There She Goes

Even for the most devoted of Evertonians, it’s been a weird few months; from the pure elation of attending the first test event at Bramley-Moore Dock to the splendid farewell at Goodison Park and so much in between. The very last touch of the ball under the floodlights by James Tarkowski to equalise with Liverpool was a personal highlight as was the return of David Moyes, although his once-famous red hair is as white as a fleece. I suspect we did that to him.

Bramley-Moore Dock, now named Hill Dickinson Stadium (it’s OK, it’s a bit like Dixie and I’ve heard far worse) made me giddy and I was quickly bewitched. Now I feel slightly sheepish, like I’ve been caught snogging somebody else’s husband. It’s Goodison Park I know, love and trust and it’s her embrace I will miss forever, no matter how spectacular our new place will become – and it absolutely will.

The end seemed to come quickly, possibly to do with us loafing in the unfamiliar position of safety. No relegation scrap this time, no head clutching, mental arithmetic, what ifs or soul searching. Mid-table mediocrity is more than welcome while David Moyes settles back in; it’s been a rough few decades.

May 18^th dawned: the final day at The Grand Old Lady of L4 and it was to be another in a long line of scorchers. It’s a meteorological mystery, but nobody can remember when it last rained. Parks and gardens are frazzled but everybody has a tanned face and a spring in their step. We’re safe from relegation and Southampton, our opposition, are going down no matter what, so all that’s left is to enjoy the day which is to be a carnival of Evertonia. 

Rendezvous is the Titanic Hotel for champagne breakfast at 9.30am sharp. Car parking is available on the empty Dover Dock alongside our new place and the perfect spot for a selfie. Along with the Bramley Moore pub, the Titanic is surely the most superb location in the city for the discerning Evertonian. 

The formerly-derelict North Warehouse stands on the Stanley Dock complex, diagonal to BMD. Completed in 1855, it’s the only inland dock and was used to store rum and tobacco from exotic origins. As with the majority of Liverpool’s heritage waterfront, it was designed by civil engineer, Jesse Hartley. Built from red brick and sideways on, the cobblestones leading up to the entrance are pure Liverpool history beneath our feet. If they could speak they’d tell of the footfall of dockers, deportees, shire-horses, slaves, drunks, adventurers, prisoners and immigrants from faraway lands.

There’s something prodigious about our new ground standing behind the dock wall, the huge, Hartley-designed granite gateposts or ‘policeman’s lodges’ making it our own actual fortress. It’s going to be a whole new world down there soon and I honestly envy people who have yet to see the ground for the first time. I’m stoked with pride that Everton Football Club are leading the way in the regeneration of the North Liverpool waterfront. It deserves to come to life again. It already reverberates with the spirit of the once-busiest port in Europe and the people who stoically withstood the relentless might of Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Jesse Hartley would be loving it. 

Andy Gray is standing on the doorstep, his face so familiar, I feel I could hug him right there and then. We shake hands and exchange pleasantries, I tell him he was in a book I wrote, a quarter of a century ago. He raises a quizzical eyebrow but he’s probably been in a dozen books since then and they all roll in to one. I make a mental note to get a copy of Talking Blue to him because, like JR Hartley, I bought my own book whenever I saw one, second hand. 

Attentive staff, immaculately turned out, guide us to the West Bay, a classy function area looking out over huge industrial colonnades. In its day, this warehouse won awards for architecture and engineering and has been sympathetically redeveloped leaving exposed brickwork, cast iron columns and a hydraulic crane still standing proud. Right now, there’s a vast selection of delicious breakfast options for the taking, laid out beneath Art Deco travel posters advertising the White Star Shipping Line and accompanied by free-flowing champagne – other options are available. 

Starboard forward, I see Kendall’s Class of ‘84. Much to his dismay, John Bailey’s big hat has made an appearance and Derek Mountfield is tucking in to the grub, still flushed with golf-shaped victory from the Andy King Memorial Day; it’s been a decade since we lost him. 

Now a Sky doyen and Twitter/X legend concerning all things Royal Blue, Alan Myers is doing a piece to camera. He was Press Officer at Everton in the late 90s when I was cutting my teeth as a sports reporter with Liverpool L!VE TV. For those of you unfamiliar with Topless Darts, News Bunny and a trampolining dwarf reading the weather; this is how it worked. There was a national cable feed on Channel 18 and every hour between 8am - 8pm, it threw to the regional bureaux which networked the major cities. We reported local news and sport for half an hour and it was brilliant; like the Daily Mirror on the telly. My broadcasting career began at the end of Joe Royle’s reign and ended in October 1998, during Walter Smith’s tenure. It was my best job ever, I never took a day off in case they didn’t miss me and those two years would shape my professional future. 

Wayne Rooney arrives with Rooney Jnr, this is Cass; he’s only six but he’s wearing Everton merch and I’m assured, shows great promise with a football. I tell Wayne I wrote the first ever magazine feature about him, commissioned the day after he scored his wonder goal against Arsenal when he was still only 16. I was both exhilarated and terrified that my piece was going to be the cover story in FourFourTwo – the lads’ mag of football back in the day. All of his peers would read it: Sven Goran-Erikson, David Moyes, Gary Lineker and Wayne Rooney, the ‘Teenage Rampage’ himself, it made my heart beat so fast, I had to lie down. He looked vague and said he’d never seen it. I tag him in a tweet every ten years or so, but a glance at his account tells me he has over 16 million followers so it could easily get lost in the intergalactic debris. Such is the writer’s lot.

We’re to be shuttled to the ground in a pair of team buses and the former players will experience their first and final ‘coach welcome’ from the diehards on Goodison Road. The route will symbolically take us past the always-Insta-ready Kendall, Harvey and Ball statue outside St Luke’s Church. I glance up and can see the blue smoke through the coach window and we haven’t left the carpark yet. 

There are two empty seats at a table and I sit down beside Adrian Heath who’s chatting to Paul Bracewell about his life in America. He vaguely recognises me but doesn’t know where from. The last time we met was in May 1998 when I interviewed him in his role of assistant manager to Howard Kendall in a lounge at Goodison Park. Every news outlet in the land was there because it was two days before ‘the Coventry game’, the last match of the season and we were surely relegated. Gareth Farrelly saved our bacon that day and we didn’t even win. Inchy tells me Farrelly wasn’t even on the team sheet the night before; a stroke of fortune or genius? Who cares? Meanwhile, Tim Cahill walks the length of the bus shaking hands with everybody and introducing himself.

 

Doing the rounds is a drone shot of The Old Lady and she never shone more brightly - but it’s highly unlikely the Goodison Road part of the itinerary is going to happen. Thousands of people have been on the sun-kissed streets of L4 since dawn and the roads are rammed with emotional Evertonians, many of whom don’t have a ticket but just want to be there to sing, drink, cry and hug strangers. 

Like the first-team bus before us, we have to re-route, taking us along Walton Breck Road and past Anfield where garish red flags proclaim 20 Championships under their belt. A square of waste ground – they were everywhere in the Liverpool of my childhood – where they’re selling memorabilia for the upcoming Coach Parade announces they’re ‘back on their perch again’ thanks to Arnie’s slot machine. Bill Shankly presides over this side of town, arms aloft. ‘Shut the curtains!’ shouts Derek Mountfield, as low-level booing breaks out. 

The closest the coaches can get to the ground is Bullens Road and its 20 deep in Evertonians, cheering and shouting out names – ‘Rooney, Rooney!’ The Prodigal Son is home. Tim Cahill is inadvertently causing mayhem as everybody wants a selfie with him and one girl chokes back tears and gasps, ‘I touched him’.

Anders Limpar, Kevin Sheedy, George Telfer, Alan Stubbs, Victor Anichebe, Gary Stevens, Tony Grant, Joe Parkinson, Trevor Steven, Peter Beardsley, Tony Cottee, Danny Cadamarteri, Pat van den Hauwe, Jermaine Beckford, Mark Higgins, Neville Southall, Duncan McKenzie, David Weir, Kevin Richardson, Michael Ball, Peter Reid, Tom Davies, Joleon Lescott, Alan Harper - it’s like a fever dream. 

Locked gates, expensive cars, bottles of water and a sea of ‘Hi-viz’ jackets; we’re on the move and the sun is cracking the flags. ‘You wouldn’t have got away with that a few years ago,’ growls Tony Kay, as a uniformed man steps sharply in front of him and blocks his path, Kay’s Yorkshire accent as strong as the day he arrived from Sheffield Wednesday in the long winter of 1962.

We make our way to Row Z of the Main Stand. On the back of each seat is a scarf. Everton blue with the fixture on one side and Goodison Park on the other, meticulously laid out the night before by staff. 

My view is obstructed, it’s only right. I’m sitting beside Mike Pejic – somebody said he looked like he’d just finished a tour with Hawkwind and it still makes me laugh. Now a taekwondo Grand Master, he certainly has another season in him and could definitely kill a man with one finger. Dobson, Pejic and Dave Thomas – the Bermuda Triangle, once the ball went in, it was never coming out again. I look across to the familiar vista of the Bullens Road stand and see the Everton standard, flying at half-mast. It’s so poignant, it makes me well up. Years ago, I was on that gantry with a cameraman and there was a vertical ladder. Curiosity got the better of me and before I knew it, I was on the roof. It was pre mobile phones, but I often carried a camera and took some decent photos before security arrived.

Ten minutes before the final whistle, Dave Prentice comes to gather the older players and ushers them down those steep stairs, one last time. We head out to the corner of the Park End and Main Stand and mill around in the glorious sunshine. The final whistle blows, we’ve won 2-0 but the result is irrelevant, this is the last time we get to hear, ‘Come on Everton, these are shite!’ within the confines of the Old Lady of Liverpool 4. Then, just when you think you can’t take any more, ‘Operation Farewell Goodison complete’ was enough to send everybody over the emotional brink. Did anybody ever find out what it was? My money’s on star jumps. 

Looking around and taking it all in, we’re in the finest of holding pens and it’s the first chance many of the guys are getting to speak to each other. Some scan the murals for themselves and I invite Bob Latchford over to have a photo with his younger self. Through the closed gates, I can hear the most melancholic rendition of Z Cars played on a violin which gives me goosebumps. Instantly, I recall a montage which appeared online after Howard Kendall’s death, played on strings and have tears in my eyes now, just remembering it. 

Fast approaching is Martin Dobson; his long-limbed stride is parting the masses, he’s been on duty in the lounges where he’s a match-day host. Bob Latchford clocks him, glides over and offers his hand, they look each other right in the eye, ‘Bob’, he says, ‘Bob Latchford’, and in a nanosecond, that brotherhood is reignited. 

My eye catches a distinguished man who’d clearly had his nose broken more than once... ‘Who’s he?’ I ask Darren Griffiths, who’s like an expectant father, checking on everybody, making sure it’s running to schedule and nobody is suffering from heat exhaustion. ‘Johnny Morrissey’. I’m absolutely shocked. Like the rest of us, I’ve heard the stories how his, shall we say, unorthodox transfer to Everton in 1962 in Shankly’s absence, changed the course of Liverpool FC’s history. The word on the after-dinner circuit was that Mogsy would never appear at any of these functions because he’s a recluse. Like Scouse Snowbirds, Mr and Mrs M wintered in Florida and when he was back here, he’d mind his own business. 

In my imagination, this colossus of a man with massive thighs and scorer of the slowest-ever penalty was at least six feet tall, but that ain’t so, he has a much lower centre of gravity. His wife of some 62 years has a chapter in my favourite book, Real Footballers’ Wives – the First Ladies of Everton. Was Celia with him? No, he’s with his grandsons, rabid Blues who talked him into coming for one last whirl around the emerald-green dancefloor. 

He’s chatting to Tony Kay and Derek Temple, all that remains of the 1962/3 Championship winning team. They all have gnarled hands, multiple replaced joints and faces that have seen life. Recently widowed, Derek Temple always has a Ready Brek kind of glow about him befitting a man who scored the winning goal in an FA Cup final.

The clock is ticking due to time constraints put in place by Merseyside Police, it needs to run like clockwork. I ask Darren what time Paul McCartney is due to arrive. 

A moment later and we’re on the edge of the pitch, while Gethin Jones (who knew?) announces the names of the former players to take a lap of appreciation. First up is Tony Kay, the man who played fewer than 50 games for the Blues before his career was snatched away, aged 26. Scousers love an antihero and he was loudly cheered onto the pitch. Billy Wright linked his arm and walked alongside him. Kay’s a game old fella, 88 and still working. The ‘hardest man in football’ wiping a tear from his eye became a meme on the 60s football pages before the day was out.

The heroes of the 80s are all present and correct. Graeme Sharp has made his return too, after endless months, perhaps years in the wilderness and my heart is full, after all, this is a day for forgiveness and love.  

Rooney walks towards the Gwladys Street end, the scene of some of his finest moments. He hugs Duncan Ferguson who bends down to look Junior in the eye. ‘Hello, Son - I’m Big Dunc’. 

Multiple Toffee Ladies are twirling their parasols and tossing Everton mints into the crowd. I heard they were no longer allowed to throw them with any kind of force due to health and safety constraints and the possibility of a person litigating for lost limbs or eyes, but when people are waving frantically, what’s a Toffee Lady to do? I went over and asked for one but can’t bring myself to eat it so it’s still in my pocket.

The End of an Era gig plays out, the former and current players are seated on the pitch to listen to the singing and interviews by Everton legends and it all goes by in an emotional whirl. Joe Royle spoke earlier about the lifetime he’s spent in the game, the last Everton manager to lift a trophy way back in 1995. He’s walking with a stick and tells me he’s had trouble with his back, possibly from an injury he sustained here as a player, half a century ago.

And then it’s over. A lone trumpeter plays Z Cars one final time and it’s the Last Post for all of us. People with blue-stained faces and red eyes turn to have one final look from their seat and imprint the view into their very soul. Others begin to leave quietly while some gently and politely encroach onto the pitch. A lad bends down and respectfully plucks two blades of grass and tucks them into his programme. The Old Lady deserved to go out with this exceptional level of dignity; it’s the least we could do.

We make our way back to the coaches, patiently waiting to return us to the Titanic where the gathering will continue late into the night. The streets of Liverpool 4 have a look of ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Parade’ about them and there’s still blue smoke hanging in the air. If only it would rain and wash it all away, but that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

Old Lady stands proud
We belong to the city
Can I mind your car?