Rob Sawyer – Page 6 – Everton FC Heritage Society

Warney Cresswell – The Prince of Full Backs

22

Sep

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1930-1939, Articles, Latest, Players, Rob Sawyer

Warney Cresswell – The Prince of Full Backs

By Rob Sawyer Warney Cresswell at Goodison in 1929 The retirement of Leighton Baines in 2020 reignited the debate about who has been Everton’s finest left-back. Unsurprisingly, the Kirkby-born England international was in the mix, along with World Cup hero Ray Wilson and the combative but effective Pat Van Den Hauwe. A natural tendency to favour players we have seen with our own eyes makes ranking players spanning many decades fraught with difficulty. The tactical evolution of the sport is a further complication. The modern breed of full-backs play an important role in attacking movements whereas the likes of Billy…

Tom Griffiths: The Player with More than one String to his Bow

22

Sep

By Rob Sawyer

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1930-1939, Articles, Players, Rob Sawyer

Tom Griffiths: The Player with More than one String to his Bow

By Rob Sawyer Tom with Dixie Dean c.1927 Before Everton had T.G, there was T.P. On 16 March 1938, Tommy G. Jones (popularly known by his initials, T.G.) was sitting nervously in the changing room at the Racecourse Ground, about to make his debut for Wales. The 20-year-old was approached by his boyhood hero, Tom Griffiths, who was acting as an unofficial advisor to the squad. The older man gave the rookie a few quiet words of advice and encouragement’. Jones would later enthuse: ‘What a thrill those few words gave me. I’ll never forget it. I’ll always look back…

25

Aug

By Rob Sawyer

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1980-1989, Articles, Rob Sawyer

“And the Linesman’s Name is Everton”

writes Fred Harvey, with Rob Sawyer John Everton, aged 75, had a distinguished career as a match official, which included service as a linesman for the Football League between 1984 and 1992. Six of those seasons saw him refereeing Conference (now the National League) games and in the ‘Pontins’ Central League when clubs fielded reserve sides. To cap it all, John Everton is an Evertonian! He reckons that he has trodden the hallowed Goodison Park turf on twelve occasions, three as a referee. What’s in a name? Research into the Everton family tree shows an 800-year progression from Northern France,…

27

Jul

By Rob Sawyer

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1950-1959, 1960-1969, Latest, Obituary, Rob Sawyer

Mick Meagan (1934-2022)

Everton FC Heritage Society are saddened to learn of the passing of Mick Meagan at the age of eighty-eight. Rob Sawyer pays tribute; Mick Meagan, who passed away on 27 November 2022 was one of Everton’s great club men, giving twelve years of unstinting service. His reward was a League Championship medal in 1963. Born Michael Kevin Meagan on 29 May 1934, and raised in the Churchtown suburb south of Dublin, Mick was dubbed ‘Chick’ on account of his mother keeping hens in the back garden of the family home. He started off his soccer career with junior club Rathfarnham…

28

Jun

By Rob Sawyer

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1920-1929, 1930-1939, Articles, Everton Women, History, Latest, Rob Sawyer

Goodison Park and Women’s Football

December 2021 marked the centenary of the directive which flung the women’s game into the wilderness for five decades. Less than a year before this myopic edict, one of the most significant football matches in Goodison Park’s history took place – but it did not involve an Everton team. During the First World War, football matches played between women’s factory teams boosted wartime morale and raised funds for deserving causes. Goodison Park staged a charity match on 1 April 1918, contested by Aintree Munitions Ladies and North Haymarket Ladies Football Club. However, a fixture on a far grander scale took…

23

Jun

By Rob Sawyer

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1930-1939, Articles, Players, Rob Sawyer, WW2

Tom Robson – A Life too Short

By Rob Sawyer Everton Football Club has been ably served by many men and women with roots in the North East of England – Warney Cresswell, Harry Catterick, Howard Kendall, Jimmy Husband, Dave Thomas, Don Hutchison and Jill Scott spring to mind. Back in the inter-war years, Blyth Spartans, of the North Eastern League, gained an enviable reputation as a nursery club - developing young talent which blossomed at leading professional clubs throughout the land. The Toffees, notably, benefited from the loyal service of Gordon Watson – who joined from Blyth in a double-deal with his near-namesake Jack Watson in…

06

Jun

By Rob Sawyer

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1940-1949, Articles, Members Work, Players, Rob Sawyer, WW2

‘Rags’: The Life of Cuthbert Tatters

By Rob Sawyer Few footballers’ names are more evocative of bygone times in the Goodison lexicon than that of Cuthbert Tatters. Cuthbert was born in County Durham, on 4 January 1915 and grew up on Sunderland Street in Easington. This was coal mining country and Cuthbert’s father, James, worked at Wheatley Hill Colliery. Cuthbert followed the same path, employed as a pit boy there. On the football field, he played for Shotton Schoolboys, gaining county honours in 1929. He also turned out for Wheatley Hill Juniors. A photo also appears to show him, as a boy, wearing the stripes of…

28

May

By Rob Sawyer

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1950-1959, 2020-2029, Articles, History, Players, Rest in Peace, Rob Sawyer

A Final Farewell to Jimmy Harris

Thursday 26 May 2022 was the day of Jimmy Harris’s final farewell. In the mid-afternoon, the cortège transported the 88-year-old former Toffees striker past the stadium he had graced. A number of supporters had come out to applaud as the hearse drove slowly along Goodison Road. I chatted to an 81-year-old supporter from West Derby, who recalled watching Jimmy in his 1950s heyday. He told me of Jimmy’s quicksilver movement around the pitch and his rasping shot. He fondly recalled a smartly struck Harris goal against the Busby Babes. Another supporter had come all the way from Doncaster to stand…

13

May

By Rob Sawyer

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2020-2029, Articles, History, Interview, Latest, Rob Sawyer

Tom Walker – Nonagenarian Toffee

By Rob Sawyer In April 2022, EFCHS members Rob Sawyer and Sarah from Mint Collective, caught up with 93-year-old Tom Walker in a café near his home in Upton. This venerable Toffee, accompanied by his son, Graham, discussed all things Evertonia, dating back to the 1930s. Below is an edited version of Tom’s vivid recollections, which originally appeared in The Black Watch fanzine (sold outside St Luke’s on selected matchdays by Tom, the editor) My dad used to go to Goodison with my Uncle Colin, they were staunch Evertonians. Dad taught me to be an Evertonian. He’d seen all the…

George Green – Illustrator Extraordinaire

02

May

By Rob Sawyer

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1930-1939, 1940-1949, 1950-1959, Articles, History, Rob Sawyer

George Green – Illustrator Extraordinaire

By Rob Sawyer The Toffee Lady is an enduring and iconic image, intrinsically linked to Everton FC. Since the 1950s, a Toffee Lady, or latterly a Toffee Girl, has paraded around Goodison before matches, dispensing the eponymous humbugs. But for many, the definitive Toffee Lady image takes cartoon form. It’s the Mother Noblett, famous for gracing the front page of the Football Echo for decades, looking elated, deflated or indifferent, depending on the Blues’ fortunes that day. Her ‘rival’ character was the Kopite, who showed a similar range of emotions, depending on the Liverpool result. The creator of these enchanting…