Reunion man Ratcliffe rolls back years

FA Cup third round: Blue-remembered thrills inspire Everton old boy to dream the implausible with Shrewsbury

A pitchside advert at Shrewsbury Town's compact and exotically named stadium, Gay Meadow, extols the virtues of Shropshire Lad – "Beer with a kick!" A kick was what Shrewsbury's manager, Kevin Ratcliffe, delivered to his team in the wake of a 6-0 defeat at Boston United last weekend; that the blow had been well-aimed was evident in the 4-1 Boxing Day victory over Bury.

As the season's best attendance of 4,175 exited on a cheerful buzz following the season's best win, Ratcliffe was able to pronounce satisfaction, if not delirious joy. Of the six-goal humiliation by the League's newest club, he admitted: "I didn't think we could sink as low as that." Four goals in the Bury net prompted the further comment: "If you want a reply after Boston, that's the reply you want to see." It was certainly a reply Ratcliffe was pleased to catch sight of, since the next visitors to Gay Meadow on Saturday, in the third round of the FA Cup, are Everton, the club he led to a fistful of honours in the last era of Goodison glory in the mid-Eighties.

Two League championships, the FA Cup and the European Cup-Winners' Cup were all annexed under Ratcliffe's captaincy, so it is fair comment that he is looking forward to the occasion. "For me, it could not have worked out sweeter," he smiled.

Because of the obvious connections, he has arranged pre-season friendly visits by Everton in the three years he has been managing Shrewsbury, the most recent one ending in a 3-0 win for David Moyes's Premiership side. "But those matches were nothing of this magnitude," he said. "It's the only time in my career I haven't wanted them to win the FA Cup. That in itself is a feat, because the first result I always look for, other than those in our own division, is Everton's. And it always will be, even if I go on to manage at a higher level. When you spend half your life with one club you have got to have feelings for it."

Having played for the youth team at 15, Ratcliffe spent 11 years, from 1980 to 1991, as an Everton professional. The official records give him 359 League appearances and the Everton website marks up a total of 461 games for Ratcliffe, but he is certain he fell just a couple of outings short of 500.

"I was looking at it yesterday, actually, because my missus bought me an Everton book as a Christmas present. For a start, I played 59 FA Cup games. I am a bit disappointed not to have reached 500, because I could have made it so easily. I remember towards the end of one season I missed a game against Luton, mainly because I was feeling a bit tired, so the manager left me out."

Ratcliffe's happiest memory of Everton is the second championship, collected in 1987, "because the second one is always the hardest, and the previous season we had missed out on the Double to Liverpool, by two points in the League and 3-1 in the Cup final. Two games cost us the Double, Liverpool at Wembley and a League match at Oxford, where we felt bitterly robbed by a penalty. Gary Lineker missed a few chances as well, considering he had scored 40-odd goals that year. I thought, 'I'm going to strangle the bugger'."

Failure certainly wouldn't have been for want of trying on Ratcliffe's part. One of his central defensive partners, Dave Watson, recalled: "Kevin read the game so well, his distribution was great and as a captain he had the lot. He would organise the team on the pitch and off it and the lads looked up to him." Andy Gray sums Ratcliffe up as "one of the most capable and commanding defenders I've seen. Over short distances Kevin was unbeatable, the Carl Lewis of Goodison".

Subsequently, Everton's Carl Lewis meandered, rather than sprinted, towards the end of his career, with spells at Dundee, Cardiff, Nottingham Forest and Derby, before ending up at Chester. "Eventually in 1995 I was appointed player-manager at Chester, but I never actually played when I managed. It was very difficult to do both, and the Third Division was a hard place to anybody who had played at a higher level.

"I say to the people I have here at Shrewsbury, like Mark Atkins, Ian Woan and Nigel Jemson, who have played in the higher divisions, 'I don't know how you do it because it was so frustrating for me'. Your mind still thinks quick but your legs don't, and when you make a mistake nobody is covering you. That's why I stopped playing at 34, I wasn't enjoying it. I preferred reserve-team football, helping the kids. I felt I was getting something out of that, and so were they.

"I hated playing Third Division football. I had never hated football before, but I did then."

Having just completed his third calendar year as Shrewsbury manager, Ratcliffe, now 42, readily admits: "My ambitions definitely lie in a higher division, but frustratingly I see it slipping away." The reason, he says, is that few managers of his generation, with the exception of Moyes and Steve McClaren, have been able to land jobs in the top section.

"People like Ron Atkinson, Jim Smith and Howard Kendall used to be able to work their way through the divisions. That's how you learned your trade. Now that sort of thing hardly happens." He cites the statistic that in recent years 16 Everton players have gone on to become managers. "But there aren't many left at the moment: me, Dave Jones [Wolves] and Andy King [Swindon]. That's about it."

Moyes, who will be returning to a ground where he was once a player, is much admired by Ratcliffe. "We met on holiday years ago and we have kept in touch since he was a coach at Preston. Everton have done excellently this season, it has given the fans something to talk about. Dave has worked wonders with relatively the same squad he inherited. I am pleased for the feller, because if he makes a success of that there is a chance for other managers who, like him, came from a lower division."

With today's derby game at Wrexham and a Wednesday-night visit to Rushden and Diamonds, Ratcliffe has other pressing concerns before the Everton Cup-tie. But he is adamant it will not be his biggest occasion at the club. "I am sorry, but the biggest for me was the last game of my first season here, Exeter away, when we needed to win and rely on other teams to help us stay up.

"Believe me, if there is pressure in being relegated from the Premiership, there is a lot more pressure in being relegated out of the League altogether. That was a big game." It was a game Shrewsbury won to stay in the League. If they hadn't, like Shropshire Lad, the kicks would have been flying.