Everton 95/96: Everton had a total of 13 players produced including Manager Joe Royle. Graham Stuart was the hardest to come by as he was only released in a 4 pack. Despite having 12 players, Corinthian never produced a 12 player pack. Master Models Anders Limpar, Gary Ablett, Barry Horne and an alternate version of Gary Speed were never produced although Ablett did have a fully finished production Model as a 4 players pack consisting of Ablett, Short, Ebrell and Watson was planned which would have been a very sought after 4 pack I'm sure. It was replaced with Stuart, Hinchcliffe, Ebbrell and Kanchelskis which is still rare in itself.

There were a few coming's and going's during this season, Ablett, Horne, Limpar and Kanchelskis left and will be replaced by Speed, Barmby and Phelan. Gary Speed will opted his Everton master pose, the others will be repaints.

Of the custom sculpts we have new players Joe Parkinson, Tony Grant, Vinny Samways, Matt Jackson, Paul Gerrard and assistant manager Willie Donachie  

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Achievements 95/96:

Premier League: 6th

FA Cup: R4 (2-1 replay loss to Port Vale)

League Cup: R2 (4-2  replay loss to Millwall)
UEFA Cup Winners Cup: R2 (1-0 aggregate loss to Feyenoord)
Charity Shield: Winners

 

Achievements 96/97:

Premier League: 15th

FA Cup: R4 (3-2 loss to Bradford City)

League Cup: R4 (3-2 replay loss to York City)

Achievements: The new strip technically debuted on 20th May 1995 in the 1994/95 FA Cup final in which Everton defeated Manchester United 1-0 thanks to a goal from Paul Rideout. However, their sponsor at this time was NEC (Japanese IT Services). They also defeated reigning Champions Blackburn Rovers 1-0 in the Community Shield thanks to a rare goal from Vinny Samways. In this game Everton revelead their new sponsor DANKA however they wore their white and black away kit, Chelsea were their opening opponents which resulted in a goaless draw at Stamford Bridge but again Everton wore white and Black. It wasn't until their second game in which they wore the Blue kit which matched their Corinthian counterparts, facing Arsenal at Goodison resulting in a 2-0 defeat with goals coming from David Platt and Ian Wright.  In the Premier League Everton finished 6th mainly thanks to Andrei Kanchelskis, the lightning quick Russian chipping in with 16 goals from the right wing. Everton fell 2 points short of automatically qualifying for the UEFA Cup. Their FA Cup win though saw them enter in the Cup Winners Cup but they were narrowly defeated by Feyenoord as future Sheffield Wednesday striker Regi Blinker scored the only goal over both legs. In the FA Cup they exited the 4th round thanks to a 4:3 aggregate defeat to Port Vale and only reached round 2 of the league cup being defeated by Millwall 4-2 after extra time.

Everton continued to use this kit for the 96/97 season, it's last appearances in the Premier League was on 11th May 1997 worn in a 2-1 defeat to Chelsea in which Nick Barmby's second half strike was not enough to overcome the 2 first half goals scored by Dennis Wise and Roberto Di Matteo. Matching the season prior, they exited the FA Cup and League Cup in both the 4th and 2nd rounds again, Bradford City winning 3-2 and York City winning 4:3 on aggregate. Everton Finished 15th in the Premier League, Andrei Kanchelskis had left for Fiorentina and Joe Royle resigned on 27th March leaving captain Dave Watson as Caretaker manager to the end of the season.

So somewhat of highs and lows for Everton over these two seasons, starting the Season as defending FA Cup holders and winning the Charity Shield but finishing 6th, only for 96/97 and dreams of Europe swap with worries of relegation. They did record a 7-1 win over Southampton which a hatrick for Gary Speed the seasons only highlight.

Make & Sponsor: Everton's strip was made by Umbro with DANKA (American Office Equipment) sponsoring them. The kit itself is quite accurate. The collar on this kit was very detailed with a very fine blue and white pin-striping and a thicker black line on the outer edge. You could easily forgive Corinthian for not including this as they opted for just solid white. I feel block colouring the collar light blue and including the black trim would have been a much better representation. A small error on the tampo print meant that the last "A" of the DANKA saw the middle gap filled. There is a slight difference in the Blue from player to player, probably due to paint contamination with other colours or the paint not being mixing/stirred frequently and so the colour changes slightly the further down the tin you get. Whichever blue your players have it will likely still be a bit too dark. Aside from all this it is still a fair representation.
Rating: 8/10

Pack Releases:

Single Blisters:
Twelve players were available in single blister format with the exception of Graham Stuart.

EV01: Ferguson (5029310201100)

EV02: Southall (5029310223300)
EV03: Rideout (5029310212502)
EV04: Watson (5029310234108)
EV05: Amokachi (5029310283953)
EV06: Unsworth (5029310283960)
EV07: Barrett (5029310283977)
EV09: Kanchelskis (5029310234399)
EV11: Ebbrell (5029310284011)
EV12: Short (5029310284028)
EV14: Hinchcliffe (5029310283991)
EV21: Royle (5029310504072)
EV24: Phelan (unreleased)

4 Packs:
Graham Stuart and Gary Ablett were to be the only players available via 4 Packs, however Ablett left Everton during his production and so a few figures were swapped from EV4B and EV4C. The Bar codes were kept the same as the cancellation happened early enough before packaging began but somewhere in the process all players from EV4A's switched to EV4B's.

EV4A: Ferguson/Amokachi/Barrett/Unsworth (5029310284035)
EV4B*: Southall/Rideout/Stuart/Hinchcliffe (5029310284042 - *replaced)
EV4C*: Ebbrell/Watson/Short/Ablett (5029310284059 - *replaced)

EV4A: Southall/Rideout/Amokachi/Ferguson (5029310284035)
EV4B: Ferguson/Amokachi/Barrett/Unsworth (5029310284042)
EV4C: Ebrell/Kanchelskis/Hinchcliffe/Stuart (5029310284059)

12 Pack:

N/A