lost. We can go on and on.But then again there are matches we hope never would - Oxford 84, Wimbledon 94 and Coventry 98 all come to mind. 95 Semi Final and the Goodison derby that year.Brilliant post and just going to smooth down the hairs on the back of my neck after some of the memories.
The 80s were fantastic standing in the Gwladys Street end, getting crushed as yet another Trevor Steven ball gets converted into a goal (Everton vs Sunderland, 4-1); the blitzkreig on Bayern Munich in the European Cup Winners Cup semi-final; the 5-1 thrashing of Man Utd.
Just a few magical moments... only to have the next stage of the Everton FC total football domination halt because of mindless thugs supporting the Darkside, getting all English clubs banned from Europe. This ultimately led to players leaving Everton in search of European football, leaving us on the brink of success under Colin Harvey (we actually did not do too bad), followed by the non-eventful time under Kendall's second spell ? although he did unearth Billy Kenny (what a wasted talent if ever there was... I remember him crunching McMahon in a game; McMahon never went near him again). And then the woeful Mike Walker period.
The Joe Royle era, although not pretty, was effective but then again he had the same battles in the boardroom over spending as Moyes is having now. Yet back in 1994, he still managed to spend £5 million on Andrei Kanchelskis.
Next came Howard Kendall again, which was a complete disaster, although he had faith in the kids as I remember watching Football Focus before setting off for the derby and the feature was on John Oster, Michael Ball, and Danny Cadamateri.
The Walter Smith era was forgetful, especially the signing of Gasgoine, Ginola et al.
And finally came David Moyes, doing his best under difficult circumstances... although we would not be in this situation if we had not been banned from Europe; I believe we would be the "Man U" and would have just gone from strength to strength if the ban had not robbed us of Kendall and the players who followed suit.
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* Everton deducted 8 pts; †Forest deducted 4 pts for PSR breachView full table
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