Alan Ball 12 May 1945 - 25 April 2007

This Month We Are Remembering the Legendary Alan Ball, Who Tragically Passed Away 10 Years Ago. So Many of Bally’s Former Teammates Still Recall Him as the Best Player They Ever Shared a Dressing Room With and, by Way of a Tribute, We Are Reproducing an Interview He Did for a Football Annual in 1971. It Is Ironic That Bally Clearly Shared the Passion for Developing Young Players That Is So Prevalent at Everton Fc Today…
 

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“My boss at Everton, Harry Catterick, believes that the most satisfying thing for a manager is to watch a boy develop from a member of the ground staffinto a fully-fledged first-team player and maybe even an international.

To watch a youngster step through the gates of our Bellefield training centre as a wide-eyed innocent 15year old and then, in a few short years, see him step on to Goodison Park four miles away and hold his own against some of the best players in the world reflects tremendous credit on the club.

For years our club was associated with big-money transfers and it is a fact that Mr Catterick made some spectacular swoops. I was one of them. But these headline-making deals tended to obscure the fact that we have a lot of home-produced talent at Everton.

Of the 14 players mainly involved in bringing the championship to Goodison in 1970, eight of them came through the ranks. Tommy Wright, Brian Labone, Colin Harvey, Alan Whittle and Joe Royle are all Liverpoolborn lads who joined the club from local schoolboy football. John Hurst and Roger Kenyon are from Blackpool and Jimmy Husband from Newcastle.