As an Evertonian approaching 40, I have been very lucky to see my team win plenty of trophies.

I have watched them two league titles 1985 and 1987, two FA Cups a European Cup Winners Cup in 1985, with a couple of all-Merseyside Cup finals thrown in.

That was a time when Merseyside meant something in football terms and before Liverpool sold its soul around the world. Nowadays an all-Merseyside Cup Final would mean 40,000 blue Scousers, 15,000 red Scousers with a splattering of southern reds, Irish, and Middle Eastern football fans wearing red wigs singing their hatred towards Everton in a hope to be accepted by the Scouse reds.

'One of his best assets was the fact that he hated conceding a goal'


Anyway, the '80s and early '90s were great as an Evertonian. The teams that Howard Kendall, Everton’s most successful manager, built were out of the very top-drawer and were in my opinion on the edge of dominating European football before Heysel put a stop to English teams playing.

The 1985 team included what I consider to be the greatest goalkeeper I have ever had the pleasure to watch live in Neville Southall,.

He was a genius when it came to goalkeeping and could make saves that you just wouldn’t expect. One of his best assets was the fact that he hated conceding a goal. He played some 750 games over 16 years and was Players' Player of the Year and Footballer of the Year in 1985.

He was lucky to have played in one the best Everton teams in years which was led by his welsh captain, Kevin Ratcliffe (the club's most successful skipper). He made 489 appearances for Everton.

I have been lucky to see other great players - Kevin Sheedy, Trevor Steven, Andy Gray, Graeme Sharp, Peter Reid, Pat (Psycho) Van de Hauwe, Andrei Kanchelskis, Yakubu, Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill, Joleon Lescott and Andy Johnson.

And a special mention must go to Bob Latchford who was my footballing idol when I was growing up. His finishing was superb and he would have lived easily with the game in any era, and also to mention to a player from the dark side, (that’s Liverpool), Kenny Daglish. The best compliment I can pay the man is I wished he had been a blue.

But there is only one choice for me as favourite player, Neville Southall the greatest goalkeeper of all time, and an Evertonian.