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Kevin was born on 21 October 1959 in Builth Wells where his parents ran The Plough Hotel. As a young teenager he played for Hereford Lads Club in the Herefordshire Junior League before joining The Bulls as an apprentice making his first team debut aged just 16 years and signing professional forms when still only 17. The famous "sweet" left foot attracted the interest of Liverpool scout Geoff Twentyman and after 54 games in the white shirt Sheedy was transferred to Liverpool. The huge and experienced squad at Anfield made rapid progress difficult and it wasn't long before Sheedy moved across Stanley Park to Everton. In a 2002 interview for Evertonian website Bluekipper.com, Kevin recalled: -
"I remember travelling up there, I didn't really want to sign for them as they had a policy of playing you in the reserves I wanted to get into the first team straight away! I was in digs in Anfield so I used to go and watch Everton when I wasn't playing, I saw the young players coming through, people like Adrian Heath, Kevin Ratcliffe & Kevin Richardson, I just made it known through the local paper that I wanted to move, my contract was up and this alerted Everton. I got a call from Howard Kendall towards the end of my contract shall we say, to see if I was interested in joining Everton and knowing the potential there I jumped at the chance. Liverpool wanted me to go to Blackpool, certainly not Derby or Everton (who were both interested) they wanted to dictate where you went to so that the move would not benefit a rival. I dug my heels in, waited for my contract to run out then made my choice. Howard didn't need to sell it to me, I'd been to the games, tasted the atmosphere and knew it was a massive club and it was on the doorstep, I knew Everton were the team for me!"
Following his £100,000 move to Goodison, the left-winger was instrumental in Everton's success in the 80's, winning the FA Cup and League Championship double in 1984, the European Cup Winners Cup in '85 and the Football League again in 1987. He also collected 45 International caps for The Republic of Ireland including appearances in the World Cup and European Championships notably scoring against England in Italia '90. Following his time at Everton Sheedy joined Newcastle under Kevin "I would just love it" Keegan and later moved to Blackpool. Since hanging up his boots Kevin Sheedy spent time coaching at both Tranmere and Hartlepool before returning to Everton where he is now an Academy Coach with the 17/19 year old players. According to the Official Everton site; "Everton legend Kevin Sheedy assists in the development of technically excellent players for the full-time Academy player programme. He is involved in all technical work, the monitoring of youth players' performance and organising and implementing one youth team, including preparation, matchplay and recording."
All a far cry from Widemarsh Common!
