One hundred and twenty five years ago this week Goodison Park opened its gates to its first ever competitive fixture. The Everton side lined up in dark blue and salmon striped jerseys to contest a 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest and shortly after that close to ten thousand supporters crammed into the country’s first purpose-built football stadium to watch the home side demolish Newton Heath – a decade away from becoming Manchester United – by six goals to nil.
Having relocated across Stanley Park from their former home of Anfield following a bitter dispute over a rent increase Everton soon settled into their impressive new surroundings that cost three thousand pounds to construct – that included a cost of seven pounds and 15 shillings per turnstile - and would eventually go on to host more top flight games than any other ground. It was as beautiful then in grandeur as it is characteristically so now with a magazine in 1892 describing it as ‘one of the finest and most complete grounds in the kingdom”.
In 1909 its attractiveness only grew when famed architect Archibald Leitch designed the Goodison Road Stand and later reimagined the Bullens Road Stand and Gwladys Street End all in his distinctive style of double-decker stands, halved by balcony walls ornamented with lattice-work balustrades, often gabled. Much of this is still in evidence today at Goodison, a reminder amongst the slew of soulless, identikit spaceships plonked in industrial estates that football once treasured aesthetics in equal esteem to functionality.
Yet Goodison’s barely altered lineage to its past is often used to damn it. There’s the wood in abundance; the poor sightlines; the crow’s feet on the Grand Old Lady. Maybe there’s something in all that, and certainly the club itself are keen to embrace modernity in their plans to move to a brand new stadium on Bramley Moore Dock in the near future. Countering this however is how it feels as a rival fan to visit the towering residence; that strange and lovely feeling of walking into history merged with the present. This is where Dixie Dean played. This is where titles were won and the mighty Bayern slain. This is where the Dogs of War prowled and the School of Science studied. And over there, poking into view alongside the Gwlady’s Street is St Luke’s church that you saw as a small child on The Big Match and your eyes widened at how odd and natural that was. A church by a church.
Goodness knows how proud Evertonians are of their spiritual home because even as rival fans the satisfaction is vicariously immense just from seeing it thriving and electric and vibrant on any given weekend. There’s no fakery; no manufactured attempt to re-create a ‘match-day experience’. It is a match-day experience, and all set in a stadium steeped in decade after decade of success and failure and everything in between. When I asked on Twitter for the thoughts of supporters regarding this unique and historic ground Liverpool fan and journalist Tony Evans called it ‘an Archibald Leitch masterpiece that funnelled anger and emotion beautifully’. Another termed it a ‘magnificent bear pit’. Evertonian Gareth Watts tweeted that it was ‘like that nightclub you used to go to as a teenager. It’s dated and not classy, but it made you who you are and you’ll always love it’. Fellow Blue Dave Pallett was more succinct – ‘A s***-hole, but it’s our s***-hole and there’s no place like it’.
There is indeed no place like it, this pioneer of steel and wood and grass and dreams. Goodison Park was not only the first purpose-built football stadium; it was the first to have four two-tiered stands; the first English ground to have dug-outs, and under-soil heating, and scoreboards. It led the way and others followed.
It survived the Luftwaffe. It hosted World Cup games and famous European nights. It continues to test the courage of players and shake in celebration to their glories.
Happy birthday you grand old lady. You’re little short of a dame.
