Everton Memories
A weekend in London 1966
Imagine as an eight year old travelling back home with the Cup Final winning side,well it happened to me back in 1966.
My late father a fanatical Evertonian took the family to London for the weekend on the train, Saturday morning in London saw thousands of Everton fans everywhere,far out-numbering the Owls fans ,we stayed in the hotel to watch the game whilst he went to the game, the toffees were warm favs not having conceded a goal prior to the Final,the first side ever to do so,sensational news before the game with Fred Pickering being dropped.
This came as a blow to me as just two years earlier my very first game at Goodison saw Fred make his debut and score a hat-trick in a 6-1 victory against Nottingham Forest.Fred had also scored in each of the first four rounds and went on to score 70 goals in 115 games for Everton.He was replaced by the unknown Mike Trebilcock (or Trebilco as Ken Wolstenholme called him for pc reasons )
The rest is history with Everton coming back to win 3-2 having been two down, with Manager Harry Catterick decision to select Trebilcock being justified with him scoring our first two goals and of course Derek Temple grabbing the winner, remember Jimmy Gabriel holding the ball by the corner flag much to his delight and of course Eddie Cavanagh running on after the equaliser with the Met Police trying to rugby tackle him,he apparently got back in to see the winner.
That evening in London saw Evertonians pack Trafalgar Sq to celebrate a famous victory,the first cup victory for thirty three years since the days of the legendary Dixie Dean.
The next day we travelled back to Liverpool on the train with the players on the same train along with the famous trophy,imagine seeing such immortal names as Alex Scott and Young,Ray Wilson, Gordon West,Colin Harvey and skipper Brian Labone , what an experience and managed to obtain a few autographs.We alighted at Allerton as did the players to be met by a mass of blue and white to see the team travel into town,
What a weekend, what a legendary team and will always remember it,
Geoff
Memory added on July 30, 2013
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