Goodbye Goodison: Everton prepare for emotional farewell to ‘Grand Old Lady’

LONDON – Dave Bond, the manager of iconic Everton pub The Winslow Hotel, has been a supporter of the Merseyside club since his mother dug out an old long-wave radio from the attic of their home in County Clare, Ireland that broadcast the team’s matches. 

His interest in Everton had already been sparked by a book on the team and their great forward Dixie Dean in the 1920s and 30s.

“The signal was ever so faint, but as a nine-year-old boy I could pick up commentary of the games,” Bond told Reuters.

“And that was the start of my love affair with Everton. I had my ear to that radio for a good few years.”

Bond and thousands of other supporters will bid an emotional farewell on May 18 when Everton host Southampton in the club’s final Premier League game ever to be staged at Goodison Park, their home for more than a century.

It will be a day to celebrate the “Grand Old Lady”, but one many fans have been dreading.

“I don’t have time to process the emotions, because it’s everything,” said Bond. “There is no precedent, it’s 133 years of match-day history.”  

While the men’s side are heading for pastures new, Everton announced on May 13 that the women’s team will make Goodison their permanent home from next season.

Goodison Park – together with Glasgow’s Celtic Park when they opened in August 1892 as the world’s first purpose-built football stadiums – was a cutting-edge development that set the trend for other English football grounds, but it is now something of an anachronism alongside the world’s modern venues.

While Everton’s glittering new 52,888-capacity stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock comes with all the bells and whistles, it is the decades of memories that are virtually worn into the weathered blue seats of Goodison – which shake during booming goal celebrations – that fans will mourn.

“I can remember my first game like it was yesterday,” said Steven Kelly, a member of The 1878s supporters group.

“We played Swindon Town (in 1994). We won 6-2. I actually thought Everton were going to be the best team in the world. There’s no other ground like it in the country, in my opinion, even in the world.”

Everton fan and poet Jem Joynson-Cox summed up the stadium’s charm in a poem Goodbye Goodison, which she narrated with a thick Scouse accent on her Facebook page.

“Your stairs, your turnstiles, your slanty ceilings in the loo, your bellowing steels, your floodlights, and obstructed view, are etched with the deepest memories of our time with you,” she wrote.

“Our little old lady, we’re in awe of you. But it’s time to move on to pastures new.”

The stadium has hosted weddings and funeral services, and the ground below the turf is the final resting place for the ashes of some 800 fans. The club ended the practice in 2004 due to limited space.

Stephen Green has been an Everton season-ticket holder for 30 years and while he was permitted to choose his seat in the new stadium due to his longevity, he will miss the fans in his Goodison section with whom he has shared songs and high-fives every weekend for years.

The 73-year-old believes part of the passion stems from the region’s economic hardships. 

“The majority of Merseyside is not wealthy. There’s an awful lot of social deprivation and lack of wealth, and so it’s something for these people to cling on to,” he said.

“They can say ‘I might not have much money, but my team has just won this, or are champions of that’.”

When local rivals Liverpool clinched the league title in April, a cheeky Everton fan reportedly sold blue flares to Reds fans, with the labels peeled off. The plumes of blue smoke stood out amid the cloud of red. 

“It’s an ongoing thing with Merseyside. It’s like a religion, it’s amazing how much it means to people,” Green added.

“My wife is a Red and I’m a Blue. My eldest son is a Red and some friends of mine said, ‘How come you allowed your son to become a Red’?”

With Everton’s lack of success in recent years – they have not won a major trophy since the 1995 FA Cup triumph – expectation of glory has turned into nervous, but memorable, great escapes, with the team narrowly avoiding relegation with a 1-0 win over Bournemouth on the last day of the 2022-23 season.

Former players and managers are expected to be among the special guests this weekend, and The 1878s are planning a coach welcome “to give the players one big last send-off”, said Kelly.

The Winslow, from which Bond can hear a goal scored from his top-floor office, might never be the same after the team’s departure in terms of revenue.

But the pub plans to run coaches to the new stadium for next season’s games, as the club enter an exciting new era. REUTERS