AS the countdown continues towards Goodison Park’s farewell game this Sunday, when Everton take on Southampton, Mail Sport talks to some of the club’s former stars for their recollections of the Grand Old Lady. Here, former midfielder GARETH FARRELLY recalls how he became the unlikely hero of Everton’s great escape of 1997-98.

‘Incredible. I wasn’t celebrating, it was just that overriding sense of relief. Equally, a degree of satisfaction.’ Weeks earlier, Gareth Farrelly had been booed by his own supporters. Here he was, sat in the Goodison Park home dressing room, the hero.

His goal, with his weaker right foot, had preserved Everton’s Premier League status.

‘Pouring rain and all over Goodison Park waves of relief come showering down,’ said BBC commentator John Motson. ‘One of the most celebrated clubs in the history of the game have got away with it and by a fingernail.’

Gareth Farrelly scored the goal that kept Everton in the Premier League in the 1997-98 season

Farrelly’s seventh-minute volley helped Everton earn a 1-1 draw against Coventry City on the final day, which was enough to keep them up

The Irishman, who now works as a lawyer, has recalled the moment as Everton get set to bid farewell to Goodison Park

The enormity of the escape act, with 44 consecutive years in the top flight at stake, was not lost on one man in particular.

As the players waded through the madding crowd and filed into the dressing room, Howard Kendall, the most successful manager in the club’s history, could not be seen.

Midfielder Don Hutchison had knocked on his office door, there was no-one there. They tried the small kit room and found Kendall there, in tears.

Those close to him said Kendall would never have recovered if he had been the manager that took Everton down. ‘To him, all the glory that had gone before, would have counted for nothing,’ said Adrian Heath, who was then assistant coach. ‘We all felt it. There were people being physically sick that day.’

For Farrelly, his moment was redemption of sorts.

Many did not expect him to play.

Arriving from Aston Villa in the previous summer as a talent of some repute, Farrelly had rejected overtures from Sampdoria and Kenny Dalglish at Newcastle United to join the club he had supported as a boy growing up in Dublin. But he had been weaned on the evolving disciplines of sports science. His friend Lee Carsley, then of Derby County, would call and regale how they were using a pioneering system called ProZone amongst others to analyse opponents. Everton were still to adapt and a challenging season ensued.

‘I wasn’t the only one. There were others who had challenges for different reasons but it wasn’t a dressing room where you talked about your feelings. It was a different time then.’ 

Farrelly had rejected overtures from Sampdoria and Kenny Dalglish at Newcastle to join Everton

He endured a testing relationship with the Goodison crowd as seconds of the stadium booed him three weeks before the Coventry clash

Three weeks before the game against Coventry, he was booed by sections of the Goodison crowd after missing a chance in a 1-1 draw against Leicester City.

Kendall took him out of the firing line but results failed to improve.

‘We’d lost 4-0 to Arsenal at Highbury the Sunday before the final game but I’d actually done okay coming off the bench for the second half. On the bus, on the way back, Howard says ”right, there’s day out at Pontefract races tomorrow, everyone is required to attend.”

‘It was a sponsors’ thing but I said I didn’t want to go. There was a mini-derby, Everton v Liverpool reserves, and I wanted to play in that. Four or five others said the same, so we played and won. Some of the others went the races and then Howard offered to give us more days off but senior players such as Craig Short said ”we want to train”.

‘We never usually stayed in a hotel before home games but before Coventry, Howard decided we’d stay in Wirral, over the River Mersey.

‘I shared a room with Slaven Bilic who was a good friend. All week he’d been chosen to speak to the press. Great player, great experience with Croatia, so there he was giving out the positive messages in the build-up to Coventry. Only, when the team is announced on the Sunday morning, I was starting and Slaven was left out.

‘I was like ”yes!” I couldn’t wait. Then when we got on the coach to the ground, you saw people with flags then as we were going through the Mersey tunnel it started to hit home what was to come.

‘In my mind I was just saying ”I can’t get relegated with Everton.” We joke beware of voices in your head, but I was definitely hearing ”I can’t play for Everton and be relegated.”

Everton will play their final match at Goodison Park against Southampton on Sunday

‘You could feel the apprehension, the tension, in the ground but, whether it was youth, as I warmed up, I just had a feeling something good was going to happen.

‘Standing in that tunnel beforehand when Z Cars came on, that was the trigger. I couldn’t wait to get started. I didn’t feel a negative pressure.’

Seven minutes later, Farrelly had volleyed past Magnus Hedman and Goodison erupted.

‘I just ran towards the main stand and the lads jumped on me. The emotion? It’s just unfiltered. You don’t get that in other walks of life. There’s a craziness to it, the release. I was like ”I f***ng told you!” I was looking at the people in the back of the stands, looking at Howard. I was just buzzing. ”Give me the ball, we are not going to lose today…”

It wouldn’t be Everton without a plot twist though. Nick Barmby missed an 85th minute penalty before Dion Dublin, chasing the Golden Boot that season, headed an 88th minute equaliser which slipped through Thomas Myhre’s grasp.

As the crowd bayed for the final whistle, Mike Ingham’s BBC radio commentary filtered across the stands to break news that Chelsea had scored a decisive second to beat Bolton.

‘It was a weird paradox,’ says Farrelly, now working as a lawyer. ‘Thomas Myhre had been exceptional that year. He’d stepped in to replace Neville Southall, an impossible task, made incredible saves all season but to let that goal in by error, it was symptomatic of that season.

‘Of course, I’d like to say I was ready to take that penalty but in truth, the goal would have looked like a small, snooker pocket and Hedman a goalkeeping Andre the Giant. Nicky was always going to take them. For the Hollywood credits it worked out better for me though that Nicky missed that one. His penalty protected my legacy,’ jokes Farrelly.

Exhausted, relieved, Farrelly retired to bed earlier than most that night and the following day, treated himself with a trip to Cheshire Oaks shopping outlet.

‘I was recognised everywhere. It was a shift for me. All of a sudden, I was the hero.’

On the Wednesday, Farrelly met Kendall at Bellefield training ground for a frank discussion.

‘Howard was open, saying can’t have anything like this happen at Everton again, there’s been good people, there’s been bad people, people have let me down, but you have stepped up, I always knew you how good you would be.

‘We discussed how the game was changing, and he said ”Next year is going to be different, just watch”.’ So I went away on holiday, happy that things were going to be different.’

However, Farrelly was unaware how prophetic Kendall’s words would be.

A month later, his third stint as manager of Everton was ended by mutual consent. Kendall was replaced by Walter Smith. And on the first day of pre-season, Smith told Farrelly he could leave too.

‘It’s football’s dynamic. You climb a mountain but you can easily be knocked off. I was confident things would have changed under Howard. But these things don’t always play out like a scripted Netflix drama.’