I had regrets about moving to Everton for a long time – they weren’t the club I wanted to join
I had regrets about moving to Everton for a long time – they weren’t the club I wanted to join
Henry Newton, a former Everton footballer, turned 80 today, but he had hardships at Goodison Park before going on to win a league championship. Many happy returns to Henry Newton on his 80th birthday. It seems that Evertonians saw Newton’s “crime” as being that he wasn’t Alan Ball, Howard Kendall, Colin Harvey, or Colin Harvey.
Newton was born in Nottingham on February 18, 1944, just days before the final heavy air raids on London during World War II and a week that would see HMS Warwick torpedoed off the Cornish coast, killing 66 men, more than half of her crew. Newton would play 281 games for his hometown club, Forest, scoring 17 goals.
Harvey arrived with a good reputation, but like Kendall, he was an England Under-23 international who, in an era where Alf Ramsey stuck to his tried and true alternatives, never received any senior caps. “Harry Catterick paid a premium price (Martin Peters and Allan Clarke were the only two British players to have cost more) for one of the best midfield players in the country when he signed Henry Newton from Nottingham Forest in October 1970
,” writes Ivan Ponting in his Everton Player by Player book. Newton’s time on Merseyside “must go down as an anti-climatic interlude in an accomplished career.”
An all-around football player who could have easily fit into the engine room of any top team, Ponting continued, was quick and bold, adept in the tackle, and a useful passer. Thus, with his exceptional skill set, what prevented Newton from succeeding at Goodison Park?
He was not a member of the esteemed “Holy Trinity,” as previously mentioned.
Given the reverence shown to Everton’s most renowned midfield trio—who had just led the team to the League Championship in the months preceding Newton’s arrival—it would appear that Newton would always have an uphill battle to overcome the Gwladys Street crowd. In his book Money Can’t Buy Us Love, Gavin Buckland echoes Ponting’s ideas and provides more context for understanding why such an Probably a costly buy that was bad for both of them. He writes: “The 26-year-old spoiler was a strong addition to a team short on midfield defensive cover
He was strong in the tackle and a more than decent passer of the ball, with a shot known as ‘Enry’s ‘Ammer.'”Similar to the former target, Dave Connor, the Forest player was also skilled in man-marking. The fact that Catterick defeated Brian Clough to get the player to sign his contract was also satisfying. Nevertheless,
Newton acknowledged when he left the team in 1973 that he had requested a transfer to the Baseball Ground, something the Everton manager was most likely ignorant of. “I was very disappointed that Derby didn’t succeed in signing me three years ago,” Newton asserted.
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