On This Day 1992 – See Goodison Draw Got By Gould’s Unlucky Sky Blues
On this day (17th October) in 1992 the Sky Blues, currently doing well in third place in the Premier League and unbeaten away, made the trip to Goodison Park to take on Everton who were then below mid table in the League. City’s ‘gaffer’ Bobby Gould (also a former Sky Blue player and now a CCFPA member) might have expected to get the points from this game but his team had to be content with a 1-1 draw which contained some controversial incidents
So far this season the Toffees had been pretty goal-shy but they started out with a blistering series of attacks and well deserved to go in at half time in the lead following a Peter Beagrie twenty yard free kick in the 28th minute. This was their first goal since the end of August! However, a minute from the break another sixty yard mazey run from the Sky Blues Zimbabwean star (aka ‘The Bulawayo Bullet’) Peter Ndlovu got City level via a deflection off the heel of the Toffees’ Barry Horne.
John Motson and the Match of the Day cameras were there alongside the 17,627 crowd and showed two controversial incidents. The backpass law had been changed by FIFA and the referee Bob Hamer interpreted a Brian Borrows miskick as one and Oggy (a giant presence in his massed goalmouth wall) was obliged to save a freekick – much closer than a penalty kick- from the edge of the six yard box!
Then, City were unlucky not to sneak a win as a late header from the Sky Blues central defender (and now CCFPA member) Andy Pearce appeared to be over the line but the ‘goal’ was not seen or given by officials as the ball was eventually grabbed by Everton’s ‘keeper Neville Southall.
Thanks to former CCFPA committee member Dean Nelson you can watch extensive (nearly twenty minutes of) highlights by clinking on the link or image below. A draw was probably a fair result all-in-all (and, unusually, we stopped Tony Cottee getting a goal against us this time)!
