Roy Evans - The Biography

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A Biography

Roy Evans was born in Bootle, Liverpool on October 4th 1948. A keen and talented footballer from the word go, Roy represented England schoolboys at left back in 1963 before signing apprentice forms with his home town club a years later at the age of 16.

It was to be a long 4 and a half years before the breakthrough to the ranks of the first team was made though, with Evans finally making his debut on March 16th 1970 against Sheffield Wednesday in a league game at Anfield. Liverpool won 3-0 and in many ways it marked the summit of Roy Evans' playing career. The line up that day read:

Clemence, Lawler, R.Evans, Smith, Yeats, Hughes, Thompson, Livermore, A.Evans, Callaghan, Graham

Like so many before him and so many since, England schoolboy honours proved no guarantee of success in the professional game. He was to go on and make a mere 11 appearances in total for the Reds' first team between 1970 and 1974, his best run of games being 4 consecutive starts early in the 1970-71 season.

Bill Shankly's shock resignation from the managerial hot seat in the summer of 1974 catapulted a nervous Bob Paisley into the Liverpool manager's position. It was common knowledge that Paisley did not care much for the job of manager and had to be persuaded against his better judgement to take the role on.

The Shankly bombshell had rocked everyone connected with the club and Bob Paisley wasn't the only man finding himself with new responsibilities. Those other Boot Room stalwarts Ronnie Moran and Joe Fagan were also to assume new roles for the coming season.

Still, perhaps the biggest shock of all was meted out to Roy Evans. At the age of 25 and with a fast stalling playing career to deal with Evans was offered a coaching position and the chance to reinvent his whole career. The recognition of Evans' coaching potential was a brilliantly inspired piece of insight, credited largely to Shankly, but undoubtedly the brainchild of new manager Paisley.

The boardroom gave this whole hearted endorsement of Roy Evans' move from player to back room staff. "We have appointed someone who will one day be a manager of this club", said chairman John Smith. Evans had been given the new role of reserve team trainer and though initially disappointed to be facing the early end to his playing career, it became a position he accepted with growing relish.

In an impressive 9 year period from 1975 to 1983, Evans' reserve side won 7 Central League titles. Those years coincided with the peak years of the Boot Room, when the club looked impregnable. Everyone around at the time basked in the thought that the glory years would roll on for ever.

But just as Bill Shankly's time at Anfield came to an inevitable end, so too did Bob Paisley's. The 1982-83 season was to be his last in charge - more changes were around the corner.

Joe Fagan now assumed the manager's position, just reward for his years of service to the club and Roy Evans stepped up from reserve team trainer to first team coach. He was still only 34.

Fagan's reign was short and ended in apalling fashion with 39 Juventus supporters lying dead in Belgium's Heysel Stadium, crushed by a collapsing wall at the 1985 European Cup final. Nobody knew it at the time but it was the beginning of the end for the Boot Room empire.

Kenny Dalglish was duly appointed the club's first ever player-manager, with Ronnie Moran as his assistant and Roy Evans retaining his first team coaching duties. For a time, it worked like a dream. Domestic silverware flowed into Anfield at a seemingly faster rate than ever before, but the European ban was exacting a silent and unseen toll. The club was losing it's edge.

The Hillsborough tragedy in April 1989 was the fatal blow, knocking the stuffing out of the club and more pointedly it's young manager Dalglish. By the early 1990s, worn out by the sheer stresses and strains of guiding the club through those difficult days, Dalglish's health was deteriorating. He resigned in the spring of 1991 after a fabulous 4:4 draw with Everton in a 5th round F.A.Cup tie at Goodsion.

Ronnie Moran stepped in to take the reigns, assisted by Roy Evans, until a new manager could be found. That man was Graeme Souness, a hero of the Paisley and Dalgish eras, and he was invited down from his job at Glasgow Rangers to take charge in April 1991.

Roy Evans reverted back to first team coach as Souness brought in his own right hand man, ex 1970s Liverpool player Phil Boersma, but the decline of the club was now manifesting itself with results on the pitch. Souness could do nothing to arrest it. Indeed for much of the time he appeared to be making things worse with his overly aggressive attitude and poor press relations.

At the start of the 1993-94 season an anxious board, concerned by the declining fortunes of the team, asked Roy Evans to step up to assistant manager. It was a clear signal to Souness that a new man was waiting in the wings.

An F.A. Cup defeat at Anfield administered by lowly Bristol City in 1994 was the last straw for the board who terminated Souness' contract. Roy Evans was finally apointed manager, some 30 years after signing for the club as an apprentice. Chairman David Moores described Evans as "the last of the Shankly lads."

For a time the clouds around Anfield were blown away. After the strife of the Souness years, Roy Evans' tenure offered a return to Boot Room values. He had steadied a ship that was heading unceremoniously for the rocks. Now it seemed all he had to do was steer a straight and true course and the glories would return.

But it was far from plain sailing. The club had lost it's place amongst Europe's elite. The European ban, imposed after Heysel, had left Liverpool lagging far behind the continent's best. After the ban had been lifted the club were hampered by heavy handed new ruling that insisted each team play 6 national born players in their sides. Liverpool, with a strong Scots, Irish and Welsh contingent were hit hard.

A 8th place league finish in 1994 saw the club fail to even qualify for Europe for the 1994-95 season, Evans' first full season as manager. At the height of the Boot Room era that would have been simply unthinkable.

Domestically Manchester United, Leeds and Blackburn Rovers were now ruling the roost. A League Cup triumph in 1995 enabled the Reds return to UEFA Cup competition but it was all rather meagre fare for the fans more used to the heady European Cup exploits of a decade earlier.

Defeat in the final of the F.A. Cup in 1996 against arch-rivals Manchester United was a bitter pill to swallow and the club followed it with another season of promise turning to the disappointment of a 4th place league finish.

There were to be no more cup finals either, though a spirited show in the European Cup Winners Cup competition in 1996 took the Reds close to a first appearance in its final since the days of Shankly, Hunt and St.John in 1966, as they went out in the semi final stage to Paris St. Germain.

Evans toiled on as manager for several more seasons, and the club oscillated it's league position between 4th and 3rd. It was a decent showing by any standards, and certainly had today's qualifying criteria applied then, it was a consistent enough showing to have ensured Champions League football for four years running. The attendant money and kudos brought into the club may well have made all the difference as far as attracting the top European stars to Anfield, stars who were beginning to play their football in England, attracted by the new money and vibrancy of the English game.

Alas it was not to be. Champions League football continued to elude the club and the big stars preferred to head for Old Trafford or the bright lights of London.

The start of the 1998-99 season saw Frenchman Gerard Houllier appointed joint manager alongside Evans. It was a bold move by the board, a move that signified a recognition of how out of touch with modern methods the club had become. Houllier had received plaudits for masterminding the rennaissance of French football and it was hoped his presence alongside Evans could lead to a fusion of Boot Room and modern football thinking.

Of course it couldn't work. The two managers could not see eye to eye on the big issues and Evans, sensing that he was in a no win situation, decided to quit in November 1998 leaving Houllier in sole charge. It was a sad and disappointing end to his 34 year association with the club.

In an emotional press conference on the 12th of November 1998, Roy Evans talked about not wanting to be a 'ghost on the wall' at Anfield. After a short break from the game he spent a few weeks at Fulham helping out ex-colleague Karl Heinz Reidle who had become caretaker manager in the wake of Paul Bracewell's sacking.

Then, in August 2001 Evans was appointed Director of Football at Swindon Town overseeing new manager Neal Ruddock, another ex-Red. Again the role was short lived, Evans resigning after 6 happy months following the collapse of a business deal that would have pumped much needed money into the club.

For Roy Evans

He gave us Steve Macmanaman
He groomed us Michael Owen
He tried to give us back the past
But couldn't keep it going

He nurtured Robbie Fowler
Whose star no longer shines
But Macateer and Collymore
Should not be brought to mind!

The Boot Room seemed the very place
To find our saviours birth
But the titles would not come
And the Reds they limped home third

With Ince and Redknapp third was last
First is where we belong
But when the Royster watches now
He must think "What in Christ did I do wrong?"

© Sharon Marshall

Read the poems of Sharon Marshall at footballpoets.org

Ghost On The Wall

The authorised biography
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Roy Evans - at a glance

Oct 1948: Born Bootle, Liverpool
1963: Plays left back for England schoolboys
1964: Signed apprentice terms for Liverpool
Jul 1974: Appointed Reserve team trainer at age 25
Jul 1983: Wins 7th Central League title in 9 years
Jul 1983: Appointed 1st team coach
Aug 1993: Appointed 1st team assistant manager
Mar 1994: Appointed manager
Aug 1998: Becomes joint manager with Gerard Houllier
Nov 1998: Resigned

Honours:

1973 - NASL Winners
1995 - League Cup Winners
1996 - F.A. Cup finalists
1997 - Cup Winners' Cup semi-finalists