EVERTON 2 CITY 0
Littlewoods Cup 5th Round
20th January 1988
Attendance 40,014
Scorers Heath(8), Sharp(68)
Ref J Worrall
City Nixon, Gidman, Hinchcliffe, Clements, Brightwell, Redmond, White, Stewart, Lake, McNab, Simpson – subs Scott(68), Varadi(78)
Everton Southall, Stevens, Pointon, Van den Hauwe, Watson, Reid, Steven, Heath, Sharp, Snodin, Wilson – subs Clarke(82), Harper(unused)
FROM THE MANCHESTER CITY OFFICIAL HANDBOOK 1988/89
The tragedy of City’s Littlewoods Cup campaign was that they could not charge into the quarter finals sooner than they were asked to.
A draw against Everton at Goodison Park was never going to be easy although in retrospect the Merseysiders would not have relished taking on one of the country’s form teams before Christmas.
However, by mid-January, City had lost much of their autumn flair and fire and Everton took the sting out of City’s enthusiasm by establishing an early lead.
At that time, City were also deeply involved on a second Wembley trail with the FA Cup keenly in their sights.
Nevertheless, defeat at Goodison was no disgrace. After all, Everton were the defending champions although they found it difficult at times to contain the aggressive Stewart who was his team’s star performer, a fact no doubt noted by Colin Harvey who became one of his keenest admirers.
Scorers were Heath and Sharp