Bob Latchford

IN the late 1970s, English football was desperately looking for a goalscoring St George. Kevin Keegan had said Auf Wiedersehen to join Hamburg in 1977 and morale was at an all-time low because of England's failure to qualify for the World Cup Finals for a second successive time. In an attempt to lift this depression, a national newspaper offered £10,000 - a huge amount in those days - for the first player to score 30 league goals in the 1977-78 campaign.

One player answered that rallying call - step forward Bob Latchford.

Latchford had joined Everton in 1974 from Birmingham in a then British record £350,000 deal, which saw Howard Kendall move the other way as a makeweight. He was a big hit at Goodison Park and, when he left seven years later, he was third in the club's all-time scoring charts behind Dixie Dean and Graeme Sharp with 138 goals in 286 games.

Latchford was a bustling, old-fashioned type of English centre-forward, who was good in the air. He was the Artful Dodger in the box and had a poacher's flair for turning half chances into goals. He was top scorer in his first four seasons for Gordon Lee's Everton side, which featured the likes of Mick Lyons, Andy King, Duncan McKenzie and Dave Thomas, helping them reach the League Cup final and FA Cup semi-final in 1977.

But that season 1977-78, and those 30 goals, is the one he is best remembered for. To put Latchford's achievement in context, not since Franny Lee in the early 1970s had a player reached the 30-goal mark - and the Manchester City icon's total included several penalties.

"It was a special season, but then it was a good squad of players," Latchford said. "We qualified for Europe, got to FA Cup semi-finals and were competing for championships.

"A lot of Evertonians look on the 1970s as a rather dark era. I don't think it was as bleak as people think it was. I think it's coloured in many respects by the fact that the history before, in the 1960s, was so good, as was what came afterwards. There was also the fact that Liverpool were so dominant. If you took that Everton team and put it in the era we have now, the fans would be jumping for joy."

Latchford, who bagged 32 goals in all competitions that season, didn't get off the mark until the fifth game of the season in a 5-1 win at Leicester on September 10th. He soon made up for lost time, scoring four in a 5-1 win over QPR in October and netting a hat-trick in a 6-0 demolition of Coventry in November.

Going into the last game of the season against Chelsea at Goodison on April 29th, Latchford was stuck on 28,having failed to score in the previous two matches. His team-mates were determined to do everything they could to help him score twice and win the £10,000.

But, although Everton cut Chelsea apart to lead 3-0, Latchford had not found the back of the net. Then with just 18 minutes remaining he scored with a deft header before Everton were awarded a penalty in the 80th minute. Latchford wasn't the Blues' regular penalty taker, but his team-mates insisted he took it. He duly converted it and, Everton ran out 6-0 winners to finish third behind champions Nottingham Forest and Liverpool.

"The Chelsea game was terrific," he said. "I always thought I would score the 30 goals. I was very calm and self assured. With the penalty, I just knew I'd score. In those days centre forwards didn't take the penalties. We scored enough and so other players used to take them. It was just the done thing, but the lads said I should take it."

Latchford's achievement was fitting for Evertonians, coming as it did in the week of the 50th anniversary of Dean's record 60-goal haul. Typical of the man, Latchford gave half of his £10,000 prize money to the PFA Benevolent Fund and split the rest among his team-mates and the club's ground staff. He pocketed only £192, although the taxman was still refusing to believe how generous he had been four years later.

That season proved to be the high-water mark of Latchford's club career. His form tailed off and in 1981 he was sold to Swansea for £125,000, ironically by Kendall, who had just returned to succeed Lee as manager.

Looking back, Latchford feels that move was a mistake, even if he did score a nine-minute hat-trick on his Swans debut against Leeds.

"Things were generally very low and I got to the stage where I thought I'd done as much as I could for Everton and it was time to leave," he said. "This was before Howard came.

"When he did come back he wanted me to stay, but I'd made up my mind to go. There's no telling even if I'd stayed for another season whether they'd have kept me beyond that because Howard's success didn't kick off until about three years after he arrived."

Latchford's departure never dampened Evertonians' love for him and he is revered like Dean, Lawton and Sharp. For that generation of fans in the 1970s, starved of success, he was their hero and several pets and children in the blue half of Merseyside were named after him.

The feeling is mutual and, although Latchford was a Brummie born and bred, Everton will always be his club. "Evertonians are so enthusiastic about their players," he said. "It staggers me every time I go there. I might have started at Birmingham, but my soul is at Goodison."

Bob Latchford made more than 500 Football League appearances, and won 12 England caps, in a near 20-year playing career.

He began with his home-town club Birmingham in 1968 and spent six years there before a £350,000 British transfer record move to Everton.

Latchford became a Goodison hero in his seven years on Merseyside, scoring goals at a rate of almost one per game. He finished as the First Division's top scorer in 1977-78, with 30 goals, earning him a £10,000 prize from a national newspaper.

He spent three seasons at Swansea in the early 1980s before winding down his career with spells at NAC Breda, in Holland, Coventry, Lincoln and Newport (loan)

Latchford played 12 times for England after making his debut against Italy in November 1977. Although he scored five goals in those dozen appearances, he was not picked again after a friendly defeat against Austria in June 1979.