Goodison

Memories of Goodison Park

Memories of Goodison Park

A Film by Everton FC Heritage Society This is the latest of our Society-made films, which in this episode features a nostalgic look at the history of our great stadium. Our presenters, Ken Rogers and Rob Sawyer - who you will have met before in the 'Everton Village and the Birth of Everton Football Club' film - take us on a memorable journey, through the step-by-step development of Goodison Park from its foundation in 1892, through to the impending ground move on the banks of the Royal Blue Mersey. View the full film by clicking here: https://youtu.be/xLeg70CN928 View the full…
Read More
Dixie Dean Memorial Trophy – with award winner Derek Temple

Dixie Dean Memorial Trophy – with award winner Derek Temple

The 34th Dixie Dean Memorial Award, 12 May 2025 Mike Royden reports, David Moyes presents the 34th Dixie Dean Memorial Award to Derek Temple (photo: Tony McArdle EFC) https://youtu.be/gVGwVuSywcg?si=TFnDTOu-hK7f00k0 Click to play the short newsreel of the event (filmed and edited by Lewis Royden) David Moyes speaking at the end of the evening to Ken Rogers and Everton FC Heritage Society, reflecting on Derek Temple's life and career On 12 May 2025, Everton FC Heritage Society hosted the final public evening event at Goodison Park in the Alex Young Suite. Members, guests, and fans, were there to honour club legend…
Read More
Desert Island Memorabilia: David France and The Everton Collection

Desert Island Memorabilia: David France and The Everton Collection

The first in a series of three films featuring the legacy of 'Dr Everton.' In a pastiche of the famous radio programme broadcast since 1942, where guests pick eight pieces of music, a book, and a luxury item to take to a desert island; Dr David France OBE has selected ten items of Evertonia, mostly from The Everton Collection, plus a book, and just one piece of music, to take to his island amid a sea of blue. The David France Collection was put together over several decades, and it is a unique collection of artefacts, letters, medals and other…
Read More
Is Goodison Park a place of worship and is football a religion?

Is Goodison Park a place of worship and is football a religion?

Reverend Henry Corbett The quick answer is “Yes” and “No.” Goodison Park is surely a place of worship, and football is not a religion, though that second answer may need a bit of a defence. That football grounds are places of worship is instanced at every game played: chants of praise are sung and worth is given to players, the team, the history, the manager, maybe even the owner. Goodison Park has hosted games since 1892: it was the first major football stadium built in England with tall covered stands on three sides, and on the fourth side the ground…
Read More
Everton v Newcastle United – 8 April 1955

Everton v Newcastle United – 8 April 1955

by Mike Royden . https://youtu.be/rssPxIh3jCM The cine-film (enlarged view below) In this age of multimedia, with every archive film clip seemingly now available online, it is rare that an undiscovered gem becomes available. Yet, that is what has come into the hands of Everton FC Heritage Society. In the form of a 16mm cine-reel, it is the filmed record of the First Division match between Everton and Newcastle United, played at Goodison Park on 8 April 1955. It is also especially valuable because it documents at length (one hour of footage survives) a match from the 1950s - a rarity…
Read More
St Luke’s – the church with its own football ground

St Luke’s – the church with its own football ground

St Luke’s – the church with its own football ground by Mike Royden https://youtu.be/MsIW2vqWcHM Although Everton F.C. started life as the St Domingo’s church team in 1878, it is now closely associated with another place of worship. St. Luke the Evangelist, nestled between the Main Stand and the Howard Kendall Gwladys Street Stand, contributes to the uniqueness of Goodison Park. As well a providing an evangelical presence for the local community for well over a century, the associated church hall also provides a facility for local organisations, not least as a match day venue for the Everton FC Heritage Society.…
Read More
Ted and Alan Storey – Guardians of Goodison Park’s Pitch

Ted and Alan Storey – Guardians of Goodison Park’s Pitch

Rob Sawyer In an era before blended natural-synthetic surfaces and other technological advances, the responsibility for keeping the famous Goodison Park playing surface in top-top condition over many decades lay with Ted and Alan Storey, two of the Toffees’ unsung heroes. Ted Storey in the early 1960s Ulverston-born Ted Storey (christened Edward, but some articles refer to erroneously as Edwin) moved to Liverpool in childhood. By 1901, aged 13, he was living with his widowed mother and siblings at 78 Windermere Street, not far from Anfield. On leaving school at 14 years of age, in April 1902, he joined the…
Read More
The Battle of Goodison Park

The Battle of Goodison Park

Jim Keoghan Everton v Leeds United Football League Division One, 7 November 1964 Everton 0 Rankin, Labone, Brown, Gabriel, Rees, Morrissey, Temple, Pickering, Vernon, Young, Stevens Leeds United 1 (Bell) Sprake, Reaney, Bell, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Giles, Storrie, Belfitt, Collins, Johanneson To the modern fan, one reared on a game where crowds are often dispassionate tourists, players overly protected, and referees the agents of the authorities’ aims to make football as bloodless as possible; the past must look like a foreign country. The days of swaying crowds seething with a palpable sense of malign fury, defenders who would soften forwards…
Read More
The Story of The Bullens

The Story of The Bullens

Rob Sawyer Perhaps the key motif for Goodison Park is the Archibald Leitch-designed cross-braced panels - as seen at the front of the Bullens Road stand balcony. The oldest stand and the only extant one to bear witness to Dixie’s glorious 60th League goal in 1928. Now giving faithful service into its 97th year, it will be robbed of reaching its century by the impending move to Bramley Moore Dock. The new stadium will pay a respectful nod to its predecessor with the Leitch lattice pattern incorporated into brickwork. After moving to Goodison Park, Everton had a Bullens Road stand…
Read More
Match of the Day – 13 September 1902

Match of the Day – 13 September 1902

Everton v Newcastle United 1902 by Mike Royden There had been high expectations for the Everton side in the summer of 1902, following their runners-up spot to Sunderland in the previous season - their highest placing since a second-place finish, again to Sunderland, in 1894/95. However, the Blues had a dismal start to the 1902/03 season. The first three games were lost, with the first point coming with a 1-1 draw away to Wolves. Thankfully, the season improved the following week, with a satisfying 3-1 defeat of the Reds in front of 40,000 fans. Click image to view the film on the BFI…
Read More