Perhaps more than any other club, Everton love a centre-forward. We've had Dean, Latchford, Sharp, Royle, Hickson, Lawton, Gray, Ferguson, Young and countless others - but our first truly great goal-scoring machine was Fred Geary.
Everton signed Geary from Grimsby in 1889 just in time for the second season of the Football League - after the inaugural season saw us manage only 35 goals, with our top scorer notching just 6.
Everton were the only club in Liverpool and were still playing at Anfield
and Geary scored twice there on his debut in a 3-2 win over Blackburn.
From then on he just couldn't seem to stop scoring, hitting 22 in 18
League games in his first season, as Everton finished runners-up to
Preston, and then 19 in 22 the following season as Everton won their
first League championship.
Later, in September 1892, he became the first Everton player to score
at Goodison Park - both in the Grand Opening friendly against Bolton
and then in the League match against Nottingham Forest the next day.
All-in-all, he scored 85 goals for Everton in just 100 games - an amazing
record even for such a high-scoring era.
Geary was not built like the archetypal centre-forward - in fact, he was just 5ft 2 and weighed less than 10st - but his game was not about power in the air, it was about speed. He'd won sprinting titles as a young athlete and on the football pitch he used his phenomenal acceleration to zip past defenders.
This pace, allied to one skill that all great centre-forwards have - the ability to consistently poach goals in and around the 6-yard box - made him one of the 19th century's most feared attackers.
Bizarrely, he won only 2 England caps, scoring a hat-trick against Ireland on his debut, and he ended his career back at Anfield with Liverpool - leaving Everton in 1895 after the signing of another of our famous strikers, Jack Southworth.
He eventually returned to Goodison Park as a groundsman to look after the pitch that he had so marvellously graced as a player.
The stats:
League |
FA Cup |
Total |
||||
Apps |
Gls |
Apps |
Gls |
Apps |
Gls |
|
1889-90 |
18 |
22
|
2 |
5
|
20 |
27
|
1890-91 |
22 |
19
|
1 |
0 |
23 |
19
|
1891-92 |
10 |
7
|
1 |
0 |
11 |
7
|
1892-93 |
24 |
18
|
3 |
3
|
27 |
21
|
1893-94 |
9 |
8 |
1
|
0 |
10
|
8 |
1894-95 |
8 |
3
|
1 |
0 |
9 |
3
|
Total |
91 |
77
|
9
|
8 |
100
|
85
|