More than two decades after the club pulled the plug on plans to relocate to the nearby King’s Dock, now the site of the M&S Bank Arena, Everton fans finally got the waterside venue they have been craving.
Everton have shown exactly why they need to leave Goodison Park
Read MoreIt took just 12 minutes for Harrison Rimmer, who last Wednesday scored in a 4-0 win at Fleetwood‘s Poolfoot Farm training ground in front of a handful of spectators, to get the first goal at the new ground.
Cole Simms doubled the visitors’ lead shortly after and that proved decisive, despite Ray Roberts’ late penalty. But most in attendance were happy just to be there despite the 2-1 loss.
Bill Friday, a fan since 1961, added: “This will be iconic. It’s everything any football supporter can imagine – I just hope to live to see a trophy in there because it deserves it.”
Everton’s new stadium features a glass frontage (Photo: Getty)
Fans streamed towards the futuristic-looking stadium past the Bramley Moore pub, which has sat just over the road from the historic old dock wall since 1758 and has seen a marked increase in the number of day-trippers on the long-deserted Regent Road since construction started.
There have been a number of false dawns and missed opportunities since the idea of leaving Goodison Park, their home since 1892, was first seriously mooted in the mid-1990s.
Plans to build on a site by the River Mersey, a 45-minute walk to the south, were abandoned in 2003 as the club could not raise the £30m investment for a share of the £125m stadium project, although they argued a large factor in the decision was that they would not own the ground.
The first competitive game in the new stadium is scheduled for August (Photo: Getty)But work on the current site finally began in the summer of 2021 and the build was completed in December.
The project, the cost of which incorporates some regeneration of the immediate area, will contribute an estimated £1.3bn to the UK economy and create 15,000 jobs.
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