Place and belonging, the vital energy that makes football what it is. Everton’s equaliser against tribal foes Liverpool with 98 minutes on the clock gathered up every kick and spit dating back to the first time the teams met at Goodison Park in October 1894.
Yes there will be life at Bramley-Moore Dock. After all, Goodison was not Everton’s first home. That would be Anfield, which they vacated in the early 1890s, creating space for the birth of Liverpool.
More than 130 years later the world is about to turn again, Everton once more moving into a new space. How much of the Goodison spirit will be lost or how much carried forward is one of the great talking points sparked by the tumultuous climax of Wednesday’s Merseyside derby.
What we saw in the closing minutes was the desperate desire to strike a blow meeting an equal and opposite commitment not to yield.
This is inherent in any local rivalry and goes forward to Bramley-Moore. The soul of a place is not to be found in bricks and mortar but in deeds. Nostalgia adds the emotional warp and weft, mining memories down the years.
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Read MoreIt is the sense of home and neighbourhood that is significant, even if Goodison has long been unfit for purpose, an ageing structure, poor facilities, imperfect sight lines.
And the immediate surroundings of Goodison Park conspicuously fail to meet the standards demanded by today’s matchday audience.
The Blue House and the Winslow Hotel on Goodison Road are relics of an industrial period out of step with the modern fan experience. That is not to say some do not enjoy the recreational offering, only that the nature of these old meeting houses has changed.
Being at Goodison Park does not confer success. Of the 13 Premier League games played this season Everton have failed to win nine, taking only four victories. So any idea that something necessary might be lost is fallacious.
Indeed, since the irresistible rise of Liverpool began more than half a century ago under Bill Shankly, Goodison Park has offered little protection to Everton, who have fallen behind in the win column, registering 59 to Liverpool’s 84.
A ground that once hosted 78,000 takes its leave with a capacity of 39,572. Bramley-Moore will be the eighth largest stadium in the UK, capacity 52,000 with the potential to reach 62,000, which would give them bragging rights over Anfield, just. And that is part of any rivalry, any detail that adds jam is welcome.
When Manchester United were relegated in the 1970s, the size of the gates at Old Trafford was one of the few sources of esteem available to supporters.
What Everton have lost at Goodison and what they need to recreate at Bramley-Moore is a matchday rhythm associated with success. A home becomes a fortress only when the team is good enough. Old Trafford is more of a burden than a boon in this period and acts against the interests of a struggling team.
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Read MoreGoodison rocked on Wednesday night like it did in 1985 and before that in 1970 because the sense of occasion, the last derby under its roof, demanded a response.
Across Stanley Park every night is party night at Anfield, made so by a Liverpool team once more in the vanguard of the English game.
Once in the Dock, with a team powered by new money, Everton have the chance to rise again, to make Bramley-Moore an instrument of torture just as Goodison was when Ball, Kendall and Harvey ran the show, and later Sheedy, Stevens, Bracewell and Reid.
The unique circumstances surrounding Wednesday’s fixture, and those epic final moments, mean James Tarkowski takes his place among the heaving mass of historic moments that leap out from the past; Andy King in 1978, Peter Beardsley in 1992 and Duncan Ferguson in 1997, all against Liverpool, Howard Kendall’s scissor kick against Sunderland in 1969, one of many highlights of that title-winning season.
Tarkowski’s goal was about pride not trophies, about giving Everton fans a leg to stand on against their greatest rivals the morning after the night before.
None in attendance will forget the moment Tarkowski struck, how it felt, a goal out of nothing, the ball lumped into the area with all the grace of a farmer mucking out, helped on its way by a fortuitous bounce and a header into the advancing Tarkowski’s path.
None of it was by design. There was no time to think. The game was in its last throes, the players spent. Tarkowski, responding instinctively, put his laces through the ball and etched himself into legend. Goodbye Goodison.
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