Chris Waddle

Chris Waddle has mixed memories of his playing days against the Blues, having played against the mid-1980s Everton side – although he did have the last laugh in 1997...

For a man who knew well in advance that he would get little joy out of a trip to Goodison Park in his playing days, Chris Waddle is actually quite fond of Everton Football Club. Here’s a man who lit up a football pitch, be it for England, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur or Sheffield Wednesday, so he knows a thing or two about quality. And he saw plenty of that whenever he lined up in the tunnel alongside the Blues back in the 1980s.

“I didn’t get that much success at Goodison Park,” he says, sat in the stands before the home game against Arsenal last month. “I made my Sheffield Wednesday debut here and got stretchered off with a knee injury. It wasn’t a happy hunting ground for me.

“When I was at Newcastle I remember coming to Everton and getting hammered. Even when I moved to Tottenham it was always a hard place to get a result. I did get a few draws and a few wins but most of the time, when the likes of Peter Reid, Graeme Sharp, Adrian Heath (pictured right) and Paul Bracewell were playing, we couldn’t get near them.

“When you looked at the fixtures and saw you had Everton next you would be thinking, ‘Oh here we go.’ You knew it was going to be hard. The fans are fanatical here and really get behind their side. It’s a tight ground and the atmosphere is electric.

“You look at that Everton side and it was a great team. There was so much balance to it and it just seemed to pick itself. The Everton line-up over those two or three seasons was the same team every week. When you played against them you always knew what they were all about.”