‘We’ll take it to our graves’: 11 Everton legends on what made Goodison special ...Middle East

“Goodison was the leading ground in the country. It was one of the 1966 World Cup stadiums and picked for a semi-final. Playing there at night when the lights were on I always loved because it was like being on the stage.”

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.

And given that today a sculpture of that “Holy Trinity” stands at one end of Goodison Road, right beside St Luke’s Church, Harvey is as good a man as any to ponder the magic of a place which on Sunday hosts its final Premier League fixture.

Goodison has been Everton’s home for 133 years and, ahead of this weekend, 2,790 matches.

It has witnessed more top-flight campaigns (118) than any other ground in England. Harvey, 80, has seen more of them than most – as a fan first, and then across a combined total of more than 30 years as a player, coach and manager.

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.

“I went on a dribble and just lashed it in the top corner. As a player, that’s probably my favourite game. We collected the trophy in the directors’ box and there was my dad stood just outside it. It made it even more special seeing him there.”

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.

“It was like the Lord of the Flies – the bullies at the front then you worked your way back!” he grins. From the same stand he later marvelled at Eusebio, Pele and Franz Beckenbauer during the 1966 World Cup at Goodison.

“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.”

Harvey marvels too at the memory of the World Cup star who illuminated Goodison alongside him, Alan Ball.

“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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“I was brought up on tales from my granddad about Dixie Dean and so I class him and Alan Ball as the greatest players Everton have ever had.”

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.

“I’ll never forget it for as long as I live,” he recalls. “My daughter Melanie was in the ground that day and she said the Main Stand was literally shaking.”

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.

“If you’re not on top of your game, expect the crowd to have a go. That’s always been the way.”

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.

“People have mentioned it’s going to stay,” he reflects. “Goodison was where I played all my career. I love the place. I’m attached to it.”

He is not the only one…

From Everton legends to the commentator who uttered those immortal words, “Remember the name, Wayne Rooney!”, here The i Paper collates memories from famous nights and favourite games at Goodison Park.

Goodison’s night of nights: ‘We felt like Moses’

Everton 3-1 Bayern Munich

Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final second leg, 24 April 1985

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

— Everton (@Everton) April 24, 2025

Kevin Ratcliffe, captain: “If you’re a player or a fan, it’s the one you remember. Everybody knew it was the final, really. These were the two best teams in the competition and the one that wins is going to win the final. It was intense on the pitch and in the stands.”

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.”

Clive Tyldesley, commentator: “The third goal that night [by Trevor Steven] is a very special football goal. And that team that Howard put together was a football team. There’s a danger of associating Goodison with ‘Dogs of War’ when there’ve been some outstanding footballing performances in my lifetime in that stadium.”

Favourite days: ‘Remember the name!’

April 1978: Everton 6-0 Chelsea

Bob Latchford gets to 30 league goals on final day

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!’.”

October 1984: Everton 5-0 Man Utd

Howard Kendall’s champions-to-be lay down a marker

Adrian Heath: “It could have been nine or 10. Everything was coming together – we’d beaten Liverpool the week before at Anfield and then Man United come to town and you beat them five.

“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.”

February 1991: Everton 4-4 Liverpool

Hosts equalise four times in FA Cup fifth-round replay

Pat Nevin: “I’d struggle to find a better atmosphere that I played in – and I played in Chelsea vs Arsenal and Spurs, and in Scotland vs England games. This was a Merseyside derby under the lights, where we were underdogs and kept on coming back, even in extra time. The noise was extraordinary.”

May 1994: Everton 3-2 Wimbledon

Barry Horne’s 30-yarder inspires last-day comeback from 0-2 to avoid relegation

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.”

| Experiencing every possible emotion on the final game of the season, #onthisday in 1994… pic.twitter.com/pRmVN9OtDd

— Everton (@Everton) May 7, 2019

November 1994: Everton 2-0 Liverpool

Duncan Ferguson’s first Everton goal in Joe Royle’s first game as manager sparks revival leading to FA Cup glory

Barry Horne: “Joe Royle said we’d have tackled a crisp packet that night and normally that’s an insult but I know how Joe meant it – basically we were up for it. Everton have a history of fabulous No9s – Dixie Dean, Joe Royle, Bob Latchford, Andy Gray, Graeme Sharp – and this was Duncan’s turn. It was iconic: a No9’s headed goal at the Gwladys Street against Liverpool.”

October 2002: Everton 2-1 Arsenal

Wayne Rooney hits last-minute winner aged 16 to end champions’ 30-game unbeaten run

| #OnThisDay in 2002… @WayneRooney introduced himself to the world 15 years ago.

On Sunday, it's #EFC v @Arsenal all over again… pic.twitter.com/QvHzdqyBlG

— Everton (@Everton) October 19, 2017

Clive Tyldesley: “I’d attended a testimonial function for Alex Young in Goodison’s 300 Club and a very tall guy with a pointy beard said to me, ‘Remember the name Wayne Rooney’.

“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.”

Roberto Martinez: “Goodison is a stadium that affects your performance – it can really embrace how you feel and your qualities, or it can really limit what you can do. That’s something I experienced there with young players.

“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.

“Some stadiums are intimidating when the club are in a good moment but Goodison, whatever the season, as on a one-off, is intimidating. You’re going to be tested and I experienced that myself. Even the referees feel it.”

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.

“And as a home player at Goodison, if you don’t make your tackle, you’re certainly aware of the backlash. You hear the growl.”

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.

“With Goodison, it’s the moment you take the final step up those steps. You are walking into the history of the stadium.”

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.”

Bob Latchford: “Goodison was the first ground with undersoil heating and in the 70s they even had warm air blowing at your feet in the directors’ box. Nobody else had that!”

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.”

Andy Burnham, mayor of Manchester and lifelong Evertonian, explains why Goodison’s last act as a Premier League stadium was to help preserve the club’s top-flight status.

“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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“But don’t forget Goodison could absolutely have two modes: there was fearsome, but the other mode was sullen and slightly moany. We were underplaying our greatest asset, which is Goodison, and that’s why it’s been brilliant in recent times with what the 1878s supporters’ group have done.

“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.

“Sky turned down the volume on it all and fuzzed out the posters but the significance of that day was huge. It was the unfairness of the modern game and the unequal treatment it dishes out, but a defiant Goodison is the best Goodison.”

With thanks to the ‘A View from the Bullens’ podcast

Goodison Park timeline

1892 – After a dispute with landlord John Houlding, Everton leave Anfield and cross Stanley Park to a new stadium on Mere Green Field, Goodison Park. The first game is a friendly against Bolton on 2 September, which the Blues win 4-2.

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.

1926 – The Archibald Leitch-designed Bullens Road Stand, with its distinctive blue-and-white latticework, opens.

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. 

1930 – After seeing Pittodrie’s dugouts during a friendly at Aberdeen, Everton build their own – so Goodison becomes the first English stadium with dugouts.

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

— Everton (@Everton) May 12, 2025

1949 – Goodison stages England’s first loss on home soil to foreign opposition, 2-0 against the Republic of Ireland.

1962 – The Z Cars theme gets its first airing at Goodison.

1966 – Goodison hosts five matches at the 1966 World Cup, including the Portugal-North Korea quarter-final and West Germany-USSR semi-final. 

1970 – Goodison hosts the European Cup’s first penalty shootout with Everton beating Borussia Monchengladbach.

1971 – The new £1m Main Stand become the first three-tier stand in English football.

1980 – Dixie Dean dies at Goodison after suffering a heart attack while watching the Merseyside derby.

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