Chris Beesley assesses where Jordan Pickford is at as the Everton and England number one celebrates his 32nd birthday
Jordan Pickford is much happier at 32 than Neville Southall was at Everton but he can still learn from the club's greatest goalkeeper
Jordan Pickford is much happier at 32 than Neville Southall was at Everton but he can still learn from the club's greatest goalkeeper
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Birthday boy Jordan Pickford finds himself in a great place right now but as he blows the candles out on his cake for turning 32, there’s still one present missing for Everton’s goalkeeper.
In the days prior to the Blues’ trip to Newcastle United a week ago – another landmark date that will be ringed on Pickford’s calendar each year – comments made by Kop Idol Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football ignited what is considered to be a burning issue with many – including this correspondent who has gone on record over many years pushing for it – that Everton should build a statue for Neville Southall at Hill Dickinson Stadium.
As I’ve pointed out, the absence of a permanent tribute to the man who played the most games and won the most trophies with the club is a glaring omission on the football landscape.
Over four decades on, the former Wales international is also the last goalkeeper to have been voted Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year and the other three, Bert Trautman, Gordon Banks and Pat Jennings have all been honoured with statues.
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However, while Southall picked up that gong in 1985 as Everton enjoyed their most successful season - and in an era when English clubs had triumphed in seven of the previous eight finals, were primed for their own tilt at winning European football’s biggest prize - many who watched Llandudno’s greatest son on a regular basis have reflected to conclude that a player who was considered to be the best in the world in his pomp, was actually at the peak of his powers around 1990.
While the team around the perfectionist custodian – who would come out super-early for the pre-match warm-up, flinging himself around for a prolonged period to prime himself for action – had declined, ‘Big Nev’ was still very much number one.
However, the Blues’ fall from being the best team in the land to also-rans under Colin Harvey had left Southall disillusioned with life at Goodison Park. He put in three transfer requests that year, but having signed a marathon seven-and-a-half contract as recently as December 1988, Wales manager Terry Yorath said: “As players go, he is unbuyable. If he was transferred, it would have to be for a mammoth sum.”
Manchester United, whose manager Alex Ferguson had dropped previous first-choice Jim Leighton for Les Sealey in that year’s FA Cup final replay against Crystal Palace, were linked with a move for Southall, but given that it was understood that Goodison Park chiefs would be expecting a fee of around £3million for their prize asset at a time when Nigel Martyn was the British record signing for a goalkeeper at £1.2million, he stayed put. Such was Southall’s unsettled nature, Everton had even taken Egypt’s World Cup keeper Ahmed Shobeir on trial that summer, but the club were unable to obtain a work permit for him.
In the opening game of the 1990/91 season, at home to Leeds United on August 25 – less than a month before his own 32nd birthday, the age Pickford is now – Southall staged his half-time sit-in, an act that saw he fined a week’s wages (around £4,000). However, he ultimately stayed put and remained Everton’s number one for another seven years, going on to become the only player to win a second FA Cup with the Blues and make a club record 751 appearances.
After his breathtaking stoppage time save to keep out Sandro Tonali’s rasping volley a week ago and secure Everton’s 12 Premier League away win since David Moyes returned – a save that the Blues’ official statistician Gavin Buckland observed elicited similar looks of disbelief from the Toon Army that Southall’s save from Marco Falco brought from Spurs supporters at White Hart Lane in 1985 – I remarked that Newcastle United chiefs should build a statue of Pickford at St James’ Park!
In truth though, it’s not just in games against his local rivals where he’s long been treated as some kind of pantomime villain that the schoolboy Sunderland fan has reserved his best performances.
Having previously struggled in the baiting cauldron of such clashes, the England number one has long since turned the tables to shrug off opposition taunts and become a Magpies puppet-master, keeping his haters on strings for 90 minutes (or more as we saw here). But he does that whoever Everton are playing and in turn makes pulling off world-class stops a regular occurrence.
In my eyes, and many others, as impressive as the aforementioned Martyn was (he infamously arrived at Goodison seven years later than he should have done) and as good as Tim Howard was for a decade of service – two keepers that David Moyes brought to the club – Pickford is the Blues’ best since Southall. His loyalty to Everton, arguably doing more than any other individual player to save Hill Dickinson Stadium by ensuring they moved in as a Premier League club, is also truly admirable.
Unlike the legendary Welshman at the same age, having penned a four-year contract back in October, he’s always been settled on Merseyside. However, also in contrast to Southall, there is also something missing.
Following Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi lifting the FA Cup last season – the first major trophy in the club’s history – and Harry Kane securing the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich (after drawing a blank in his first season having been crowned champions for the previous 11 years), Pickford is now the only member of England’s starting line-up for the last European Championship final against Spain in Berlin on July 14, 2024, to have not picked up silverware.
Southall at the same age was still another five years off winning that second FA Cup when Joe Royle’s ‘Dogs of War’ shocked Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United at Wembley. Under Moyes and with the new dawn of Hill Dickinson Stadium and The Friedkin Group, Pickford will be looking to create his own such memories with his team-mates before he hangs up his gloves.
Perhaps then, one day, we might see statues of both these great Everton goalkeepers by the banks of the Mersey?