Wednesday marks three years since Howard Kendall’s sudden passing.
Here, Click Liverpool has reproduced the touching eulogy given by Bill Kenwright to Everton’s greatest ever manager at Liverpool Cathedral on October 29, 2015:
He was my idol for over 50 years. He was the nation’s idol when he played at 17 in that cup final for Preston .He was my friend for over 30 years and as I sit down there I wonder, am I here as a chairman, as a friend, or as a fan?
But the one thing I do know is the feeling is one of overwhelming privilege at being an Evertonian; at seeing the turnout today for Howard. People have come from all over the world. It doesn’t surprise one of us but it does identify the joy of our football club and the people who bring something special to it.
When I hear Reidy (Peter Reid), Diamond (Graham Stuart), Big Dunc (Duncan Ferguson) and Joe (Royle) talk, I realise they are my family. This is my family and it was Jim Greenwood and Howard Kendall and Colin Harvey who were the first people to give me the blessing, the privilege, of being a member of the Everton family. A privilege I have never taken for granted and a privilege which guides me in my life.
As a fan, he was the best. What a player he was! He was my kind of midfielder. He was just immaculate. When he went for the ball, he got the ball. He could also make the killer pass but he was also a pragmatist; he had no flimflam about him.
He said often, ‘Bally (Alan Ball) was the greatest player I ever played with. Colin (Harvey) was the best footballer I ever played with.. I was just the meat and potatoes between the two of them; the defensive midfielder holding it all together’. He wasn’t. He was the best kind of midfield rock you could ever have.
I can remember how shattered I was when he went to Birmingham, not long after Bally had gone to Arsenal. We’d lost the pair of them but Colin was still there and we still had one of the greatest midfield trio in football history at that time. We’d lost, as Reidy said, the greatest midfielder never to be capped by England – extraordinary.
And as Evertonians do, we followed his career. You don’t just leave Everton, we go with you a certain step of the way. We followed his career through other places, Birmingham, Stoke – and then we all marvelled at how well he was doing at Blackburn. In 1981, he came home. He came back to us and to manage us, it wasn’t an easy time for Everton. Don’t forget that we’d finished 15th the year before.
It wasn’t even an easy time for football. The big money, certainly the big television [influence] had not come in and the attendances were not good; not only at Goodison. But he steadied the ship and in his first season he got us from 15th to eighth position. A very good start. Second season he did a bit better – he got us to seventh.
But he wanted the top. The third season, as Reidy has said, wasn’t a good one. It was an uneasy start, we couldn’t get a victory and funnily enough it was 32 years ago this week that the first grumblings started. It was when we drew against Chesterfield at home 2-2 in the second round of a League Cup tie and the leaflets appeared.
Howard, like anyone, was thrown by the grumblings but he understood that things were not good. As Reidy has said, much more eloquently and much funnier than I could, the progress at Christmas was horrible. i spoke to him during that time and we talked about the difference between, as he put it, a team or a man who could see greatness, even touch greatness, but not claim greatness as its own.
He said to me the word that Reidy repeated more than anything he said in his wonderful eulogy is ‘Belief – you’ve got to believe’. And he believed; he truly believed. But he needed someone to stand by him and he found that man in [chairman] Philip Carter. Philip Carter gave him more than a vote of confidence. He gave him the hand of friendship and that was important to Howard.
As we know, Christmas was horrible. None of us will forget the Coventry game. The Stoke City cup tie shows more about that man than anything I could ever tell you. What kind of genius – because that’s what it is. I don’t what rule book it comes from, I don’t know what manual it comes from but to open a slat and say ‘Listen – just listen tho them. Do it for them’. He understood. His team understood.
Reidy’s played down a little the Oxford cup tie. it was mammoth. It was the quarter final – and we all know how important quarter finals are to Evertonians – and we were going out to a Third Division club.
The reason I bring this up is for the last few months, I’ve had to spend a lot of time in my own in a bedroom or somewhere else, and I’ve discovered that thing called YouTube. I’ve looked at Inchy’s (Adrian Heath) goal and Kevin Brock’s back-pass. It wasn’t by chance.
Reidy knew just what he was doing when he went towards Kevin Brock and stopped where he was going. Inchy knew exactly what he was doing when he picked up that goal. And you know and I know that was not an easy goal. That was from an angle, that was on a heavy pitch.
It was a just a great, great goal and a great moment for Evertonians. Possibly the greatest moment for Evertonians because from then, the world changed. It totally changed.
I think we lost three games before the end of that season. We played the Reds in the Milk Cup. We were better than them but didn’t win. Then we beat Watford and we won the FA Cup for the first time [since 1966].
Howard, like all of us, had his demons. I remember again he said to me ‘Bill, you know the best and worst moment of my life was when I held that cup above my head for the first time and went ‘what now? I’ve got it, what now?’
Well ‘what now’ for Howard Kendall was the stuff that dreams are made of.
Wembley Stadium became known as Goodison South to the Evertonians. I think we were there nine times in the next four or five years. Charity Shield, FA Cups, League Cups – it was a home.
We went on to dominate European football. The most coveted team in the land – the most admired team for the way they seemed to play for each other, they way they seem to play for us.
The way we were together as a unit, as a team, as Everton Football Club. Who was responsible for that? Howard Kendall, and you guys (the players). But for what he brought to us at that time was extraordinary.
For us to be titled, to be given a plaque saying we are the best team in world football, for Howard to get Manager of the Year, for Big Nev (Neville Southall) to get Player of the Year, for Reidy to get Player of the Year. It went on and on and on.
We were in absolute dreamland and we loved every single second of it. As we know, after six years, we couldn’t get into Europe and Howard decided to move on. For his own reasons, I never understood them but he moved on to Bilbao.
But three years later he came back and he graced us again with some fantastic games at Goodison. I never thought that was the finest hour of Everton Football Club when he left, but he left.
My final memory of Howard as a manager is probably my most vivid. Joe had sadly, very sadly, come to the end of his time at Everton and we were obviously looking for a new manager. We had a meeting at Parkfoods, when Peter Johnson went through the list and it was a list of two people – it was Andy Gray and Howard.
The night before, Howard had phoned me and said ‘Listen mate, do me a favour – if it’s not to be me could you let me know first because I just need to know from you’. And I said ‘Yeah, of course I will’.
We had the meeting and it was unanimous. We said it was going to be Andy. I went out and went into the toilet because I didn’t want anyone to know and I called him.
I said, ‘H, I’m sorry – it’s not going to be you. It’s going to be Andy’. Ever the pragmatist, he said ‘Thanks mate, thanks ever so much for calling me, I appreciate it’.
Twenty-four hours later, 8.30 at night, Peter Johnson phoned me at home and he said ‘Sky have made Andy an unbelievable offer and he thinks he’s got to remain loyal to them so he’s going to stay. Would you give Howard a ring?’ I said ‘Yeah, I’d love to’.
So I rang him and he wasn’t at home – he was in Magaluf. I think he’d gone to drown his whatevers!
That started a night I’ll never forget. I rang Doc Irvine, who was a great mate of his:
I said, ‘Doc, any idea where Howard is?’
‘He’s in Magaluf’
I said ‘I know. What hotel?’
He gave me the name of the hotel. I rang the hotel and they said ‘Oh no no – he’s not here in the evenings’. I said ‘Okay – any idea where?’ and I promise you, he gave me a few bars so I left messages all over Magaluf for him.
Eventually I thought, ‘Oh well. Tomorrow, whatever’
One o’clock in the morning… ‘Hiya mate!’
‘Hiya, H – will you come home and manage us?’ And there was that long pause.
He said: ‘So proud. So proud’ – I’ll never forget it.
I said ‘Want to talk about money? Contract?’
He said ‘No, don’t need to. Just give me what’s right. You’ll never let me down. Everton will never let me down. See you in the morning.’
We did a press conference the next day. I met him at the airport and he wore the worst lime green shirt you could ever see. He’d obviously not changed from the night [before].
I said ‘H, you cannot…’
He said: I’m home. It doesn’t matter. Just give me a tie’.
They found the worst tie ever and the immaculate Howard Kendall in amazing technicolour dream shirt went on in front of Evertonians and he was back home. He would admit – and we would admit – it wasn’t the right time for him but he remained Everton. He was always Everton.
When Jon [Woods] and I took over, we made sure he was back in the box every week with us. So many times I’d say ‘Come and sit with us on the front row’. ‘No mate, I’m fine here. I’m fine at the back here. It’s where I want to be.’
He wanted to be at Everton. That’s all he wanted. When I got the call two Saturdays ago and I heard the news, I just knew what Goodison Park was going to be like that day. I’d missed it more than I could ever tell you for the last six months.
But that day I just knew there was going to be the biggest cloud imaginable over the place. And indeed there was. We mourned him so very, very much. We loved him so very, very much.
We have a very, very tiny guest lounge at Everton where Howard used to sit with his mate every week. He had a little table with his glass of wine on and his programme – right in the corner. Joe would be with him, Snods (Ian Snodin) would walk in, Reidy…
But it was Howard’s little table in the corner; in the alcove. And on that afternoon, they turned Howard’s stool to the wall, put his glass there, put his programme there and they sent me a photo of it. Typical Everton.
Typical of Howard that two weeks before that day, he rang me to see [if] I was alright. He left me a message saying ‘Mate, I’m just thinking of you. I hope you’re alright. I hope we see you soon. Stay strong. Love you. You’ll get back to us.’
Three weeks before, typical Everton fashion, they did me a video for my 70th birthday and there was Howard on it, joking about the fact that he had realised that he was younger than me and he was thrilled with that. And he was younger than me by about eight months!
But what was it about him that made him the legend that he was? I’ll tell you what it was, he understood us. He understood Everton. He got us. I don’t know about other football clubs. I know other football fans feel but I don’t know if they feel the way I feel.
But I know Howard knew how I felt. I know Howard would understand if he drove past a placard that says ‘Evertonians do not choose – they are chosen’. Howard got it. And he wanted his team to get it. He loved the camaraderie of team. He loved being surrounded with people. He loved his players.
He would love the fact that you’ve all come here today. I look round and it’s gobsmacking to me as a fan to see you all; to see the kids, the first-team, Andy (Gray).
He loved Colin (Harvey), he loved Jim Greenwood, he loved Everton – and we loved him. That’s what made him great; the greatest manager in the history of our football club.
And it’s football that will help us get over the grief of [losing] Howard. We’ll never get over it but football will carry Howard through with us forever. He was a husband, a dad, a friend an amazing man who, as everyone has said, had time for everyone.
But to us, he was just the greatest player, he was the greatest manager in our history. More than anything, he was a Blue. Thank you, H – for everything.