A favourite game among historians is “What If?”, in which they try to speculate about how world history might have unfolded if certain key events had occurred differently, or not at all. What if Archduke Ferdinand hadn’t been assassinated? What if Hitler had listened to his generals and not attacked Stalingrad? What if Kennedy had ordered an air strike during the Cuban missile crisis? And most intriguing of all, what if Everton hadn’t been banned from European football after the Heysel disaster? (Correction: I meant to say, what if all English clubs hadn’t been banned.)
One of the most significant international events of recent years is the Iraq war. The debate still rages as to whether and how it could have turned out differently. What follows is a hypothetical account of the events that virtually all respected historians now agree would have taken place if Everton hadn’t been banned from Europe. (Sorry, I did it again… all English clubs. See how easy it is to forget?)
Everton’s league title win in 1985 heralded the birth of a footballing superpower, the like of which the game had never seen before and surely never will again. Gary Lineker’s signing for the English champions was followed by the arrival of Maradona, Platini, Rummenigge, Zico and Socrates, as the cream of world football was lured to Goodison with the promise of sustained domestic and European glory under Howard Kendall.
The following season Everton won an unprecedented domestic treble, defeating hated local rivals Liverpool in the finals of the League and FA Cups, and pipping them to the title on the last day of the season. No Everton fan will ever forget Derek Mountfield’s sublime volley to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. The Blues swept all before them in Europe too, reaching the European Cup final for the first time, where they faced the might of Athletic Bilbao.
The Spanish side presented a seemingly insurmountable challenge for Everton, as they were the natural destination for players, and indeed managers, whose European ambitions couldn’t possibly be satisfied anywhere else. But the Basque giants were beaten, and the biggest prize in club football finally came home to its rightful place in the Goodison trophy room.
The quadruple was an incredible achievement. Surely Everton couldn’t repeat it? But they did, the following season. And the next. And the next. And so on.
The Everton team of the 1990s was unchallenged domestically and in Europe. Its total domination of the game gained the Blues millions of new converts, in Britain and all over the world. Phenomenal merchandise and TV rights sales earned Everton the finances to sign the very best players from around the world. Everton fans spent countless hours debating who was the greatest among their galaxy of stars. Gullit or van Basten, Baggio or Romario, Matthaus or Stoichkov? Fans of other clubs could only weep with envy.
The 1998 World Cup provided Everton’s rivals with a welcome diversion from the predictability of Everton’s dominance of club football. (14 English titles and 13 European Cups in succession for the Goodison giants had sapped many rival fans of the will to live.) But Evertonians had other ideas about the tournament. As they watched their club captain Zinedine Zidane parade the World Cup around the Stade de France, Blues around the world complained bitterly: surely it’s unfair that Everton are barred from competing at the very highest level? Calls for Everton to be admitted to international football grew relentlessly.
UEFA and FIFA patiently explained that Everton couldn’t play in the European Championship or the World Cup. Those tournaments were for countries, you see. That’s why they’re called internationals.
Everton cried foul, sensing a cruel official conspiracy against them, but UEFA and FIFA stood firm. Eventually the club came to realise that there was only one solution: Everton would have to become an independent state.
The British government initially resisted, but after being subjected to intense pressure from the tens of millions of Everton fans in Britain, not to mention the billions more worldwide, it eventually backed down and allowed Everton to secede from the UK. Diplomatic negotiations followed swiftly, and Everton was admitted to the United Nations on 1st January 2000. Millennium celebrations everywhere were cancelled, as the world stopped to honour this far more momentous occasion.
Massive public demand in Britain and Europe saw Everton given a wildcard entry to Euro 2000 at England’s expense. Scenes of unbridled joy erupted as Everton beat Germany 1-0 in the group stage, a feat the English national team hadn’t managed since 1966. Germany and Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann retired from professional football in shame and humiliation immediately after the final whistle, and remains a broken man to this day.
Everton didn’t stop there though. They cruised to the final, where they crushed reigning world champions France 6-0, Zidane scoring a double hat-trick against his former countrymen. Everton’s arrival on the international stage was complete.
The Blues entered the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea as overwhelming favourites, and from the first kick of a ball in the Far East the destination of the trophy was never in doubt. Led by Zidane, the immortal side of naturalised Evertonians whose names simply roll off the tongue – Ronaldo, Shevchenko, Maldini, Nedved, Ballack, Stubbs – swept all opposition aside with supreme displays of the majestic, free-flowing football that Everton had always been synonymous with. The Brazil of Pele, the Hungary of Puskas, the Dutch side of Cruyff and total football, all paled into insignificance beside Kendall’s team.
The jubilation that swept the globe in the wake of Everton’s win lifted the world’s spirits in a summer that was overshadowed by the looming prospect of America declaring war on Iraq. Conflict seemed inevitable, but Everton’s victory was the catalyst for an extraordinary turn of events. Buoyed by their team’s World Cup victory, millions of Everton fans took to the streets of Iraq to demand the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Saddam’s Republican Guards, themselves Evertonians to a man, refused to take any action against their fellow Blues, and instead joined with them in toppling Saddam. TV audiences around the world were captivated by images of Saddam’s statue being pulled down and replaced with a giant effigy of Bill Kenwright.
The Iraqi Information Minister, Comical Ali, moved swiftly to distance himself from Saddam’s regime. He denounced the ousted dictator as a ‘meerderin’ red
’, who would pay for his vile allegiance by ‘burning forever in the flames of hell, la’. Saddam was hung from a lamp-post in front of a cheering crowd in the newly renamed al-Ratcliffe Square in the centre of Baghdad, dressed in full Liverpool kit (the yellow Crown Paints away strip with the red pinstripe, which had always been his favourite). Ali meanwhile was appointed official spokesman for Everton Football Club.As it became clear that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief at the realisation that a destructive and unnecessary war had been averted. UN inspectors did however discover Clive Thomas living a life of luxury in an opulent palace that Saddam had built for him, using billions of dollars illegally diverted from the UN’s oil-for-food programme and the Everton club shop.
Iraq rapidly progressed to become a peaceful democratic country. George Bush praised Everton for its contribution to ‘the struggle for freedomness and democratification in the Middle East’. Everton was granted a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and its ambassador Howard Kendall, who had stepped down as manager after the World Cup win to hand over to David Moyes, went on to become one of the most recognisable and respected figures on the world stage, accompanied everywhere by his personal aide and best mate, Dave Usher.
In the first national referendum after the fall of Saddam, the people of Iraq voted unanimously to give up their national sovereignty and become citizens of the state of Everton. The mighty Blues had proved to the world that they truly were the People’s Club, in the most spectacular manner imagina
