CITY 1 EVERTON 1
League Division 1
20th March 1982
Attendance 33,002
Scorers
City Bond(6)
Everton Heath(5)
ref Derek Civil
City Corrigan, Ranson, McDonald, Reid, Ryan, Bond, Caton, Francis, Hareide, Hartford, Reeves – sub Jackson(unused)
Everton Southall, Burrows, Ratcliffe, Higgins, Wright, Richardson, Irvine, Heath, Sharpe, McMahon Ross – sub Ainscow(unused)
TREVOR FRANCIS IS SENT OFF
FROM THE PRESS BOX
HEADS – AND CITY LOSE
Patrick Barclay writing in The Guardian 22nd March 1982 Trevor Francis and Manchester City may pay heavily for the England striker’s incongruous act of violence on Saturday. Francis who butted the Everton captain Billy Wright, will be automatically suspended by the FA and fined by his club, whose playing resources are becoming as threadbare as their finances.
If John Bond decides to make the promised internal punishment fit a crime that will keep Francis out of home matches against West Ham United and Liverpool next month, he could levy the maximum fine: two weeks or, in the case of Britain’s most highly rewarded players, an estimated £3,000.
It would take a hard heart not to feel some sympathy for all parties, Francis certainly deserved to be sent off by Derek Civil, who handled a difficult match well but his reaction to jostling by Everton players after challenging the goalkeeper, Southall, was grotesquely out of character.
Bond, who had two other players, McDonald and his son Kevin, appearing before the FA today for reaching 20 points, creditably made no attempt to defend the butt: “If a son of mine did something like that I’d take him behind a hedge and give him a good hiding.”
He added, however, some words of understanding: “Trevor’s just back from injury and he has said privately that he’s been worried about his contribution to this club in terms of games played. He also took some of the tackles he doesn’t relish (Higgins was cautioned for one) but you can rest assured of one thing, this is the first and last time this will happen. You could not say that about every player, but Trevor is one of the game’s good guys.”
Amen to that. The pity was that the incident killed the high promise of a match which had begun with two marvelous goals.