Farewell to the Grand Old Lady

Quite a few words to start with in this post, but - to give you some incentive - later on it's nearly all pictures.

In 1999, The Independent newspaper journalist David Conn gave Goodison Park the nickname "The Grand Old Lady". Over the last decade I've used that phrase many times to excuse the obstructed views, the limited (though generally adequate) refreshment and toilet facilities and the general condition of the stadium, which looked a throwback at best and not like a "Premier League" ground. How are the mighty fallen, given that when I first went in 1963 it was commonly considered the best club ground in the country - and by some distance. In conversation I've often described the ground as "an ancient and historically significant monument". And all that was before the club finally got its act together on moving home.

Many people picked up on the "old lady" moniker. But if it is a lady it's not a very polite one and a bit uncouth. Nevertheless the press coverage of Everton's last match at Goodison Park, at least for the Everton team as we've always knew it, i.e. the men's team, was not only extensive but hugely positive. I heard several lengthy features on Goodison on Radio 5 Live over the weeks running up to the last match there. The newspapers gave huge numbers of column inches to many individuals who wrote sentimental and loving pieces about their experiences there with their families. Many football journalists wrote about how it was one of the best, if not the best, football stadium at least for atmosphere. Martin Samuel wrote* about how, after his first visit there in 1985, he told everyone it was the best ground in the country. "I'd still argue" he wrote "on that night, it was". 

Samuel's first match at Goodison just happened to be one of the most famous ever at the ground, the European Cup Winners Cup semi-final 2nd leg when Everton beat Bayern Munich 3-1. I was there and it was a fantastic occasion, though for atmosphere I can think of two matches at least, victories against Liverpool in the 60s and 80s, that felt even more intense, but maybe that was just to to me.

A number of Premier League managers said it was the most hostile stadium for an away team to visit, though I've often experienced it being rather meek. It needs something to kick start the crowd, but when they get going...   Arsenal manager and former Everton player Mikel Arteta perhaps summed it up best when he said after his last visit there in early April:

"If you want to describe to somebody from abroad what the Premier League looks like, go to Goodison Park and experience it." A bit late even then, Mikel, getting tickets for those last few games was all bar impossible, with some changing hands for thousands of pounds. But it was good advice.

I went to an Everton Legends event the evening before the last match. It was a really good night, but Peter Reid said one thing that stuck with me - in recent years it's the fans who have kept Everton in the Premier League. I'd certainly agree with that in season 2021-22, when it looked for all the world that they were sliding meekly to relegation with 3 months of the season to go. The fans started greeting the team buses with an enormous street party. I went to the first match where this was planned and saw the plumes of blue smoke from flares from a mile away as I exited the Mersey Tunnel at the Liverpool end. When I got to Goodison Road it was littered everywhere with beer cans and bottles, discarded flares and ticker tape. The noise outside the reception area, which would be easily audible to both teams, was enormous. Many of the fans looked like smurfs with blue paint from the flares. Everton recorded several vital home wins leading up to the critical 3-2 win over Crystal Palce (from 2-0 down) and I believe Reid is right - that team had lost belief and the fans made the difference.

Everton announced shortly before the last (men's) home match that Goodison would be retained as the home for Everton women's team. Some felt that this took the edge off the last match - it wasn't actually the last match anymore - but given the expansion of interest in women's football and the fact that Everton women have outgrown their home in nearby Walton Hall Park (capacity not much more than 2,000) the decision was perhaps forseeable, though I do wonder about maintenance and reconfiguration costs. Perhaps Everton's owners were influenced by Chelsea FC selling their women's team to their owners for "considerably more than £150 million". One of the reasons the Premier League hasn't apparently made much of that latest bout of financial chicanery by Chelsea is that several other clubs may see it as a future "get out of jail" card for themselves.

It is a fitting home for the ladies team as Goodison Park held the record for attendance at a women's match anywhere in the world for 99 years: 53,000 saw Dick, Kerr Ladies beat St Helens Ladies 4-0 on 27 December 1920, just before the FA banned women's football in England. And at least I'll still be able to do that behind the scenes stadium visit that I've been meaning to get round to.

Talking of financial chicanery, Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters won what one fan called the "Brass Neck of Eternity Award" by showing his face at the game. He ran a gauntlet of "heckles" according to the media as he made his way to the main reception on Goodison Road. I suspect heckles is a very polite way of saying vitriolic abuse, but at least it was no worse than that. There's no hiding place in those narrow streets around the stadium: this photo of the scene in Goodison Road before the kick off. The photo comes from the Times:

There's more on the Everton fans' problem with Masters and the Premier League in the PS below. 

On a more positive note the post match show went very well and was clearly emotional for all Evertonians. Whoever chose the ending - John Lennon's In My Life  followed by a Last Post style rendition of the Z Cars theme, used to greet the team onto the pitch since the 1960s, nailed it. Bill Kenwright, with all his background in theatre, couldn't have done better. It was touching that the scouse singer was either overcome by emotion, or maybe just couldn't sing, but the choice of John Lennon's  In My Life was very apposite, the lyrics capturing how many were feeling.

However, my last match at Goodison was the penultimate fixture a fortnight earlier. A very strange and bittersweet experience. Here are some pictures from that match and some other matches I went to in the last season at Goodison Park.

Having parked in Kirkdale a good walk away from the ground I soon past one of my most frequent stopping points en route to the ground in recent years. This flashy looking establishment is the Medlock Hotel:

I didn't call in on this occasion as I'd been in there very recently and the journey had been quite quick so I wasn't in need of the loo. However it does have behind the bar one of the most apposite signs I've ever seen in a pub:

Funnily enough I've never asked how much they charge for rooms at the Medlock Hotel.... I pressed on and got some refreshment in another favourite haunt, the Barlow Arms, about 400 yards away from the ground:

This pub was given Mrs H's seal of approval on her last visit to Goodison (and her first for 30 years) in September on account of the ladies loo being "quite nice, clean and with plenty of soap and handtowels". It has my seal of approval because, unlike some of the pubs near the ground, it still serves draft bitter as well as the now obligatory huge range of lagers. But also because the bar has a remarkable and beautiful backdrop:

Note the "cash only sign": in the stadium it's card only even for a cuppa. As this was a 3 o clock kick off and I 'd parked up by 1230 it was time to get lunch from my regular if dodgy looking Chinese chippy:

To be fair I mainly pick it because the ones right by the ground get very busy and I don't like standing in a queue tens of yards long, whereas here I've rarely been in a queue of more than 4. On Mrs H's visit she surprised me by declaring it to be "cute" (and yes, she did get some chips). For me it was the usual sausage, chips and curry sauce which was absolutely standard and therefore just to my taste:

I couldn't help reflecting that, sadly, with the ground relocation some of these businesses will struggle to survive in the future. While consuming my feast as soon as it was cool enough, I walked towards the stadium, soon getting into bigger crowds as I neared Spellow Lane and my next nostalgic call at the "Spellow Brick Road". This was built by the club adjacent to the Everton in the Community hub and the successful free school it runs. Fans could buy the commemorative bricks laid in the curving pathway around 5 years ago:

As it's probably fifty to a hundred yards long the first time I went to find the brick my son got for us I couldn't find it, though in my defence it was dark and I didn't have much time on that occasion. But once I found it and an associated landmark it 's easy to spot, if already looking a bit faded:

"Phil and Dave Holden COYB" (Come On You Blues, of course).  Everton have built a far more ambitious walkway by the new stadium, the Everton Way, with 36,000 personalised stones. Yes, I've bought one. Imaginatively it says "Dave and Phil Holden COYB". It should actually be easier to find as they are embedding stones to commemorate Everton "legends" at regular intervals so you just need to know which legends your stone is between. Hopefully.

Another hundred yards and Goodison Road and the ground came into view, always a great sight on match days - a bit flat when the streets are deserted:

  

Just a bit further on you come to the Everton shop, built in the style of the Everton lock up (or Prince Rupert's Tower) landmark in Everton:

This shop is called Everton One, the shop in the Liverpool One shopping centre being known as Everton Two. So it's address is, of course, Everton Two, Liverpool One. 

I didn't go in the shop this time as  the chips and curry had left me needing a liquid top up so I called in a bar at the top of Spellow Lane, near Dixie Dean's statue, that has been there for many years but I don't recall visiting before:

The time it took to get served reminded me why I prefer to call at the Medlock, the Barlow Arms or the  Saddle Inn on the other side of Walton Road. Or the Thomas Frost or the Brick on Walton Road, all better bets. Then on through the growing throng up Goodison Road past the main stand:

and the "Evertonian's pub" the Winslow, right opposite the main stand:

I have been in the Winslow but only once that I can recall and then only to tick it off as it were as, of course, on match days it's chocker. Even the Spellow, up Goodison Road past the ground, isn't quite as manic:

I popped along to have a look for old times sake as this has been the most common meeting point with friends over the years, though I fell out with them a bit a year or so ago as now the only bitter is canned Boddingtons (I tend to find the lagers far too cold, especially in winter).  So it was time to go past the statue by St Luke's Church of Everton's Holy Trinity:

 

This of course is Alan Ball (man of the match in the 1966 World Cup Final), Howard Kendall and Colin Harvey from the 1970 championship winning team. Which was the last time I had a season ticket - but next year...

And along Gwladys Street with the street vendor on the corner

A great uncle (or maybe great great uncle) of mine lived in Gwladys Street but I never thought to ask my father if he knew whether the house was in the row of terraced houses still standing off to the left in this picture, or those that were demolished in 1938 to enable the Gwladys Street end to be enlarged, making the ground entirely two tier with seats on the top deck and terraces below all the way round

And then round into Bullens Road where I was going in:

It's very tight in there under the Lower Bullens Road stand but, remarkably, both here and in Gwladys Street I could nearly always stand up when the ref blew for half time, navigate the queues for the loo and the half time cup of tea and get back just in time for the 2nd half.

I hope the new stadium is as well designed, haha. I had the use of my buddy's season ticket on this occasion - luckily as getting a ticket through the official members scheme would have been nigh on impossible (my relatives all failed). In the paddock and close to the halfway line it had one of the best views in Goodison Park and not just because there are no pillars in the way:

Close to the pitch but not too low and far enough back to be under the roof when it rains! (I didn't take the equivalent shot this time so this photo is actually from the game against Manchester City in February - you can see City's Bernardo Silva nearest the camera who impressed me for one moment of superb skill but also for having one of the smallest pairs of feet I've seen on a men's football pitch). Well, I did take an equivalent photo, as the teams were coming on the pitch. But as Everton made quite a song and dance about this penultimate match as well as the last one, there were banners in the way so at that point you couldn't see a thing:

Though that is still a better view than some of them I've had over the years. Earlier this season the "letterbox" view from the Lower Bullens:

And here a very typicl Goodison view. This was from the corner of Upper Gwladys Street stand for a match in 2023:

I know that pillar is blocking out one of the goals but you can bob either way and that is far more exhausting if the pillar is across the centre of the pitch, so I counted that seat as not too bad!

This time the match itself was an odd affair - the atmosphere was understandably a bit strange with nothing at stake. It was almost - but not quite - the last match and a lot of spectators seemed quietly reflective rathert than overtly emotional. Everton took a 2-0 lead against relegated Ipswich and an easy win seemed likely but Ipswich scored a "worldie" to make it 2-1 before half time and got a second half equaliser. But the day wasn't really about the football. So I took some photos of the famous Archibald Leitch architecture:

Got a long suffering steward to take my picture by the pitch (the nearest I've got to going on it) - a few others had asked already but after me a long queue had formed. And yes I am wearing a vintage 1990s replica shirt, bought recently for me by my son (the son who's a red, like his mother):

A last picture from the corner of the Lower Bullens where I used to sit regularly with my two then quite young sons in the early 90s (now that was a good view when we could bag one of those):

And, after getting hurried along by a steward keen to get home, out of the ground with a last look at that amazingly tight area under the Lower Bullens Road stand:

And away from Goodison Road with a last look back from Walton Road down a side street:

Yes, that's The Brick, but I didn't go in it, it was time to drive home. But, on a whim, via the Dock Road and a glimpse of the new stadium. Which looks, as one scouser who went to one of the test events there said "like a f**king spaceship has landed".

Beam me up Scotty. It's time for a new era, new episodes, some new characters and, hopefully, plenty of drama. After a strange, happy/bittersweet/sad kind of day, I can't wait. 

P.S. The Everton fans have been booing the Premier League anthem since the points deductions and that was no different at the last game. I'm glad Masters was there to hear it. After all, if you don't know why the Everton fans sing "Premier League, corrupt as f*ck" (to the tune of Tom Hark if you were wondering) then consider this - why is the Manchester City case still outstanding? I know it's complex but Pep Guardiola  expected the result within one month back in February. Then it was "before the end of the season".That has come and gone and there is a deafening silence.  Now I've always thought that most of the charges against City are unproveable, for example off book payments to Roberto Mancini when he was manager. If the Inland Revenue isn't interested I don't see how the Premier League can prove that one. However, City were found guilty by UEFA on several charges which it was eventually decided were time barred. Those same charges are on the Premier League's rap sheet and the Premier League has no time bar so those, for me, are a slam dunk case of guilty. Though UEFA normally levy a financial sanction - and a modest one at that - so City would certainly appeal any other form of penalty.

 I suspect the Premier League want to get an agreed result, with some guilty charges which City won't contest, so the case doesn't rumble on indefinitely, consuming huge legal fees (which don't seem to count for "fair play" calculations, else City couldn't threaten to litigate till hell freezes over). I also suspect that City aren't playing ball and won't accept any punishment without contesting it. Either way, when City eventually escape with a penalty not much more than Everton's 8 point deduction - or even a small multiple of it - you might agree with the Gwladys Street's verdict about how corrupt the Premier League is.

Everything possible at the new place, but it will never be Goodison, by Martin Samuel, Sunday Times 18 May 2025