Former Everton midfielder Martin Dobson has recalled how Bob Marley told him the Blues were going to avoid the drop on what was the most-stressful day at Goodison Park for a quarter of a century. For the third time, Everton’s Premier League status was on the line going into the final fixture of a season as the 2022/23 campaign came to its conclusion, following similar ‘Great Escapes’ in 1994 and 1998.
As it turned out, the Blues avoided a first relegation in 72 years by a single goal from Abdoulaye Doucoure in the 57th minute but with Sean Dyche’s side in the bottom three at the interval, many around Dobson were not sharing his rosy outlook at the time. Speaking on " target="_blank" class="link"> the latest episode of Goodison Park: My Home, the 77-year-old told the ECHO: “It was a tough game for everybody wasn’t it? Everybody knew what the scenario was, Southampton were down and the last two places were between ourselves, Leicester and Leeds.
“But we knew if we won the game, nobody could catch us. It was a massive game and a lot of pressure on the manager and the players.
“I’ve got to be at Goodison three hours before the kick-off and I live in the Horwich area, near Bolton. I was at home, suited and booted, and I was listening to Smooth Radio.
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“The last record that came on was Bob Marley, “Don’t worry about a thing, ‘cause every little things is gonna be all right.” (Three Little Birds) So I was dancing around the kitchen table and saying: ‘Well, if it’s good enough for Bob, Bob’s an Evertonian – fantastic.’
“We’ve got the grandson’s dog, it’s a black labrador and it starts dancing with me. He’s a better dancer than me – he’s got four legs, and I’ve only got two – and the wife comes in.
“We’ve all had those scenarios haven’t we? The better half comes in and they look at you as if to say: ‘What’s he doing? He’s making a fool of himself.’
“She asks me what’s going on and I say to her: ‘It’s Bob Marley, he’s an Evertonian!’ I’m going to go into Everton today, I’m going to talk to all the fans and I’m going to tell them to get out there and have a smile on their face and to lift the players when they come out in the stadium.”
Dobson, who had two playing spells at Burnley either side of his five-year stint with Everton between 1974-79, after bouncing back from being granted a free transfer by Bolton Wanderers as a teenager to become an England international and English football’s first £300,000 player, now works as a matchday host at Goodison Park and he wanted to relay what had happened to him to help ease the nerves of anxious Blues.
He said: “I think I was in the Joe Mercer and the Alex Young lounges for that particular game. I went in and looked at the fans and they were all down.
“I said: ‘Come on,’ and I gave them the story about what had happened to me. We came back in at half-time and they gave me a rocket because it was still nil-nil and Everton were going down.
“They told me: ‘Dobo, you said we were going to win this game.’ I replied: ‘It’s only half-time, let’s have a go.’
“I was thinking though: ‘If we’re three-nil down with 10 minutes to go, I’m not going back in those lounges, I’m off!’ Of course, Abdoulaye Doucoure scores a magic goal doesn’t he and Jordan Pickford makes one or two important reflex saves and it was fantastic as we see it through, with 10 minutes of additional time too.
“After the game, I saw Peter Reid and we both had a tear in our eye because we knew that the fans were so important on that day. We’d have not got over the line without them, it was just incredible.”
Goodison Park: My Home episodes currently available to watch on YouTube are as follows
