Everton supporters applaud David Moyes, manager of Everton, after the Premier League match between Everton FC and Southampton FC at Goodison Park on May 18, 2025
The party started some 10 minutes before the end. For 80 minutes, for days, for years, a fanbase had been building up to this moment. And they did not disappoint. Emotions that had bubbled for an eternity burst in the hallowed stands of Goodison Park.
It began when Jordan Pickford pulled off a superb reflex save to deny Cameron Archer a consolation that would have been a frustrating footnote to 133 years of football heritage. Everton had been coasting to victory before England’s number one kept Archer’s close-range effort at bay and his latest act of heroism was the trigger for what followed.
Sensing the end was nigh, the Gwladys Street broke into a rendition of Z-Cars. The Park End responded with: “If you know your history.”
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With that, the farewell had lift-off. Nearly 40,000 men, women and children ran through the classics - Spirit of the Blues, Goodison Gang, ‘Super Kevin Campbell’. When referee Michael Oliver blew the final whistle it prompted heartfelt scenes. Grown men wiped tears from their eyes, strangers hugged, commemorative scarves twirled in the early summer sunshine.
On the pitch, players embraced. David Moyes waved to the faithful in the Main Stand, TV camera crews chased down Pickford and match-winner Iliman Ndiaye, the departing Ashley Young took in the scenes of joy and heartache that surrounded him.
This was always more than a match. It was an occasion that was only barely about football. Family and friends, past and present, lay at the forefront on this most special of days. Goodison will still be here for years to come but it will exist in a different guise, with Everton Women writing the next chapter of history. Generations of shared memories haunt this wonderful monument to the beautiful game and, for many, the final Premier League game was a sign-off on at least one stage of their own personal journey through Everton.
The magnitude of the occasion was inescapable throughout a remarkable send-off. With the ground full for kick-off, huge crowds gathered outside to hear one last blast of Z-Cars. After the match, as Moyes answered questions from the press, the media suite rattled with the odes to the Blues boss, Pickford, Seamus Coleman and so many others - bellowed en masse inside the stadium and on the streets outside.
On the scenes that greeted the players, Moyes said: “It felt like a club in need of some big days, some big things in the future. Let’s hope this is the start.” It is a sentiment that has been a constant thread since his return in January. How fitting Everton have a manager who understands the importance of this day. He knew the value of it and he was desperate for his players to not get lost in the party. This game still mattered. He made sure they delivered.
The atmosphere was spine-tingling as the players emerged from the tunnel and the crowd was singing long after Oliver blew to start proceedings. Moyes had hoped for a fast start and his side began on the front foot. Coleman, whose announcement as captain sparked the biggest roar of the season at Goodison, relived memories of his youth as he surged down the right to win an early corner. Aaron Ramsdale was forced into a save from Abdoulaye Doucoure in the aftermath but Goodison did not have long to wait for the feeling it craved.
As attacking greats of this famous club watched on, a new man of magic wrote his name into folklore as he danced across the Southampton box before curling, left-footed, into the far corner. Ndiaye wheeled away in celebration as the stands exploded. He was still celebrating after the restart but the fan favourite, one of few symbols of hope amid the bleak start to the season, was not done. As the game drifted towards the break the 25-year-old collected a Dwight McNeil through ball and twisted past Ramsdale to double his tally and Everton’s lead. It was the perfect ending to an almost-perfect half for the hosts. The Saints had not threatened - Pickford able to spend more energy reacting to his new terrace chant than protecting a clean sheet - while Beto had twice had celebrations ended prematurely by VAR offside calls.
The only blemish was the disappearance down the tunnel of Coleman. For a long time it felt as though he was being protected for this spectacle but he only lasted 20 minutes of his first start since the return of the manager who so famously signed him for just £60,000. His exit was another tug of the heartstrings. Moyes said this week Coleman would still be at the club next season but his departure was still emotional for player and supporters alike. As he was applauded off he pulled at the badge on his shirt and sent a fist pump towards the Gwladys. In a stadium filled with so many greats of years gone by, his place in Everton legend is already assured and, whenever he joins them in the stands, he will be feted with the best of them.
The second half was everything Everton hoped it would be. In a campaign blighted by the loss of two goal leads, Southampton rarely looked capable of a fightback - at least until Archer’s late effort. Meanwhile, Beto and James Garner came close to adding a third while Moyes went through the changes, the most notable seeing Abdoulaye Doucoure leave the pitch in tears, in what had the hallmarks of his own farewell - though Moyes later said his contract situation remained unresolved. Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who could also have been playing his final Everton home game, entered and fought to cap it off with a goal. That was not to be but it did not matter. Pickford saved, the stands cheered and the party was underway.
The scene had been set in the days before a spectacle years in the making. The 1878s supporter group had prepared the coach route set to be taken by the last Everton squad to play at Goodison in her current form. By Friday night Oxton Street, one of tight-knit terraced streets that lies in the shadow of the Main Stand was draped in flags and banners that fluttered through the night.
For all the expectation this would be a big day, few anticipated the Sunday morning that awaited them. This was not the weekend for a lie-in. The first rail services from the extremities of Merseyside were already filling up by the time they reached the second or third stops on the journey to north Liverpool.
Once there, the streets up to the ground were thronged more than three hours before kick off. It was standing room only in the Winslow pub, draped in flags for the occasion, when the media suite opened some three and half hours before kick-off.
Inside, that press room was empty. It was a sign of the magnitude of the event. There had been warnings to reporters for weeks that no more tickets were left. By 9am most of the passes had been collected but there was no queue for a cup of tea. Everyone with a camera, a notebook or a microphone knew this was a Sunday brunch of burning pyrotechnic smoke and dying phone batteries rather than a final run-through of their notes.
Up in the stands the scene offered a picture of calm. A cluster of catering staff underwent a morning briefing in the Park End, stewards received theirs in the corner of the Gwladys Street. At the back of the media section Graeme Sharp, Everton’s greatest living goalscorer, surveyed a pitch on which he made dreams come true. The hallowed turf shone with an immaculate glean as it received one final pre-match shower.
Outside it was already raining confetti and, for all that Goodison looked serene, preparations unfolded to the soundtrack of the crowds outside. Evacuation procedures needed to be shouted over the names rolling off passionate tongues a stadium wall away - safety measures shared to the backdrop of tales of a £60,000 signing and a manager with red hair, entwined with the obligatory ‘woo’ of Spirit of the Blues.
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Two hours before kick-off, Goodison Road was a film scene. Families taking pictures, friends reunited, selfies through the flare smoke - memories being made, intimate moments that will be re-lived for decades to come. At one end, St Luke’s Church was shrouded in blue and the scene of worship to a matchday that will never be the same.
At the other, the party started well before the players were due. Firecrackers snapped and cracked above the Hot Wok, banners were unfurled from the Blue Bar roof. Schoolchildren were hoisted onto the stadium car park wall and chants erupted in celebration. Andy Gray was serenaded as he bustled through the growing crowds before a lung-busting dedication to Campbell filled the airwaves. The bloodied face of Duncan Ferguson and the suited, smiling Howard Kendall watched proceedings from the painted walls their images adorn.
At every turn there was an Everton legend or a tribute to their achievement in this sacred part of L4. Thousands knew the significance of what they were living through. So many that the team coach had to be diverted because there was no chance it could get through. The murmur of disappointment was fleeting. The party re-started. It had not really stopped.
That Everton could leave Goodison on a high is no mean feat. Days like this cannot be taken for granted and this fanbase knows that better than most. Through years of turbulence it has felt like the scriptwriters have tormented the Blues. Points deductions, relegation fights, ownership chaos. There is not a depth Everton have not been forced to endure
The club has survived because of Goodison and because of its power to harness the emotion that seethes through it. It should, therefore, not be lost on anyone that her final act saw Everton deliver three points that will go a long way to securing a positive start at the new stadium, and the fresh opportunity that awaits. Neither Tottenham Hotspur nor Manchester United can now catch Everton this season. This win is worth millions.
“We might be a club coming back together,” Moyes concluded. The future at the Hill Dickinson Stadium offers Everton a chance for a future that seemed impossible as the club lurched from catastrophe to disaster. It is only possible because of what has been achieved at Goodison - think those survival-clinching nail-biters against Crystal Palace then Bournemouth, and so many more.
This is a club that saw better days, glorious days, long before then. The hope is such glories will return, albeit at a new home. Whatever happens on the banks of the Mersey, it was Gray who summed up this day best. “We might be leaving Goodison,” he said, “but Goodison will never leave us”.