Wealth Of Knowledge

Everton’s first Director of Football, Steve Walsh, tells​Everton magazine about his new role with the Club, and his influence on the Premier League champions.

Steve Walsh, Everton’s new Director of Football, can remember vividly the first time he encountered David Unsworth: “He’s from my neck of the woods, so I knew David as a schoolboy. He’s always been the way he is now – big, strong, powerful and a really good lad.”

Steve has trodden a remarkable path to his latest role at Goodison Park. It began decades ago in the heartland of Lancashire. A Physical Education teacher at Bishop Rawstorne High School, he would combine his full-time day job with that of coaching the county Under-15s and North-West Under-16s sides.

“The school was in Croston, which is a village between Chorley and Southport,” he recalls. “It’s a beautiful village, Bishop Rawstorne is a lovely school and I enjoyed my time there. If you are in teaching, you have got to be organised and be a good manager. You can certainly take those skills and adapt them to football.

“If you think a lot about the game, you start to do some coaching. I’ve always been somebody who picks and puts together teams. I was finding the best players to represent the county at that level.

“David played in that county team. I have known him since he was 14 or 15. He was always destined to have a career as a footballer. Ipswich were keen on him at one point. They had taken a player called Mark Brennan from the Blackburn area a few years earlier and he was a very similar type of player to David. Obviously, David chose Everton and the rest is history really. I saw him play against Japan [in 1995]. It was his only England cap – but I was there! I saw him make his debut for his country and I bet I was as proud as he was.”