Everton supporters are the beating heart of the new stadium at Bramley-Moore dock
“Wow!” The young lad bounced on the balls of his feet, dancing in excitement as he took in Everton’s new stadium. He looked up at his dad, who pointed across the pitch to where their season tickets were located.
Beneath them, standing in a row of Royal Blue seats, another dad had his son on a video call, pivoting his body to give him a live 360 degree tour of the stunning new venue.
Looking over the dock waters towards the Liver Building and Liverpool city centre, a mum and her son leant against the huge South Stand viewing counter and shared salt and pepper chicken in satisfied silence, before being replaced by a dad and daughter loaded up on street food and chatting to each other through a meal that ended in with faces covered in icing from a ‘Toffee Blue’ doughnut. Later, from the same perch, a nan pointed out a dockland feature to a grandson while her own son looked on as three generations of the same family created another shared memory through Everton FC.
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Outside the ground, crowds stood up against the fences protecting the thousands of commemorative stones laid as part of the emotional Everton Way, a tribute footpath to Blues of the past and present, craning their necks and straining their brains to read the upside down lettering as they tried to spot their own bricks.
As Z-Cars rang out minutes before kick-off a dad carried his daughter into the upper echelons of this grandiose arena, her eyes like saucers beneath the deep blue bow in her tied back hair as she looked up to the very back of the East Stand.
Everton’s new stadium has been built for football. The test events that are building up to the historic transition from Goodison Park are largely about transport, safety and testing out procedures such as the mass evacuation that ended the club’s Under-21s’ friendly with Bolton Wanderers B.
But amongst the fun of the countdown to the banks of the Mersey, one Blues can now enjoy after David Moyes‘ inspired turnaround has carried the club 17 points clear of the relegation fight, and against the backdrop of rivalries – from across the city to the the envious eyes from down the East Lancs and up in the North East, where new homes are high on the agenda, it is often easy to forget that what really makes football special are the connections it can create.
The strongest bonds lived through football are familial and, during an era in which genuine success has been hard to come by, those ties have been crucial to maintaining the fanbase this proud club has in Liverpool, across Merseyside and around the world.
When architect Dan Meis drew up the plans for Everton’s new home his priority was to keep the intense, claustrophobic, hostile environment that has made Goodison so powerful even when the team has been at its lowest ebb.
As his napkin sketches have become Liverpool’s fourth grace, one thing Everton have had to do is ensure it is a home that is welcoming to the only people who can make it special.
That may sound straightforward, it may sound easy. It may read like a cliche. But look across football right now. Good, solid, core of the community clubs are selling their souls to the Premier League coin.
From Fulham to Manchester United, cheaper prices for OAPs and children are being discarded, general tickets are becoming more expensive and the everyday football supporter is being priced out of the game they made so successful. The pursuit of commercial success may be important to the fight for glory on the pitch. Yet too many are sacrificing too much in that hunt.
It would have been so easy for Everton to have fallen into that trap. The club has to guard against complacency to ensure it does not yet succumb to the allure of pricing out true supporters in search for the deep pockets of the matchday consumer.
Looking around the walkways, concourses and stands of this shiny new venture on one of the world’s most famous waterfronts, Everton very much looked like a People’s Club on Sunday afternoon.
The challenge now is to bring these new Blues who held their parents’ hands and bubbled with excitement a taste of the success their parents have missed out on, while ensuring that, as it comes, they remain the beating heart that keeps this club alive.
