Neville Southall (born 16 September 1958) is a Welsh football manager and former international footballer. He has been described as one of the best goalkeepers of his generation. He won the FWA Footballer of the Year award in 1985 and was nominated for the Ballon d'Or in 1985 and 1987. In addition, he is one of the few players to have made over 1,000 career appearances.
He joined Bury from Winsford United for a £6,000 fee in 1980. He turned professional in his early 20s after several years as a semi-professional and amateur player. During his teenage years, he worked as a binman, waiter and hod carrier. He moved on to Everton for £150,000 in 1981 and established himself as the club's first-choice goalkeeper by the 1983–84 season. He went on to make a club record 578 appearances in the English Football League and Premier League (750 in all competitions); his honours with the club consist of a European Cup Winners' Cup medal in 1985, a First Division championship medal in 1984–85 and 1986–87, an FA Cup winners medal in 1984 and 1995, and an FA Charity Shield winners medal in 1984, 1985, and 1995. He also played in the 1985 and 1989 FA Cup finals, the League Cup final in 1984, and helped Everton to a second place in the league in 1985–86. After leaving Everton in 1998, he became Torquay United's regular goalkeeper for two years. He also made a handful of appearances for numerous other clubs.
Southall played internationally for Wales, winning 92 caps between 1982 and 1998, though he did not feature in any major international competitions. As an individual, he was named on the PFA Team of the Year four consecutive times. He was listed as one of the world's top ten goalkeepers by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics on four occasions. He is a member of the Gwladys Street's Hall of Fame. He has been named as one of the 100 'Greatest Players of the 20th Century' by World Soccer magazine. In the 1996 Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his services to football.
Since his retirement as a player, Southall has briefly managed Dover Athletic, Hastings United and Margate, and has coached at numerous clubs as well as the Welsh national youth teams. He has also worked extensively with disadvantaged children and established his own educational consultancy. In addition, Southall is also known for his political activism; he is an international officer for his branch of the UNISON trade union, endorsed Jeremy Corbyn for the 2017 UK general election, endorses LGBT rights, and has spoken at multiple events advocating for Welsh independence.
Club career
Early years Born and raised in Llandudno to Fred and Rose Southall, he was the middle child of three boys. Southall played youth football for his school team and the Llandudno Swifts, where he played alongside Joey Jones. He was educated at Ysgol John Bright, though left without any qualifications at age 16. At age 14, he toured Germany with the Llandudno Swifts and was offered a chance to play for the youth team of Bundesliga club Fortuna Düsseldorf, but decided against the move to Germany. The Swifts were a poor side that were regularly beaten heavily, though the near-constant barrage of shots he faced enabled Southall to improve on his shot-stopping skills.
As a teenager, Southall had unsuccessful trials at Wrexham, Crewe Alexandra and Bolton Wanderers. He aspired to be a postman, and never believed that he would make a living playing football. He then worked as a binman, waiter and hod carrier and therefore entered the game relatively late. He played for Llandudno Town at age 15, before joining Northern Premier League side Bangor City on £10 a week as a semi-professional the following year. Bangor manager Dave Elliott regularly selected veteran goalkeeper Peter Eales ahead of Southall. Everton asked Elliot permission to take Southall on trial, but Elliot left the club shortly after and no trial took place. With Bangor in financial trouble the paid playing staff began to leave the club, and Southall left Bangor and went on to accept an offer of £3 a week to play for Conwy United. He moved on to Cheshire County League club Winsford United at the age of 20. The club won the Cheshire Senior Cup in 1980, and Southall was voted the club's Player of the Year.
Bury Southall's performances attracted the attention of Bury and Wigan Athletic, and he was convinced to sign with Bury after he was personally approached by manager Dave Connor. Bury paid Winsford £6,000 and would later pay another £25,000 after he was sold on. However, he never played for Connor as he was replaced by Jim Iley before the start of the 1980–81 season; despite this managerial change he was still seen as the future replacement to club stalwart John Forrest. He received specialist goalkeeping coaching from Wilf McGuinness. He made his first-team debut against Wigan Athletic on 20 September, in a 2–1 victory. The "Shakers" had an indifferent league campaign in the Fourth Division, though they managed to reach the third round of the FA Cup and beat Newcastle United in the League Cup. Southall kept 15 clean sheets after conceding 50 goals in his 44 domestic appearances, and was named as Bury's Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year.
Everton Southall was bought by Everton manager Howard Kendall for £150,000 in the summer of 1981. To win a first-team place he had to compete with Jim McDonagh (a Gordon Lee signing who would soon leave the club), Jim Arnold (also a new signing), and Martin Hodge (who was injured throughout his time at Everton). He made his debut in a 2–1 win over Ipswich Town in October after Arnold picked up an injury. He returned to the first-team in December, and he kept a clean sheet against Aston Villa and remained an ever-present throughout the rest of the 1981–82 season.
Kendall described Southall as the best goalkeeper in the First Division "outside the big three" of Ray Clemence, Peter Shilton and Joe Corrigan. However, he began to suffer from ulcerated toes, which gave him severely swollen feet and caused him pain and discomfort throughout matches. On 6 November 1982, he conceded five goals in a 5–0 defeat to Mersey rivals Liverpool at Goodison Park. Kendall then dropped Southall as part of a shake-up at the club. He spent January and February on loan at John McGrath's Port Vale, and played nine Fourth Division games. McGrath was impressed and tried to take Southall to Vale Park permanently, but was rebuffed by Kendall. Back at Everton, he played the last four games of the 1982–83 season after Arnold picked up an injury.
Arnold was the preferred choice in goal at the start of the 1983–84 season before Southall was recalled on 1 October against Notts County. Everton had a poor start to the league campaign but excelled in cup competitions, reaching the final of both the League Cup and the FA Cup. Southall's first appearance at Wembley was in the League Cup final against Liverpool, and he kept a clean sheet in a goalless draw. The replay was held at Maine Road, and Liverpool won the tie 1–0 with a Graeme Souness goal. He was rarely called into action in the 1984 FA Cup final and kept a clean sheet as Everton claimed the trophy with a 2–0 victory over Watford.
Southall kept a clean sheet at Wembley in the 1984 FA Charity Shield, as Everton beat Liverpool 1–0 to take home the first silverware of the 1984–85 season. They then lost the opening two league games of the season before losing only three of their next 37 league games to win the First Division title by a 13-point margin. Throughout the season, they beat Liverpool both at Anfield and at Goodison and recorded a 5–0 win over Manchester United. Southall made one particularly crucial save from a point-blank Mark Falco header in a 2–1 win over title chasers Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane on 3 April. In the European Cup Winners' Cup, Everton beat UCD (Ireland), Inter Bratislava (Czechoslovakia), Fortuna Sittard (Netherlands), and Bayern Munich (Germany) in two-legged encounters. Southall conceded just one goal (from Dieter Hoeneß) throughout all eight matches. They then beat Austrian club Rapid Wien 3–1 in the final at De Kuip to win the first European title in the club's history. Three days later, Everton played in the 1985 FA Cup final, but lost 1–0 to Manchester United after a Norman Whiteside goal in extra time. At the end of the season, Southall was named as the FWA Footballer of the Year, becoming the first Everton player, second Welshman and fourth goalkeeper to win the award.
Though Everton had won a place in the European Cup, English clubs were banned from European competitions following the Heysel Stadium disaster. Southall remained bitter, blaming UEFA for the tragedy and stating that the ban was a convenient way to break up English dominance of European competitions. Limited to domestic competitions, Everton won the FA Charity Shield with a 2–0 win over Manchester United; during the celebrations, Southall wore a T-shirt saying "I Love My Wife" as a symbolic gesture following tabloid stories of an alleged affair. After getting sent off against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in October, Kendall criticised Southall in the press by saying he "let the lads down". Despite this setback, he agreed to sign a six-year contract in December, which was then the longest contract the club had ever issued. However, he twisted his ankle ligaments on international duty with ten league games left to play. In his absence, his deputy Bobby Mimms took his place, and Everton lost both the league title and the 1986 FA Cup final to Liverpool.
Sidelined through injury at the start of the 1986–87 season, he returned to the first-team against Watford in October. He was the club's Player of the Month in February and won man of the match awards in wins over Arsenal and Chelsea as Everton claimed another league title. Comparing the two title wins (1985 and 1987), Southall said that the latter success was "more rewarding and satisfying" as it had proved to be "more of a struggle" compared to the ease in which the title was won in the former campaign.
After Kendall left Merseyside to coach Athletic Bilbao, his assistant Colin Harvey took charge at Goodison; Southall responded well to the change, as he believed Harvey "understood my obsessive and relentless desire to be the best". Everton finished fourth in 1987–88, conceding a club record low of 27 goals in 40 league games, and reached the semi-finals of the League Cup. Southall had missed the opening stages of the season after undergoing knee surgery.
Harvey had failed to replace some of Everton's departing star players adequately, and Southall noted how "the mediocrity became habitual" as the club coasted to an eighth-place finish in the 1988–89 season. He kept goal in the final of the Full Members Cup (a largely unsuccessful tournament inspired by the ban on European football), as Everton were beaten 4–3 by Nottingham Forest. More significantly, he kept goal against Liverpool in the 1989 FA Cup final after conceding only two goals in the seven games en route to the final. In an emotional match in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster in the semi-final encounter with Nottingham Forest, Liverpool won the cup with a 3–2 extra-time victory.
Everton were leading the division at the start of the 1989–90 season, but their title challenge fell away after a televised 6–2 defeat to Aston Villa. Southall was later told he needed surgery that would keep him out of action for eight months, but he instead sought out a back specialist who told him he had a "bad back" and found that the problem corrected itself.