When Mike Walker paid Southend United £500,000 to make Brett Angell his first signing as Everton manager in January 1994, it was hoped that the club’s lengthy search for a target man was at an end. Not since Graeme Sharp left the club 30 months earlier had they possessed a centre forward who could add muscle to the club’s usually diminutive forward line. Unfortunately, Angell – a prolific lower-league scorer – was no fitting successor to a tradition set by Dixie Dean et al.

A lumbering giant of a man, Angell seemed bewildered by the tempo and standard of Premier League football. When Walker signed him, he had already been sent back to Southend after a loan period under Howard Kendall proved fruitless. He was, opined one fanzine,

‘A dead ringer for Frankenstein’s monster. Arguably the X-movie creature was more mobile and a tad more skilful.’

Perhaps such a view does a disservice to a man who scored freely in the lower leagues and never gave anything but his all in an Everton shirt. Unfortunately it was never quite enough and in March 1995 Joe Royle sold him to Sunderland for a £100,000 profit.