AHC: Everton most successful English football club.

1987/88 was a transitional season for Everton, with less success than they were used to. Howard Kendall mercilessly raided his old club, signing Lineker and Steven for a massive combined fee of £6.5M. With Peter Reid losing his effectiveness due to a combination of age and injuries Alex Ferguson was thus compelled to try to replace three Everton legends. He first moved to strenghten the defence, signing Norwich City's centre hald, Dave Watson. It was believed that he also wished to sign Watson's partner, Steve Bruce, but nothing came of this supposed move. He similarly failed to persuade Ron Atkinson to sell Ian Rush, though the striker was believed to be ready to leave Manchester United to join the club he had supported as a boy. However, with the likes of Ratcliffe, Van Den Hauwe, Stevens, Bracewell, Beardsley,McMahon, Sheedy and most of all Southall still there, Everton were still the team to beat, and by the season's end they had won the League Cup, were third in the league to Manchester United and Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest, and had reached the final of the European Cup-Winners Cup, losing 3 - 2 to Ajax.

To be continued.
Alex Ferguson signs Brian McClair from Celtic for £850,000 to replace Lineker and pays Arsenal £1,500,000 for the young exciting attacker David Rocastle. Replacing the playmaker Reid was a major headache for Ferguson. His first target was Nottingham Forest's Neil Webb but negotiations with the bitter Brian Clough turned out to be impossible. All of Ferguson's phone calls went unanswered and when Ferguson dropped in at the City ground unannounced Clough left him waiting in the corridor for 2 hours before sending his assistant Ronnie Fenton to inform Ferguson that Brian Clough had been called away. Ferguson then took a gamble on a youngster from the north East who had just been sacked by Newcastle for assaulting a fan when drunk in a local pub. The legendary Bryan 'Pop' Robson was Ferguson's scout for the North East and he informed Ferguson that Paul Gascoigne was the most talented player in the English game since George Best. A trail with the reserves was arranged in which Gascoigne dazzled by creating 2 goals and scoring a beautiful goal from a free kick. Ferguson signed him straight away and detailed a fellow Geordie Paul Bracewell to keep him out of trouble
 
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