Everton Stadium
(credit: Everton Football Club)
Max Wilkins
Sun 23 March 2025 15:47, UK
Everton held their second test event on Bramley-Moore Dock but faced issues during a clash with Bolton Wanderers’ B team.
The Toffees welcomed 25,000 fans to the new arena for the first time as the under-21s side came away with a 1-0 win.
Kingsford Boakye latched on to a Roman Dixon cross to net the only goal of the game before an evacuation drill was staged in L4.
This was done to land a safety certificate for the new stadium but it was another issue that will leave fans particularly frustrated.
Everton's new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock
Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock (Credit: Imago)
Everton transport issue emerges at Bramley Moore
With a new project comes issues that have to be worked on before finding a balance which is exactly what these test events are for.
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Before David Moyes and his side turn up ahead of the new season, the experience needs to have been enhanced for supporters.
The first test came with its criticism as Sandhills station featured lengthy queues and packed platforms for Toffees fans to deal with after the first-ever Bramley Moore fixture on 17 February.
It is safe to say that this didn’t go down well with supporters but they were dealt with an even more frustrating issue on 23 March.
During the win against Bolton B, the screens inside the stadium flashed up to say: “No trains are currently running on the Southport line. More information [will be shared] when available.”
For how much time the Evertonians and the powers that be have had to sort these sorts of issues, it is quite disappointing.
Everton fans deal with new transport problems
Given the distance from Goodison Park to Bramley Moore, a large number of fans are going to rely on trains to get to the new stadium.
With that being said, they haven’t yet shown signs of being able to run reliably and not leave fans either waiting in huge queues or without transport at all.
In February, Steve Rotherham revealed changes that had been made to Sandhills station to accommodate the number of people coming in and out.
This didn’t pay off as his railings just caused further congestion problems at the station as trains only arrived every 30 minutes.
Questions will now be asked of the service that no trains were available on the line as 25,000 people attended the clash on Sunday.
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