Kevin Ratcliffe believes that the unique team spirit that Everton’s mid-1980s team possessed was the key to them becoming the club’s most-successful side.
Ratcliffe lifted two League Championships, an FA Cup and European Cup-Winners’ Cup as Blues captain. Speaking in the first episode of a new series on the Royal Blue YouTube channel entitled Goodison Park: My Home as the countdown starts over Everton’s stadium move, the former Wales international told the ECHO: “There was no game too big for us at that moment in time. The bigger the game, the more we rose to the occasion.
“It was mainly down to the team we had in terms that we bonding together. The team spirit that we had, I’ve never experienced it before or since.
“I think when we go out now, people look at us and see why we won things. Just being in our company for five minutes, the way we speak to each other, very rarely to we pat each other on the back.
“It’s always detrimental. If we’re seeing footage of games, it’s always a black spot in the game that you’ll pick up on.
“It also keeps that bond together because you’re on your toes, you can’t say anything wrong in front of that bunch of lads else you’ll get picked up straight away. It was a great time to play with some great players.
“You talk about matches but some memorable days with the lads are the coach journeys to the games on a Friday, things like that. You miss that more than anything, that’s a big, big thing when you finish playing.
“We didn’t have headphones then, I think Walkmans were just coming in. We had to talk to each other.”
Recalling the European Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final second leg against Bayern Munich, which is widely regarded as being Goodison Park’s greatest-ever night, Ratcliffe offered his thoughts over why Everton were able to defeat the German giants, whose head coach Udo Lattek famously complained from the away dugout: “Mr Kendall, this is not football!” as the visitors found themselves outfought and out-thought by their rampant hosts who secured a 3-1 comeback win. He said: “Howard, tactically was spot-on, more times than he wasn’t. That’s why he was so successful as a manager.
“I remember him saying to Derek (Mountfield, the other centre-back) and I at half-time of the second leg against Bayern: ‘I don’t want you two getting the ball off Neville (Southall) at all.’ He told Nev: ‘If you can’t get it out to the full-backs, you kick it long, we squeeze up and we pen them in – we get everything in the box.’
“They couldn’t live with us. I think they couldn’t live with our fitness, and we weren’t run to the ground by Howard.
“I think they thought we must have been on something but believe me, we weren’t on anything other than a cup of tea at half-time. I can always remember that I never ever felt tired at a night game at Goodison Park, I felt that I could run forever.”
