If you haven’t had the pleasure of going to Goodison Park, we can assure you that everything you have heard about it is true.
It gets you right away. The walk up to the ground through rows of terraced houses, relieved only by Stanley Park across the road on one side, then gives way to the friendliest welcome you will get in any of English football’s inner corridors, the floors of which were until relatively recently covered in an adorably naff old carpet containing the Everton badge in a repeating pattern.
At most other grounds, being crammed into a tiny seat with such precious little elbow room would be nothing but a pain to the larger gentleman, but at Goodison you don’t mind it; you’re too distracted by the fact that everyone being at such close quarters produces the kind of atmosphere that is usually only the stuff of your parents’ fondest and earliest recollections of going to the football decades ago.
Everyone who has been there down the years will those kinds of stories about the old place. For me, brings to mind Steve, the now sadly-departed dad of my childhood friend Will. Steve was a lifelong Evertonian who proudly told us that one corner of his back garden contained a patch of turf from the Goodison Park pitch, torn up and carried out of the ground atop his head, ‘drunk as a skunk’, after their miraculous escape from relegation on the final day of the 1993/94 season, thanks to a 3-2 comeback victory from 2-0 down against Wimbledon.
MORE PREMIER LEAGUE ON F365
👉 Arteta 2nd, Postecoglou 4th, Guardiola 12th: Premier League moaning managers ranked
👉 Every Premier League transfer and release completed in the summer of 2025
👉 Everton announce name of new ground at Bramley-Moore dock
This isn’t the complete end for this historic ground, with Everton Women now set to move in to a reduced-capacity Goodison Park, but this is still the end of an extremely significant chapter not just in Everton’s history, but in English football history.
League titles have been celebrated there. Dixie Dean plied his trade there to phenomenal success and later died there. Pele scored there at the 1966 World Cup, Eusebio scored four in the quarter-finals, then Franz Beckenbauer got on in the semis. It has hosted an FA Cup final, way, way back when.
As with any move, those kinds of memories will not go away, and the move across the city will only accentuate them more and more over time. That it is the way of these things.
Undeniably, though, after 133 years, it is time to leave. There was far more than just replacing that loveable old carpet that needed doing around the place – far too much for it to continue as a top-flight stadium in the 21st century.
And it’s not just time, but suitably timed. Everton’s departure comes at a pivotal time for the club as a whole. The past few years have been miserable for the club and its fans, with their recent takeover coming as an enormous relief after doing only just enough to hold off the dual threat of financial oblivion and relegation.
On both fronts, things now look a lot happier. The Friedkin Group offer hope of renewed investment in a squad that has already looked transformed since David Moyes’ return in January. In the likes of Beto and Iliman Ndiaye, they have a new set of heroes they can actually genuinely admire, alongside more long-standing favourites like Jordan Pickford.
Southampton were the most generous opposition Everton could possibly have had for this big goodbye. Beto had two goals ruled out for obvious offsides before half time, sandwiched in between an actual brace of well-taken goals from Ndiaye.
Goodison Park was behind closed doors the last time an Everton player scored a Premier League hat-trick here, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin doing it against West Brom in 2020. The last time they had seen one of their own complete the feat was all the way back in 2017, when the recently-returned Wayne Rooney put three past West Ham. The prospect of Ndiaye completing it at the Gwladys Street end on so memorable an occasion was, sadly, too delicious to actually come true.
Still, it was enough to earn him the permanent distinction of being the last man to score a competitive goal at this ground. Now, Everton can look forward to a series of firsts at their new gaff: the first game, the first goal, the first derby. Plenty more new memories will be created beyond that. But it’ll never be Goodison Park.