Christopher Beesley pays tribute to Peter Reid on the Everton legend's 70th birthday
The Great British public bestows the title ‘national treasure’ on certain venerable individuals, but if the self-proclaimed people’s republic of Merseyside could do the same for their own, then Peter Reid is firmly in that category.
Today, he turns three score years and 10 and all Evertonians will be united in raising a glass for one of their all-time greats and wishing him many happy returns on his 70th birthday. The word ‘legend’ in football is banded about so loosely by some that the term gets severely diluted and loses all meaning, but when it comes to bona fide, 24 carat true blue heroes, Reid is one of the dictionary definitions.
As Everton prepared to move to the waterfront after 133 years at the first purpose-built football ground in England and venue for the most top-flight matches, this correspondent marked the occasion with my series of interviews entitled Goodison Park: My Home. While each one of the 20 episodes was special in its own way as a variety of guests with a wide span of personalities and memories over different eras told their personal stories, both video producer Ian Croll, who filmed them, and myself agreed that Reid’s was the most fun.
It’s highly ironic that he chose to call his autobiography Cheer Up Peter Reid, because he is such a humorous and gregarious character, who can not only tell many an entertaining anecdote himself but also loves to laugh when others mention something that amuses him too. Like a scene out of a television sitcom, he almost spat out all the coffee he was drinking when I reminded him of the time he and Kevin Ratcliffe swapped shorts at half-time during the 1984 FA Cup semi-final win over Southampton because the captain’s pair were too small.
Reid told the ECHO: “I knew Frank Worthington from Bolton. So, Frank’s coming off (the ball) and getting it.
“One thing Frank isn’t, he’s not going to do you in behind. So, I’ve gone to Ratters at half-time: ‘Is there any f*****g chance of you getting tight on him?’
“I said: ‘He’s not going to do you in there. You’re miles off it.’
“He’s gone: ‘You’ve got my shorts on.’ You can imagine what I said!
“I said: ‘You flipping what?’ I said: ‘Do you want to swap?’
“He replied: ‘Yeah.’ So, we swapped shorts at half-time in an FA Cup semi-final at Highbury and Ratters went out and he was brilliant.”
Reid also recalled that his first playing appearance at Goodison came way back in 1971 when, coached by Alan Bleasdale (the playwright who created Boys from the Blackstuff), Huyton Boys under-15s completed a 5-1 aggregate victory over Stoke in the English Schoolboys Final and made history by becoming the first ever non-city side to lift the trophy. He said: “As well documented, I’ve had a decent career, but when you’re a schoolboy, you don’t know you’re going to do that.
“You’re full of dreams and ambition and hope but at 14 going into school and your mates say: ‘You played at Goodison!’
“I thought I’d done it all. In fact, that could have done me, I could have finished then and been happy, it was a dream.”
Everton's Peter Reid with his trophy after being named PFA Players' Player of the Year for the 1984/85 season
Everton's Peter Reid with his trophy after being named PFA Players' Player of the Year for the 1984/85 season(Image: Bob Thomas Sports Photography via Getty Images)
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Reid’s route back to Goodison was far from straightforward, though. Having started his career at Bolton, manager Gordon Lee first tried to sign him for Everton for £600,000 in 1980, but after two broken legs, torn knee ligaments and a cartilage operation, Howard Kendall would ultimately bring him back to his native Merseyside for a tenth of that fee in December 1982.
Never mind the fabled fee for Seamus Coleman, celebrated in the terrace chant for the Blues’ current departing captain, who is arguably the biggest bargain of the Premier League era, surely the best sixty grand that Everton ever spent was for Reid. As Kendall himself would conclude, the tenacious midfielder proved to be the club’s most important signing since the Second World War.
Of course, the icon who now bleeds blue, never hides the fact that he was a boyhood red and like thousands across the region, his is a divided family. That was never better encapsulated for Reid – who compares his own switch of allegiance as being like “the zeal of a religious convert” – than an incident that occurred while playing in a Merseyside Derby.
He said: “It was at Anfield, and I’ve laid one on Barnsey, and the home fans are giving me jip. I look in the crowd, just in front of the dugout, and I go: ‘Uncle Arthur?’
“My Uncle Arthur was giving it to me, good style. That’s the way it should be when you’re at derby games.
“For me, they were the biggest games. I was fortunate to play in them during the 1980s, when they were possibly two of the best teams in Europe... well, we were.”
Although Reid was an integral part of the most successful side in Everton history, lifting a brace of League Championships, an FA Cup and European Cup-Winners’ Cup, he explained how manager Kendall showed his class after a couple of painful FA Cup final defeats that also highlighted the will to win from both himself and his team-mates.
After securing their first League Championship in 15 years with five games to spare, the Blues added their only continental trophy to date by defeating Rapid Vienna 3-1 in Rotterdam.
However, a mere 65 hours after their final whistle in the Netherlands, they kicked off the FA Cup final against Manchester United at Wembley. Everton were denied a ‘treble’ when they lost 1-0 after extra time to Norman Whiteside’s goal, despite the Red Devils having Kevin Moran sent off on 78 minutes for a professional foul on Reid.
He said: “It was a game too far. We still had chances, it was a hot day as well.
“We’d got back into Liverpool on the Thursday morning, rested, then played head tennis at Bellefield on the Friday and travelled down. Without making excuses, because they had a man sent off, we had chances.
“Andy Gray, every time I see Andy – and he hates it – when I’ve had a bevvy, I say: ‘What about you?’ You’ve missed two.’ Derek (Mountfield) missed a couple and I hit the post.
“I don’t think I’m being disrespectful to Manchester United, I thought we were the better team on the day, and we’d beat them in the league, but great teams find a way to win, and on that day we didn’t and we couldn’t. It still kills me that one, but that’s footy.”
On a post-match incident behind closed doors, Reid added: “After we got beat, there was a little bit of a scuffle in the dressing room – without going into details – and Howard had opened the champagne. He sorted the scuffle out, and we were all looking on, thinking: ‘Oh, Christ.’
“He just got his glass of champagne, raised it, and said: ‘That, gentlemen, is why you’re champions,’ (and took a sip).”
Peter Reid meets the fans through the security fence before the FA Cup final between Everton and Manchester United at Wembley on May 18, 1985
Peter Reid meets the fans through the security fence before the FA Cup final between Everton and Manchester United at Wembley on May 18, 1985(Image: David Cannon/Allsport/Getty Images)
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A year later, it was Liverpool who became the first club in the city to do ‘the double’ as they pipped Everton by two points in the title race and then defeated them 3-1 in the FA Cup final. After the two teams returned to Merseyside from Wembley, a joint open-top bus parade for both sets of players had been organised through the streets of the city, but the prospect of riding around empty-handed while their neighbours paraded their silverware was all too much for Reid.
He said: “I thought we were the better side, even in the cup final, but it’s one of those things. We got beat, and I was hurting.
“I’d pulled the gaffer, and I just went: ‘I’m not going on that bus.’ He went: ‘You’ve got to.’
"I said: ‘Listen, I’m not being a baby. I’ve shook hands, I’ve done this and I’ve done that, but I can’t do it.’ So, I got my mate to pick me up, I went for a bevvy.
“The gaffer was great to be fair, but he fined me two weeks’ wages. In the following pre-season, he half had a go at me, which he was right about because I was later a manager and you shouldn’t do that but I just couldn’t handle it.
“Anyway, he pulled me into his office, sat me down and said: ‘You’re out of order.’ I said: ‘Gaffer, it’s gone now.’
“He said: ‘Right, there you go, your money is going to get paid back into your bank, your two weeks’ wages, but don’t tell anyone.’ I went: ‘Wow!’
“That was the man. That’s what the club was about.
“I never told anyone. I’m alright telling it now, but that was him as a manager.”
But Reid, who with the 40th anniversary coming up on Monday of England’s 1986 World Cup quarter-final defeat to Argentina in the Azteca Stadium when Diego Maradona left him and his team-mates in his wake, doesn’t need any more reminders of setbacks, and deserves to be remembered for his triumphs.
Making his playing comeback in an Everton kit for the first time in over 36 years as a substitute when managing a Blues veterans side to a 2-0 victory over Roma at Hill Dickinson Stadium last August, he is playfully dubbed by friend Joe Royle as “The cultural attaché for Huyton,” and it’s those roots that always remain strong for Reid.
Although Reid’s father also went from Liverpool to Everton to support his son, his beloved mother was always a true blue and there is some candid, behind-the-scenes footage from the time on Sportsnight of his parents watching the 1985 title win with the 2-0 victory over Queens Park Rangers at Goodison Park as his mum celebrated particularly enthusiastically.
Reid said: “To see the pictures of her, on that day, is gear, honest to God. I was made up for her.
“The other one, I’ve got a picture in my house of her and my ‘arl fella, when we won the FA Cup. Here face... oh, it was brilliant. That footage is beautiful.”