EXCLUSIVE: ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley speaks to Francis Jeffers about his hopes that the move to the new stadium can change the Blues' transfer policy
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Francis Jeffers, and inset, during his playing days at Everton
Francis Jeffers, and inset, during his playing days at Everton
Francis Jeffers hopes Everton’s move to their new Hill Dickinson Stadium will prevent the Blues’ best young players from being sold after Wayne Rooney was heckled during Goodison Park’s ‘End of an Era’ ceremony on Sunday. Rooney, who turns 40 on October 24, displayed a ‘Once a Blue, always a Blue,’ t-shirt when scoring for Everton in an FA Youth Cup tie but joined Manchester United as an 18-year-old in 2004.
Despite returning from Old Trafford as United’s all-time leading goalscorer having won every major trophy in the game with the Red Devils, Rooney had a second playing spell with Everton in the 2017/18 season. However, Blues fans showed that while they had forgiven, they had not forgotten and when the Croxteth-born star was trying to deliver a speech to the crowd following the 2-0 win over Southampton in Goodison’s final Premier League fixture, many started chanting “Manchester is full of s**t.”
Rooney hit back with an X-rated response of his own, saying: “I am a f*****g Scouser, by the way,” but Jeffers, another boyhood Blue who departed Goodison before his 21st birthday, signing for Arsenal in an £8million transfer in 2001, believes the financial benefits of the club’s relocation to the Mersey waterfront can prevent such moves from happening in the future. Everton go to Newcastle United on Sunday for their final Premier League fixture of the season where they could go head-to-head with their latest homegrown hero to fly the nest, Anthony Gordon, who joined the Magpies for £45million in January 2023.
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Jeffers, speaking courtesy of iGaming.com, revealed the only deal he ever signed at Everton was as a schoolboy, and told the ECHO: “We shouldn’t be selling our best young players and hopefully we don’t have to now. When I was coming through, people did have to leave to keep the club in a stable position.
“In that season that I left, Bally (Michael Ball) went to Rangers and Dunney (Richard Dunne) had gone a bit earlier to Manchester City. We certainly won’t be doing it now, but we shouldn’t have been doing it then.
“For me, I didn’t want to leave Everton, but I sort of knew, I had no choice really. I was going into the last year of my contract.
“I only ever signed one professional deal at Everton, and that was when I was 15. I signed a three-year professional and it was called a YTS then and after that you can sign professional forms when you are 17.
“I agreed that deal when I was 15, so from when I broke into the first team to when I left, I’d never ever signed a new contract. The one I signed was from when I was 15 and when you turn 17, these will be the terms of it.
“Not that it matters, but I wasn’t well-paid. That deal had been agreed when I was a kid.
“I was going into the last year and the club obviously knew that and thought if we can’t agree a new contract with him, we’re probably better letting him go now.”
Jeffers added: “When you used to speak to Bill (Kenwright), it’s not that he’d tell you, but he had no choice. We had to sell our best players, it’s what we did.
“We’ve done it for too long. We should be hanging on to our best players and hopefully now with the way the club is and the position with it moving forwards and going in the right direction, we can hang on to the best players so we can start building good teams.
“We need more home-grown players who have come through the academy system. The fans love nothing more than one of their own playing, they get behind them.
“I think sometimes you can’t stop it. Every club, whether it’s Everton or Real Madrid, they all lose players, people come and try and take them.
“Sometimes you’re surplus to requirements or the bid is too big and you can’t turn it down. There will always be people coming after the best players, no matter what club you’re at, but I think now we should be able to stave them off to keep our best young talent.”
Now 44, Jeffers, who after two spells at Everton as a player, worked as a coach with the Blues before positions with Paul Cook at Ipswich Town and David Unsworth at Oldham Athletic, was one of over 70 ex-Blues stars invited back to Goodison Park on Sunday for the final men’s first team fixture after 133 years at the first purpose-built ground in English football which has also hosted the most top flight fixtures. The former De La Salle School pupil acknowledged it was a special day but believes the Goodison goodbye can point towards brighter times ahead.
Jeffers said: “It was an incredible experience, it was emotional. From the moment we arrived at the Titanic Hotel early in the morning for a bit of breakfast, you’re bumping into all your old team-mates.
“It was a great day, and I really enjoyed it. The big thing for me was meeting up with the successful team from the 1980s because a lot of them were my heroes, to be in the same room as them given what they achieved with our club was fantastic and I was a bit star-struck when I actually saw them.”
“We’ve been starved off success for a long time now. It was also a sad day in some ways but hopefully now the new ground is the start of our club getting back, like the David Moyes said on the pitch at the end, let’s get back to where we believe we should be.”