Everton 2 Manchester U 0

Joe Royle

Ever­ton 2 Man­chester Uni­ted 0, Good­ison Park, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Fir­st Di­vi­sion, Au­gust 19, 1972. Bob­by Charl­ton and his men lost their third Fir­st Di­vi­sion ga­me in a row as they suc­cumbed to a 2-0 de­feat at the hands of Ever­ton. John Con­nolly gave The Tof­fees the lead early in the fir­st ha­lf be­fore Joe Royle hit a sec­ond goal for the hosts from the pen­alty spot wi­th fif­teen min­utes remaining.

Man­chester United´s dif­fi­cult start to the 1972-73 cam­paign con­tin­ued wi­th a dis­ap­point­ing and frus­trat­ing 2-0 loss ag­ainst Ever­ton at Good­ison Park. The de­feat was, how­ever, but one of sev­er­al warn­ing sig­nals that some­thing was wrong at the Old Traf­ford club. Fol­low­ing the early skir­mishes, The Ever­to­ni­ans gradu­ally took con­trol of pos­ses­sion and Harry Catterick´s te­am went ahead in the sev­en­teenth min­ute as ex-St John­stone wing­er John Con­nolly fou­nd the net af­ter a mis­take by usu­ally re­li­able goal­keeper Al­ex Step­ney. Man­chester Uni­ted, who were mis­sing the phys­ic­al pres­ence of the in­jured De­nis Law, had their op­por­tun­it­ies to equal­ise be­fore the sound of the ha­lf-time sig­nal, but their for­wards were leth­ar­gic in front of goal. The Mer­sey­siders con­tin­ued their dom­in­ance in the sec­ond pe­riod and the ho­me te­am ul­ti­mately doubled their ad­vant­age wi­th fif­teen min­utes to go as Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al stri­ker Joe Royle be­at Step­ney from the pen­alty spot. Af­ter los­ing to The Tof­fee­men, The Reds now fou­nd them­selves at the very bot­tom of the Fir­st Di­vi­sion ta­ble wi­th no points gain­ed from three mat­ches played. Man­chester Uni­ted Foot­ball Club were in deep trouble, and Frank O´Farrell knew it. Ever­ton Te­am: Da­vid Lawson, Henry New­ton, Tom­my Wright, How­ard Kend­all, Ste­ve Sear­geant, Mick Ly­ons, Jim­my Hus­band, Mi­ke Bern­ard, Joe Royle, Co­lin Har­vey, John Con­nolly. Sub­sti­tute: No­ne. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Al­ex Step­ney, Tom­my O’Neil, To­ny Dun­ne, Mar­tin Bu­chan, Ste­ve Ja­mes Da­vid Sad­ler, Wil­lie Mor­gan, John Fitz­patrick, Bri­an Kidd, Geor­gie Best, Ian Storey-Moore. Sub­sti­tute: Sam­my McIlroy.

 

Frank O´ Farrell Quickfacts

Frank O´Farrell ap­peared for Cork Uni­ted, West Ham Uni­ted, Pre­ston North End, and Wey­mouth dur­ing his act­ive play­ing ca­reer be­fore he went in­to foot­ball man­agement wi­th stints at Wey­mouth, Torquay Uni­ted, Lei­cester City, Man­chester Uni­ted, Car­diff City, and Uni­ted Ar­ab Emir­ati out­fit Al-Shaab CSC. The Ir­ish­man was also the head coach of the Ir­a­ni­an Na­tion­al Foot­ball Te­am from 1974 to 1976. Fol­low­ing his sec­ond spell as man­ager of Torquay Uni­ted, O´ Far­rell wor­ked as a scout for Ever­ton and Bol­ton Wanderers.

UNITED FEATURES UNITED REPORTS UNITED REVIEWS UNITED STORIES

Front Page