Source: Liverpool_Echo
Everton FC 12 days of Christmas - Four seasons outside the top flight
EVERTON have spent more seasons playing in the top flight of English football than any other club - yet what do we really know about the Blues' four seasons outside the top echelons of the English game?[LNB]Everton's first season in the Second Division, as it was then known, was in 1930/31.[LNB]The Blues had been relegated the previous season, finishing bottom of the table with just 35 points, incredibly just two seasons after their 1927/28 league title win - a triumph written indelibly into not just Merseyside but footballing folklore as it was the year Dixie Dean scored a record 60 league goals, a figure never likely to be beaten.[LNB] It was a seismic shock therefore for the club to find itself in the second tier - the shareholders' AGM that summer called for the board to be sacked and a team manager appointed as was starting to happen elsewhere.[LNB]The club's power-brokers held firm however and were rewarded with a blistering start to the season, with twelve of the first sixteen games being won.[LNB]There was a slight blip over Christmas but the Blues soon bounced back with a 9-1 win over Plymouth that equalled that club's best ever league win and started a run of 14 successive wins in league and cup football that all but clinched promotion.[LNB]The season also saw a successful FA Cup run that saw Everton reach the semi-final stage before losing to West Brom at Old Trafford but the title was won by seven points and immediate promotion achieved with a club record 121 goals scored (Dean contributing a mere 39 this time around).[LNB]
