Everton Double Season — 40-year anniversary

So close to the treble. I always reflect that had that been now, would we have been asked to play an FA Cup final 3 days after a European final? I doubt it, we would have been given a week to recover.

The elusive League Cup still avoided us as we went out to Grimsby.

Nothing will ever take away those years and won't take away my levels of expectation for where I want us to be. That is the benchmark, and we will be back there in my lifetime, so the younger generations know what it feels like and get their just rewards for sticking with us.

I was born in 1971, so often ask those who remember how they compared to the teams of the 60s. It seems to be a split decision between 69-70 and 84-85.

I can still rattle them off. Neville Southall, Gary Stevens, Pat Van den Hauwe, Kevin Ratcliffe, Derek Mountfield, Peter Reid, Trevor Steven, Andy Gray, Graham Sharp, and last but not least, the player with the magic wand of a left foot, Kevin Sheedy.

The team picked itself and we expected to win and mostly did.

It didn't start too well. Having beaten Liverpool to win the Charity Shield, we lost the first two against Tottenham and West From, conceding 6 and scoring 2 in the process. But bar the odd blip, we never really looked back after that.

Special mentions to Adrian Heath, Alan Harper and Kevin Richardson.

What a team, what a time to be an Evertonian. No-one could compete with us that season.

Apologies, it's getting close to match day.

Great player and a wonderful partner for Reidy.

Should have won that 1985 Cup Final and certainly the league in 85/86 but didn't.

Then of course the one that constantly eludes us the League Cup which should have been won in 1988 when we'd have faced Luton in the Final at Wembley.

Obviously there were two other Cup Final losses to you know who in the era and the European Cup campaigns that never were, we will never know but there would have been a good chance in 86 of winning it.

The real criminal thing though is how even to this day we have always sold the family silver, we've always sold the best players, even in that era we sold the best players we had and replaced them with lesser lights which eventually began the demise at this club in the early 90's.

With the exception of the great Peter Beardsley and Andre Kanchelskis we never made another signing which lived up to the standard of the decade before and never one that got me off my seat.

30 years now since this club won a trophy.

We are absolutely crying out for some kind of silverware and what I'd do for even what the Geordies achieved this season and won the League Cup, it's a trophy that we have never won, it rankles especially as it's now the only realistic one I can see Everton winning any time soon.

But I'll say it again, this club is absolutely desperate for a genuine success.

It might make a nice change of pace from their eternal victimhood.

We could call ourselves "the misunderstood" generation, as we still think like we did then and harbour those expectations for Everton Football Club, sometimes met with bewilderment.

I don't know about Liverpool marking it, with the season being over. They usually put something up on their website and have a plaque at Anfield. Maybe the city could reflect it. I didn't know until recently that there is a memorial stone in St John's Gardens behind St George's Hall.

UEFA should mark it at the Champions League final, which is taking place on 31st May, close to the anniversary. I doubt they will, as it's not something we talk about. We'll see. They might arrange their open bus trophy parade that day and protest against the injustice of PSG being permitted to outplay them and knock them out of this season's competition.

If they get to the final, perhaps Inter could lay something on the pitch. They may be rivals of Juventus, but they are Italian and it is a significant anniversary.