When 11,000 fans followed non-league Telford to grand old Goodison

Everton skipper Kevin Ratcliffe watches Paul Mayman's late diving header fly just wide at Goodison Park, as Pat Van Den Hauwe (left), Ken McKenna (centre) and Telford's fourth-round match-winner Dave Mather (far right) look on

In the final season of its 133-year history, Goodison Park played host to a memorable last Merseyside derby between Everton and Liverpool on Wednesday.

But, 40 years ago on Sunday, in front of a much bigger crowd, grand old Goodison staged an equally memorable occasion when the Toffees played host to a team with a rather grand, old history of their own - the Lilywhites of Telford United - in the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Telford were one of the non-league teams of the 1970s and 1980s; after losing the first FA Trophy final at Wembley in 1970, they were winners in 1971, 1983 and 1989, and were founder members of the Alliance Premier League when English football went to a fifth tier in 1979.

But their finest hour, under part-time window cleaner Stan Storton, was their 1984-85 FA Cup run.

They beat Lincoln City 2-1 in a Bucks Head replay in round one, won 4-1 at Preston in round two, beat Bradford City 2-1 at home in round three, Darlington 3-0 in another Bucks Head replay in round four and then landed the big one...

A fifth-round trip to FA Cup holders and league leaders Everton.

The story of the match

This was Howard Kendall's great Everton team of the mid-1980s - a team that almost picked itself every week:

Neville Southall, Gary Stevens, Pat Van Den Hauwe, Kevin Ratcliffe, Derek Mountfield, Peter Reid, Trevor Steven, Andy Gray, Graeme Sharp, Paul Bracewell, Kevin Sheedy. Sub: Alan Harper or Adrian Heath.

And that team was well on its way to the first of their two league titles in three years under Kendall.

Aside from having a hard-working team of good players all capable of playing on a higher stage, Telford had their secret weapon - the loud support of 11,000 travelling away fans from Shropshire, then a record.

Storton's younger brother Trevor, who began his career across Stanley Park at Liverpool, had been part of one of the biggest domestic cup shocks of all time when he scored in Chester's 3-0 humbling of league champions Leeds United at Sealand Road in November 1974.

And it looked like brother Stan might be on the way to another similar sensation when Telford trooped off at half-time still holding Everton 0-0.

Telford had even created the first good chance when Colin Williams was denied only by the outstretched fingertips of Wales goalkeeper Southall, but were also helped by referee Trevor Spencer missing a blatant handball that should have resulted in an Everton penalty.

They held out for 67 minutes, only to be undone by three second-half goals at the Gwladys Street End - the first two of which were cruel.

Stevens' shot deflected in off Reid, a dubious Sheedy penalty followed and a left-footed thunderbolt from England winger Steven in the last minute made it 3-0.

The television highlights record the game ending with loud booing from the home fans after Reid was felled by a late challenge from Telford's Anton Joseph, but this was merely recompense for some of the meaty challenges Everton themselves had dished out earlier.

From left: Pat Van Den Hauwe, Kevin Ratcliffe and Kevin Sheedy look concerned but Colin Williams' shot - the first big chance of the game at Goodison Park - was saved

'I got piggy-backed off' - Reid

"The away support was great," Everton legend Reid told BBC Radio Shropshire. "Fifth round of the FA Cup, non-league side, their fans were absolutely brilliant.

"I remember the gaffer coming in the dressing room warning us that it would be physical, which I didn't mind. He'd often say to me: 'Get a tackle in early, get the crowd up'.

"You might nail someone early on but it was me that got caught. I got clattered. He got me a beaut, right on the ankle. John Clinkard, our physio, came on and said: 'I'm going to get you a stretcher, I don't want you walking on that as it might blow up'. But it was the last minute and I told him: 'I'm not going off on a stretcher, give me a piggy back'.

"So I got piggy-backed off.

"But Telford did well. They really gave us a game. We couldn't break them down, they were really solid and Nev had to make a great save low down at the Gwladys Street End. And then we had luck for our first two goals. For the first, Gary Stevens shot, I stuck out my leg, it hit my knee and that did the keeper.

"It gave us a bit of breathing space but, to be fair, Telford kept on coming.

"Then we got a penalty, but it definitely wasn't a penalty. We'd had one in the first half that we should have had. The lad handballed it and we had a word with the ref on the way off at half-time. I think he thought: 'I've made a mistake here. I'll even it up now."

'The biggest game of my life' - McKenna

Ken McKenna won three League of Wales titles as manager of TNS before going on to become number two at Morecambe to Jim Bentley, father of another Telford legend Jack Bentley

"Obviously it was the biggest game of my life," recalled Telford striker and boyhood Everton fan Ken McKenna, one of non-league football's most prolific strikers of that era.

"I still followed Everton and went to as many games as I could. And, after beating Darlington in the replay, it was all about the build-up and the excitement in our family.

"It was all a bit surreal. I'm going to games, watching Everton and then suddenly I'm on the pitch with them. It all went by so fast.

"But we were a good footballing side, and we knew how to look after ourselves. We had some tough lads. Tony Turner was a hod carrier, who had the biggest legs I've seen in my life. We had a good number six in Anton Joseph and Eddie Hogan alongside him. He should have been a Football League player all day long. It did get a bit heated, a bit physical. And we did get booed off at the end.

"But there were 49,000 there and it was fantastic. The only time I played at Goodison - which was always my dream and it was a full house too. A memory for life.

"Both sets of supporters were amazing. The Park End was full and the atmosphere was unbelivable. And all my friends and family were there. Some in the Everton end, some in the Telford end.

"Not many managers in the country would have told us, like Stan Storton did, that we could go and win it. But we believed him. We stayed in the game and it was only their penalty that killed us off."

The away fan's perspective

Telford's fans took their hats, caps, scarves, badges and horns to Goodison Park in their numbers

"I made my own way to Goodison Park with a friend of mine from Wellington," said Malcolm Couzens, from Shropshire.

"We somehow managed to get tickets in with the Evertonians. I was sat in the main stand, top row.

"The scoreline was very definitely not a true reflection of the game.

"Telford were dominant for the first half an hour and should have been in front.

"Colin Williams had a shot that Neville Southall tipped round the post.

"Everton then decided to kick us off the park, which is when Reidy got stuck in."

What happened next?

Everton won the league title by 13 points from Liverpool, and could have won a treble.

Just three days after beating Rapid Vienna 3-1 to win the European Cup Winners' Cup in Rotterdam, watched by Telford striker McKenna, they were denied in the FA Cup final by Norman Whiteside's injury-time goal for 10-man Manchester United.

Shortly after that Wembley final came the Heysel disaster - at the 1985 European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. 39 fans lost their lives and English clubs were banned from European football for five years.

With a team that could and should have done very well in Europe, Everton won the title again in 1987, but have only won one trophy since - the 1995 FA Cup with Joe Royle's "Dogs of War".

Yet they remain, after Arsenal, the second-longest surviving team in the English top flight and, thanks to a fine start under returning manager David Moyes, look almost certain to start life in their new stadium next season as a Premier League club.

As for Telford, after failing to make it into the Football League, they hit hard times and lost not only their place in the fifth tier, but their entire club.

Since going bust in 2004 and reforming as AFC Telford in the Northern Premier League Division One, the eighth tier, they have spent just three seasons in non-league's top flight. They currently play in the Southern Premier Central, which is the seventh tier.

But they do still have their same old ground, the Bucks Head, they have their memories and, now part American-owned, they still have the hope of one day living up to all their potential.

Peter Reid and Ken McKenna were talking to BBC Radio Shropshire's Tom Berrington