Tony Cottee Recounts Playing Against His Window Cleaner Following Disagreement with Everton Manager Howard Kendall

Former Everton forward Tony Cottee has disclosed that he competed against his own window cleaner while playing for the Blues’ third team, an event that occurred after a disagreement with then-manager Howard Kendall. Cottee, who scored 77 goals in 202 appearances for Everton, shared details of this disciplinary action from 1991 on BBC Scotland’s Sacked in the Morning podcast. Cottee recounted, “I had the famous game in 1991 where I fell out with Howard and got put in the reserves. We played at Man City on a Thursday night and we got beat 4-0 and it was a dreadful performance. Really, really poor. It could have been 10-0. I was obviously one of the players playing in the reserves. And it was sort of three or four what you would call established players in the team as well, so we should never have lost 4-0. Anyway, we came into training on the Friday morning. Before we could even start, they put a teamsheet up for the Morecambe game which was the A team, Everton’s equivalent of the third team, playing on the Friday night. So they put me in the A team to play against Morecambe on the Friday night.” However, the experience of playing for Everton’s third team was not the most unusual aspect of the situation for the seasoned England international. Cottee further elaborated, “So we go up to Morecambe to play the game and I feel to just try and be professional, to go out and do a warm-up. I’ve gone out and started doing my stretches. I’m just warming up and loosening up and I looked, the Morecambe team came running out. When you look at someone, you think, ‘Oh, he’s really familiar, isn’t he’? I looked again to make sure – it was my window cleaner! Honestly I was playing against my window cleaner in Everton’s third team. It was like a comedy sketch. I think it’s fair to say I’d hit the depths then when I played against my window cleaner. And there was only one way I could go on.” Listeners can hear Cottee’s full account on Sacked in the Morning, where Sandi Toksvig is joined by Gyles Brandreth, Lulu, Emmanuel Sonubi and Alan Davies. © 2024 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.