Legends on legends - Everton

Think Everton, think Neville Southall - Paul Robinson’s boyhood hero.

Southall played 750 games for Everton, a club record, and won the lot at Goodison as Howard Kendall’s men ruled the roost in the mid-1980s.

The Welsh legend was the foundation of that success – two league titles (1985, 1987), the FA Cup (1984) and the European Cup Winners’ Cup (1985) all landed as the Blues challenged the Red dominance on Merseyside.

Legendary former goalkeeper ‘Robbo’, 175 appearances in all competitions for us between 2004-08, League Cup winner 2008, describes Southall as making saves ‘that defied logic’.

And we were on the end of one of them as Everton won that first title - Southall somehow tipped over Mark Falco’s point-blank header late on in what many saw as a title decider at the Lane in April, 1985. Everton won 2-1 and went on to take the old First Division crown in 1984/85.

“Neville Southall has a serious claim to be one of the best players to ever wear an Everton shirt,” said Robbo, England’s number one during his time at Spurs, 500 career appearance, 1997-2017. “He played 750 games for the club, more than anyone else. It’s his individuality more than anything. I always remember his distribution on the half-volley. That was one of the big parts of my game and it’s one of the hardest techniques there is, to half-volley accurately, and he used to hold it in one hand and drop it on a sixpence.

“His reactions were unbelievable. If you look back at some of his greatest saves in the 1980s, they are unreal. There is one against Spurs, a header from Mark Falco (as mentioned above) - take a look at that one! He made saves that defied logic. He was so agile. You look at him, and he’s not the physique of a goalkeeper now, he just made himself. He did a lot of work himself early in his career as well. I believe his first goalkeeping coach was at Everton. He had that distribution, presence, saves, natural ability and balance and the mindset of ‘why can’t I save everything?’ He was his own biggest critic as well and worked so hard to improve every aspect of his game.

“I’ve got a black shirt he wore for Everton on my wall at home. I got to know him well and interviewed him for Sky Sports. He sent me one of his black shirts. He wore black shirts because he felt it would make it harder in a night game for opposing forwards to pick him out. He didn’t want to give a forward anything to aim at - if a forward looked up and saw a yellow shirt, it helps in that split second. That’s an insight into his thinking, and what made him such a great.”