Everton v Rangers 1963

I wonder where you're seeing the 3 December date? — Hopefully not here on ToffeeWeb!

All the information sources I have checked show the game was played on 2 December 1963 — including this first-hand report from Stewart Oakes that we carried a couple of years back about The Day I've Been Dreading, which sadly marked the death of the Golden Vision himself, Alex Young, who scored Everton's goal to win the British Championship that night.

Whatever night it was, a proper rabble it was that turned up as well. I believe they had a 50-piece pipe band in the little pub on the corner. Blood and snot everywhere... and that was just the women. Stevie Me-La has found his second spiritual home.

One of the Rangers fans had a silver shield, with some slogan about his team on it. Anyway, he was using the shield to direct the light from the floodlights into the eyes of Everton players taking corners. He was easily recognised, he was the only sober Rangers fan in the ground, but a twat like the rest of them.

I don't think it's a misprint. The game0 was played on Monday, 2 December. Just like it says on't programme.

Check out Everton's Record in 1963-64, from Steve Johnson's definitive Everton Results site.

I too was at that match though I remember nothing of the game. I worked at that time for Pelling, Stanley & Green, (John West) in Stanley Street, opposite the Tobacco Warehouse on Great Howard Street.

On boarding the 27 bus at the top of Hopwood Street, I was met by a gang of Rangers fans running up and down the stairs shouting "Where do the Beatles live?" This was at least 2½ hours before the game, time enough for me to arrive home and have my tea before going to the match.

I have vivid memories of fans fighting in the old Park End stand, and I'll never understand how no-one fell on to we spectators below. For years I've had it in my mind that Ralph Brand scored for Rangers, but it appears from a report of the game that Sandy Brown conceded an own goal. Perhaps Brand scored the Rangers goal in the 3-1 Everton victory at Ibrox.

Strangely enough, I remember seeing highlights of the away match at the cinema on the interval program that used to feature a round-up of news and sport – was it called Pathé news or something like that? It featured a cock crowing at the start, I seem to remember!

We were talking to the players Roy Vernon, Alex Young etc. Three of the lads told the players that they were going up to Ibrox. Alex Scott, who played for Glasgow Rangers, told the lads "Don't go up there," and that they were mental.

A Rangers fan hit a man over his head in City Road, they were mental.
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I've just checked and Andy Rankin played in both games, and as you state, he saved a Ralph Brand penalty in the first encounter. I can remember one of the Everton directors saying that Rankin was 'outstanding' that evening, I think it was Holland Hughes.

As I said in my previous post, I remember nothing of the match at Goodison, but I certainly recall the occasion.

Some quite obscure things last a lifetime, while other more important things are difficult or nigh-on impossible to recall readily. As I approach my 82nd birthday, I find myself having to use the safety-net of my books to refresh my memories on a more regular basis.

There is one thing that has bugged me for many years and that is, I recall going into the army in 1956 when the Football Echo (which my late sister posted to me every week) was a white broadsheet. I even have somewhere in the house, a copy of the 'Echo' celebrating the 1966 World Cup victory, and that is a white broadsheet.

I would be eternally grateful if someone could put my mind at rest by confirming that the pink Echo has not been published before the early 60s. I have read somewhere reference to the 'Football Pink', but I suspect that was a general description of all football publications.

John, I am a mere youngster compared with you, being a full 15 years your junior, so can't help there I'm afraid! Are you sure the World Cup Special wasn't a special commemorative issue? I only remember the Pink Echo being pink, dating back to the '70s.

Regarding the Ian Ross & Gordon Smailes book 'Everton – A Complete Record 1878-1985', there is mention of both British Championship games (page 234) but they have Gordon West in goal on each occasion – an obvious error. Andy Rankin took over from West on 16 November 1963, until 18 January 1964, West returning in goal the following week 25 January 1964. As the Rangers games were 27 November and 2 December 1963, this shows a distinct error.

With regards to the 'Football Echo', it may have been a World Cup Special but that doesn't change my belief that, certainly in the late 50s, it was a white broadsheet.

Answering Ray’s query which I looked up re Everton winning 4-2 at Villa park, I noticed that three months later Villa battered us 4-1 in a cup game in 1959, now I was at the game and I would have bet a few pound that Gerry Hitchens, the Villa centre forward later transferred to an Italian team, scored a hat trick, convinced of it, but he didn’t, it was a player I don’t remember who did, not sure if Hitchens scored the other goal.

In a later edition of the book, 'updated and amended from the first two editions', they corrected the error; Rankin is in goal for both games (page 401).

Ron Wylie the former West Brom manager was the scorer of a hat-trick in that FA Cup tie. Dave Hickson scored for Everton and I assume it was Peter McParland who got the other Villa goal, according to good old Wikipedia McParland holds a unique place in English football history as the first player in the game to score in and win both English major domestic knockout Finals.
Villa FA Cup

EVERTON HAD FLOOD-LIGHTS 60 YEARS AGO
February 17, 1959. The Liverpool Echo and Evening Express
With Leslie Edwards
The longer you live the more you appreciate that there is little new under the sun. The first floodlit soccer match at Goodison Park was not last season, but sixty years ago. Mr. Ralph Fry, uncle of the famous one-time England and Rugby player, Mr. Harry Fry, was at the match which was played under Wells lights –a tar fluid with a naked flame under pressure was fed from drums on the ground, the burners elevated on poles. Mr. Fry, then a small boy, had good cause to remember the game –he thinks it was against West Bromwich –because the supply pipe near him burst and he got some of the stinging fluid in his eyes. "There were personalities in the teams of yesteryear, just as famous as today" says Mr. Fry. "Daddy Holt, a diminutive centre half was able to out-head the tallest opponents by the simple expedient of putting his hands on the other fellow's shoulders. He usually got away with it and to the plaudits of the crowd! "There were plenty of fist fights on the terraces at 'Derby' games, public-houses being open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. When Everton and later Liverpool, at first played at Anfield they dressed at John Houlding's pub the Sandon and after the match had to run the gauntlet of a back-slapping crowd of people, some too hearty slaps being hotly resented by defeated opponents. "It was good business for John Houlding, who really got Everton going. It was his ground opposite his house in Anfield Road, but when the Everton club began to prosper there was a spilt as Houndling wished to recoup himself; and the other directors, objecting, brought the piece of what was then waste land and formed Goodison Park.
Painless Extractions
"You recently replied that Spion Kop was opened in 1928. So far as the cover is concerned that is correct, but the Kop as a mound was in existence long before that, of course. Tom Watson, then the Liverpool Secretary gave it its name at the time, when during the Boar War, General Bulkler was trying to capture an eminence in South Africa known as Spion Kop. "The original ground was at Walton-on-the-Hill; the site of the Spion Kop at Everton. It was a place where we had our games of football with a tanner-meg ball. It was also the site of Hombwell's Circus with Seqush an Indian healer, there to extract teeth painlessly. The band which struck up as he began his dentistry made such a din no sound could be heard from the victim! "Tom Watson came from Sunderland at a salary of £000 per annum. He was secretary manager and general factotum, and certainly put Liverpool F.C., on the map. It makes you think."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtnifBsyA-w

You get live forum comments on how the crowd seems 'subdued' and the only cheers you hear are from 150 Sky darlings away supporters via the strategically placed mics, only to be told how it was rocking.

There may even be an unintended consequence that Sky 6 'homer' Refs won't have a crowd to keep on the right side off.

Also, no more YAWN to awe the weak-minded. Play it if they must... and they will find a way. But all it is, is, a mawkish, tinny sounding, mono, 60s version of a 50s show tune sung by a singer who could barely carry a tune in a bucket... and it wasn't even the show stopper of the original musical.

I'm not saying that the floodlight tale isn't true, but I've neither heard nor read of it. I do know, however, that Everton were known by the name of the 'Moonlight Dribblers' because they trained on Stanley Park in the evenings. They were also known as the Black Watch, this was because some players wore the shirts of previous clubs, and with the club unable to buy a new strip, dyed the shirts black and added a red sash. I'll try to find out more of the floodlight story.

I dug this reference up from the Echo: Floodlit Games.

It appears there was an attempt to play games under the 'lights' in the very early days but obviously the recollections of those reporting in 1959, were suspect. Apparently Sheffield United were the first club to experiment with this new-fangled idea:

The first floodlit match.

Extract from the Echo's article:

Everton's early Victorian nickname was the Moonlight Dribblers, given for their habit of training in the evening on Stanley Park.

But when Everton were residents of Anfield they did briefly experiment with floodlit football.

That game, against Sheffield United, took place on January 9, 1890 and such was the interest in the experiment that 8,000 spectators turned up to see the 5-2 victory.

“16 Wells Patent Lights were erected 25 feet above the Anfield ground and the matchball was painted white so it could be more easily picked out in the ghostly glow.”

Two days later, another floodlit match against Lancashire Nomads attracted only 3,000 and the evening games on Merseyside went into cold storage for another 60 years.

The new pioneers of floodlit football in the 1950s were Swindon and South Liverpool, who used lights in September 1949 to highlight a match against a touring Nigerian XI at Holly Park, Garston in front of 13,007 people.

Everton followed suit eight years later, and the Daily Post report actually suggested why the grass looks greener at night matches.

“The beginning of the season is the best time to see floodlit soccer,” it reported. “When pitches become churned and muddy in winter the dull earth will absorb much of the light, instead of reflecting it as a good crop of grass will.”

The fact of the match being played under such remarkable circumstance of course attracted a great deal of attention, and when the match commenced the crowd could not have numbered less than 8,000 persons. The ball was painted white in order that it might more easily be discerned. The sight of the players sprinting about the field somewhat phantom like, and the sea of faces round the barriers, brought into strong relief by the lights, formed a most curious and weirdly picture when the start was made at the signal given by the referee with a foghorn instead of a whistle.

I've never heard of the game being started with anything other than a whistle before.

I was aware of the Sheffield United game which took place in 1878, 10 years before the formation of the Football League. Like yourself, I have never heard of a game being started to the sound of a foghorn.

It's obviously true that the game took place, but it must have been a friendly because there's no mention of it in league records.

I know a number of clubs experimented with lights without success, but apparently they operated successfully in Scotland at Cathkin Park. I don't know if was a game featuring Third Lanark.

As I stated in my earlier post, I have never heard of any Everton game being played under experimental floodlighting, It just reinforces the fact that you're 'never too old to learn'.

Liverpool suffered the same Scottish invasion when they played Celtic and the violence was evident both on and off the field.

In the 1940s and 1950s the Football Echo (as it was called) was a white broadsheet. I never took this paper after 1960 so I do not know about the Pink Echo.

I struggled for years to convince people that the stands at Goodison were painted green and cream in the same period. This was confirmed recently in an Everton match-day programme.

My next mission is to find someone who can remember the Echo stating that the West Indies cricketer, Gary Sobers, was having goalkeeping trials at Everton. I claim that this was printed in the summer of 1959, when I was demobbed from the Army.

Back in the '70s, they were a popular choice for testimonials as they'd always bring loads to swell the coffers. Sadly, there were always problems. I remember a riot at Villa Park in 1976, and weren't there problems at Tommy Wright's Goodison testimonial in May 1975?

When the British Championship was revived during the post-Heysel European ban days, we met them in1987 as Champions of our respective countries. Initially it was due to be a one-off played at Maine Road, Manchester. Unsurprisingly the GMP Police didn't like the idea of pissed up Jocks and Scousers running riot in Manc-land so it was moved to Dubai! A 1-1 draw, think we lost on penalties?

The Watson testimonial was the last time we played them, I think, as the bother the Protestant bigots caused in England's most Catholic City meant to a Police force in their right mind, who would sanction them visiting again?

Drink, and plenty of it.

Without drink, Glaswegians and Scousers have plenty in common, especially their love of football.