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Howard Kendall


Legend as a player and a manager. Managing the club to European Cup Winners Cup glory.

Originally a defender, Kendall joined Everton for £80,000 in March 1967 where he was moved into midfield with Alan Ball and Colin Harvey. This famous trio (given the nickname The Holy Trinity) were a major component of the Everton team that won the Football League First Division in the 1969-70 season. In the next three seasons, Kendall captained Everton. He was transferred to Birmingham City in February 1974 and later to Stoke City in August 1977 for a fee of £40,000. Kendall was made player-coach at Stoke in February 1978 and played a pivotal role in the 1978-79 season when Stoke won promotion to the First Division.

To the amazement of many, Kendall never played for England at senior level, but won caps at Schoolboy, Youth and Under-23 level, captaining the England Youth side to victory in the 1964 Little World Cup Final

May 1981 Kendall returned to Everton as player-manager, although he only played four games before finally retiring as a player. Initially he struggled and was on the verge of being sacked in January 1984 when results began to pick up with Everton reaching the Milk Cup final (losing to Liverpool) and winning the FA Cup (beating Watford) later that season.

In 1984/85 Everton won the League Championship, finishing 13 points clear of runners-up Liverpool and the European Cup-Winners' Cup and reached the final of the League Cup. Everton narrowly failed to win both the League and the FA Cup in 1985-86 – second in both to Liverpool, but in 1986-87 won the League again., nine points of clear of Liverpool as Merseyside continued it's stranglehold on the English game.

Kendall left Everton in 1987, frustrated by the ban from Europe of English clubs, to manage Athletic Bilbao in Spain. He was not a great success at Bilbao, not helped by limitations on the players he could sign for the Basque club. He turned down an offer to manage Newcastle United to remain in Spain, but was sacked in November 1989 after a poor run of results.

The following month he returned to England as manager of Manchester City, before returning to Everton in November 1990. He was less successful the second time around, resigning in December 1993 after a row about money for a signing. He was appointed manager of Notts County in 1995 but was sacked after less than three months.

He became manager of Sheffield United on December 13,1995, replacing Dave Bassett who had resigned the day before. He inherited a team next to bottom but proceeded to change the team personnel so drastically that a record number of players represented the Blades that season. The style of play was changed too and United pulled away from the relegation zone.

The following season started with new optimism and Chairman Mike McDonald gave Kendall around £3 million to spend but injuries to key personnel meant that the dream of promotion died in the play-off final. Kendall left on June 24, 1997, returning to Everton for an unprecedented third time as manager but only managed to avoid relegation on the last day of the season. He resigned from Everton in 1998 and in November that year was set to take over as manager of Spanish side Jerez. However, the move was put on hold due to a ban on foreign coaches in Jerez's division. Kendall instead joined Greek side Ethnikos Piraeus, but was sacked in March 1999 after only four months in charge and with Ethnikos 8 points adrift at the bottom of the Greek First Division.

Kendall was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2005 in recognition of his contribution as a manager to the English game.

To date, Howard Kendall remains the last English manager to win a European trophy with an English club.