The words belong to Colin Harvey and they summon pictures of Goodison Park in the late 1960s, when Harvey was in his pomp in a magnificent Everton midfield alongside Alan Ball and Howard Kendall.
Goodison has been Everton’s home for 133 years and, ahead of this weekend, 2,790 matches.
Thousands of ecstatic Everton fans celebrate Premier League survival in 1998 (Photo: PA)His most treasured memory is from an April night in 1970. “We beat West Brom 2-0 to win the league and I managed to get the second goal at the Park End.
For Harvey, who spent part of his boyhood living on Leta Street “right at the back of Gwladys Street”, it was his father Jim who first took him and his brother Brian to Goodison, leaving them in the caged boys’ pen on the Gwladys Street terrace.
“I bought a mini-season ticket that covered all the games at Goodison,” he recalls. “There was no chance you’d ever seen these players play, so it was quite amazing to be at Goodison to watch the games.”
A dejected Pele leaves the Goodison Park pitch in 1966 (Photo: Getty)“Bally came in as a World Cup winner. He was top of the ladder and it was like ‘Blinkin’ heck, I’ve got to try to get up there’. You never made it but at least it dragged you several rungs up.
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Harvey knew further greatness as Kendall’s No 2 in the mid-80s when they brought two league titles, FA Cup and European silverware to Goodison – and the ground had its most famous night, the 3-1 win over Bayern Munich in the 1985 Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final.
Goodison has changed little since. “With it being completely boxed in, it made for a good atmosphere and even now it’s spoken of as a hard place to go,” he adds, noting the same goes for home players too.
Everton’s men’s team will no longer be playing at Goodison (Photo: Getty)
With such memories, it feels fitting that his sculpture looks set to stay where it stands when Everton – the men at least – move to their new waterfront home this summer.
He is not the only one…
Goodison’s night of nights: ‘We felt like Moses’
Everton 3-1 Bayern Munich
Derek Mountfield, centre-back: “We’ll take that atmosphere to our graves. We had to leave for Goodison half an hour early and as we were getting closer, you just saw more and more people. When we turned on to Gwladys Street, we felt like Moses parting the waves.
“There were people banging on the bus and the noise was immense. When they scored just before half-time, it was like someone had turned the volume off altogether. But at half-time, Howard was the masterful Howard: ‘Get the ball into the box and the Street end will suck it in.’”
A night that will never be forgotten.
On this day, 40 years ago, Bayern Munich came to Goodison Park… pic.twitter.com/QFHZ3uTWN4
Colin Harvey, first-team coach: “It was a very aggressive game and was just so intense on the two benches as well. Andy Gray elbowed someone [breaking centre-back Norbert Eder’s nose] and they all jumped up to say, ‘This isn’t football’. ‘F— off’ was the reply! After the game, Alex Ferguson came in and said it was like a band of brothers playing out there.”
Favourite days: ‘Remember the name!’
April 1978: Everton 6-0 Chelsea
Bob Latchford: “In that period we got so close to winning things but fell short, but this was something to shout about so the other players were desperate for me to get to 30. Dixie Dean was there watching. I bumped into him after and he said: ‘Just remember one thing, lad – you’re only half as good as I was!’.”
Howard Kendall’s champions-to-be lay down a marker
“I remember being in the dressing room after the game, feeling excited at the prospect of what we could become. Joe Mercer, a great old man of football, said it was the best Everton performance he’d ever seen.”
The Everton team with the Division One trophy in 1985 (Photo: Getty)Hosts equalise four times in FA Cup fifth-round replay
May 1994: Everton 3-2 Wimbledon
Barry Horne: “The Park End had been knocked down and you had people in the trees looking into the ground. For my goal, the ball sat up perfectly and it was there to be hit and we needed a goal.
“It was nothing more complicated than that. That was the turning point in the game. Everybody says the noise the fans generated just rocked Wimbledon.”
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October 2002: Everton 2-1 Arsenal
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“So the actual phrase came from him. When the goal happened, my mentor, Reg Gutteridge, said it was the best goal I’d ever commentated on because I got everything in the right order. It was a great moment.”
“The distance from the stands is so close when you’re on the pitch so you can really sense the energy and you can really affect it, or the other way round– for good and bad.
Alan Stubbs: “Goodison Park has always been a ground that’s feared by opposition players. That’s not just because of the atmosphere, but also the high tempo, pressing, winning tackles, winning individual battles, getting the balls in the box.
Around the ground: ‘The Goodison shakes the gantry’
Roberto Martinez: “I’ve never felt elsewhere what you feel at Goodison, with that narrow tunnel and going up the steps. Normally as a manager when you go into the stadium, you walk to the bench and it’s when the game starts that you feel it’s a big stage.
Supporters gather beside the Holy Trinity statue of legendary players Alan Ball, Howard Kendall and Colin Harvey (Photo: Getty)
Colin Harvey: “When you sat in the dugout, you couldn’t actually see the touchline on the far side as there’s a bevel in the ground in the middle of the pitch.”
Clive Tyldesley: “From a commentator’s point of view, there’s the stereotype that Goodison shakes, which it does. When you’re on the TV gantry on the Bullens Road, the place is moving.”
“Goodison became something unique and therefore to the modern player a bit like, ‘Oh what are we coming to here?’ and that played to our advantage in recent relegation battles.
“The game that sticks out is when we played Chelsea in 2022 when Richarlison had the pyro in his hand after scoring. There was the coach welcome beforehand when a dog was held above the crowd and it was intimidating, for sure.
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“The ground and the supporters inside have basically kept the show on the road. With the points’ deductions last year, the whole ground with those ‘Corrupt’ posters is an abiding memory of Goodison for me.
With thanks to the ‘A View from the Bullens’ podcast
Goodison Park timeline
1920 – Goodison draws 53,000 for a Boxing Day game between Dick Kerr’s Ladies and St Helen’s Ladies – the first attendance of over 50,000 for an English women’s fixture.
1928 – With a Goodison hat-trick against Arsenal on the last day of 1927/28, Dixie Dean sets the English top-flight record of 60 goals in a season.
1938 – With the Gwladys Street Stand’s construction, Goodison becomes the country’s first ground with four double-decker stands.
1948 – The stadium records its highest attendance as 78,299 watch a 1-1 Merseyside derby draw.
2,790 down…
Just one more to go. pic.twitter.com/r4WveYP4RD
1962 – The Z Cars theme gets its first airing at Goodison.
1970 – Goodison hosts the European Cup’s first penalty shootout with Everton beating Borussia Monchengladbach.
1980 – Dixie Dean dies at Goodison after suffering a heart attack while watching the Merseyside derby.
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