An era lasting 133 years comes to an end this Sunday as Everton’s men’s team play their final game at Goodison Park. In 1892 the team left their former home at Anfield – which Liverpool FC adopted soon after – upping sticks due to an argument over rent, to set up a new home, a short walk across Stanley Park. Goodison Park became the first major football venue built in England and since then no other English football ground has staged more top-level men’s matches.
But it seems the impending bulldozers have performed a welcome U-turn – a deal to have the women’s team playing there hasjust been announced. Despite the US owners confirming the ground will become the country’s first major stadium to be dedicated to a women’s team, everyone knows it won’t be quite the same place. It seems like there will have to be structural changes including the taking out of seats in the top decks to reduce the capacity. Perhaps Everton will also turn Goodison into some sort of museum, where in 20 or 30 years people will still be wandering in, scratching their heads at the way football used to be watched.
But it’s not just the stands and the pitch that make a football stadium the way it is. The impending move to the glitzy new ground at Bramley-Moore dock has focused Evertonian minds on what Goodison means to them, what memories they have: what made them come week in, week out to support their team, in the ground they call home.
In 1971 the stand on Goodison Road, which was built in 1909 and housed the offices and players’ facilities, was demolished and replaced by a three-tiered Main Stand, the first three-tiered stand in England, which cost £1m.
Joshua Jones from Abergavenny decided to surprise his girlfriend, Millie Richardson (from Cwmbran), before the recent Ipswich game at Goodison. “Millie’s father has been a big Everton supporter since 1966 and so this was passed on to his daughters,” says Joshua. “With us being from South Wales, Liverpool can be a long way to travel, but we knew we had to go to one of the last games at Goodison Park. I thought this would be a great opportunity to propose. Millie had absolutely no idea. She and her family had originally organised the trip for her dad’s birthday. We told her that a friend of his had arranged for us to have a look around the grounds and that’s when I got down on one knee. I knew she wouldn’t suspect a thing, as I am a big West Ham supporter myself. She was surprised I would even put an Everton shirt on my back!”
Completed in 1926, the two-tier steel frame and wooden floor stand was designed by Archibald Leitch, the go-to stadium architect for the age. The upper tier was seated, with terracing below, a part of the ground called the Paddock. Few changes were made until 1963 when the rear of the Paddock was seated and an overhanging roof was added. The stand is known for Leitch’s highly distinctive “criss-cross” balcony trusses which also act as handrails for the front row of seats in the upper section. Goodison Park is the only stadium with two complete trusses designed by Leitch. Of the 17 he created, only the ones at Ibrox, home of Rangers, at Fratton Park, home of Portsmouth, and at Goodison Park remain.
Andrey Seleznev is an Everton fan and member of the Russian Toffees fan club. He lives in Krasnodar in southern Russia. He decided he needed to take his son Roman to the recent Ipswich game. “It’s hard to get flights from Russia right now so I took my car and drive 12 hours to Georgia and then a flight to London and then move to Liverpool so it’s a long trip but worth it! I needed to see Goodison before it got destroyed so I could say goodbye to the stadium. I came here for the first time 20 years ago, we played against Man Utd and we won 1-0, Duncan Ferguson scored and it was unbelievable! I love it here so much, so I did my best to get the visa and collect the money for this trip. I want to show Goodison Park to my son. He’s not a big fan of football, he’s good at mathematics but I needed to show this stadium to him!”
St Luke’s is a church in a very unique position, nestled in the corner between the Gwladys Street Stand and the Main Stand. In the past you could climb onto its roof and have a great free view of the action on the pitch. One year a very drunk fan somehow got up there and, while clinging on for dear life, accidentally knocked a crucifix off the parapet, and had to be taken down by firemen on a turntable ladder. Nowadays that view has been blocked off and St Luke’s is more famous for its church hall where on matchdays the Everton FC Heritage Society puts on a huge display of memorabilia. Upstairs there are numerous stalls selling a treasure-trove of everything Everton-related.
If you cut married couple Jayne and Steve Jones, they would bleed blue; if you want to know anything about Everton and Goodison and what it means to the fans, they are the people to ask. Having both been born in Liverpool, they eventually moved slightly north where they founded and now run the Croston Blues fan club in a Lancashire village. You can guess the name they gave their house there – it begins with a “G” and ends in a “N”. They are also active volunteers for the 1878s (named after the year the club was formed), the group which has organised the flags and banner displays seen at the ground this season. Jayne remembers her first visit to Goodison: “I was here when Bob Latchford scored his 30th goal and the reason I was here was because they used to open the gates at the end and I couldn’t afford to go at the time, I was so young. I came in right at the end and watched his 30th goal being scored. I snuck in without paying and that was my first time.”
Steve’s first game was in 1963, the final match of the season, when Everton beat Fulham to win the First Division title. “The captain Roy Vernon scored three and my dad’s idol Alex Young scored one. All that I can remember, I was in the paddock standing on a little wooden box that my dad made, Alex Young got the ball in front of me and this feller near me shouted: ‘Show ‘em your arse Alex!’ and as a young kid I didn’t know what it meant, I just thought it was weird. It was only years later that I really understood.”
Steve has watched a game from every stand in the ground accompanied at different times by his father, brothers and sons. Now he sits next to Jayne, who has had the same seat in the middle deck of the Main Stand for 35 years. “I’ve sat with almost the same people for all that time,” says Jayne. “A few have changed as their season tickets change but they are all my friends. When we came back after Covid I got Everton cakes made to give out to everyone. Same at Christmas, I get cakes for everyone. The really sad thing is I’m not going to see them again. There’s people like Stan who just sits there and shouts ‘Referee!’ and he gets louder and louder as the game goes on – I swear to God he’s got a bottle of brandy going in his hot drink. It’s just characters like that. All those people who are around me, they’re my friends but I haven’t got their contact details and I’m not going to sit next to them again. It’s going to be totally alien sitting with different people.”
Steve adds: “My memories of the ground? Well, it’s the biggest part of my life, Everton and Goodison Park. When my dad died, we tried to get his ashes on the pitch but were told all the plots were taken up. We still wanted to do it and it was the end of the season and my two brothers and one of my lads stayed on after the match until everyone had gone. We were looking at the stewards walking up and down and were right down at the front. In the end I said to a steward: ‘Excuse me mate, I’ve got my dad’s ashes here and I just want to sprinkle them, can you just give us five minutes,’ and he said: ‘Yes, no problem,’ and just turned and walked the other way. The four of us jumped up, sprinkled the ashes, had a few minutes and jumped off. It’s a sacred place in that, at least for me.
“Family is a big thing for me because I was told I’m an Evertonian. I had no choice, my dad’s dad was an Evertonian, that was it, there was never any choice, we just went along with it. Remember Penguin biscuits, all different colours, red, blue, yellow, green? My dad – pure theatre – we’d be at the dinner table, he’d say: ‘We’ve got Penguins for afters,’ he’d open the packet, he’d get the red ones and throw them over his shoulder and say: ‘Don’t you ever eat them, you’ll kill yourself.’ He’d go: ‘What colour do you want?’ so me and my brother, we’d always have the blue ones. Nothing’s changed, we bought a bag of pegs last week – I threw all the red ones in the bin, it’s mental.”
In 1994 Everton had a great escape on the final day against Wimbledon. They were 2-0 down after 20 minutes, then scored three goals to narrowly avoid relegation from the Premier League. Steve was in the Park End with his father. “Never run on the pitch unless you play on it,” Steve’s father had always told him. “Everyone was running on after Wimbledon, so I asked my dad: ‘Do you want to go on the pitch with them?’ ‘Come on,’ he said, and we walked on. I asked him that night: ‘You know those red Penguins, whatever happened to them?’ And he said: ‘When you went to bed, me and your mum ate them!’”
Jayne has a plan in place for the final game on Sunday. “I’m bringing my dad, I’ve continued to buy him a season ticket, even though he lives 300 miles away and he’s 86. I’m going to bring a hip flask and I’m going to hide it. At the end of the game, I’m going to sit here with my dad and Steve and gaze around, sipping from my flask. I’m dead lucky because I can bring my dad to the last game, there’s so many people, Steve included, who have that affinity with the actual ground because of people they’ve lost who’ve been part of their life and part of the memories.” Steve says quietly: “At the end of the game, I’ll just sit there and take it all in. I’ll be thinking about my dad, my brothers, my son, all those people that I have been with here.”
Rumours abound among the Goodison fanbase regarding whether supporters will try to take their seats home with them after the Southampton game. Everton have announced that current season ticket holders can buy their seat backs, “elegantly packaged” with a certificate of authenticity in a presentation box for £100. Apparently ingenious fans have been bringing plasticine into recent games to make precise moulds of the screws holding the seats in place, so they know exactly the right size tool to bring with them. As Jayne says: “Some might think they deserve that seat they have spent 30 years in.” But Steve cautions: “You might get the odd one or two but Everton have said that it will be a criminal offence. Some might try but you can’t come in with an angle-grinder can you?” Tiles in the toilets have already started to disappear.
Situated behind the goal at the north end is another Archibald Leitch designed double decker stand, originally opened in 1938. The lower tier is home to the club’s most vociferous support. Known as the Street End or Popular End, the home side traditionally like to attack towards it in the second half of games.
Paul Cookson is thePoet in Residence for the National Football Museum, and just happens to be an Everton fan. He grew up in Preston but, having relocated from Lancashire to the East Midlands, he is unable to go to every game at Goodison. However, he is still a passionate fan and his feelings towards the ground are undiminished. “I can’t exactly remember the first match I saw at Goodison, my dad took me to lots of grounds in the north but we came to Everton more than any others.
“After that, I remember coming to games on my own on the bus. As a 10-year-old in the early 70s, we weren’t allowed to stay up late to watch Match of the Day. Just to be at a stadium where real football was taking place and to see the people that you got on football cards or on your Esso coins or in your Shoot magazine. To come along, be part of a crowd and to actually see players I’d only occasionally seen on the telly, that was so exciting. It’s the scale of it, you’re a small person with big people and you’re a part of something bigger than yourself and you’re all here for the same reason.
Having written countless football poems, including many about former Everton players, Paul knew he had to produce something to mark the end of an era at Goodison. “Poetry has many purposes but one is to reflect and capture a mood. In this way, the poet is a mirror that reflects on behalf of the many but perhaps from a different angle so that your words add something new as well.
“With this poem I wanted to try and sum up the feelings of fans regarding the special place that is Goodison, its community presence, absolute warmth and friendliness. A place we are all welcomed. Yes, it’s about Goodison Park - but it’s also about how every fan feels about their ground and their team. That place of continuity, that solid reassuring constant in ever trying times.”
This is the place where dreams all startThe place where we all play our partThe place that always leaves its markThe place forever in our heartOur place – Goodison ParkOur place – Goodison Park
This place where gods trod hallowed turfWalked on water, down to earthStrode among us, proved their worthThis place we pray, this place we curseHope for the best, fear the worstWhere we all fell in love at firstThis place forever in our heartOur place – Goodison ParkOur place – Goodison Park
Celebration, tense reliefThat tests our faith, our beliefA place of joy, a place of griefThe agony, the ecstasyThe magic and the miseryBut still the only place to beThis place forever in our heartOur place – Goodison ParkOur place – Goodison Park
School of science, dogs of warWe’ve seen it all and much, much moreWin, lose or draw, we know the scoreMemories we hold so dearThe goals live on so crystal clearWe all know just why we’re hereThis place forever in our heartOur place – Goodison ParkOur place – Goodison Park
The romance of the history and everything these stands have seenRooney, Kendall, Harvey, Ball, The Golden Vision, Dixie DeanEvery hero, legends all, in royal blue on emerald greenThis place forever in our heartThis place forever in our heartOur place – Goodison ParkOur place – Goodison ParkWe call home –Goodison Park
Sincethe Covid lockdowns Paul has written and published a new poem every day. You can find these@paulcooksonpoetonX orPoet Paul Cookson on Facebook. The first 1,000 are available in two hardback collections: The Man Who Launched A Thousand Poems Volumes 1 & 2, published byhttps://flapjackpress.co.uk/