Cup Winners Cup. Brand new finalists in this tournament as well. This was the most predictable European competition, but there were interesting surprises in this issue: FC Porto was eliminated by the lowly Wrexham (Wales) in the first round and Barcelona most surprisingly was beaten at home by Metz (France) also in the first round. Not only Barcelona was the obvious winner, but they won confidently the first leg in Metz 4-2. Then, at home, when everything looked already decided, Metz destroyed them 4-1. In the second round the only unusual event was happened between Celtic (Scotland) and Rapid (Austria). Rapid won 3-1 at home, but Celtic made strong come back and won 3-0 in Glasgow. But… the public misbehaved, a Rapid player was struck by missile, and UEFA striked the result and ruled that the match has to be replayed on neutral ground, in Manchester. This time Rapid won 1-0 and eliminated Celtic. The quarter-finals provided no surprises, only Rapid again went against the odds: they lost their first leg in Dresden to Dynamo 0-3, but had fantastic comeback in Vienna, winning 5-0. On the wings of good luck and enthusiasm, they left no chance to Dinamo (Moscow) in the semi-finals – 3-1 and 1-1 – and reached European final for the first time.
Meantime, Everton proceeded powerfully to the final – they did not lose even one match and perhaps their toughest duel was in the first round against lowly Univeristy College (Dublin): 0-0 in Dublin and 1-0 in Liverpool. From then on, it was overwhelming travel from round to round: 3-0 and 1-0 against Inter (Bratislava) in the 1/8 finals; 3-0 and 2-0 against Fortuna Sittard (Holland) in the ¼ finals; 0-0 and 3-1 against Bayern (Munich) in the ½ finals. Everton allowed only 1 goal on the road to the final. It was their first European final too, but they seemingly were the favourite. Of course, finals can play cruel jokes on favourites and their ‘sure supporters’, but odds were strongly in Everton’s favour: they had fantastic season, going to win the English championship and in Europe were equally strong. Bayern was unable to beat them and Rapid looked rather weak compared to the Germans. Yet, games have to be won on the field no matter what people feel. Everton had one more advantage – fans. English always went in Europe to support their team in great numbers and Rotterdam was conveniently near and full of beer.
So, everything was ready to begin.
Rapid was not about to drop the towel and the first half ended scoreless.
In the second half Everton proved its worth. Their beloved star Andy Gray scored in the 56th minute.
Steven made it 2-0 in the 72th minute. Rapid was not giving up and Krankl scored in the 83rd minute. There was still time fro reversal…
But Kevin Sheedy finished the final in the 85th minute. 3-1. Everton won.
Final, Feyenoord Stadion, Rotterdam, 15 May 1985, att 50000
Everton (0) 3 SK Rapid (Wien) (0) 1
57′ 1-0 E: Gray
72′ 2-0 E: Steven
83′ 2-1 R: Krankl
85′ 3-1 E: Sheedy
Everton: Southall; Stevens, Van den Hauwe, Ratcliffe, Mountfield; Reid, Steven, Bracewell, Sheedy; Gray, Sharp
SK Rapid (Wien): Konsel; Lainer, Weber, Garger, Brauneder; Hrstic, Kranjcar, Kienast, Weinhofer (Panenka 67); Pacult (Gröss 60), Krankl
Referee: Casarin (Italy)
Everton made the bee line to collect the Cup and after that it was just joy and fun.
Well deserved Cup Winners Cup.
One can pose with whatever funny hat after such triumph.
The losing finalists. Standing: Peter Pacult, Karl Brauneder, Zlatko Kranjcar, Kurt Garger and Hans Krankl.
First row: Leo Lainer, Peter Hrstic, Heribert Weber, Michael Konsel, Rudi Weinhofer and Reinhard Kienast.
One can argue that Rapid was mostly lucky – they had easier draws than Everton and were actually eliminated by Celtic. Then again, Celtic fans should have known better than propelling missiles to visiting players and if the Scots were really the better team, they should have won the extra game – after all, Manchester was almost home ground. Rapid won when it mattered, bravely came back after big loss from Dynamo (Dresden) and eliminated all opponents. It was good squad with enough bite, lead by Hans Krankl and the Yugoslav star Zlatko Kranjcar. Antonin Panenka was too old, but healso came to help. Too bad Everton was too strong – lovely effort by Rapid, but they were the weaker team.
As for Everton, this was one of their greatest – if not the best ever – season. Champions of England and Cup Winners Cup winners. First European trophy, backed up with a title, promised more excitement and higher aims next year – the European Champions Cup. The squad was wonderful and not even at its peak yet – most players are well known now, so just a brief note about Pat van den Hauwe: he was born outside England, but his parents were British citizen, so he was too. Should have been Belgian, nut had nothing to do with this country – he grew up in England, started his career there, and his strong play for Everton led to invitation to join two national teams: England and Belgium. He turned down both and chose to represent Wales, which led to speculations about his ancestry for years – until he wrote his autobiography and revealed he had no Welsh roots at all. Anyway, with this team and recent success, Everton was rightly looking for future conquests and their disappointment was great, because it was their city neighbours cutting Everton’s soaring short: UEFA banished all English teams from playing in Europe right after Everton’s victory. Too bad… Too bad in one more sense: English clubs were the strongest in Europe – since 1963-64 there was no English finalist in at least one European final only in 1982-83 (and that without counting the Scottish finalists and winners). Including 1984-85, English teams played at 29 finals, winning 21 of them. No other country had such consistent success and only the UEFA ban stopped it. If not for Liverpool’s fans, who knows what Everton could have achieved. But that was that… one Cup Winners Cup.