HE was a young Everton footballer during a campaign which has gone down in Goodison folklore.

He was at Bellefield every day, was in the dressing room the night the league title was clinched and was personally presented with a pair of white Hummel boots by Alan Ball.

Yet the name Stan Osborne doesn’t feature in any of the autobiographies, encyclopaedias or annuals chronicling Everton’s stunning League title success of 1969/70.

Stan was an Everton apprentice, a starry-eyed youngster who dreamed of emulating heroes like Colin Harvey, Howard Kendall and Alan Ball, a Kirkby schoolkid – and a teenager who realised an ambition of pulling on a Royal Blue jersey.

It’s a side of seventies football which has gone largely unrecorded, until now.

In “Making The Grade” Stan has charted the “Upstairs, Downstairs” life of an apprentice footballer.

And it’s a colourful account.

There are fights, cruel injuries, ecstatic highs and crushing lows, plus Kirkby’s first sighting of the exotic fruit hitherto known as an avocado pear.

There’s also eye-watering intimacy with a Christmas turkey which makes Jim’s apple pie scene in the Hollywood blockbuster ‘American Pie’ look tame!

But it’s Stan’s day-to-day dealings with some of the giants of Everton Football Club which offer a fresh and unique insight into their characters.

Some, like the much loved Brian Labone, have their already considerable reputations enhanced.

Stan was one of the apprentices charged with clearing and cleaning the home dressing room after Everton had clinched the 1969/70 league title against West Bromwich Albion.

He recalls the occasion vividly, not least for an act of kindness by the man dubbed the Last of the Corinthians.

Stan writes: “It was then that Brian Labone made a small but very important gesture.

“Dressed in his immaculate suit and matching club tie, he trawled around the dressing room picking up each champagne bottle he could find and gauged the contents of each one, putting any that weren’t empty near his place.

“One of the players challenged him saying: ‘Hey Labby, you’re not thinking of having that lot for yourself, are you?’ Brian smiled and replied: ‘Don’t worry, there’s plenty left for you.’

“He then pointed to the assembled apprentices and said ‘These lads haven’t had a chance to celebrate yet. Get yourselves over here and have a drink.’

“He then proceeded to pour every one of us a glass of champagne and insisted that everyone in the room joined us in a toast to Everton Football Club.

“I was the last one to receieve my drink, which coincidentally was the last one from the bottle. Brian handed me the empty champagne bottle and said: ‘Keep hold of that and every time you look at it remember tonight and remember just how special Everton Football Club is.’

“Delighted with my gift from the club captain I borrowed a pen and went around the dressing room asking the players, Mr Catterick and Wilf Dixon to autograph the label to make it a treasured memento from a unique night in the club’s history.

“Brian Labone’s gesture to me and my fellow apprentices meant a great deal to us. Having spent the entire season doing the unglamorous behind the scenes jobs, it meant a lot to everyone to be acknowledged in that way and spoke volumes about the kind of person he was.”

There are other anecdotes, not all as reputation-enhancing in an evocative trip down Memory Lane.

Making The Grade by Stan Osborne abailable for £9.99 on www.legends publishing.net/efc, at the club Shop from next week, on iTunes and Pritchards Book Shop, Crosby.