Everton, Everton, we're forever Everton

West Australian

6 days ago

For a moment, as I make my way through Stanley Park, my mind shoots to the late 1980s.
Back then, the two leading clubs in English soccer were Liverpool and Everton, their stadiums at opposite ends of this rolling green space in this city by the River Mersey.
For a variety of reasons — including glory-hunting and my affection for the colour blue and confectionery — I decided to become a fan of Everton, nicknamed the Toffees.
My parents bought me a replica kit and during the school holidays, while visiting relatives in England's north-west, they took me to see the club's home, Goodison Park. It was a non-matchday and the area was very quiet. An elderly man approached us in the stadium carpark and introduced himself as Gordon. When he heard I was an Evertonian, he asked if we wanted to have a look around.
This was back in the days before football was fully commercialised and before regular official stadium tours were really a thing. Gordon gave us, free of charge, an unofficial behind-the-scenes tour, taking us into the trophy room, the home changing room, up into the stands and beside the pitch with its lush green patterned turf. It transpired that this kindly soul was Gordon Watson, a former player in the 1930s who played alongside Dixie Dean — Everton's greatest-ever goalscorer — and held numerous roles with the club following his retirement.
I've returned to Goodison several times since, either to watch games or take (official) stadium tours. But it's always that first time, and Gordon (who died in 2001), that I recall most fondly.
The memories are trickling back again as I pass the manicured gardens, Victorian glasshouse and lakes of Stanley Park and clasp eyes on Goodison. Passing the statue of Dixie Dean, I walk around the perimeter of the stadium, beside the streets of tightly-packed terraced houses, pausing to browse murals and photographic timelines depicting iconic Everton players, managers and milestones.
It's bittersweet as this 'Grand Old Lady', as Goodison is dubbed, recently staged its last-ever English Premier League men's match (the famously rickety stands shook for the last time as the Toffees beat Southampton 2-0 in front of an emotionally-charged crowd that included former fan favourites from my childhood such as Neville Southall, Peter Reid and Duncan Ferguson, not to mention Tim Cahill, the most popular Australian to play for Everton).
This club was founded in 1878, as St Domingo's, after a local church, and renamed the following year after the north Liverpool district of Everton. After staging its first-ever game on an open pitch in Stanley Park, the club played eight seasons at Anfield (a new venue that would ultimately become the home of rivals Liverpool FC). In 1892, the Toffees transferred to Goodison Park, then the first purpose-built football stadium in England. Flanking Goodison Road, which had been named after a civil engineer, George Goodison, the ground was extended in the early 20th century by pioneering stadium designer Archibald Leitch, a Glaswegian whose handiwork can also be seen at other iconic UK stadia, including Anfield, Manchester United's Old Trafford and Rangers' Ibrox. In 1958, Goodison became the first English ground to install undersoil heating (handy for those frosty winter midweek evening games). Goodison has hosted more top-flight games than any other stadium in England — as well as a World Cup semifinal in 1966 between West Germany and the Soviet Union.
I walk along Gwladys Street, by the stadium's north side, beneath the stand that suffered bomb damage during the World War II Blitz and has, since 2016, been named after the late Howard Kendall, Everton's most successful manager. Known for attracting the loudest and most passionate Evertonians, the 'Gwladys' has been silenced for now, but fittingly, I can hear boisterous children singing and playing in the playground of nearby Gwladys Street primary school.
While Liverpool FC have gone from strength to strength in recent decades, winning a flurry of domestic and European cups and titles, and extending Anfield to host 61,276 spectators, it's fair to say Everton and Goodison have been in the shadows. The Toffees won the last of their nine league titles in 1987 — a few years after I became a fan — and the trophy cabinet hasn't witnessed any new additions for 30 years.
The club are hoping for an upswing in fortunes when they begin their next chapter in August at Bramley-Moore Dock. A new, high-tech 52,888-capacity stadium, sponsored by Liverpool-based legal firm Hill Dickinson, has mushroomed by the River Mersey, almost 3km as the gull flies from Goodison. Initially the plan was to demolish the old stadium, and replace it with housing and other community schemes, but there has been a change of heart under the club's new billionaire American owners.
Goodison is to be the home of Everton Women, becoming the UK's first major stadium dedicated solely to a women's team. It's quite a jump for them as they have been playing at a 2000-capacity stadium at Walton Hall Park, to Goodison's north. The future, however, remains up in the air for the businesses, pubs and takeaways around Goodison, who derived much of their income from the men's matchday footfall of almost 40,000 fans.
The shutters are down on most of them as I and a small group of Chinese tourists walk past on this late-May, end-of-season weekday, but they're not yet down and out. Some neighbourhood pubs, including the Harlech Castle and the Winslow Hotel, which predates Goodison by six years, are hoping to keep pulling in the pre-match crowds by arranging coach transfers to the new stadium in time for kick-off.
I eagerly await my first match — and tour — at Bramley-Moore Dock, but, like most Evertonians, I'm glad that the 'Grand Old Lady' that is Goodison Park will endure. And in breaking news that brings a smile to my face, it has been revealed that, due to high demand, stadium tours at Goodison will continue for the foreseeable future.
+ Goodison stadium tours are priced £25 ($52). For bookings and Everton club match fixtures, see
evertonfc.com
+ To help plan a trip to Liverpool and Britain, see
visitliverpool.com
and
visitbritain.com