Our latest Bred a Blue podcast is a little bit different!

We travelled to Birmingham City’s training complex to catch up with John Ruddy and Lukas Jutkiewicz – two players who had one game each for the Everton's senior team but have since compiled excellent professional careers.

Ruddy came from Cambridge United in 2005 and Jutkiewicz arrived from Swindon Town two years later.

“The year I left Cambridge, they had been relegated to the Conference and Everton had qualified for the Champions League!” Ruddy recalls.

The 'keeper was instantly loaned back to the Abbey Stadium outfit and trained twice a week at Bellefield before playing for Cambridge at the weekend.

Jutkiewicz came under the spotlight after helping Swindon Town to the quarter-finals of the 2006/07 FA Youth Cup.

“I remember my first session with the Everton first team, I was absolutely blowing!” he says. “I couldn’t believe the change in pace, training with players that a few weeks earlier I was watching on Match of the Day.”

Ruddy’s senior debut, in February 2006, came in the most bizarre of circumstances – he came off the bench against Blackburn Rovers when Iain Turner was sent-off after just nine minutes.

“It was probably the best thing because I didn’t have time to think. The fans understood that we were down to the bare bones, and it was a situation that nobody could foresee.”

Everton won 1-0 but David Moyes moved quickly to bring in Sander Westerveld on loan.

“There was an international break after the Blackburn game unfortunately, so that gave the manager time to do something,” added Ruddy.

As for Jutkiewicz, he replaced Steven Pienaar late in a 3-0 home victory against Sunderland in December 2008. It was an opportunity that he thought had passed him by.

“We’d had a game when I was on the bench and we were chasing a goal,” he says. “David Moyes brought Victor [Anichebe] off and I thought I was going to get a chance, but he put Phil Jagielka up front! That’s when I thought it wasn’t meant to be.”

Ruddy eventually left Everton in 2010 – but it was a close-run thing! He’d just checked his bags in for the Blues' pre-season tour to Australia when Moyes pulled him over and told him to get them back as he was going to Norwich.

Jutkiewicz made the trip but then agreed to move to Coventry City while he was Down Under!

The two players have since racked up over 500 senior appearances between them and they both have fascinating stories to tell.

Ruddy was in goal for Motherwell on the night Jutkiewicz slammed home a stoppage time equaliser in a 6-6 draw with Hibernian! The stopper also revealed that Everton also had a future England international on their radar when they signed him from Cambridge.

And which player made Jutkiewicz's life a misery on the pitch at Everton but couldn’t have been kinder or more helpful off it?

Bred A Blue: Episode 30. John Ruddy & Lukas Jutkiewicz

This week Sam, English Dan, Andrés and Santi look back on Argentina's two comfortable friendly wins over El Salvador and Costa Rica in the United States, which included Alejandro Garnacho's first start – a performance Sam has some thoughts about. There have been a bunch of Copa Argentina games since we last recorded, and listeners' questions include who's playing in this year's edition and how the very bottom league of the pyramid has gone so far.

Hand Of Pod 2024

Episode 487: Garnacho's first Argentina start and more

The Copa de la Liga group stage ends this weeke— well, in the first half of next week, actually, and Sam, English Dan, Santi and Chris are here to run down which teams need which results to make it into the quarterfinals, with only runaway Group B winners Godoy Cruz already knowing which position they'll finish in. We also look at the first couple of rounds of Copa Libertadores group games and have a bumper postbag of listeners' questions.

Episode 488: previewing the last round of Copa de la Liga group games

This week Sam, English Dan and Chris review an entertaining end to Group B in the Copa de la Liga and a really thrilling climax to Group A. They also look ahead to this weekend's quarterfinals, which include a superclásico between Group A winners River Plate and Group B fourth-placers Boca Juniors on Sunday.

Episode 489: The Copa de la Liga quarterfinals are upon us

The latest guest on our Bred a Blue podcast series is former striker Phil Jevons.

Jevons joined the Everton Academy as a schoolboy and went on to make nine senior appearances under Walter Smith.

He recalls his early days at Netherton and Bellefield when the ‘friendly and challenging environment’ helped him develop, playing alongside the likes of Leon Osman, Franny Jeffers, Danny Cadamarteri, Michael Ball, Richard Dunne and Jamie Milligan.

Jevons also played against international footballers when he reached the reserve team: “We played Manchester United at Old Trafford and they had Scholes, Jordi Cruyff and Solskjaer.”

The Liverpool-born centre-forward helped Everton to win the FA Youth Cup in 1998 and the FA Premier Reserve League in 2001 – and in between he made his senior debut away at Blackburn Rovers.

"I’d been top scorer for the reserves for three years on the run, so I felt like I was ready,” Jevons said. He went on to have a hand in the Everton goal in a 2-1 defeat: “I played an early ball to Don Hutchison and he found Bakayoko who scored.”

The turn of the century was a challenging time to be a young striker at Everton because the competition was intense. Jevons was battling with Duncan Ferguson, Franny Jeffers, Kevin Campbell, Nick Barmby, Ibrahim Bakayoko and Danny Cadamarteri for a starting role.

It was the subsequent arrivals of Joe-Max Moore and Mark Hughes that convinced Jevons that his future lay beyond Goodison Park

“Joe-Max Moore was a good player and a great lad but I didn’t think he was any better than I was,” he says. “But my squad number went up from 20 to 26 so I had an inkling!”

Jevons left Everton with no regrets and during the podcast conversation he reveals the player who had the biggest influence on him during his time with the senior squad.

“He was fantastic with me. He was the ultimate professional, fit as a fiddle. He told me how to live my life, how to eat and how to train.”

He left Everton in 2001 and joined Grimsby Town, for whom he scored a never-to-be-forgotten League Cup winner at Anfield against Liverpool!

“I still get Evertonians coming up to me to talk about that goal!”

Jevons went on to have personal and team success with Yeovil Town and Bristol City before winding down his playing career and moving into coaching – starting off at the Everton Academy where he was involved in the development of Kieran Dowell, Nathan Broadhead, Liam Walsh, Tom Davies and Calum Connolly.

Jevons left Finch Farm to join Sunderland and he speaks honestly and with clarity about the ruthlessness of senior coaching environments.

It’s another fascinating football story that has its roots at the Everton Academy.

Bred A Blue: Episode 31. Phil Jevons

This week Sam, English Dan and Chris look back over last weekend's Copa de la Liga quarterfinals and forward to Sunday and Tuesday's semifinals as the first 'half' of the Argentine season nears an end.

Episode 490: who's into the Copa de la Liga semis?

On Sunday César Luis Menotti, who managed Argentina to their first World Cup win and oversaw the creation of the structure around the country's national teams to this day, died at the age of 85. Sam, English Dan and Chris discuss his importance to Argentine football. We also review the semis and final of the Copa de la Liga and preview the 2024 league season, which kicks off this weekend.

Episode 491: RIP César Luis Menotti and a Liga Profesional preview

The latest Official Everton Podcast is all about last day dramas!

Evertonians have had more than their fair share of mixed emotions on the final day of a football season and host Darren Griffiths is joined by Dave Prentice and Gavin Buckland to look back at some of them.

We feature the last-gasp escapes of 1994, 1998, 2022 and 2023 – and hear from one of the goalscoring heroes, Gareth Farrelly.

We learn which future Blues hero made his professional debut as a teenager for Arsenal during the very last game at Goodison Park that wasn’t filmed!

And which Everton player is the only one to have ever scored the very last goal of a Premier League campaign – a 93rd minute winner?

We also reveal that the legendary Denis Law goal for Manchester City against Manchester United in 1974 did NOT relegate United – Mike Lyons did it a week earlier!

And when did Everton get their first penalty-kick of the season with just ten minutes of the final game to go!

We also speak about Duncan Ferguson’s last goal for Everton with his last kick of the last game against West Bromwich Albion and a wonder strike against Chelsea from Jermaine Beckford.

And, of course, April 1978 when Bob Latchford just about reached his famous target of 30 league goals!

Final Day Dramatic Everton Games

This week Sam, English Dan, Andrés and Santi look back on an opening weekend of Liga Profesional action that saw Racing throw away two points in a goalfest, River Plate cruise to victory and plenty more besides. We also have a Copa Libertadores update and a short rant about the state of football journalism these days.

Episode 492: the 2024 Liga Profesional is underway

This week Sam, Andrés and (for one half only) Santi discuss the second round of Liga Profesional matches, which saw an awful lot of draws. We talk about River Plate's Copa Argentina elimination (and ongoing lack of direction) under Martín Demichelis, Carlos Tevez's departure from Independiente and Argentina's preliminary Copa América squad, among much more.

Hand Of Pod 493

Episode 493: Tevez leaves Independiente, doubts around Demichelis and more

The latest guest on our Bred a Blue podcast series is former Everton reserves goalkeeper, Jamie Speare.

By his own admission, the mention of his name to Toffees of a certain age will only prompt the response ‘his name rings a bell’, but in the mid-late 1990s, Speare was one of a number of young goalkeepers waiting in vain for Neville Southall to give them a sniff of first team action!

It never happened but Speare and the Blues legend struck up a friendship that has endured to this day. It wasn’t all plain sailing initially though.

“Neville pushed me to the point that I nearly quit three weeks into the first month of my YTS,” Speare says. “He was giving that much stick out and I really didn’t know how to take it. My mum took it up with the Club, but Neville said to me: 'If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t bother you,' and I thought ‘fair enough.’

“We got on great and still do. He drove all the way from Kent for my wedding, which he didn’t need to do.”

Speare played youth team football with Graham Allen, Jon O’Connor, Gavin McCann, Jamie Milligan, John Hills, Phil Jevons, Michael Branch, Michael Ball, and Richard Dunne, all of whom progressed to play senior football.

Speare came close, but just not close enough.

He played in a friendly against Aberdeen, made the odd substitutes bench in the Premier League and was in Joe Royle’s squads for the ECWC ties against Reykjavik and Feyenoord in 1995.

The closest that he got to a senior appearance was against Blackburn Rovers, but it wasn’t as a goalkeeper!

“It was at Ewood Park and Anders Limpar went down injured,” he explains. “Joe had used all his other subs so he told me to get warmed up. Anders got back up, so I never got on!”

In this Bred a Blue conversation, Speare speaks openly about being released by Everton and talks us through his subsequent career – which included European football with Cwmbran Town, more than 300 appearances for Accrington Stanley and a short spell at Sligo Rovers.

These days, Speare in the assistant manager of Northern Premier League Division One West team Nantwich Town, after being set on his coaching career by a PFA funded course.

It’s another fascinating story from a young man still involved in football after an Everton Academy upbringing.

Don’t miss the incredible story of the dramatic and historical Everton message that he mistakenly pulled off the fax machine at Bellefield while waiting for one for himself!

Bred A Blue: Episode 30. John Ruddy & Lukas Jutkiewicz

OfficialEverton

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