Mike Lyons was Everton through and through. A boy from Croxteth who stood on the Goodison terraces, he rose through the ranks to captain his boyhood club for six years during one of the most agonising eras in its history. He never won a trophy, but no player gave more of himself.
The Man Who Bled Blue tells the story of a footballer whose courage became legendary, from the diving header against Norman Hunter's boot that adorned the walls of Everton's training ground to the bloodied face that greeted him after almost every match. It chronicles the near-misses that haunted a generation of Evertonians: a League Cup final trilogy, FA Cup semi-final heartbreaks, a title challenge that slipped away. And it captures the bond between a local hero and the supporters who loved him, even when the groans came loudest.
Beyond Goodison, the book follows Lyons to Sheffield Wednesday, where he helped win promotion under Howard Wilkinson, to Grimsby Town as a young manager battling boardroom chaos, and onwards to Brunei, Canada and Australia as a coach spreading his infectious enthusiasm across four continents.
For author Simon Hart, this is a deeply personal story. His father coached Lyons as a schoolboy at De La Salle school in Croxteth and as well as a successful career as a journalist, he is a lifelong Evertonian. Drawing on that connection and scores of interviews with team-mates, opponents, family members, journalists and friends, Hart has produced an intimate portrait of a man whose generosity of spirit matched his physical bravery, and whose dementia diagnosis revealed the devastating price of a life lived at one hundred per cent.
