Qualla: Goodison Park

Goodison Park: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Pennington, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 13 May 2025, Everton played their last men's match at Goodison Park - a 2-0 home win over Southampton, both goals from Iliman Ndiaye - and after 133 years, the Grand Old Lady stepped back from the Premier League. Twelve days short of one hundred and thirty-three years earlier, on 24 August 1892, she had opened with no football at all: 12,000 people gathered to watch a short athletics meeting, listen to music, and then watch fireworks. Between those two evenings sat more top-flight football than any other ground in England has ever hosted.

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Image: Tom Pennington | CC BY-SA 2.0

Goodison Park: The Mere Green Field

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dcs57, CC BY-SA 4.0. The site began as a field belonging to Christopher Leyland. Everton rented it first, then bought it outright, and the early ground was a 'formidable initial expenditure' of £552 - a sum that paid Mr Barton, the local contractor, fourpence-halfpenny per square yard to drain, level...

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Image: Dcs57 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Goodison Park: Archibald Leitch's Trusses

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jon Candy, CC BY-SA 2.0. Across the next four decades the stands rose around the pitch in stages. The Bullens Road Stand, completed in 1926 to a design by the Glasgow engineer Archibald Leitch, is the part of the ground architects come to see. Its distinctive criss-cross balcony trusses serve as both dec...

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Image: Jon Candy | CC BY-SA 2.0

Goodison Park: The World Cup and the Golden Boot

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alan Heardman, CC BY-SA 2.0. Goodison Park is the only English club ground to have hosted a World Cup semi-final. Five matches of the 1966 tournament were played here. In the quarter-final, Portugal's Eusebio - who would win the Golden Boot with nine goals across the competition - scored four of them on this...

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Image: Alan Heardman | CC BY-SA 2.0

Goodison Park: Around the Pitch

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit zachleat, CC BY-SA 2.0. The streets around Goodison are part of the ground's character. The terraced houses on Goodison Avenue were once built directly into the back of the Park End stand. Dixie Dean, the great Everton centre-forward, lived in one of them as a player - the club owned the houses and rent...

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Image: zachleat | CC BY-SA 2.0

Goodison Park: The Grand Old Lady's Second Life

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James T M Towill, CC BY-SA 2.0. After the men's team moved to the new Everton Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, the original plan was demolition - 173 new homes, offices, a care home. The 2024 takeover changed that. In May 2025, Everton announced that Goodison would instead become the home of Everton Women, beginn...

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Image: James T M Towill | CC BY-SA 2.0