The day I discovered the Everton contract Revie never signed

"When George died in 1988, fellow club director and solicitor Keith Tamlin handled his estate. The filing cabinet rammed with club paraphernalia was emptied - except for one key document. It would remain undisturbed for a further 37 years until last summer, when I went through an experience familiar to many people who have lost a parent - one of painstakingly sifting through decades of paperwork."

"There were long-out-of-date policies, receipts, family photographs, work mementos and then, undetected at the back of one of the steel grey drawers, was a brown envelope marked 'Everton: Season Ticket Sales'. It seemed innocuous enough, with a running total of revenues from a couple of seasons in the 1970s. But what caught my eye was a schedule of undated flights to Athens from Manchester, accompanied by several copies of a typed contract, one of which was annotated in my stepfather's distinctive, if somewhat indecipherable, handwriting."

"Closer inspection revealed an agreement between Everton Football Club and the man who in 12 years had taken Leeds United from Second Division also-rans to winners of every major domestic honour and two Fairs Cups - one Donald Revie of Three Chimneys, Sandmoor Drive, Leeds. More than half a century after the contract was drawn up I had, quite unwittingly, stumbled upon an exclusive in my childhood family home."

A family home contained an overlooked filing cabinet of Everton-related paperwork dating back decades. The homeowner's stepfather, George Watts, served as Everton chairman, director and worked for the Littlewoods Organisation, handling club finances and contract discussions. After his 1988 death the cabinet was largely emptied, but one envelope remained untouched for 37 years. Recent sorting of estate papers uncovered a brown envelope labeled 'Everton: Season Ticket Sales', undated flight schedules to Athens and multiple typed contracts annotated in Watts's handwriting. One contract detailed an agreement between Everton Football Club and Don Revie of Leeds, linking club administration to a major managerial target.

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