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Liverpool, England – “I love it when it gets like this,” exclaimed the man beside me as he rubbed his hands with glee.
It was the Halloween of 2009 and in the gloom of an early winter’s afternoon, Goodison Park was at its best.
Everton were playing Aston Villa in a league match, which was becoming increasingly bad-tempered. Two late red cards, an appalling referee and the floodlights taking full effect. It was the perfect recipe for a big bowl of Goodison fury.
The game finished as an unmemorable 1-1 draw, but the sheer delight of the man in the neighbouring seat long stayed with me. His excitement was a reminder to relish those rare occasions when the entire audience at this glorious theatre of football are united in emotion.
And nowhere does emotion quite like Goodison Park.
Fury, relief, joy and despair – and that’s just a two-nil defeat to Norwich in the League Cup fourth round.
Fans sitting in this footballing relic have felt it all throughout the stadium’s long and illustrious history. If they gave out Ballon d’Ors for booing, Everton would need a separate stadium just to house the trophy cabinet.
But on Sunday, there will be new emotions to add to the list – because everything is about to change.
A 133-year chapter in the story of Everton is about to end, as Goodison Park hosts the men’s team for the final time.
“Goodison has just always been there, there’s not an Evertonian alive that has watched Everton anywhere else,” said Matt Jones, host of the Blue Room podcast.
Like thousands of fellow fans, he will spend the weekend grappling with various emotions.
“I feel a bit like a dad watching his daughter get married at a wedding and everything’s starting to make him cry. As you get closer and closer to the day, you get more and more emotional,” Jones told Al Jazeera Sport.
The view as fans make their way through the residential streets that surround Goodison Park [Courtesy: Gary Lambert]At its most basic level, Sunday’s fixture against Southampton is game number 2,791 for the Everton men’s senior team at Goodison. But for Evertonians, it represents so much more. A small part of our identity is about to be lost.
I’ve grown from a boy to a man in various seats in every stand of that grand old stadium, learning every swear word there is to know along the way.
The highs and lows of the last 30 years have been intertwined with trips there, with the ground somehow able to block out everyday life for 90 precious minutes. Much like the inability to get a phone signal inside, you leave your troubles at the turnstile.
I’ve taken various partners to Goodison (one said that she had “never seen rage quite like it”), with most of those relationships ending in the same sort of heartbreak as an Everton cup run.
But I’ve always felt privileged to sit inside a real-life museum of football. Surrounded by history, tradition and furious middle-aged men abusing anything that moves.
The next page of the Everton story will see the men’s team relocate to a 53,000-capacity stadium at Bramley Moore Dock. The impressive structure sits on the banks of the river Mersey and, for the sake of sponsorship, will be called the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
A drone view shows Everton’s new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock in Liverpool [Jason Cairnduff/Reuters]Life in such a shiny, modern arena will be a huge adjustment for one of the oldest teams in English football.
“It’s that feeling of leaving your family home. It’s the only way I can describe it,” said Merseyside-based sports reporter Giulia Bould.
“You know you’re going to a house with a load of mod cons and you know your life’s going to be so much easier in this new house, but you’ve got to leave your family home. It’s weird,” she added.
This season has been filled with finals for Everton, although sadly not the ones that are played at Wembley with a trophy on the line.
Instead, each fixture at Goodison has ticked another final occasion off the list. From the final cup game to the final night match, even the final Saturday 3pm kickoff has had a shoutout.
But on Sunday, it really will be the finale – although only for the men’s team.
Just days before what was due to be the final ever Goodison game, Everton announced that the old stadium would be granted a stay of execution. The bulldozers won’t move in – instead the women’s team will.
“I think it’s perfect,” said Bould as she reflects on the decision from Everton’s American owners to pass Goodison over to the women’s team.
“Under the previous owner, the women’s side has long been ignored and run into the ground really, it’s been pretty much treated as second rate. But now it has been put on a level where it should be, setting the precedent for everyone else,” Bould told Al Jazeera Sport.
Terraced housing surrounds Everton Football Club’s Goodison Park ground in this aerial photo taken in 2006 [David Goddard/Getty Images]Goodison Park is no stranger to setting a precedent. It was the first purpose-built football stadium in England and the first to install dugouts and undersoil heating.
The Toffees’ long run without relegation means it’s hosted more English top-flight football games than anywhere else.
Goodison was also the venue for an FA Cup Final and a World Cup semifinal, with Pele and Eusebio both also scoring there during the 1966 tournament. Even North Korea has graced the Goodison turf.
The storied history of Everton’s home has caught the imagination of some of the greats of the modern game.
Jose Mourinho called the place “the history of English football”, while Arsene Wenger described it as “one of the noisiest” stadium’s he’s managed in.
Sir Alex Ferguson once spared former Evertonian Wayne Rooney from an afternoon at Goodison with Manchester United, purely because of the abuse he would receive.
Visiting Goodison Park today feels vastly removed from the riches of modern English football. To put it bluntly, the stadium is no longer fit for purpose. But that is what makes it magical.
“It is the closest you can get to travelling through time to watch football,” said photographer and Evertonian Gary Lambert. That time travel begins before you even set foot in the stadium.
“Physically, Goodison is an imposing place. It appears out of nowhere between the rows of terraced houses,” said Lambert.
The view of one of the stands from outside the stadium [Courtesy: Gary Lambert]Once inside, the stadium’s history unravels through the various sights and sounds. Obstructed views are common, with posts and pillars causing many a strained neck.
And the unique Archibald Leitch criss-cross design runs down the middle of the ancient Bullens Road stand.
“Goodison Park is the bluest place on earth. The brickwork on three-quarters of the ground is painted a vivid shade of royal blue.
“It doesn’t matter what tweaked blue hue the latest kit manufacturer might tone the latest home shirt, it’s that blue outside which is Everton’s blue,” Lambert told Al Jazeera Sport.
But there is one particular quirk that stands out above them all and it happens whenever Everton go on the attack.
“There are still so many old-fashioned wooden seats, so the seats bang and click as everyone moves to stand up,” said Bould.
The chorus of wooden clangs is something she will miss when Everton move away from their historical home.
“That clicking noise, you don’t hear that anywhere. That, for me, is Goodison.”
Like all Everton fans, I’ll miss the matchday routines around Goodison. Parking near the snooker hall, a pre-match pint in Crofts Social Club, the endless queues for the loo. I might even miss the lack of legroom.
It’s troubling to comprehend life after Goodison for Everton’s men. The two are so connected and so well-suited. Everton is Goodison and Goodison is Everton. A divorce after 133 years was always going to hurt.
But change is needed for a club still clinging to former glories. Everton’s new ground could be the chance for a new start. The Hill Dickinson Stadium doesn’t suit us, but it represents the new world of football, where money is power.
In many ways, Sunday’s fixture will be a changing of the guard as the grand old team are hurtled into the modern age.
“We’re at the end of such a long journey now at Goodison. And at just the very start and the very first step of a new one.
“And maybe we’re quite privileged to be at this crossover point and experience both of them,” said Jones.
The view inside Goodison Park as the surface is watered before the arrival of the players and fans [Dave Thompson/AP]
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