History shows that local goalkeepers haven't made it at Everton or Liverpool for a long time as Harry Tyrer leaves for Cardiff City
Goalkeeper Harry Tyrer declared he was determined to follow Jordan Pickford’s example and go from non-League to Premier League, but he has had to leave Everton to join Cardiff City to continue his football journey.
Announcing his departure, on a permanent transfer for an undisclosed fee, Everton announced that everyone at the club thanks Harry for his contribution and wishes him the very best for the future. The lifelong Evertonian will link up with Brian Barry-Murphy’s side, who currently sit top of the League One table.
Tyrer joined the Blues’ academy aged seven and progressed through the ranks to become a regular for the Under-21s, as well as being named on the bench for the first team on multiple occasions. The Crosby-born player enjoyed productive loan spells with Chester, Chesterfield – who he helped to promotion from the National League in 2023/24 – and Blackpool.
Having helped the Spirerites clinch the National League title with five games to spare in 2024, Tyrer joined this correspondent for an exclusive interview and told the ECHO: “I’d like to say I’m getting better and I’m looking at what Jord did before he established himself at Sunderland. He’s Everton’s number one and England’s number one and it’s a dream of mine to follow in his footsteps.
“Jord is unbelievable. He always helps with the young lads, he’s certainly helped me.
“I always like to watch him and see what he does because he’s a top goalkeeper. He’s one of the best in the Premier League and probably the world currently.
“You’ve just got to learn from him and take what he says in because he’s very experienced now. Getting 60 caps for England isn’t too bad is it?”
Pickford’s figure has now been extended to 81, but while he went out on half a dozen loan spells before he established himself as Sunderland’s first choice, with the first two at non-League Darlington and Alfreton Town ahead of working his way up the pyramid with Burton Albion, Carlisle United, Bradford City and Preston North End.
Speaking in that same article, Tyrer said: “It’s definitely my ambition to play for Everton in the future. I’m a local lad and I’ve supported Everton for as long as I can remember.
“Going to Goodison when I was growing up and watching the likes of Tim Howard, you just want to be a part of that. I’m nearly there but I’ve just got to keep going until I get that call to play in the first team.”
However, crucially, he added: “Hopefully I can start pushing towards 150 games by the time I’m 23/24, that would be a great thing for me.” Tyrer has been stuck on 145 since making 38 appearances in League One for the Tangerines last season.
Although David Moyes picked him between the sticks for Everton’s first friendly of last summer, the 1-1 draw at League Two Accrington Stanley, the acquisitions of first Mark Travers and then Tom King left Tyrer as fourth choice at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Having celebrated his 24th birthday last month on December 6, he is now older than Pickford was when he became England number one in 2017.
Like so many previous Scouse custodians, Tyrer has been forced to depart from his home city to advance his career. The late Andy Rankin, who died aged 79 on August 21, 2023, remains the last local goalkeeper to play more than 10 games for either Everton or Liverpool, making 105 appearances in total for the Blues with his final outing in a bizarre FA Cup third/fourth place play-off almost 55 years ago when Harry Catterick’s men threw away a two goal lead to lose 3-2 to a Stoke City side featuring World Cup winner Gordon Banks in front of just 5,031 at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park.
Rankin made history by making the save that clinched victory in the first-ever penalty shoot-out in a UEFA competition as Everton defeated West German champions Borussia Monchengladbach in the European Cup at Goodison Park on November 4, 1970. Described by David France as “the most agile and acrobatic goalkeeper I have seen at Everton,” the Bootle-born player moved to Watford for £20,000 and turned out over 300 times for the Hornets over the next nine years before finishing his career with a couple of seasons at Huddersfield Town.
Manager Harry Catterick encourages his Everton players as they gather on the pitch before their historic penalty shoot-out win against Borussia Monchengladbach in the European Cup at Goodison Park on November 4, 1970
Manager Harry Catterick encourages his Everton players as they gather on the pitch before their historic penalty shoot-out win against Borussia Monchengladbach in the European Cup at Goodison Park on November 4, 1970(Image: Mirrorpix)
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Everton was in the blood for the Rankin family as Andy’s grandfather Bruce Rankin made 38 appearances and scored seven goals for the Blues, primarily as a winger, between 1902-05, while his cousin George Rankin was a left-back and played 39 times for the club in the 1950s.
Originally signing for Everton as an amateur when he was 17, Rankin made his first team debut in a 2-2 draw against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground on November 16, 1963 and writing in his book Everton: Player by Player, Ivan Ponting remarked: “Harry Catterick made few blunders as Everton boss, but one of them, surely, was his failure to install Andy Rankin as Gordon West’s medium-term successor in the early 1970s.”
He added: “In retrospect, it might have been wiser had the quiet Merseysider – such a contrast to the voluble West – moved on earlier. But anyone who had watched him at his best – as at Anfield in 1964 when he performed near-miracles as his team-mates ran up a 4-0 win – would have sworn that the England Under-23 international must one day earn the premier spot.”
Everton haven’t fielded a local goalkeeper since Rankin left, but at least they have some previous heritage of picking a Scouser between the sticks. Albert Dunlop played 231 matches for them in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
There were at least a dozen Liverpool-born keepers in Blues teams before him, including one of the city’s ‘forgotten’ football giants, Ted Taylor, Everton’s oldest debutant. Born in West Derby on February 8, 1887, Taylor who won three League Championships and eight England caps while at Huddersfield Town, can lay claim to being the best ever Scouse keeper but he didn’t return home to make the first of his 42 Blues outings in a 1-0 derby defeat at Anfield until he was 40 in 1927.
Goalkeeper Ted Taylor
Goalkeeper Ted Taylor(Image: Popperfoto via Getty Images)
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Taylor was educated at Liverpool’s Marlborough College – who can also count fellow England international goalkeeper, Olympian (at high jump and triple jump) and fabled sporting all-rounder Benjamin Howard Baker, who turned out in goal 13 times for Everton, among their alumni.
The Reds’ record is even more spartan. This correspondent spotted an article from 2007 on This Is Anfield by Keith Perkins picking a Liverpool Scousers XI in which Billy Molyneux was in goal having played a single game in 1964/65, but it turned out he was born in Ormskirk.
Ged Rea, statistician for Liverpool Football Club, told the ECHO: “Liverpool’s last ‘Scouse’ keeper was Harry Wheeler ‘Fred’ Nickson who played three times in the FA Cup in 1945/46.
“The other I have discovered is John Whitehead who, also played for Bootle and Everton, and made the last of his three appearances in 1895. I cannot find anybody else and it could be that no Scouse keeper has played more than three times for Liverpool.”