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WATCH: The late, great Howard Kendall's emotional goodbye to Athletic Bilbao

On Saturday, Everton fans were informed of the sad news that their most successful manager had pa...
Newstalk
Newstalk

15.02 19 Oct 2015


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WATCH: The late, great Howard...

WATCH: The late, great Howard Kendall's emotional goodbye to Athletic Bilbao

Newstalk
Newstalk

15.02 19 Oct 2015


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On Saturday, Everton fans were informed of the sad news that their most successful manager had passed away.

Howard Kendall (69) was the cornerstone of side that enjoyed great success in the 1980s, winning league titles in 1985 and 1987, as well as 1984 FA Cup and the '85 Cup Winners Cup.

The one thing that can often be raised about his Everton side is that they were unfortunate to peak at the time when the post-Heysel ban on English clubs was taking effect for five years from 1985.

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Given that English clubs had won seven of the nine previous European Cups, Everton would likely have been in the conversation for winning that competition.

That ban did impact on Kendall, who made the move to La Liga side Athletic Bilbao as a result in 1987, with the ex-Everton and Preston player telling Sky Sports in an interview about his time in the Basque Country: " ... all of a sudden, looking forward to the European Cup, as it was then, the challenge had been taken away [by the ban on English clubs in Europe]. And I really enjoyed the European scene. I'd signed a pre-contract with Barcelona the year before".

Athletic had won the Spanish league title back-to-back in 1983 and '84 (the last time they won a trophy of note) but while he says he was not particularly frustrated by the club's Basque-only player policy, they could not recapture that glory under Kendall.

In that interview with Sky Sports, Kendall looked back on the reasons why his time at Athletic lasted no longer than two and a half years, before this emotional goodbye when he left the Basque club in 1989: 


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