'Super Kev', football's nice guy who lived the dream

To many, Kevin Campbell is the answer to a famous football trivia question. To Everton fans, he was simply "Super Kev".

- CARL MARKHAM

Toffees and Arsenal supporters are mourning the death after a short illness of the 54-year-old, who will also be fondly remembered by those at Nottingham Forest and West Brom.

Many a sports quiz will have posed the question: “Who has scored the most goals in the Premier League without earning a senior cap for his country?” but Campbell’s lack of international recognition barely registers at Goodison Park.

There, they remember his nine goals in five games which saved the club from relegation in 1999 shortly after joining on loan, and his match-winning strike at Anfield four months later which earned their last success across Stanley Park until the Covid-era victory 22 years later.

“It was at the Kop end and my view, which will live with me until the day I die, is the Blues in the Kop going crazy,” he said of that goal. “That was, and still is, one of my favourite memories in football.”

One of his proudest was when Walter Smith made him captain for the 2001-02 season. “He made me the first Black captain of Everton, which is something that I’m so proud of,” he said.

Born in Lambeth in February 1970, Campbell’s first love was Arsenal, whom he joined on schoolboy forms in 1985, once scoring 59 goals in a season for one of the academy teams. He was also instrumental in the 1988 FA Youth Cup win, scoring a hat-trick in the final and making his first-team debut late that season.

“I couldn’t afford to go to games when I was younger so I waited until the last 20 minutes when they opened the gates to the old North Bank stand and ran in to watch the final action of the game,” he said. “So to be able to actually play for the team I supported was a dream come true.”