May 10: The Greatest Date In Merseyside Football History

The day in 1986 when Everton – in particular – and Liverpool saved the game and gave a two-fingered salute to Thatcher

MAY 10. The most important date in Merseyside football history. It’s the anniversary of the day Everton and Liverpool saved the game.

The occasion was the 1986 FA Cup final. This was the climax to a thrilling season. Three sides went into the final Saturday of the campaign with a chance of winning the league – West Ham United were the third challengers. Everton were the favourites throughout the spring but dropped five points in two games away to Nottingham Forest and Oxford United, allowing Liverpool to become unlikely champions.

That set up a titanic clash at Wembley. Everton and Liverpool were, probably, the best teams in Europe. In basic football terms, the FA Cup final was as mouthwatering a prospect as sport can provide.

Except it wasn’t just about football. Less than a year earlier, 39 mainly Juventus supporters had been killed at Heysel Stadium in Brussels when a charge by Liverpool fans caused a crush and a wall collapsed. English clubs were banned from Continental competition.

Everton, as champions, lost the opportunity to compete for the European Cup. Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Southampton and Norwich City had also qualified for Europe. They and their supporters were punished for what happened in the Belgian capital even though it had nothing to do with them.

“Most of us thought Liverpool and maybe Juventus should be banned,” Ron Atkinson, the United manager told me three decades later. “No one else. We were stunned.”

The horror of Heysel was being used for political purposes. There were a couple of dynamics at play. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government were embroiled in a battle with Liverpool City Council. The left-wing councillors opposed Thatcher’s programme of cuts in jobs, housing and services. Once again, Liverpool was out of step with the prevailing political currents. And no wonder. The Cabinet had discussed “managed decline” – deliberately withdrawing resources from the region – to encourage people to move to other areas. Unemployment was rocketing and poverty was endemic.

Thatcher’s method was governing by confrontation rather than consensus. She brought the concept of “the enemy within,” to British politics. The brutal, authoritarian handling of the year-long Miners’ strike summed up the Tory approach.

During the first half of the 1980s, football hooliganism was reported by the media with a breathless, exaggerated sense of panic. Hooligans became the premier folk devils of the era. Unfortunately, sweeping generalisations were also applied to the thousands of predominantly young men who flocked to matches. Neville Southall, Everton’s goalkeeper, still believes the policies directed at football were part of a wider assault on an entire section of society. “It wasn’t about football to the Tories,” Southall said. "It was an assault against working-class people and their culture. It was one way of breaking people’s spirit.”

On Merseyside, a place under political, social and economic pressure, the football teams were flagbearers for the community, a huge point of civic pride. And then came Heysel.

For Thatcher, everything came together after Brussels: A rogue city; feral, working-class violence; left-wing radicalism.

The Sunday Times even suggested there were Cold War implications overshadowing events in Belgium. “The facts are as yet imprecise,” the paper said, “but there is grounding for belief that the quite clearly organised assault by alleged Liverpool supporters in the Heysel Stadium had financial and ideological backing from left-wing agencies outside Britain.”

Thatcher lapped up shite like this.

Attendances fell to an all-time low in the aftermath of the tragedy in Brussels. Yet they began creeping up again as Liverpool, Everton, West Ham and – up until mid-April – Chelsea slugged it out at the top of the league.

Now, on May 10, the eyes of the world were on Wembley. Liverpool versus Everton. The merest hint of violence on the terraces would likely be the final blow to the reputation of the city – and the sport.

A flavour of the mood came on BBC's television coverage. The FA Cup final was huge in the 1980s – most players preferred to win the cup rather than the league – and programming on TV started four hours before kick off. The national broadcaster featured a sketch involving Alf Garnett, the lead character from the Till Death Us Do Part sitcom. Garnett was a West Ham-supporting parody on Little Englanders. The public were meant to laugh at his bigotry. Too many viewers nodded along in agreement. He would be completely at home in Reform UK.

On cup final day, Garnett’s rant was completely misjudged but, perhaps, captured the mindset of a substantial proportion of British people – including those on the Conservative benches in Parliament.

He railed at Scousers in London "...with their empty beer cans and crisp packets, being sick in everyone’s garden.”

Garnett continued: “It’s us who has to clear up and our bloody rates that has to pay for it after they’ve gone. Not their bloody rates. They don’t pay rates in Liverpool, do they? Liverpool town council, the bolshy bastards.”

After the politics, he turned to Heysel. “Hooligans, ain’t they? They got us banned out of Europe.”

Then it got really offensive. And not just for citizens of Merseyside.

“It’s not a European Cup without us, is it? It’s a bloody wogs’ cup, innit? And all because of a load of drunken Scouse gits we’re banned out of Europe.

“They didn’t want us banned out of Europe when Adolf Hitler was about. No, it was all ‘Voulez-vous, Tommy’ and ‘Parlez avec moi ce soir, Tommy’ and ‘Come and liberate us, Tommy’. Now it’s all ‘Piss off, Tommy’, isn’t it? Should have left them to Adolf Hitler. He’d have given them soccer hooligans all right. I’ll tell you something else, if old Gorbachev starts and the Ruskies start it’ll be ‘Come back, Tommy. All is forgiven.’ And all because of a load of bloody Scouse gits who couldn’t hold their duty-free liquor.”

There is probably no clearer indication of what was at stake on May 10, 1986. And it wasn’t just the FA Cup.

Matches between Liverpool and Everton are often referred to as “the friendly derby.” In general, this is true – and it was truer four decades ago. Yet there were always elements on the fringe who disrupted that preconception. With so much at stake, the mood could easily turn.

Before the game, there was a huge show of unity as Reds and Blues came together to direct their scorn at a mutual enemy. “Are you watching Manchester?” rang out around Wembley, along chants of “Merseyside.”

The game kicked off. Gary Lineker scored in the first half for Everton, who dominated for an hour. Then Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool came back into the match and took control. At the final whistle, Dalglish’s side were 3-1 up, Double winners and Howard Kendall’s team were enduring the nightmare sporting scenario of finishing second twice to their main rivals.

How would the losing supporters react? It was a hold-your-breath moment.

There are occasions when the actions of fans lodge themselves in popular consciousness. More often than not they are attached to famous victories: Everton against Bayern Munich in 1995, Liverpool in Istanbul in 2005. The cameras go to the winners, the losers slink off.

On this day, the scrutiny on Evertonians was at its most extreme. There were news organisations and politicians desperate for an en masse angry reaction.

They didn’t get it. The blue hordes stayed in place after the final whistle and joined in the “Merseyside” chants. The days passed off with minimal trouble.

Of course, the narrative focused on Liverpool’s redemption story. Dalglish, a first-year manager whose intial official role was laying a wreath for the dead of Heysel, brought the Double to Anfield for the first time. The haunted faces of players in the aftermath of Heysel were a huge contrast to the smiles and laughter of Wembley.

The real heroes were Everton’s players and fans, who had to suck it up for the greater good. They put the interests of the city over their own personal feelings. Southall, who was injured and watched from the bench, viewed the post-match events with awe and describes what happened in simple terms.

“It reflected the city,” he said. “What happens in the city affects everyone. They cared about each other. If people didn’t care, there wouldn’t be football clubs. It was a reflection of community.”

Mark Lawrenson, the Liverpool centre half, agreed. “It was an unusual atmosphere,” he said. “We’d won, beaten our neighbours, our mates, and we did the Royal Box thing and all that. Normally, half the crowd leaves but everyone stayed and were singing. Remarkable.”

There were limits, though. The city council had arranged two open-top buses for the next day. The winners were to go in front, the losers behind. Reid could not go through with it. “I got my mate to pick me up,” the man from Huyton said. “I fucked off and didn’t do the bus parade. Howard said he’d fine me two weeks’ wages. I said, ‘That’ll do me’ and pissed off. I watched the parade from a pub in Bolton.’

Yet Reid articulates the bigger issues as well as anyone. “The Tories were trying to decimate one of the world’s great cities. They wanted to destroy us,” he said.

Football prevailed. From this point, attendances would only grow. Merseyside survived Thatcher, wounded but unbowed.

May 10 should be a bank holiday in the city of Liverpool. The greatest day in Merseyside football history – one that has nothing to do with winners and losers. Sadly, Everton will never get the credit they deserve for their part in saving the game.

• Far Foreign Land, a book about Istanbul and Liverpool’s supporter culture, is available here £10 UK, £15 Europe, £18 Rest Of World. All including postage. Get it in time for the 20th anniversary