Goodison Park's farewell and one Irish family's story of devotion through four generations

The 42

17-05-2025

BORN NOT MANUFACTURED.
That is what's written across an Everton flag belonging to a family of supporters from Dublin that stretches back four generations.
The Mackeys have been going to Goodison Park since the 1950s and, as the men's team prepare to bid farewell tomorrow, this weekend severs a thread stretching back the guts of eight decades.
John Mackey lived in Clontarf and raised his family while he worked for B&I Ferries. That is when he would be on the North Wall to Liverpool route and first get a feeling for Everton.
His family has been hooked ever since.
John Mackey's eldest son is Paul, who turns 72 next month and is now the family patriarch. His younger brother Jonny is 67 and Derek is 64.
Paul's season ticket is in the Main Stand at Goodison. 'Row FF, it's a good view. There's only one pillar in the way.'
Derek is behind the goal at the Gwladys Street End. His three sons, Chris, Jonathan and Derek Jnr, are a few rows over on row NN.
But if John was the catalyst, Paul's obsession was the fuel that inspired a family's devotion.
Dalymount Park on 1 May 1961 – 64 years this month – was the first time he caught sight of the blue shirts. Memories of that benefit match for Shamrock Rovers duo Ronnie Nolan and Shay Keogh came flooding back this week when a root around the house unearthed the match programme.
Paul's match programme from the game in May 1961.
Within a couple of years, pleas to his father to come on a trip to Liverpool with him paid off. Before he stepped foot in Goodison for the first time in 1963 he was one of a few kids ushered into a quiet corner of the Adelphi Hotel while the parents had a drink.
The grand Edwardian-style building would slowly loose its lustre over the years, but even as Goodison grew old it remained enticing. Paul remembers the old kids' terrace pen at the front of the Gwladys Street that he was able to get into in those early days.
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His stories and adventures hooked in his two younger brothers, and as Paul grew older he followed his father's footsteps in work with B&I, making sure the Goodison pilgrimage became a constant.
A way of life, devotion.
'My brothers tell me it's all my fault and my nephews haven't forgiven me, you know,' he says.
It might seem that way now, given Everton's constant flirtation with relegation in recent seasons, but there was glory to be savoured. English league titles in '63, '70, '85 and '87, European success with the Cup Winners' Cup in '85, while the most poignant of all came with the 1984 FA Cup final win over Watford.
'Because I got to be there with my dad,' Paul says. 'We had that trip together, boat to Holyhead and train to London.'
He even recalls the scenes of joy in 1977/78 when striker Bob Latchford scored his 30th goal of the season and earned a prize of £10,000 that had been put up by the Daily Express newspaper.
A view from near where some of the Mackeys stand in the Gwladys Street End.
Paul's brother Derek has been there for the ride too, the lineage strengthening with his three sons.
Emily Heskey has a major part to play in that.
Unlike the kids being ushered into a quiet corner of Adelphi all those years earlier, Chris' first taste of life on Merseyside came at the age of eight on Good Friday in 1999. Against Liverpool.
'Dad brought us into a little pub outside the ground called the Blue House, and he sat me up on a table and just the noise in the place, you know what I mean?
'There was not a word out of me for the first 20 minutes of the game, I was just sitting there, just in awe, taking it all in. Then Heskey took a dive down in front of me at the Park End, and I went hell for leather, effing and blinding. There was no turning back from then on. I think that's when my dad was proud.'
Unlike his father, uncles and grandad, Chris and his two brothers cannot recall Everton winning a trophy – the 1995 FA Cup triumph over Manchester United the last.
Disappointment has been a constant but so has Goodison, and that's what makes it bearable.
Seamus Coleman stops to say hello and pose for a snap with Chris.
'We wouldn't have met some of the best people that we know if it wasn't for Everton. We had a good friend, Ger Gannon his name was, my Dad's generation. God bless him, he passed away about two years ago, only 61. Cancer. I would have went to all the away games with Ger, home and away, pre-season games, and he was kind of, looked at me, he never had a son, you know what I mean? So I was like a son to him, he brought me away and he looked after me,' Chris says.
'He's gone now, sadly, and you know, it makes you think differently about things. It's the people that makes it, you know what I mean? As much as you want to win and you want to win things, I wouldn't change it for anything, it's part of who you are, that loyalty, that passion. It's so much more to it. It does make you who you are, absolutely.'
The Mackeys started life in Clontarf but have spread throughout Dublin since; Blanchardstown, Raheny, Swords.
Goodison, of course, is as much a part of their family's story, and Paul's three grandsons – Cillian (nine), Senan (seven) and Finn (four) – made a trip together earlier this season to ensure the links extended to a fourth generation.
'Their dad Conor says he's not Everton but we all know he really is too,' Chris says of his cousin, who has stronger ties to St Peregrine's and Dublin GAA.
Paul with three of his grandsons (from left) Finn, Cillian and Senan.
Some have already tried to take something physical with them to remember the place as it was. One fan has been banned 'after allegedly smuggling tools into the stadium and attempting to remove their seat,' according to The Athletic, in a week when the club's new owners, The Friedkin Group, confirmed that the Women's Super League side will now call Goodison Park home, maintaining that link that stretches back to 1878.
That announcement was at least a realisation of sorts that over a century of longing and heartache and joy would not simply be bulldozed.
For families like the Mackeys their sense of belonging and community cannot be erased, simply altered.
Tomorrow morning will not be their final journey together as they will all continue at the new stadium by Bramley-Moore Dock, but it will have a sense of finality.
After the early morning 30-minute flight from Dublin they'll sort a taxi and head for the Barlow Arms pub, as always. Then will come even more emotion than usual, a kind of simultaneous release of the memories and moments that have been celebrated and endured.
'I'd like to try bring some of the pitch home but sure I wouldn't be able to get it through security on the way back,' Chris says.
Maybe they'd have been better off getting the boat one last time.