THEY might not fully appreciate it, but the Aussie schoolboys who turn up for football coaching in the tropical city of Darwin each weekday morning are in the company of a legend.

The small, tanned 65-year-old who puts the youngsters through their paces, shouting constant encouragement and praise might be just coach Mike to them, but to a generation of Evertonians he is the man who helped them taste FA Cup glory at the height of the swinging Sixties.

Mike Trebilcock, the unlikeliest of Wembley sensations, took just five minutes to write his name into the history books when he scored twice in the 1966 final to help Everton come back from 2-0 down against Sheffield Wednesday.

Derek Temple did the rest of course, and the Blues had the major domestic trophy in the year that England became world champions.

Trebilcock was tracked down by former Echo writer Hyder Jawad, working for top football nostalgia magazine, Backpass.

In their interview, Trebilcock says: “It all went according to my dreams. I always knew I’d play for a top club, then play in an FA Cup final, then score the winning goal.

“I didn’t get the winning goal, but I got the next best thing: I scored twice, then I helped another young player score the winner.”

The Cornishman admits his ambition to reach the top was fuelled by a youthful obsession with Roy of the Rovers.

“The Roy of the Rovers stories were the standard Christmas present every year when I was a kid. So it wasn’t difficult to identify yourself with either Roy Race or Blackie Gray. What they did in a comic I wanted to do for real. But how does a young Cornish boy from Gunnislake get to play at Wembley?”

The answer for Trebilcock was a transfer to Goodison Park from Plymouth Argyle, completed in December 1965.

“I’d signed for Plymouth in 1962 and I loved my time there,” he says.

“I learned a lot there under Malcolm Allison. Malcolm was class. It was he who taught me how to curl a ball, and I used this skill to score against Gordon Banks. But when the chance came to play in the First Division, I knew it was right.

“When I went to sign for Everton in 1965, I had to wake up early to board the train from Plymouth to Crewe, on the way to Liverpool. I had to borrow a fiver to pay for the train.

“At first I had no idea that Everton was a place in Liverpool. It was exciting to go to the big city, the city of the Beatles; the city famous for its football clubs and its night life.

“Here I was a 21-year-old Cornishman, going to sign for one of the greatest clubs in Europe.

“During the long journey, I couldn’t help but think about my background. Growing up in Cornwall in the 1940s and 1950s, I was the youngest of 14 children. I like to tell the story of how we used to gather around a candle in the middle of winter. If it was really cold, my father would light the candle. My own children would always laugh when I told them that, but Cornwall in the 1950s was a different world.

“So when I arrived at Lime Street, I saw all of these flash bulbs and what seemed like crowds of people, and I thought the attention must have been for somebody else. The Beatles perhaps. How could I think it was all for me?”

His Everton career might not have been particularly long, he played just 13 matches for the Blues. But he will never forget that magical afternoon in the capital.

After a quiet first half for him, and the team, the Blues were 2-0 down. “You can imagine how I felt,” he says.

“The boss drops the England centre-forward, puts me in the team, we’re 2-0 down, and I've not had a kick for an hour.

“But in a blink of an eye, everything had changed. The match had changed, Everton’s history had changed, my life had changed, everything had changed.

“My goals reminded me of something that Malcolm Allison once told me; you always have more time in the penalty area than you think.”