Thanks / No Thanks: Everton

No Thanks: Bob Latchford

The finest centre forward of a generation, Latchford was an Everton hero, scoring freely for them through the seventies. Mind you, you’ll know all of that already won’t you, because it was only a few weeks ago I wrote about him on one of these articles.

Back then I thanked Newport for taking him off our hands. Today, I lament Everton for ever letting him go and setting him on a collision course with our club.

Just to recap: 

Bob Latchford was, by all accounts, one of the finest players of a generation, scoring freely for Everton in the late seventies including 30 goals in a season in 1978. He scored 138 goals in 236 Everton appearances, then hit 35 in 87 for Swansea before moving to NAC Breda where he managed 13 in 16. What a record, right? Then he moved to Sincil Bank.

I never saw him play for Lincoln, he moved at the start of the 1985/86 season which was the first of successive relegations that saw us enter the GMVC. He did score twice for City, once in a 3-2 defeat to Notts County and again in a 3-2 defeat by Wigan. Crucial goals. He wasn’t a popular figure in red and white, some might say past it, other might say overweight and lumbering, I couldn’t possibly comment. Newport took him and his wages off our hands in a loan deal, where he scored five in 20.