Elliott Cuff

Thu 25 March 2021 15:01, UK

There isn’t a single transfer in football that isn’t risky. Every player signed by every club, Everton included, presents some sort of gamble or chance taken, and it’s impossible to truly know how things will shape out in the long run.

Everton’s signing of Tim Cahill was no exception. Bought from Millwall for £1.5million at a time when the Toffees were severely cash-strapped, the Australian midfielder could have been a colossal failure.

This is going back to 2004 – to a time when Everton had recently finished 17th in the Premier League, and star forward Wayne Rooney had one foot out of the door with Manchester United beckoning.

Everton had seen ups and downs under David Moyes, and though the Blues were undeniably a team in transition, only six points separated them from the end of their Premier League run.

Rooney wasn’t the only attacker to leave Goodison Park that summer either, with Kevin Campbell and Tomasz Radzinski both also heading through the exit doors, putting further pressure on those that came to replace them.

What followed however was Everton’s highest Premier League finish since the competition started, a fourth place that still hasn’t been bested, with Cahill as the club’s leading goalscorer both in the league and in all competitions.

Cahill got off to a rather dramatic start to life on Merseyside. After scoring his first goal for the club against Manchester City, the Australian was given a second yellow and a subsequent sending off just a minute later following his shirt-over-the-head celebration.

Though he didn’t score often in the first half of the season, Cahill flourished when Everton signed Mikel Arteta on loan from Real Sociedad in January 2005, with the duo striking up a fine partnership on the pitch and a close friendship off it.

Cahill benefitted from those relationships throughout his eight years at Goodison Park, whether that meant trading aerial duties with the towering Marouane Fellaini or finding himself on the end of an inch-perfect Leighton Baines cross. However, he never struck up a relationship with a teammate quite like the one he managed to conjure up with the Everton fan base.

It wasn’t because Cahill was an excellent player that fans loved him, and it wasn’t because he scored plenty of goals, although that didn’t do him any harm. Cahill has always impressed most through his attitude, his passion and his genuine love for a club that he originally had no connection to.

Cahill spearheaded a change on Merseyside that saw Everton go from relegation-threatened to European hopefuls, and he did so by wearing his heart on his sleeve every single time he pulled on the royal blue. He still regularly watches and supports Everton, his son has joined Everton’s academy and he has ‘EFC’ inked onto his skin – he became someone who lives and breathes the club just as much as any fan does.

In his final appearance as an Everton player before leaving to join New York Red Bulls in 2012, Tim Cahill was given a red card after the full-time whistle had already blown. Newcastle’s Yohan Cabaye had shoved a ball boy, a child, into the advertising hoardings for no discernible reason earlier in the game, and Cahill had confronted him after the full-time whistle.

Admittedly it was a mistake for Australia’s record goalscorer to physically confront Cabaye, but his heart was in the right place, and that just about sums him up. Cahill always wore his heart on his sleeve, he always gave his all for the club, and he always put Everton first.

Goodison Park’s corner flags have seen considerably less action over the past decade, but Cahill’s memory is far from forgotten inside The Grand Old Lady.

In other Everton news, Rio Ferdinand has showered praise on Everton forward Dominic Calvert-Lewin.