It seems strange now looking back on this game. Everton were building a team that would briefly challenge Liverpool's hegemony at home and only Heysel prevented them from knowing what they could achieve in Europe.Arsenal were early 1980s crap. Terry Neill had invested heavily in the summer bringing in what many thought would be a classic big man, little man pairing up front with Lee Chapman and Tony Woodcock but it wasn't working and by November Chapman was becoming peripheral though he did come on as a sub in this game.
Talking of rare sightings, which I wasn't, Danny O'Shea got a start in this game.
Despite what the programme said we didn't bother with George Wood in goal. Dunno about others but I never felt truly comfortable with him between the sticks. Maybe it was because he was a genteel birdwatcher and not some spit roasting mega star.
The Everton team was being rebuilt. Already the nucleus of success had been established by Howard Kendall with Southall, Sharp and Sheedy while Steve McMahon proved he was a footballer before he became a pundit in South East Asia.
Game ended 1-1 and was probably instantly forgettable but for the crowd. The weekend before the Scouse derby had seen 52,741 fill Goodison Park but Everton had been tonked 5-0. In the previous round of the Milk Cup they had been drawn against Welsh opposition like Arsenal (Cardiff City). In their case Newport County.
In the 1st leg in the valleys they had scraped a 2-0 win in front of 8,293. In the return at Goodison the crowd was 8,941!
Things weren't much better for the Arsenal at the time and we only had about 200 fans make the journey north; for me it was my first visit to Merseyside and in the interests of being skint I opted to stand, a mistake I never repeated there were the away terrace was below the pitch!
Obviously the Merseyside football fan is a discerning one. Whereas the Newport game attendance was just below 9,000 they turned out in force for the Arsenal...13,089!
Something happened in the seats during the game, I'm not sure what, it was above. This sudden chant went up along the lines of Hey hey Goodbye which was a song from way back when. No idea if some Everton had got among the Arsenal up there.
I had made my own way up from Reading but I had no idea how to get back to Lime Street so managed to bunk a ride on the special buses the Travel Club had laid on for the fans who had come up from London. I do know I had a long wait at the cold station for my train home and finally got back to Reading about 4 am on the milk train then had to wait for the onward train home from there. Must have got in about 6 or 7 in the morning...happy days!
Lol, I went to this game and was in the seats above the Arsenal fans. Back in them days I used to hang around with Arsenal's firm and although we did not take many that day there was probably 50 or so real hardcore. We got the train up from Euston and when we arrived at Goodison tried to walk around to the home end. We had a little row with the old bill and a copper on a horse whacked me on the nose. Dont think there were many Arsenal in the seats above the away end but close to kick off time a few of Everton's firm came in. They realised they came a bit unstuck when they saw us and stewards and police kept us apart from them. We changed the words to hey hey goodbye to hey hey where's your stanley as the scouse firms were notorious for using stanley knives. It was a cracking day out but took forever to get back to London.
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