Howard era
Howard Kendall, Bayern and the 1985 Roar
The Kendall era is where Everton history stops being polite and starts shaking the room. Mid-1980s Everton were not a nice little story. They were powerful, balanced, hungry and horrible to play against, with Goodison acting less like a venue and more like a weather system.
The Bayern Munich night in 1985 carries that feeling best. Supporters still talk about it with the half-smile people use when they know a younger listener will not fully believe them. Goodison was not just loud; it felt as if the stands were pushing attacks forward by force.
Kendall built a side with rhythm and bite: Southall behind them, Ratcliffe's authority, Reid's fire, Steven and Sheedy giving width and delivery, Sharp and Gray making centre-halves live miserable lives. It was football with shoulders back.
The league title, the European Cup Winners' Cup and the near-treble are the honours-board version. The fan version is more vivid: night air, blue shirts under floodlights, Bayern beginning to wobble, the old ground feeling as if it had remembered exactly what it was built for.
This is the standard that makes Everton history so heavy. It is not nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. It is proof that Everton have been elite, feared and beautifully sure of themselves. That memory should make the present braver, not smaller.
The great thing about Kendall's Everton is that the side had more than one way to hurt you. They could run over teams, pass through them, cross around them, defend with authority, and turn Goodison into a place where opponents began to look smaller by the minute.
That Bayern night has survived because it was not only a result. It was a shared physical memory: the old ground hot with noise, players feeding off it, and supporters realising they were not watching a good Everton side but a frightening one.
Modern Everton talk often begins with limits: money, injuries, recruitment, points, pressure. The Kendall years are the antidote. They are the reminder that the club has been bigger than survival and that ambition is not a luxury word in blue.