GOODISON PARK — Once the blue mist dissipated and the last echoes of a violinic Z-Cars had died out, four months ago the curtain fell on 133 years of Everton Men at Goodison Park. Ordinarily, that would have been the moment when the bulldozers moved in.
Instead, a grand old ground will become the official home of the women’s team this season, starting with the visit of Tottenham Hotspur this weekend.
Everton have been determined to go “light touch” initially – the bones of the stadium remain the same, but it is also transforming into a place of bottomless brunches and pink tinges in the tunnel. More changes are expected before the end of the season.
The tifo across the Bullens Road Stand now reads Welcome to Goodison Park – Home of Everton Women. The banners serve another purpose as well – they can be added or removed depending on attendance, with Everton going from one of the smallest women’s grounds at Walton Hall Park (2,200) to one of the largest (39,572).
As it stands, many of those seats have been ripped out, leaving exposed concrete in the upper tier of the Main Stand. That is because fans of the men’s team were able to buy their seat in a commemorative package before the move to Hill Dickinson Stadium. Meanwhile swathes of men’s toilets have been turned into women’s blocks, with plans for fewer urinals and more family friendly bathrooms.
A lounge has been dedicated to legendary Everton Women’s player and manager Mo Marley, and another to Leasowe Pacific, the team’s name before they became Everton in the mid-90s.
Some pictures of the men’s team will be replaced – but not everything is being stripped back. A new timeline is being installed outside to document the achievements of the women’s team, though some of the men’s milestones will stay in place too.
“We’ve got a heritage to protect at Goodison Park,” says new Everton Women chief executive Hannah Forshaw. “This is a building that’s got incredible, poignant memories for so many people. We’ve got to be very thoughtful in how we curate the space.
“I appreciate for some fans, it will be hard to say goodbye to Goodison Park in its former guise, and it will be difficult for some fans to come to terms with. So it’s taking them on the journey with us and letting them be part of the solution, hopefully we’ll make them feel included in the future of Goodison Park, as much as they have been in the history of it.”
In one sense, the move is already paying dividends. Ornella Vignola, who on her debut last week became the first Everton player to score a hat-trick in a Merseyside derby (a 4-1 win at Anfield) since Dixie Dean in 1931, admits it was a major lure in convincing her to join.
“This was a very important factor, one of the reasons I decided to come here” she says, stood on the edge of the pitch, taking in her surroundings. “My teammates, when I signed they were able to transmit the importance of what it means, the ground, this club, and I definitely felt that.
“The first time I came here, I came in through that door and I was just thinking ‘wow, this is enormous’. At that moment, I really felt the history of the club.”
England international Ruby Mace, the club’s record signing who arrived from Leicester this summer, agrees.
“I can just see the love everyone has for the club and it now becoming the women’s stadium. So many people have played at this stadium and [there have been] so many historic moments and we just want to continue to build on that.”
The job has been to retain “the soul of Goodison Park” and “speak to its history”, Forshaw insists, while also creating a new “home of women’s football in Liverpool for hopefully the next 133 years.
“Everton’s been massively important to the women’s game for a very long time, before the Super League was even in existence,” she adds.
“Even Goodison Park is incredibly relevant to the women’s game with the Dick Kerr Ladies [one of English women’s football’s earliest known clubs] playing here in 1920 – the record attendance stood for nearly 100 years.”
But on the subject of attendances, there will be no artificial boosting of the numbers via free ticket giveaways. “There’s a value to this, this is elite football”, Forshaw says.
It is a further sign too, says goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan, of the Friedkin Group’s ambition. For many years, Everton Women’s hands were tied by the dire financial picture at the club as a whole. This summer, manager Brian Sorensen was able to make nine new additions.
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“It’s a massive statement,” Brosnan says. “It shows how important the women’s team is to the club as a whole. To be able to play at a stadium that has so much history and then to say they trust as and want us playing in that stadium, it’s really special.
“[We have a chance] To make it a ground that feels special to us and to create the memories that obviously the men’s team has had here for so many years.”
As Sorensen puts it, Goodison Park will always be a “magic place” and much of it will stay familiar – even as the ground, and indeed Everton Women, embark on a new chapter.
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