Our Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas reflects on the day that changed the Blues' fortunes back in 2022 and the pleasure that can be taken from repeating the spectacle in happier times
Everton supporters welcome their club's team coach prior to the Premier League match between Everton and Crystal Palace at Goodison Park on May 19, 2022. Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Imag
Everton supporters welcome their club's team coach prior to the Premier League match between Everton and Crystal Palace at Goodison Park on May 19, 2022. Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images
View Image
Everton supporters are expected to line the main road outside the club’s new stadium to welcome their players in emphatic fashion on Saturday before another crucial match with Chelsea.
Thousands could well surround the squad bus as it arrives on Regent Road, providing the first taste of a spectacle that proved crucial to the fights against relegation of recent years. Blue flares, Spirit of the Blues and a morale boost that will be vital as Everton look to build on the home win over Burnley and finally turn Hill Dickinson Stadium into a fortress.
Achieving that was always going to take time, though the good start to life on the Liverpool waterfront sparked hopes the Blues would be a rare example of a team immediately settling into new surroundings.
Any belief that would be the case blew up in dramatic fashion as a seven-game winless run spanned new year - a streak long enough to inspire soul-searching but which largely coincided with the selection crises brought on by injuries, suspension and the international commitments of Iliman Ndiaye and Idrissa Gueye.
But it does feel as though the tide may be turning. I thought it started against Manchester United, a Monday night under the lights in front of a flag-strewn South Stand thanks to the work of the wonderful 1878s. Everton lost - narrowly - that night but the applause at the end felt like a statement. The Burnley win that followed was a massive emotional release and now is the time to build on it.
It seems fitting the first coach welcome at the club's new stadium will be for the visit of Chelsea. It was the same opponent in town when the B;ues held the very first of the Goodison Park coach welcomes.
That was when a tidal wave of blue smoke and passion swept across the tight terraced streets of L4, an afternoon when a dog held above the crowd became a new hero and an existing one - Richarlison - produced a goal and a celebration that would become iconic.
The beloved Brazil star hustling his way to a match-winning goal, then picking up a smoking flare from the pitch, is a scene now etched in club folklore - just like Jordan Pickford’s stunning save from Cesar Azpilicueta, one Frank Lampard later claimed, with justification, as the save of the Premier League era.
That coach welcome inspired three points and the beginning of the run that would lead Everton to safety. Seven days later, supporters applauded the Blues squad out of Finch Farm and on their way to another important win, at Leicester City.
Survival was secured in the most dramatic fashion with the Thursday night comeback win over Crystal Palace - an occasion that also started with fans lining the streets for the arrival of the players.
Such showcases have proved inspirational since - helping Everton to the survival-clinching win over Bournemouth and providing the final ounces of energy required to snatch that stoppage-time draw against Liverpool to ensure the Blues did not lose the final Goodison derby.
The good news is that this first welcome at Hill Dickinson Stadium can be a celebration. This time it is not an act of desperation or necessity at a time of need. Suddenly the club is on stable footing and the importance of a win would be its relevance to a fight for Europe, not to avoid the Championship.
Chelsea also feels a fitting opponent just days after their sanction for issues including secret payments came to light.
The cases are very different but the contrast in punishments between Chelsea’s deliberate wrongdoing and Everton’s regulatory breaches, deemed not to have been deliberate, is stark. One club was pushed to the brink of collapse, the other can still revel in the glory its past misdemeanours helped to create.
This is a time for the Blues to look forward, though. That they have the ability to do so is partly down to the work of the supporters during crises of years past.
Their efforts are still needed, but for different reasons, and David Moyes knows the power they can unleash. He has repeatedly called for supporters to bring the intensity of Goodison to Hill Dickinson and he will see that again on Saturday evening.
“It'll be a tough game, but the crowd plays a huge part,” he mused at Finch Farm on Friday.
If they can inspire what would be a seismic victory in the race for Europe, that would be an understatement.
*The player coach is expected to arrive around 3.25pm. It will drive down Walter Street and supporters are asked to line Regent Road from that junction to where it will turn onto Nelson Dock