What If... Heysel Had Never Happened?

We were never the same and we have suffered as a result.

These days, if, for any bizarre reason, all English teams got banned, then the chance of appeal for non-guilty parties would have been 100% — so we should have appealed then.

The RS caused it but we compounded our own demise....

Tony I don't think I agree with what you say as our team was the team who had qualified for the European Cup and were more than capable of winning it, who knows who we may have been able to sign with the promise of European Cup football. Also would they have been able to stomach us playing in what they regard as their competition, it would have had been a big blow to their morale and they probably wouldn't have ended up winning the double.
It's all history now of course, but at least we have our dignity.

If we'd have continued on with Anderlecht's draw: Bayern in the Quarter's; Steau Buchrest (won it) in Semi's; Barca in the Final.

Ouch.

For many of my age this tragedy is the root of all evil and the source of the demise of our club.

Am I a bitter blue? Yes and proud of it.

Ian

There is absolutely no guarantee we were going to win the European Cup the following year, like I have seen some suggest. The best team rarely wins that competition – Chelsea are the current holders for instance, and I don't think Man Utd or Liverpool were the best teams in Europe when they won it. So while we had a good team, who knows how we would have fared?

Secondly, and more importantly, we were still a major force in English football after this. We won the league in 87. We were then making major signings, smashing the transfer record, and beating Arsenal to Cottee for example.

The truth is, our management and signings after 87 weren't good enough, on or off the pitch. We got left behind. Other clubs moved forward on and off the pitch – mainly Man Utd and Arsenal.
Some can say this is all down to Heysel, but for me it is more because Neil McDonald, Stuart McCall, Pat Nevin, Mike Milligan etc weren't good enough. We bought very few gems after this, and got no investment. This is where things started going wrong for Everton.

I think Kendall would have left us in 86 had we won the league and cup double, probably for Barca ahead of El Tel but, once Venables got the job, he decided to stay for another year in the hope of regaining the title which he did manage to achieve before departing. However, in my opinion, the rot set in during that season.

I know we won the league but Kendall was signing what I call 'elastoplast' players who were going to help him achieve that goal but, because he knew he would be leaving, he was not signing players who were going to put pressure on the established clique. Power, Clarke & Langley all filled in and contributed but for me weren't progressive signings.

The two progressive signings at that time were Dave Watson and Ian Snodin. I know Dave Watson was a great servant to EFC but did we really need to replace Mountfield at that time, who still had plenty of years ahead of him? I'm afraid Ian Snodin as a center mid was a bit of a let-down for me although, before his bad hamstring injury, he was looking like a very good right back.

With another title on his CV, Howard Kendall was off to pastures new and Colin Harvey took over. His first mistake that summer was not signing anyone, believing that he had taken over a squad that had won the league and would therefore be in the mix again. But Reidy's hair dye was fooling nobody and the unfortunate Bracewell was never going to be the same player again.

Meanwhile, the Red Shite decided on a bit of an overhaul with Beardsley, Barnes and Co; we managed to acquire the services of Ian Wilson a couple of weeks into the season. Another example of the policy of signing players who could cover for the established eleven but offered no threat to any of them long term – hence the realisation that the squad needed a major overhaul the following summer when Nevin, McDonald, Cottee & McCall arrived.

Although we were a half-decent team, the momentum had gone and a young, strong Arsenal team had arrived to challenge those who can't be mentioned. Ironically, a few years later, a certain Mr Daglish made the same mistake and allowed his squad to age and lose the edge.

To summarise, the Euro ban probably initiated the steady decline but a lack of vision and bad management decisions in my opinion contributed a lot more.

Everything would have been different if Maggie wouldn't have poked her broomstick in it.

Our player recruitment left a lot to be desired in the years after we last won the title and that contributed to our downfall.

I still don't why Kendall left for Athletico Bilbao though. Had it been a top European side then fair enough...but them???

To fall a little from being top dogs might be excusable but the decline to present day non-entities is nothing short of neglect.

In hindsight Kendal's miraculous period just disguised the amateur night antics going on behind the scenes antics alive and well to this day.

I remember reading an article by Linekers former agent who laughed at his suggestion that he only wanted to sign for Everton in 85. According to his agent he wanted to sign for Utd but they couldn't afford him. Look at the attendances against us and others from the late 80s until they won the league in 93, it was regularly in the 20 thousands. They were skint.

As Mark pointed out, it was the appointment of Harvey as manager and his numerous awful buys and a bunch of players who thought they were bigger than the club who undermined Harvey and his signings that did the damage. Lineker was the last of Kendalls top class signings. We didn't sign another player of that quality until Beardsley who sadly was on another planet skill wise to his teammates.

As for Heysel, numerous fans were charged and imprisoned. Numerous Belgian officials also served prison terms for an awful stadium, lack of segregation, poor ticketing and the lack of medical intervention. I was not there but people I know who we're including Evertonians state there was little actual violence, there was a panic and a crush, a panic caused initially by Italian hooligans. Liverpool had raised there concerns about the stadium, five weeks before the game took place.

Anybody who needs education about this just watch Requiem for a Final. There are Juventus fans on that who acknowledge there fans behaved worse than Liverpool on that tragic night. We were our own worse enemies post Heysel, it's not like Liverpool lost theire manager or top players, but we did and they were replaced by shite, end of.

You are right about Man Utd's gates in the late 80s though. I remember being at Old Trafford for a 2-1 win in the days when we used to regulary win there the week before the 1989 FA Cup final and the official crowd was just over 26,000 which included around 3-4,000 Blues.

1985-86 46,321
1986-87 40,625
1987-88 39,216
1988-89 36,847
1989-90 39,077
1990-91 43,242
1991-92 44,985
1992-93 35,573
1993-94 44,244 whilst Everton's average attendances courtesy of this site are as follows
1985-86 32,227 (3)
1986-87 32,935 (3)
1987-88 27,771 (4)
1988-89 27,765 (4)
1989-90 26,820 (7)
1990-91 25,028 (9)
1991-92 23,148 (10)

But hey it probably didn't affect us as much as I thought it was our own fault and we really shouldn't dwell on our neighbour misadventures now should we, I wonder if they would have taken it so meekly if it had been us who got them banned?

What I cannot stand is so called supporters taking the moral high ground when tragedies have occurred. I would suggest it wouldn't have mattered what English side played Juventus that night, in that environment there would have been the same sad situation. I have no idea how old you are but I cannot remember a single away game that year when there wasn't violence.

Reading our very own toy soldier Mr Nicholls was very proud of the fact that Everton were deemed by many as topping the list of the hooligan charts, supported no less by Cass Pennant, we were hardly angels. Every club was at it. Personally I was threatened and chased! From most away grounds that season. Some of our support sound like Utd at times, and how often did they use to routinely demolish whatever city they were in in the 70s and 80s?

I travelled the length and breadth of this country with Everton , the people I went with used to go by car or by coach if there was enough of us, but we never used organised transport and never used British Rail so I might have missed most of what was happening as regards violence.

I'm not sure that you are correct in your assertion that it would have happened to any English team in that situation but I will concede that LFC had been given a hard time in Rome the previous year and that possibly fueled some of the shocking incidents that took place. I am not a so-called supporter and I am not taking any high ground morally or otherwise , I'm just expressing a view. I don't even know who Mr Nichols is, I've never heard of him, but if he didn't play for us then I'm not particularly interested in his exploits, the same goes for Cass Pennant.

The 1989 game was indeed a very low attendance it was played between the Hillsborough disaster and the cup final and there were 26,722 Everton won 2-1 and Sharp got both.
The week prior to the Cup Final Everton played West Ham at Goodison and just under 22,000 turned up followed by 17,826 against Derby County on the Monday.

The next lowest crowd I can see is for the opening PL season which I think was the first home game for United where 31,901 attended to watch Everton win 3-0 bob the pole Beardsley and Maurice Johhnston scoring, but I think that had more to do with ground redevelopment than anything else.

Obviously it is just opinion but I think the same scenario in that decrepit stadium with anyone from Utd, Millwall, West Ham, Chelsea even us would have resulted in deaths, as Phil Scratton pointed out in Hillsborough, Heysel was the inevitable outcome of footballs neglect. I honestly think Heysel was waiting to happen, my only surprise was that it involved Liverpool who had previously had such a good record.

Still, it will not top the 2-2 game when my fave player was Captain, Sir Alec's moaning about Southall's time wasting will remain with me for ever.

Last, if I may, the 1-1 game when Sheedy missed the pen. I was getting a kicking off two United fans, when Sheeds missed I turned round launched my best punch at one then ran like hell, did not stop till I got home back in Sale.

I didn't mind OT but I used to dislike going to Maine Road, that was a terrible place especially when they moved the coaches and you had miles to walk before getting back safely.

You'll get some education on here but you'd be better off reading a few articles and maybe watching a few documentaries on YouTube.

In my experience from the early 70s onwards "away" games were as much about pissed up misbehaviour as supporting your team.

Hillsbrough and Heysel were ticking timebombs on many counts and could have happened to any set of fans.

For what it's worth 2 liverpool fans I know at Hilsbrough never went to another game because they saw what happened outside and disagreed with the enquiry saying fans behaviour played no part.

The fact remains the authorities telling lies makes it all seem incidental.

I am sure there are many RS fans who were there and bunked in etc are carrying a heavy burden as I know I would be if roles reversed.

At the end of the day, lives were lost and that should not happen at a football match to anybody, anywhere.