130 Years Of Everton Penalties

Everton’s first ever penalty kick was awarded on 5 March 1892 during a game against Stoke City at our then home of Anfield. Alex Latta took it…and missed! To commemorate the 130th anniversary of our inaugural spot-kick, Darren Griffiths, Dave Prentice and statistician Gavin Buckland sat around the table and discussed our penalties and our takers over the decades. With contributions from Trevor Steven, Joe Royle and David Unsworth, this is a light-hearted but thoroughly enlightening journey down penalty-kick memory lane! For example, did you know that early penalties could be taken from anywhere on a 12-yard line? Or that the Borussia Monchengladbach goalkeeper thought the Germans had won the 1970 European Cup shoot-out when Royle missed the first kick – only to have the rules of this brand new concept pointed out to him. Royle recalls that night fondly, even though he became the very first player to ever miss a penalty in a European shoot-out, and he offers huge credit to goalkeeper Andy Rankin and winning scorer Sandy Brown. Steven, who converted 23 of his 29 kicks, speaks about having to be patient with regards to penalty duties, having the likes of Sharp, Heath and Sheedy ahead of him. By the way, Steven says that he never took a single penalty for Burnley, Rangers or Marseilles! Unsworth reveals that ‘I always took penalties at every level I played at’ but that he couldn’t really practice them regularly at Bellefield because ‘Neville Southall wasn’t very good at saving them!’