Thirty years on from York’s last victory over top flight opposition, we’re taking a look back at that tie: the 4-3 aggregate win over Everton in the 1996/97 Coca-Cola Cup. To complement our special bonus podcast episode covering the win, this article delves into how Alan Little’s side knocked out a Premiership team for the second season in a row.
The problem is that John Ebbrell isn’t David Beckham.
You might think that the 30th anniversary of a lower league club defeating one of the biggest clubs in England over two legs would be significant enough to be marked in some way. Particularly when said lower-league club have only beaten top flight sides seven times in their history, with more than half of those wins coming before the Suez crisis of 1956. Even more so when you consider that this particular win back in 1996 is their most recent victory over a top flight opponent. Yet the fact that York completed a 4-3 aggregate win over Everton in the League Cup thirty years ago today may well pass unnoticed by City fans (or at least by those who don’t subscribe to this website).
The reason is simple: the win came a year after City’s incredible 3-0 triumph over Alex Ferguson’s otherwise all-conquering Manchester United side at Old Trafford. Knocking out Everton at the same round of the same competition a year later was always destined to become that difficult second giantkilling. Fergie’s United were a behemoth in the mid-90s, not just on the pitch where they won two league-and-cup doubles, but off it too where the likes of Giggs, Cantona and later Beckham transcended the sport to become cultural icons. To beat them was notable, but for lowly York to do it so comprehensively at the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ sent shockwaves through the footballing world. Everton weren’t nothing - they’d won the FA Cup themselves in 1995 and finished 6th the following season - but they weren’t United.
The Everton win deserves its own moment in the sun, though, and to be celebrated on its own merits. York had defeated Doncaster Rovers in the 1st round to set up the tie, with newly recruited striker Neil Tolson on the scoresheet in a 1-1 draw in the first leg at Belle Vue, then goals from Nigel Pepper and Steve Bushell securing a 2-0 win for City in the return leg. In truth, though, Alan Little’s side weren’t coming into the Everton game in great form. Having scraped survival in the third tier the previous season, a mixed start to 1996/97 in which the Minstermen won just two of their opening seven league games left them firmly in mid-table. Luckily for York, Joe Royle’s Everton were also struggling, with three defeats on the bounce including a 4-0 reverse at Wimbledon leaving them 16th in the mid-September table.
