The Greatest Day

11 May 1963. It dawned a warm glorious sunny day. I was 11 years old. This afternoon the mighty Blues would take on Fulham at Goodison Park in the final game of the season and victory would crown us as Football League Champions. I would not be missing this!

I’d gone to my first match on 28 February 1959 versus Tottenham. We won 2-1. Bobby Collins got the winner. Before the game some wag had presented Danny Blanchflower with a pack of Shredded Wheat. At that time Everton were a struggling First Division team who, as my Dad explained, were solid at home and crap away. We had two class players in Collins and Alex Parker but the rest were at best journeyman professionals.

The next stage is well documented but for completion’s sake I’ll recap: John Moores got involved at the start of 1960 and provided Johnny Carey with funds to buy Tommy Ring, Roy Vernon, Mickey Lill and Jimmy Gabriel in I think that order. Whether it was loans, gifts, or some other financial shenanigan I knew not and quite frankly didn’t care. Everton started to win more games than they lost and some. As an addendum my recollection of Tommy Ring in the 2nd half of the 1959-60 season is that he was best left winger I had ever seen although I was only aged 8 so perhaps my opinion holds little sway. I simply couldn’t fathom how at about 28 years old he was playing for Clyde and cost us £12½ grande. He was bloody brilliant. He broke his leg at Stamford Bridge the following September and that was that.

In September Billy Bingham arrived from Luton followed in November by Alex Young with his mate George Thompson. Alex hardly played that season and eventually Mick Meagan was preferred at Left Back so George was never a regular. In April 1961, Moores sacked Carey and replaced him with the disciplined, pragmatic Harry Catterick. Johnny Morrisey was bought for 10 grand from Satan’s Lair, Collins was sold and replaced by Dennis Stevens from Bolton and in March 1962, a 19-year-old boy giant called Gordon West was purchased from Blackpool.

Throughout this time local lad Brian Labone was developing into a colossus. We started 1962-63 beating all before us. Catterick strengthened the team in the latter part of ’62 with the acquisition of Tony Kay (what a player!) and Alex Scott. Then the big freeze. I was all set to go to the Arsenal home game on Boxing Day only to wake up to 6 inches of snow. There was hardly any footy for 3 months. We faltered after the restart but eventually hit our stride and now here we were on the cusp of the Championship. Tottenham, by now our only rivals, had loads of games in hand but if we beat Fulham at home in our last fixture we were Champions.

I lived in Halewood. Getting to the match by public transport was a pain in the arse. My usual route was the No 78 from Halewood, get off at the junction of Rathbone Road and Picton Road in Wavertree, catch the every 10 minutes or so No 60 to Old Swan and then climb onto one of the numerous No 46’s waiting to take supporters to the game. The advantage of this rather circuitous route was that there was no little or no waiting. My pet hate as a lad was waiting for buses to such an extent that I would usually walk or jog on to the next stop keeping my eye open for the bus. At times I’d have to quicken my pace and it wasn’t uncommon for the bus conductor to deliberately press the bell and smirk at me as I sprinted full pelt. These were the sort of blokes that if they’d have been born 40 years earlier in Central Europe they would have been Death Camp guards with big sticks and enormous great snarling dogs. I hated bus conductors.

But somehow today the journey itself would be part of the day. Like a pre-coronation procession.

I left at 10:30, caught the No 78 and got off near Picton Clock and waited opposite Earle’s football ground for the slow boat to China that was the No 81. This went right round Queens Drive and the route timetable-wise was perennially unreliable. Whilst I was waiting an elderly woman asked me where I was going. After listening to a 15 minute monologue on the greatness that was Everton she was only rescued when the bus showed up.

Also I was going on my tod. At that time no-one else I knew amongst my mates where allowed to go to the game without adult supervision. Any way this suited me as it meant I could focus on the game with no discussions about what happens with girls or who was cock of the school.

I got to the ground at about 1pm and queued for the Gladwys Street gates to open at 1.30pm, then straight down to the front to ensure I had an unobstructed view. I got a spec just to the right of the goal as you face the pitch. This was before the installation of those ‘D’ shaped anti hooligan barriers behind the goals which came in I think after the Tony Kay sending off v Blackburn in November 1963 when missiles rained down, we lost 4-2 and Fred Pickering got a hat trick thus precipitating his transfer to us in March 1964.

Fulham had been in Division 1 (that’s old money Division 1 before Sky invented football) since 1959 and had struggled every year. This season had been no different. Whilst the blues had been in imperious form in the last month I’d been to the match the week before against Bolton, another struggling team, where on a filthy day we won 1-0 with a late Vernon goal (it’s on the History video) so we had recent evidence that this might not be a stroll.

Plus there was another couple of worrying niggles. Gordon West was injured and Albert Dunlop would be in goal. Dunlop had played in the previous 3 games, all victories and only conceded one goal but it was a concern. Also Derek (Shirley) Temple would be on the left wing in place of Johnny Morrissey who had also missed the last 3 matches.

The Cottagers were noticeable for their Cockney comedy chairman Tommy Trinder, a bloke who had never made me laugh, and the fact that they had in their ranks Johnny Haynes, the first £100 per week British footballer. However Haynes had been injured in a car crash 6 months previously and wouldn’t play. They had a decent keeper in Tony Macedo, up and coming right back George Cohen plus a useful winger called Graham Leggat. Given our travails against Bolton 60,000 cup half-empty Evertonians would be edgy.

As the ground filled up the nervous tension was palpable. When the team came out... no Z-Cars, that came in on the first day of the following season... the noise was ear-splitting. Within 10 minutes of the start, we were two Roy Vernon goals up. Cue delirium. Fulham got one back but Alex Scott restored the two-goal cushion on the half-hour mark. At half time we were 3-1 up and almost there.

The second half was, if I remember correctly, pretty uneventful with Catterick sending out the troops with a pragmatic approach, Fulham not having much idea and the crowd counting the clock down, the atmosphere slowly turning carnival. With 10 minutes left, Vernon got free in the inside-right position and scored with a trademark low right-foot shot just inside Macedo’s right hand post. From where I was standing. if there had been no net, the ball would have hit me. I swear I saw the crestfallen look on Macedo’s face as he looked back to see the ball nestling next to the stanchion.

We were home and dry. The last 10 minutes were a bouncing, singing knees–up. We’d won bugger all since Hitler had embarked on a policy of avoiding any more Jesse Owens type humiliations by making the Olympics a one–country completion. The raucous atmosphere was entirely appropriate and totally joyful.

When the final whistle went, thousands ran onto the pitch thus fucking up any chance of a lap of honour. Five minutes later, the players appeared in the Directors Box. There is some footage of this... Jimmy Gabriel with a big toothy grin on his face, the players looking a bit bashful. No doubt they were in a state of shock. Players being allowed in the Directors Box was a big first. Excitement was writ large. Then the players disappeared and we all reluctantly headed for the gates.

I can’t remember how I got home... probably floated. I suspect I even smiled at the bus conductors.

Dunlop (West); Parker, Meagan; Gabriel, Labone, Kay; Scott, Stevens, Young, Vernon, Temple (Morrissey)... I thought these boys were indestructible but, as we know from the salute at the last Fulham game, would that it were so!!

I’m 61 now. Let’s say I’ve got 20 years match attending left in me until I need someone hold my hand. Will I ever see another Greatest Day? Looks a bit unlikely but you never know. The sheiks might get deposed, the Russian arrested, various Yanks go bust. Should another Greatest Day ever occur I might just get myself over to Halewood and reprise my bus journey. Although, if I get to the ground 2 hrs before the kick off, I think I’ll go for a pint.

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