It seems as though English football history has been rewritten since the start of the Premier League & little is mentioned about football pre 1992. I recently leafed through the latest Guinness Book of Records to see if Dixie’s 60 was in there, believe it or not it wasn’t but there was an entry for ‘Most Premiership Goals in a Season’!!

So for those of you new to Everton FC or those who just want to wallow in a bit of nostalgia here is a potted history of the Blues.

FORWARD

Everton has been at the forefront of English football ever since the club was formed in 1878.
From the pioneering days of St. Domingo, the story is one that every Evertonian is quite rightly proud of.
Genuine legends of the English game have worn the famous Royal Blue jersey and League Championship and FA Cup triumphs have decorated a long and thrilling history.

There is no place like Goodison Park when the place is full.
The atmosphere is quite unique but when the current team enters the arena to the sound of Z-Cars and the deafening noise from over 40,000 spectators, it's difficult to imagine an Everton team trotting out onto a park pitch with no dressing rooms, carrying the goalposts!
But that's how it all began.

Everton's first ground was the southeast corner of Stanley Park. The park had been opened in 1870. The goalposts were self-made and anyone could stay and watch the matches.

Everton's first official match was played on December 20, 1879, when a team called St. Peter's was beaten 6-0. During the early years, Everton played in the regional cups, such as the Lancashire Cup and the Liverpool Cup. When the attendances went up to nearly two thousand, the officials decided that Everton needed a better suited pitch.

In 1882, a generous gentleman named J. Cruitt donated land at Priory Road. Basic dressing rooms were built there and entrance fees were collected outside the ground.

The need for a new pitch loomed again, this time because Mr Cruitt didn't like the club's vociferous and over-exuberant supporters. The new pitch, Anfield Road, was rented from Orrell Brothers brewery. The rent was handled by John Houlding, also in the brewing business, who had been the most influential supporter in the early days. Houlding was elected as the chairman of the club; all the board meetings were held at Sandon Hotel, which he owned, and he was even the Mayor of Liverpool during this period.
The first match at Anfield was played on September 27, 1884, when Earlestown were beaten 5-0.
Everton became a professional team in 1885 like other leading clubs in the country. The idea was to improve the chances of success and produce higher income along with the success. Success was quick to follow, as Everton won the Liverpool Cup in 1886 and 1887, beating Bootle 2-1 and Oakfield 5-0 in the finals.

These successes inspired Everton to enter the FA Cup for the first time in 1886-87. The first opponents were Glasgow Rangers, who were the winners at Anfield by 0-1.

After the "undefeatable" Preston North End had won the first two championships, Everton grabbed the third in 1890-91 over a series of 22 matches. 

There was a radical change in the club's history in summer 1892, when the team moved away from Anfield ... to Goodison Park.

The first match at Goodison was a friendly – Bolton were beaten 4-2.  The first League match was played the next day, resulting in a 2-2 draw against Nottingham.
To show that Goodison Park has always been one of the best grounds in the country, Goodison was chosen to host the FA Cup final in 1894.  Notts County beat Bolton 4-1 in this match.

KITS & NICKNAMES

Everton had several kits and nicknames during the first decades.  The original blue and white stripes were soon transformed to a mess when the new players wore their old team's shirts.  Soon it was decided in the name of uniformity, that the shirts would be coloured black, to save expenses!  During this time, Everton were nicknamed The Black Watch, after the famous army brigade.
When the club moved to Goodison, they played in salmon stripes with blue shorts (this is the origin of the Centenary celebration kit), and later still, ruby shirts with blue trimmings and dark blue shorts. 
The famous royal blue jerseys with white shorts were first used in 1901-02.  This is of course the origin for the nickname "The Blues".  In the early days, Everton often trained late into the night, so they were nicknamed "The Moonlight Dribblers".  The scientific style of play lead to the name "The School of Science".  After Everton moved to Goodison, they picked up another nickname, "The Toffees" or "The Toffeemen".
There are two versions to explain how this name was adopted: the better known is that, in those days, a Mrs Noblett had a candy store near Goodison called Mother Noblett's Toffee Shop, where she advertised and sold her tasty merchandise on match days.  Another reason might be that there was a house called Ye Anciente Everton Toffee House near the Queen's Head hotel.  The word "toffee" also referred to Irishmen, of which there was a large population in the Liverpool area at the turn of the century.

WILLIAM RALPH ‘DIXIE’ DEAN

Dixie Dean led Everton to the title in 1927-28 almost single-handedly, scoring an amazing 60 goals in that season, a record that still stands today and which may never be equalled.  Dixie needed to score a hat-trick in the last game of the season against Arsenal to break the 59 goal record set by George Camsell the previous year for Second Division Middlesbrough.  Dixie scored twice in the opening ten minutes, the second from a penalty.  But scoring the record-breaking third goal wasn't so easy, even though the 60,000 fans cheered fanatically and the other Everton players tried to create openings for Dixie from every possible angle.  Finally, with 8 minutes left on the clock, Everton got a corner-kick, and Alec Troup, who had created most of the goals Dean scored that season, went forward to take it.  Troup crossed the ball in and Dixie Dean rose majestically above the defence to head the ball into the net.
"The cheer was heard all the way to Aintree" – that is how the noise which followed has been described. The emotions at Goodison were indescribable.  Even the Arsenal players greeted the hero and an equaliser from Arsenal at the end of the match did nothing to quell the fans' exuberance.

Everton's and Dean's fantastic season was followed by an incomprehensible collapse and, for the first time in their history, Everton were relegated to the Second Division in 1929-30. In Spring 1931 they went back up to the elite as the winners of the Second Division with 128 goals (an Everton record). The next season Everton won their fourth championship; this was only the second time in the League that a promoted team had won the First Division title at the first time of asking. The heroes included, along with Dean (45 goals), Critchley and Cresswell, the fine goalkeeper Ted Sagar, who would stay with Everton for a record 24 years. Sagar also had the record number of League appearances for Everton, 463 matches, before Southall surpassed this total. (The FA Cup Final of 1995 was Neville Southall's 650th appearance for Everton.) Sagar's total would have been a lot larger, but war interrupted his career. This Championship title wasn't the end of Everton's success between the wars, though.

Everton, extended their success in the following season by playing their first ever FA Cup final at Wembley in 1933 against Manchester City.
The final was all Everton and the Blues won the cup for the second time after beating City 3-0 with goals from Stein, Dean and Dunn. Everton were playing in white, because as both teams' colours were blue, the FA let the teams select between white and red, and City, who were allowed to choose first, chose red, to the relief of the Toffees.

A new superteam was in the making, and it bloomed in 1938-39, the last season before the war. The war forced the League into yet another long break, this time the title stayed at Goodison for eight years.

Everton's rise back to the top in the sixties was mainly due to the new chairman, John Moores. Moores had made a fortune with Littlewoods (pools, department stores and a mail order company), which he had created. He was prepared to finance new players for the club.
Harry Catterick was chosen as the new manager in 1961. Success was quick to follow.
Probably the worst winter in League history was 1962-63, which led to hundreds of postponements, but it didn't bother the Goodison men. They had the revolutionary advantage of a heated pitch. They won the title without loosing on home soil - the first time in the club's history.

Most of the players from the ’63 Champions helped Everton to Wembley for the first time in 33 years, in 1966. Everton had beaten a star-studded Manchester Utd team 1-0 in the semi-final. Harvey, a skilled player with great passing ability, was a regular in the midfield, and Ramon "Ray" Wilson was bought in from Huddersfield. Wilson was one of the classiest left-backs ever seen.
Everton won one of the most dramatic ever cup finals 3-2 and were only the second team ever to come back from being two goals down in an FA Cup Final (the first time was the "Matthews final" of 1953

After the disappointing FA Cup final in 1968, Everton played well the following season, finishing third scoring the most goals, 77.
The next season, 1969-70, showed what Catterick's new team was capable of. The midfield engine of Alan Ball - Colin Harvey - Howard Kendall played better than ever, beating even the "super-Leeds'" midfield led by Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles, by passing movements and dribbling skills.
The giants of Goodison Park won the title with a nine-point margin over Leeds (with the current system, it would have been a 17 points margin!) and managed only one point less than Leeds' record of 67 points. The total attendance during the season was over a million, making the average attendance at Goodison Park 49,531.

It looked as though Everton were going to dominate English football in the 1970’s but inexplicably the team never reached those heights & began to break up. What followed was another barren decade, made worse by Liverpool’s rise.

The disappointment of losing in the League Cup Final was quickly forgotten as Everton won their first trophy in fourteen years, beating Watford 2-0 in the FA Cup final with goals from Graeme Sharp and Andy Gray. When captain Kevin Ratcliffe lifted the Cup after the match, a big burden created by the constant success of Liverpool was also lifted. The path was clear for new Everton victories.

Everton beat Liverpool at Wembley to win the Charity Shield at the start of the following season 1984-85. High hopes somewhat diminished when the first two matches were lost with a goal total of 2-6, but after that Everton got the hang of it. Watford were beaten away with an amazing 5-4 scoreline. This win was to be followed by two glorious victories, proving that Everton were back at the very top: first, Liverpool were beaten at Anfield for the first time since 1970, with a fantastic long range volley from Graeme Sharp. A few weeks later the highly praised Manchester United were crushed 5-0 at Goodison after a marvellous Everton performance.

Following these fine victories, Everton played gloriously, especially after Boxing Day; Everton didn't loose a match until they had secured their eighth League championship in May 1985 (18 matches, 16 victories, 2 draws, and the last ten were victories!). Everton won the title, as in season 1969-70, by beating every opponent at least once. No one else has been able to do this during this period, or after 1985.

We wouldn't be able to define season 1984-85 greatest ever just for winning the Championship title. This was also the season for our first European success.

The semi-final was a real test, as the opposition was one of the top teams in Europe at the time, Bayern Munich, with Lothar Mattheus one of their brightest stars. In the first semi-final at the fully packed (78,000) Olympic Stadium in Munich, Everton were able to hold on to a 0-0 draw, so things looked good for the second leg. Everton would win this game with sheer determination and will after going a goal down in the 1st half. The Toffees started the second period very well; first Sharp equalised and then Gray took them in front. After Bayern had to go for forward in search of a goal, the Everton players were given space and Steven scored a fantastic goal on an excellent pass from Gray, making it 3-1. There were about 48,000 spectators at Goodison with some 200 Bayern supporters. This was one of the finest evenings ever in Goodison's history.
Everton were favourites in the final against Rapid Wien and they dominated the game from the start. We came out on top by 3-1 with goals from Sharp, Gray & Sheedy & the celebrations could begin. Everton fans didn't create any problems in Rotterdam, unlike their neighbours from across the park two weeks later at Heysel. This tragedy cost Everton the chance to win the European cup next season.

Everton were after a unique triple that season, but the last part was not to be won at the FA Cup final. The final against Manchester United was played just three days after the ECWC final and the hard fixture list had obviously had an effect on the Toffees. After a goalless 90 minutes, United scored in extra-time from a counterattack when a Norman Whiteside shot from a narrow angle went in.
This defeat wasn't one to moan about for a long time, though, as the season on the whole had been a tremendous success for Everton. Everton were admired everywhere. Peter Reid was the Player Association's Player of the Year, Neville Southall was Football Writers' Association's Player of the Year and Howard Kendall was, of course, the Manager of the Year. Everton won World Soccer's vote for the team of the year in Europe easily, ahead of FC Barcelona.

Everton didn't play badly at the start of the 1986/87 season, even though they had so many players injured, thanks to the fine play of the new signings and substitute players.  Especially Paul Power, whom many had doubts about, played a fine season, and his good performances in the 40 matches he played brought consistency to the team.  In December and round the end of the year, Everton had a great run when they won six matches in a row, beating, for instance, Newcastle 4-0 away and Leicester 5-1 at home. 
Everton further improved when the key players started coming back (Reid in February), and from mid-March to the end of April, Everton won seven matches in a row. Liverpool, who had a clear lead at the top, started to stumble in the meantime, loosing to Wimbledon at home 1-2, 0-1 to Man Utd away, and 1-2 to Norwich, and so Everton with a succession of victories came from behind and went by them. 
The championship was decided with the third last match of the season, a 0-1 away win over Norwich, when Pat Van Den Hauwe scored his only goal of the season from a corner after just 45 seconds. Everton had won their ninth Championship title and wiped away the bitter memories of the previous season with one blow.

The success in season 1986-87 made Kendall the most successful manager in Everton's history, because he brought two championships, one FA Cup and the first euro-cup victory to Goodison. Perhaps more importantly, he took Everton back into the elite after being in the shadows of the other team in Liverpool for one and a half decades, during which time they won plenty of silverware.
It wasn't a surprise then, when Kendall wanted to try his skills in Europe, although it was a huge shock to all Evertonians. In June 1987 Kendall broke the news that he was moving from his beloved Everton to the Spanish team Athletic Bilbao.

Howard Kendall had big hopes when he took over at Goodison. Some of his purchases were good, some were bad. But eventually Kendall's plans were overshadowed by huge financial problems. Attendances at Goodison Park had been going down from the almost 30,000 per match in the previous championship season to slightly over 20,000 in 92-93. Added to this, no-one at the board was willing or able to finance the team. Everton went into the red very quickly and there was no money for big new signings. Suddenly there were talks about Everton having £4-6 million of debts and there were speculations about the shares of the late John Moores, a long-time benefactor of the team, who died in autumn 1993.

Despite the heavy rebuilding, Everton's 1991-92 season was yet again mediocre. The team was in the midtable for most of the season and there were only a few bright spots, namely beating the reigning champions Arsenal in the first home match by 3-1 and the last away match at Tottenham, Gary Lineker's last match in England, where Everton came back from being 0-3 down. The equaliser was scored by an 18-year old debutant called David Unsworth. As there were early exits from both cups, the season was practically over in January.

When season 1992-93 (and the new Premier League) began, Everton's financial problems started to show. A £2M loss was confirmed for the previous season. The club wasn't able to compete for the star players any more, so Kendall had to content himself with "left-overs". Hard-man Barry Horne arrived from Southampton (£675,000), striker Paul Rideout from Rangers (£500,000), and Paul Holmes was bought in March '93 from Birmingham for £100,000. Martin Keown was sold to Arsenal for two million pounds to level the books in February '93 & Pat Nevin was sold to Tranmere at a bargain price of £250,000.

The season still started brightly: Man U were beaten 3-0 away and the "millionaires" Blackburn were beaten 3-2 away. Then it all crumbled and there were very few things to cheer about. Firstly, Liverpool were beaten 2-1 at home after being a goal down and Beardsley, who scored the winner, became only the second player (along with David Johnson) to have scored for both teams in derby matches.

Just before the start of the1993-94 season Kendall unexpectantly resigned, we started the season with Jimmy Gabriel as caretaker manager & lost 6 out of the first 7 games & scored only 1 goal!!

After much speculation, Everton managed to get Mike Walker, who had done a good job at Norwich. Walker, who brought a lot of hope to the supporters, started well with a 6-2 home win over Swindon in his first match. But eventually the problems started to show and we were plunged into a relegation battle, and the drop wasn't avoided until a dramatic match against Wimbledon on the last day of the season.

Peter Johnson from Tranmere finally bought the majority of Everton's shares in June 1994 and Bill Kenwright and his supporters joined with him. The start of the season was traumatic, with Everton rooted to the bottom of the table from the third match. In October 1994, Walker was sacked after just ten months in charge. Ironically, things seemed to have turned around with the first win of the season at home to West Ham. But it was not enough to save Walker.

After a rollercoaster season we ended up with an amazing finale, an FA Cup Final against Man U at Wembley.  The final turned into a titanic battle of wills: the resolute strength of Everton's defence against the midfield creativity of United. We took the lead in the first half after great work from Limpar lead to a goal by Rideout. 
Manchester United threw everything at Everton in the second half.  But solid work from the entire defence, backed up by excellent saves from Southall, kept United at bay.  But at the final whistle, it was Everton 1 Manchester United 0.  Everton had won the FA Cup for the fifth time in their history!
Skipper, Dave Watson, was the happiest man in the world.  He never stopped grinning from ear to ear as he lifted the Cup to the adulation of 40,000 Evertonians, and carried it all the way home to a rapturous reception for the team back on Merseyside. 

We approached the 1995-96 season with renewed optimism but the FA Cup victory the previous May ultimately proved another false dawn for Evertonians. One bright spot was the signing of Andrei Kanchelskis from Man U and he provided us with some great memories such as his goal at the kop end against Liverpool, as we beat them 2-1 at Anfield. But we went out to Feyenoord in the first round of the Cup Winners Cup & out of the League Cup also in the 1st round to Millwall. Duncan Ferguson became the first British footballer to serve a prison sentence. Ferguson spent six weeks at Her Majesty's Pleasure in the infamous Barlinnie prison, where he received overwhelming support form Evertonians the world over.  He also struggled with a nagging groin injury, only producing rare glimpses of the form needed to justify Royle's fulsome praise.
We finished the season 6th, which would normally have meant a place in Europe. But the Intertoto Cup nonsense created by Wimbledon, Sheffield Wednesday and Tottenham Hotspur the previous summer had led UEFA to penalise England one European place – that place was Everton's... 

1996-97 was a season to forget & in March 1997 following the closure of the transfer window Royle was sacked / resigned, Dave Watson took over as caretaker & just about managed to avoid relegation.

If we thought last season was bad it was about to get a whole lot worse!!  The speed with which Royle's reign went from triumph to tragedy, and the clash with Peter Johnson that precipitated his sudden departure from Everton served to illustrate just how difficult the task of managing Everton had become.  On the back of almost a decade of decline since winning the League Championship in 1987, the Goodison manager's position had become a poisoned chalice and it wasn't immediately clear who was going to replace Royle.
Andy Gray surprisingly emerged as a popular candidate. Far and away the most highly-regarded football pundit on British television, Gray had built a stellar career at Sky Sports on his unrivalled knowledge of the game and tactical acumen.  However, although he interviewed for the Everton job, the Scot eventually chose the comfort of Sky's studios and a vastly improved salary ahead of the huge responsibility of rescuing an ailing footballing giant. 
With time running out before the start of the season Howard Kendall took up the Everton reins once more for an ill-advised third term in the Goodison hot-seat, just four years after ending his second spell in charge by resigning from the post.  
Kendall was soon to discover that top-flight football had changed drastically in the four years since he was last in charge.  Everton's cash crisis, and the fact that he had inherited a team which had had a close call with relegation the season before, didn't help matters.  From beginning to end, Kendall's Everton struggled painfully through the 1997-98 season.  As in 1994 survival came down to the last game of the season but a shaky 1-1 draw with Coventry coupled with defeat for Bolton was enough for us to scrape in. Fans flooded onto the pitch & after a brief celebration turned their anger on Peter Johnson with chants of ‘Johnson Out’.
 
It was obvious that Kendall would carry the can but Johnson kept him hanging on until the end of June 1998 when he eventually sacked Howard & appointed Walter Smith from Rangers.
Johnson backed Smith with cash & by the end of October 1998 he had spent £20m on players such as Collins, Dacourt & Materazzi, this money had come straight from the cub’s overdraft & the bankers were threatening foreclosure. Something had to be done & Johnson brokered a deal which would take folk hero Duncan Ferguson to Newcastle.
It was the wrath of the supporters, combined with Smith's furious threat to quit if Johnson didn't resign as Chairman of the club, that finally saw Johnson's calamitous tenure come to a welcome end.  By the end of the month, Johnson had announced his decision to relinquish control and step down.
The season had it highs & lows, the team had potential but were very erratic & we finally finished 11th, which by recent standards was a decent season!

The 1999-2000 season was to be Walter Smith's most successful season in charge of Everton.  Thanks largely to the form of Kevin Campbell, Franny Jeffers and Nick Barmby, his side reached the dizzying heights of 6th place on three separate occasions during the season.  The game of the season was the 5-0 trouncing of Peter Reid's Sunderland on Boxing Day, but key injuries to the former two strikers disrupted the team's flow and the Blues ultimately finished a disappointing 13th thanks to a dismal slump in form going into the "home straight".  An embarrassing League Cup 2nd Round exit at the hands of lowly Oxford United was tempered somewhat by another run to the Quarter Finals in the FA Cup, but the fans put their hope in Campbell and Jeffers staying fit in 2000-01 so that the team could finally launch a sustained challenge for Europe.

Those hopes were fuelled by the long-awaited resolution of Bill Kenwright's bid to buy out Peter Johnson's stake in Everton Football Club.  Having initially asked a ludicrous £70M for his 68% stake in the club, Johnson was eventually forced to sell for £21M, a sum that Kenwright and his True Blue Holdings consortium was barely able to raise.  Kenwright lost a bidding war to Johnson for control of Everton in 1994 but in January 2000 he proudly announced the successful conclusion of his bid to buy the club he has supported since childhood, putting a True Blue Evertonian at the Goodison helm, albeit as vice-chairman.

It didn't take long for the new chairman and new director Paul Gregg, then head of the European arm of US entertainment giant, SFX (later renamed Clear Channel), to draw up ambitious plans for a new state-of-the-art stadium for the club.  Peter Johnson's chairmanship had been plagued by a badly managed and poorly staged bid to relocate Everton to a new ground in Kirkby or Cronton Colliery, but Kenwright's proposal for a new home on the banks of the Mersey at the much-coveted Kings Dock site received wide support from the fanbase.
Following the apparent off the field improvements hopes were high for the start of the 2000-01 season but a crippling injury crisis not helped by the return of Duncan Ferguson, scuppered any chances of us challenging for a European place. We eventually finished a disappointing 16th.
In the close season boyhood Blue Jefffers rejected a new contract & moved to Arsenal for £10M (Wenger must still wonder what he was thinking!!). Another boyhood Blue Michael Ball moved to Rangers for £8M. Incomings were Alan Stubbs on a Bosman & Tomasz Radzinski for £4.5M.

In his first full season in charge 2002-03 we finished 7th & narrowly missed out on a European spot. Another boyhood Blue broke into the 1st team this season, Wayne Rooney & who can forget is first goal against Arsenal when we ended their unbeaten run. It was an instant love affair with Rooney & the fans and for the first time in years it was exciting to watch the Blues.

Season 2003-04 was eagerly awaited by Evertonians, we had a swagger back in our step. It was our 125th season in the top division of English football, a feat never achieved by any other team before or since. The season could not have been any more disappointing as we found ourselves back in the relegation zone, we spent most of the season around mid to lower half of the table, finally finishing 17th.

The close season of 2004-05 was dramatic & demoralising, once again the bankers were threatening foreclosure. After denying it all summer Kenwright sold Rooney to Man U just before the transfer deadline ended. We brought in Marcus Bent & Tim Cahill but also lost Radzinski, we started the season expecting relegation but how wrong could we be!!
We got hammered by the Champions Arsenal 4-1 at Goodison on the opening day, which only served to confirm all of our fears. But successive wins at Palace & home to WBA saw us climb the table. After 5 games we were 4th & we never dropped below 4th for the rest of the season, an absolutely remarkable achievement. Who can forget the derby at Goodison, 1-0 for the Blues and we would go on to deny Liverpool of a Champions League place, or so we thought……

Obviously the 2005-06 season couldn’t come around soon enough for Evertonians with a Champions League qualifier looming & optimism high. Once again though our hopes were dashed, early exit from the Champions League & then UEFA Cup coupled with a disastrous start to the season saw us in the relegation zone in December & out of both cups by February. Fortunately we rallied in late December & January to ease any fears of getting involved in a  relegation scrap & we eventually finished a creditable 11th after the early season shambles. Even so this was a very disappointing season & a trend under Moyes was developing, one good season followed by one bad.
 
In the close season of 2006-07 we broke our club record transfer fee to sign Andy Johnson from Palace, he became an instant hero in the 4th game of the season when he netted twice in a 3-0 demolition of Liverpool at Goodison. Although we never hit the heights of 2004-05 it was a satisfying season where we eventually finished 6th & clinched a spot in the UEFA Cup.

EVERTON FC HISTORICAL FIRSTS