Members Work

Articles and writing from Heritage Society members and contributors

Jessie Milne: The First Lady of Goodison Park

Jessie Milne: The First Lady of Goodison Park

Reflections on a pioneering woman's half century of service at Everton Football Club Jamie Yates With women’s football firmly back on the map and growing once more in popularity, much has rightly been made in recent times of the abrupt ban placed in December 1921 on women playing the game at Football Association affiliated club stadia in England. Twelve months prior, on Boxing Day 1920, Goodison Park had hosted a record crowd for women's football of around 46,000 (with as many as 10,000 more locked out) for a match between St Helens Ladies and the famous Preston factory team Dick,…
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Mike Lyons and Everton’s De La Salle connection 

Mike Lyons and Everton’s De La Salle connection 

Simon Hart In late October 2002, as the interest surrounding Wayne Rooney exploded after his wondrous first league goal – that winning strike against champions Arsenal – the Guardian newspaper marked his 17th birthday with an article charting his path to the Premier League from “the terraced street in the working-class suburb of Croxteth” where he grew up – and still lived. [The Guardian: Today is Wayne Rooney's birthday but for Everton it feels like Christmas ] “Two miles away in the Everton club shop, Rooney's replica shirt is outselling all others and the Merseyside club are reportedly fending off interest…
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Everton Goalkeepers History Evening

Everton Goalkeepers History Evening

Everton FC Heritage Society’s talks and social nights September 2026-May 2027 Report by Rob Sawyer The autumn-winter 2026/27 programme of Everton FC Heritage Society’s talk and social nights got underway in fine style with an evening dedicated Everton goalkeepers through the ages – from George Bargery to Jordan Pickford and Courtney Brosnan. The Denbigh Castle pub once again proved a fabulous host venue for the evening, offering the Society the use of its downstairs function room. Society vice-chair and instigator of the talk nights, Mike Royden gave a brief update on Society activities, before the microphone was passed to fellow-member…
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The Goodall Brothers and Everton FC

The Goodall Brothers and Everton FC

Richie Gillham with David France The Goodall brothers occupy an intriguing place in football history. Despite having Scottish parents and being raised in Kilmarnock, the brothers were ineligible to play for Scotland because of their birthplaces. John was born in London in 1863 and Archie in Belfast in 1864. As a result, they became the first brothers to represent different national teams - John scoring 12 times in his 14 appearances for England and Archie scoring two goals in his 10 outings for Ireland.  While both Archie and John turned out for Everton in the pre-League era when the club…
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Remembering the never-ending final: Everton, Aston Villa and the three games to decide the 1977 League Cup

Remembering the never-ending final: Everton, Aston Villa and the three games to decide the 1977 League Cup

Paul McParlan ********************************** On the weekend that saw the launch of the new biography of Mike Lyons by Everton FC Heritage Society member Simon Hart, plus Simon's appearance on the Everton Heritage Show with Mike's daughter Francesca, we were reminded of that epic League Cup Final against Aston Villa in March 1977 and Mike's battling performance that epitomised his never-say-die attitude, and why he was so loved by the fanbase. So here is an article by Paul McParlan, another of our members, about that never-ending game, that first appeared on https://thesefootballtimes.co/ on 18 July 2019. ********************************** I have just come…
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Everton and the County Palatine League

Everton and the County Palatine League

Richie Gillham with Dr David France The County Palatine League was a short-lived Lancashire experiment designed to arrange attractive fixtures in March and April 1894. With Richard Molyneux appointed to the role of honorary secretary, Everton were key instigators of the competition.  The introduction of the Screen Sport Super Cup in the post-Heysel season provides a useful comparison. It involved Everton - First Division champions; Liverpool - First Division runners-up; Manchester United - FA Cup winners; Norwich City - League Cup winners; and Tottenham and Southampton - UEFA Cup qualifiers. Under-strength Everton sides, which included Mimms, Billings, Marshall and Adams,…
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1966 and All That – Everton FC FA Cup Winners and the World Cup at Goodison Park

1966 and All That – Everton FC FA Cup Winners and the World Cup at Goodison Park

Mike Royden [This was part of a day anniversary event entitled Do Look Back! Bob Dylan, the Adelphi, Football glory, Liver Birds and Liverpool on TV in 1966, hosted by Liverpool History Society, (not EFCHS) at the Sefton Suite, Adelphi Hotel, relating to the 1966 visit to Liverpool by Bob Dylan and the FA Cup win by Everton.] Part of the famous photoshoot by Barry Feinstein - Dylan at Dublin Street off the Dock Road. In an event mostly attended by members of the Liverpool History Society for their 25th Anniversary, plus a number of Dylan fans, it seemed a tall…
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From Kirkby Boys to Colwyn Bay; via Catterick’s Everton and a trip to Keflavik!

From Kirkby Boys to Colwyn Bay; via Catterick’s Everton and a trip to Keflavik!

Keith Williams: A Goalkeeper's Tale Jamie Yates Keith Williams was born at home, 21 Max Road in Knotty Ash, on 21 September 1952. Due to his father Oswald’s ill health, the Williams family relocated to Kirkby to live with his aunt Violet during the ‘Big Freeze’ of winter 1962. Everton Football Club were midway through their 1962/63 League Championship winning season at the time, and the extreme weather conditions caused much consternation as fixtures were cancelled up and down the country over the festive period. Keith attended Park Brow Junior School in Kirkby where he started taking his football a…
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A Bump in the Road to Immortality, or the Making of a Football Icon?

A Bump in the Road to Immortality, or the Making of a Football Icon?

Marking the centenary of the motorcycle accident which drove Dixie Dean to even greater heights . Jamie Yates . Star Green ‘Un, 2 January 1926 Sunday, 20 June 1926, a sunny summer’s day like any other. Two young people from Birkenhead with the world at their feet - nineteen-year-old professional footballer Bill Dean, and his friend, twenty-one-year-old draper’s assistant Evelyn Jones, tennis partners who played in Birkenhead Park close by to their respective childhood homes, set off for a jaunt on Dean’s recently purchased New Imperial motorcycle. By around four o’clock that afternoon they found themselves across the border in…
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Alan Kelly – The Son of ‘Mr. Preston North End’ and Goalkeeping Guru to ‘A Modern-Day Everton Legend’ 

Alan Kelly – The Son of ‘Mr. Preston North End’ and Goalkeeping Guru to ‘A Modern-Day Everton Legend’ 

Paul Owens Earlier this summer, it was announced that Preston North End would play their Carabao Cup first-round tie against Huddersfield Town at Goodison Park on Saturday 8 August 2026, due to ongoing pitch renovations – i.e. the installation of a hybrid pitch – at their Deepdale home.  In a previous piece for this website, I wrote about the quite extraordinary goalkeeping links between Everton and the Lilywhites, a piece which starts with a biography of James Trainer – Preston’s two-time title-winning goalkeeper of the nineteenth century – and ends with a reference to George Pickford, the Blues’ highly-rated Preston-born…
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