Stuart Appleby interviews Everton Football Club’s most decorated player, record appearance holder (751 games) and Wales’s most capped player (92 matches), goalkeeping legend Neville Southall.
Neville Southall: The Binman Chronicles is on sale courtesy of deCoubertin Books, priced £18.99
Here is an extract from the interview in which Neville discusses Everton’s “unique” fanbase and the footballing city of Liverpool, as well as its people:
“I think they’ve (Evertonians) just proved they’re unique. If you get any other Club in the world who hasn’t won anything for 10 years and the manager’s in a good position and nobody’s on his back, that says everything (about the Club). I do think the Club’s unique in a way because I can’t think of another city, apart from Portsmouth, maybe…I think Liverpool is one of those places where the team should reflect the people and passion in the city.
“People are passionate in the city, you’re aggressive in what you want to get, you’ve got a touch of class and you’re so determined, and above all you’ve got a fantastic sense of humour. I think if the Club can reflect the people it’ll go along way and one of the times when it came together was the 1985 European Cup Winners’ Cup Semi-Final against Bayern Munich at Goodison Park. The game affected the city and when I think of the people of Liverpool, I think of people who are full of class, work their bullocks off, determined and never back down. But above all, they can find humour in absolutely everything.”
Neville Southall Factfile
Haul of major honours with Everton:
- First Division: 1985 and 1987
- First Division Runners-up: 1985-86
- FA Cup: 1984 and 1995
- FA Cup Runners-up: 1985 and 1989
- European Cup-Winners’ Cup: 1985
- League Cup Runners-up: 1984
- FA Charity Shield: 1984, 1985, 1986 (shared)* and 1995
Major individual awards:
- Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year: 1985
- Professional Footballers’ Association Team of the Year: 1986-1987, 1987-1988, 1988-1989 and 1989-1990
International:
- Wales’s most capped player: 92 appearances from 1982 to 1998
You can listen to the audio version of this interview below:
*Note – the full written version of this interview will be published in a publication in due course.
STUART APPLEBY 