"I think I speak for everyone when I say that they are almost certainly the best team in Europe and that they have what it takes to dominate things for many years to come."

Who was that and what was the subject matter? The Sky Television pundit Andy Gray on Arsenal's Premiership triumph, perhaps? Alex Ferguson speaking about any one of Manchester United's recent successes?

No, those were the words of the respected Austrian international Hans Krankl, famously delivered from the bowels of Rotterdam's Feyenoord Stadium in the spring of 1985.

Krankl and his Rapid Vienna team-mates had just been steamrollered into submission in the final of the Cup Winners' Cup. He was talking about Howard Kendall's Everton, the "team with no stars" and arguably the least feted championship-winning side this century.

Tomorrow afternoon the current Everton team - several unheavenly bodies but, Duncan Ferguson excepted, no stars - will contest the club's most significant fixture since May 5th, 1951, give or take their last-day 3-2 victory at home to Wimbledon four years ago after being 2-0 down.

On that afternoon 47 years ago Cliff Britton's side required one point from their last fixture against Sheffield Wednesday to avoid relegation. They lost 6-0 but the result which put them out of English football's top flight for the second time in their history came elsewhere.

Whisper it, for football folk are superstitious, but it was Chelsea's win over Bolton Wanderers at Stamford Bridge which sprang the trap door. And tomorrow afternoon, as Everton try to overcome Coventry City at Goodison Park, Bolton will again be playing Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

Everton came up again in 1954 and their current spell of 44 years in the top division is second only to Arsenal, who won the Premiership title last Sunday by beating them 4-0.

The permutations now are brutally simple. If Bolton defeat a Chelsea team anxious to protect tired limbs before Wednesday's Cup Winners' Cup final, Everton will go down. If Bolton draw, Everton must win to save themselves. If Bolton lose, Everton need only a point.

Krankl was at least partially correct. In 1987 Everton won a second league championship in three seasons but the team he so admired were again denied the opportunity to chase the biggest prize - the European Cup - because of the blanket ban imposed on English clubs in the wake of the Heysel stadium disaster.

The tragic events of Brussels came a fortnight after Krankl's bold declaration and the scenes which unfolded inside Heysel's crumbling walls were to affect the futures of both Merseyside clubs.

Denied the chance to take on Europe's finest, the players of Everton quickly grew tired of being acclaimed as the biggest fish in a small pond. The break-up of a great team began with the departure of Kendall himself to the Spanish club Athletic Bilbao in the summer of 1987.

Kendall's trusty lieutenant Colin Harvey was promoted to manager but, as Kendall basked in the Basque country, the Merseyside millionaires were on the path to self-destruction. In a couple of years the team had been dispersed.

Kendall's second spell in charge, starting in 1990, peaked early. His comment after walking out on Manchester City to return to Goodison Park - "City was a love affair, Everton is a marriage" - came to represent the abiding memory of a disastrous liaison between old flames. At the end of 1993 Kendall departed again.

With the death of the Littlewoods magnate Sir John Moores a businessman Peter Johnson, who had made his millions in food hampers, held off the rival bidding of a consortium led by the impresario Bill Kenwright and stepped in. Johnson forfeited his chairmanship of Tranmere Rovers, as he had to, and talk of glorious futures and restored pride ensued.

The only problem was finding a manager capable of overseeing the revolution. On the back of being famous for 15 minutes for the defeat of Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup, Norwich City's manager Mike Walker was invited to make the leap from corner shop to department store. The fact that he had never managed a big-city club and did not fully understand that football on Merseyside is more passion that pastime did not seem to bother Johnson at the time. It did 10 months later when Walker's disastrous tenure was ended.

Enter Joe Royle. Things picked up - for a time. The FA Cup was won, deservedly so, in 1995 but the big man sold off too many family jewels too quickly. Thirteen months ago Royle departed, citing conspiracy theories and pointing accusing fingers in every direction; he blamed everyone but himself.

Johnson, foolishly and unforgivably, predicted the imminent arrival of a "world-class manager" and promised that big surprises lay ahead. They did, indeed, chiefly for Everton themselves. No one wanted to be their manager and the club went from object of pity to laughing stock when Gray himself accepted the post only to change his mind 24 hours later. Kendall came home for a third time to preside over a season which may end in disarray tomorrow evening.

Johnson failed to understand that to dabble with a club of Everton's history and stature is to meddle with the lives and emotions of the 37,000 who regularly fill Goodison Park.

At the start of the season Kendall returned, via Greece, Notts County and Sheffield United, for his third spell. His love of Everton FC is undiminished but this morning even he stands accused. He is, perhaps, guilty by association, that is to say associating with the distinctly average players he has recruited over the past 10 months.

Whether Kendall has had adequate funds at his disposal only he and Johnson know but the feeling is that he was provided with sufficient capital to ensure Everton could tread water but not enough to allow them to swim against a rising tide.

If that tide picks up a proud club and dumps it into the First Division tomorrow it may also sweep away both chairman and manager.

Estimates vary but Johnson has put between £10 million and £20 million of his own money into Everton. A well-intentioned man, he initially viewed the club as part hobby, part business venture. Even now he stands to double his investment should he cash in his chips.

Tomorrow Johnson will be protected by the biggest security operation ever to be mounted at a Merseyside football game. What a fate for a once-proud club.

Meanwhile, Chelsea have been warned by the Premier League not to field a weakened team at Stamford Bridge against Bolton, who need a win to stay in the Premiership and condemn Everton to the First Division.

Chelsea face VfB Stuttgart on Wednesday in the European Cup Winners' Cup final but a Premier League spokesman said clubs were obliged to play a full-strength team in all league matches. "Chelsea have acknowledged this obligation and we expect the club to adhere to the rules," he said.

West Ham's chances of playing in Europe next season may depend on Arsene Wenger and Kenny Dalglish fielding full-strength teams. The Hammers must beat Leicester at Upton Park and hope that Aston Villa and Blackburn - who face Arsenal and Newcastle - lose.

Manchester United have released the former Scotland international Brian McClair, Alex Ferguson's first signing for the club, after 11 years at Old Trafford.

The 34-year-old, who had a £400,000 testimonial last season, will not have his contract renewed. He said: "I will try to find a new club."