David Howells - Merseyside memories and the mentality of an FA Cup winner

David Howells knows a thing or two about huge FA Cup ties against the Merseyside giants.

The legendary former midfielder experienced the highs and lows of the famous old competition within the space of a month back in 1995.

With the Jurgen Klinsmann/Teddy Sheringham axis in full flow, and Ronny Rosenthal’s wonder show in the fourth round still fresh in the memory - the Rocket scored a hat-trick in a 6-2 win at Southampton - we travelled to Anfield for the tie of the round in the quarter-finals on 11 March.

Teddy and Jurgen scored a goal each in a memorable 2-1 victory against the red half of Merseyside, setting up a semi-final with the blue half at Elland Road on 9 April.

We were in decent form and seventh in the Premier League, Everton were struggling in 18th. We were favourites to progress to the final - but it fell apart for us that day, the destiny of the tie turning for good as Stuart Nethercott was denied point-blank by Neville Southall for 2-2 and Everton breaking up the pitch and Daniel Amokachi scoring to make it 3-1 moments later. Amokachi added a fourth on a painful afternoon in Yorkshire.

That was the last time we faced Everton in the FA Cup. Now we travel to Goodison for classic fifth round tie on Wednesday evening (8.15pm).

‘Howellsy’ played 335 times for us between 1986-98. He won the FA Cup in 1991, famously beating Arsenal in the semi-final before Forest in the showpiece final. He lost a semi-final to Arsenal in 1993, then having beaten Liverpool at Anfield, had to go through the Everton disappointment in 1995.

Speaking to us this week, David recalled those Merseyside duels and touched on what it takes to go all the way in the world’s oldest football cup competition.

“The win against Liverpool at Anfield in the quarter-final of the FA Cup in 1995, that was a momentous occasion, a fantastic game, one of the best games I was ever involved in,” he reflected. “But then, from that win to the disappointment of the semi-final defeat against Everton, that took the gloss off what we did at Anfield. However, at the time, and still now, it’s a great memory.

“It’s not easy to win the FA Cup. The proof of that was that season when there was a little cockiness of thinking we just had to turn up that day at Elland Road, but it’s never like that.
In fact, the way we lost that day still affects me now, this many years later, possibly the worst experience I’ve had as a player.

“Whether or not it was a mentality thing, deep down thinking, ‘this is a team we should beat’... maybe we had an eye on the final, whereas in the year we did win it, 1991, we only had eyes on that semi-final against Arsenal, because it was such a hurdle to get over.

“Maybe that was the same mentality against Liverpool at Anfield in 1995, focus on that game and that game only. That’s how you progress in the FA Cup, taking it step by step and not getting ahead of yourselves.

“Also, when we got to the final in 1991, we had a number of players who had lost in finals, and they shared those experiences with us, and that was important, that we were able to tap into the likes of Pat van den Hauwe, Mabbsy (Gary Mabbutt), Paul Allen, Gary Lineker as well, we had those players who had been down that road and experienced that massive feeling of disappointment.

“People say that it’s worse to lose a semi-final. I don’t agree. It has to be worse to lose a final. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to another final, so didn’t get to experience that!

“This is a proper cup tie. Everton away is a tough game in any circumstances and they will have as much desire to win the FA Cup as we have. We will have to be right at it, but we’ve played ourselves back into a bit of form against West Brom and we go up there in good spirits.”