CITY 1 EVERTON 1
League Division 1
26th October 1985
Attendance 28,807
Scorers
City Simpson(47)
Everton Heath(35)
Ref K Redfern
City Nixon, Clements, Power, May, McCarthy, Phillips, Lillis, Baker, Davie, McNab, Simpson – sub Melrose(unused)
Everton Mimms, Stevens, Harper, Ratcliffe, Van den Hauwe, Heath, Steven, Lineker, Sharp, Bracewell, Sheedy – sub Richardson(77)
A draw at Maine Road was looked at as a point won by City, but maybe two points lost by Everton. As Patrick Barcay wrote in The Guardian: “The thunderous applause that followed Manchester City down the tunnel… testifies to the existence of two communities in the First Division. For City, an emergent nation with debts that would make the IMF blanch, according to some reports, the wresting of a home point can be cause for celebration. Everton, as members of the elite group, understandably view such results as two points lost.”
Everton were without Reid, Mountfield and Southall, and the keeping duties were to be left in the hands of First Division debutant, England under 21’s Bobby Mimms, and he made some fine saves in a performance that Howard Kendall described as: “as good a debut as you could wish for.”
The Sky Blues dominated the first half hour and should have been at least two up but for the Toffee’s inexperience custodian, however, in the 35th minute, against the run of play, Stevens put in a long hopeful ball into the box which Sharp headed into the path of Adrian Heath, who put Everton 1-0 up, indeed the diminutive striker could have scored again just before the break when he lobbed Nixon only to see his effort bit the bar.
Shortly after the second half kicked off City got what they deserved, whenPaul Simpson scored with a deflected shot from a Nicky Reid cross.
So, despite possibly their best performance of the season City were still in the bottom three.
Billy McNeill’s view was: “It’ll come for us. We showed today that we are capable of getting results at this level.”