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Over the years trips to the ‘great and good’ of the English game had been few and far between. After a long gap a visit to Villa Park in October 1995 was reasonably quickly followed by being pulled out of the hat for a 3rd Round FA Cup tie at Goodison Park three months later. It had been just over 11 years since that night at Anfield when we had run Liverpool so close so another visit to Merseyside was eagerly anticipated, after a passage through the first two rounds with victories over Lincoln City and Blyth Spartans. At that point nobody would have come even near to conceiving that Blyth would be regular opponents in regional football within 20 years.

The game was rearranged for the Sunday of 3rd Round weekend, as Liverpool were also at home on the Saturday. They met Rochdale and beat them 7-0, so as we made our way down the M62 it was with a fervent wish that we weren’t going to suffer the same ignominy. We were hardly in the best of form, with 13 league games since the start of October producing only 3 wins. Everton were 9th in the Premier League – we lay 46 places below them in the hierarchy. It looked a home banker, but with a huge County contingent in place, we saw one of the games that lived long in the memory.

It looked to be going with the form book as Graham Stuart gave the Toffees an early lead but on the half hour mark the County fans were in raptures. A cross field ball was headed back into the danger zone by Ian Helliwell; Chris Beaumont headed it goalwards; Southall parried it and Alun Armstrong smashed it in on the rebound. Parity and we were putting up a great display. A minute before the break a corner into the County box wasn’t cleared, and future Hatters manager, Gary Ablett, seized on it to give Everton a narrow lead at half time.

County continued to play well after the break, and just in the hour mark came one of the defining moments of those years. A superb goal. Lee Todd picked the ball up deep in the Hatters half, played a long cross field pass to Chris Beaumont, who advanced, and then swung the ball into the box. Ian Helliwell stooped and heading it no more than a foot or so above the ground put it beyond Southall. The section of the Bullens Stand occupied by County fans erupted – it was one of THOSE moments, and as clear now as I write, (nearly 25 years later), as it was then.

So a replay it was, at EP 10 days later. Surely there couldn’t be a game as epic. But there was. No Hatters fan who was there that night will forget how exultation turned to despair in the space of 90 seconds, but that is a tale for another day.

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Memories of trips to Goodison Park

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THE GAMES

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Where the date is in bold click for highlights of the game

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	Date	Venue	Ground	Competition		F	A	Att:
Sun	07/01/96	a	Goodison Park	FA Cup (Round 3)	D	2	2	28,921
Wed	17/01/96	h	Edgeley Park	FA Cup (Round 3 (Replay))	L	2	3	11,283
Wed	24/09/03	a	Goodison Park	Carling Cup (Round 2)	L	0	3	19,807

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