An Unexpected but Incredible Chat was the Highlight of Matchday

Before Everton’s final home game of the season against Sunderland, I was sat minding my own business and having a quick bite to eat opposite Hill Dickinson Stadium when an elderly gentleman on a walking stick approached me.

“Excuse me, is this seat free?”

Waiting to meet his son, he sat down and was a little flustered so took a second to compose himself.

“I was on a coach today,” he said, initiating conversation while getting his breath. “It goes right past the ground but has to carry on another mile down the road so I’ve had to walk back up.”

He then grumbled about not having anywhere to put his food or drink on the concourses inside the stadium and you could see the cogs in his head still turning… “There’s nothing to do round here either is there?”

“No, it’s not like County Road is it?” I said.

“It takes years to build these things up… I won’t see it,” he jested.

The switch has been a huge upheaval for many of us as we get used to new journeys, routines and traditions, but for the gentleman sat opposite, this was a mammoth move.

“When was your first game at Goodison Park?” I asked him.

“Oh,” he laughed. “It was 1936. I was two weeks old and taken on the Gwladys Street.”

I was awestruck. This gentleman was walking, talking Everton history, with nearly a century of match-going experience.

It’s incredible to think he was stood at Goodison two years before the terrace we know and love today was built. The Bullens Road was just a decade old. The Main Stand, with its majestic three tiers, wouldn’t be built for another 35 years. In fact, his maiden game preceded the first iteration of the Everton badge featuring the tower which was designed by former secretary Theo Kelly who would become manager in 1939.

“I assumed for a long while that Dixie Dean had already left but he was still there and so he’d have played when I was first taken.”

Indeed, Dean didn’t leave Goodison for Notts County until March 1938.

Sensing the gentleman’s clearest memories would be of the 1950s, I took my opportunity to find out more and named the first player I could think of.

“Did you watch T.E Jones?”

The gentleman was a little taken aback, clearly wondering how did this younger fella know of TE Jones?!

“Oh yes,” he said.

I reeled off names. Peter Farrell. Tommy Eglington. Wally Fielding… “Wally was a b*****d to play against,” he insisted. “He’d constantly be on players heels.”

Then he pondered… “Dave Hickson was the one.”

The Canonball Kid who would break every bone in his body for the clubs he played for but would ‘die for Everton’. He was a hero of the time, scoring 109 goals in 243 matches across two spells.

I informed the gentleman of my family connection to Kirkdale and he nodded along as I shared specific street names and landmarks. I asked him about Goodison Road and Wally’s Cafe.

I was due to meet mates and knew they would be in the ground by now but I was really enjoying the chat with my new acquaintance and didn’t want to leave just yet.

I wondered whether he had witnessed Tommy Lawton playing for Everton and it was at this point I found out more about him.

“Well, of course it was the War,” he said.

Lawton was one of the finest centre forwards to grace Goodison Park scoring 70 goals in 95 matches. However, despite being on Everton’s books for eight years, six of those were disrupted by WWII.

“Players then were guesting for other clubs in wartime regional leagues.”

Eager to share my knowledge, I mentioned Johnny Carey. Everton manager between 1958 and 1961, he was a Manchester United player for 17 years but appeared in two games as a guest for the Toffees during what would have been the 1942-43 campaign.

“I grew up on St Domingo Road,” he said, further strengthening his Everton credentials and wowing the bloke he was chatting to. “I was three when the war started and we were evacuated to Wales, near Aberystwyth. My sisters were 12 and nine but my brother was 14 and so as soon as we arrived, the local farmer picked him out to work on the farm. In those days, you could leave school at 14.”

With so many children attending the local school, classes were filled with kids of all ages and little attention was paid to individuals, he said, admitting that he arrived back in Liverpool aged nine unable to read or write his own name.

“I wasn’t taught how to properly read or write. During my time in Wales, I once had to read a bible passage at church. Thankfully, a girl taught me what the page said and so I memorised it and recited it. I wasn’t reading the words but was able to say aloud what was on the page.

“When I was a little older, I too worked on the farm like my brother, sitting on the back of a horse. The farmer didn’t speak either, instead pointing to instruct me of what work to do.”

At 90, he was erudite and so engaging but you could tell he was still impacted by the fact he arrived back at school on Merseyside and simply didn’t understand his teacher’s instruction when asked to write his name and the date on a new workbook.

It didn’t stop him though, as he informed me he actually worked not far from where we were sat at one of the Docks further up from Bramley Moore where Everton’s new stadium now stands.

I had to head inside and so thanked him and despite his frailty, he gave me the firmest handshake and a smile.

That’s what Everton is about. That shared passion and connection across generations. I didn’t know the gentleman at all but there we were, deep in conversation almost instantly. The mention of a single player, Tommy Lawton, evoked such personal memories for him that he was happy to divulge.

Ninety years of watching Everton and still going to the match. August 17th will mark three decades since my first game and it’s crazy to realise I will have been watching the Toffees a third of the time the gentleman spent heading to Goodison.

Who knows, 60 years from now, I could be sat at the same table and regaling a future Blue about the day I was at Goodison Park when Big Duncan Ferguson stole the thunder of the Great Alan Shearer on his Newcastle debut by earning the penalty converted by David Unsworth before knocking the ball down for Gary Speed to score on the opening day of the 1996/97 season.

If you know your history, it’s enough to make your heart go…

As I wandered across the road and focused on modern Everton again, I realised I hadn’t caught the gentleman’s name. It didn’t matter though; the chat was the highlight of my week and I have another matchday memory for the collection.

An Everton season ticket holder and football writer, you can subscribe to all of Ell Bretland's work at https://ellbretland.substack.com