Goodison Park: Everton play for final time at ‘last of its kind’ stadium on Sunday vs Southampton

Goodbye Goodison.

Goodison Park can boast many firsts in its 133-year history. It was the first purpose-built football stadium, the first with dugouts and the first to have undersoil heating.

The list goes on.. but when the players take to the pitch against Southampton for the last time at the ‘Grand Old Lady’ of English football, it won’t be bricks and mortar or metal stanchions that will induce the raw emotion on show, it will be the people, the memories, the magical moments, the heartache and the glory.

For a generation, the ‘Goodison experience’ will consist mainly of relegation scrapes, and nail-biting moments against Coventry, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth, with a few brief encounters with European qualification thanks to current manager David Moyes’ teams during that time.

Any fan under the age of 30 has been left dreaming of one day experiencing what their older relatives have.

And what a past! Goodison Park has witnessed eight of Everton’s nine league titles, and the club remains fifth in top-flight titles standings. Their first of nine was won at Anfield, of all places – the club’s original home.

From the legendary Dixie Dean’s 60 goals in 1927/28 to the ‘school of science’ sides of the 60s and that all-conquering team of the mid-80s, the stadium has seen it all: Kendall, Harvey and Ball, the ‘holy trinity’; Sharp, Gray and Sheedy; Labone, Lawton, and Young – the greats that have graced the hallowed turf.

Every fan will have their favourite, their legend, the player that captured their hearts and made them fall in love with Everton and the matchday experience of this famous old stadium.

I have lived and breathed many special moments in L4 as a fan, an employee of the club in the late 90s and for a brief spell again in 2013/14, and also as a reporter for Sky Sports News. It will be memories of the relationships and the people that I will take with me to the new Everton Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.

Moments like the one during the Coventry City game at the end of the 1997/98 season when after surviving a ridiculously near miss of a relegation battle, former midfielder Don Hutchison and I – then press officer – discovered Everton’s most successful manager Howard Kendall sitting on the floor in a darkened kit room in floods of tears, totally overcome by the emotion that the pressure of that day had placed upon him.

And of course, the friendship I shared with the late and wonderful Kevin Campbell, remembering how his incredible personality lit up a dressing room that was in trouble when he arrived on loan in 1999, only for him to save the season with his goals.

So many great friendships, so many wonderful moments good and bad, but it’s my time as a young fan back in the 70s which I miss so much.

Standing in the boy’s pen in the corner of Gwladys Street, Saturday afternoon, the sun shining and Neil Diamond’s Song Sung Blue belting out of the stadium PA system.

Even today, 50 years later, I can recall the smells, the sounds and a 12-year-old me biting off all the tassels on my silk scarf with nerves, hoping, praying desperately for a win for my beloved Blues.

I look back and remember so many personal moments: walking across the Goodison pitch with former manager Walter Smith, another who left us far too prematurely, discussing how we would work the media schedules that day, and the privilege of introducing club legends like Alan Ball and Colin Harvey onto the pitch. I have been so fortunate.

These are the personal feelings that will no doubt all rise to the surface when the final whistle blows on May 18. Every single Evertonian in that stadium will have their thoughts, their memories of special times and those they’ve loved watching play in the royal blue shirt.

For the hundred or so former players that Everton have invited to the game, of course those memories will be amplified. For them the moment will be extra special, extra emotional.

The likes of Peter Reid, a local boy who lived his dream at Goodison Park, Neville Southall, the club’s most capped player – a penny for his thoughts on the day. And for Joe Royle, who got to experience Goodison as player and manager, there will be tears – of that there is no doubt.

“It will be hard, I can’t even envisage it,” he says. “My headmaster at school used to send me up to Goodison to see the manager to get some tickets, so I got any early taste of it. The crowd was awesome.

“Goodison Park in the winter was a very, very cold place for opposition teams and it was a big feather in our cap to take into games. I will miss it a lot.”

And of course, there will be many opposing managers, players and fans that will be watching from afar who themselves will take a moment to remember their own experiences of the stadium, such as former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger – whose memories of leaving Highbury for the Emirates have been triggered by the thought of Goodison closing.

“When I see that, it makes me think about Highbury disappearing, it’s another soul of English football which disappears,” Wenger says.

“Of course, I understand it’s evolution – I pushed my club to build the Emirates – but it is sad as well because part of our history goes.

“Everton was a very intimidating ground. When we (Arsenal) built the new ground, to recreate the same atmosphere was impossible – the fact that you could shake hands with the fans when you took a corner is not there anymore, and we all miss that.”

Goodison Park is arguably the last bastion of old English football stadia, the last of its kind to go, The Toffee lady, Z Cars, the 1966 World Cup qualifiers, a world championship boxing fight with Evertonian Tony Bellew, and even a recording of Songs Of Praise on the pitch with another Blue Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart, all are part of a wonderful place’s famous history in the English game.

Everton will give fans the chance to buy the seat they have sat in at the stadium – some for many, many years – once the last game has been played, but while these mementos will of course allow fans who buy them to have a tangible reminder of their ‘stadium experience’, it will be the unquantifiable emotional impact that will remain. Forever Everton, forever Goodison Park.

Follow coverage of Everton vs Southampton in the final fixture at Goodison Park with the Sky Sports website and App on Sunday; kick-off 12pm.

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