The discourse in the lead up to the game was all about the ephemeral: capturing a moment, a feeling, in the time before it would be too late to grasp it again. And what a moment it was.
Everton Football Club don’t do smart, they don’t do calculating, they do shock and they do exuberance. Fitting that a club formerly owned by an actor (the late Bill Kenwright) would be quite so dramatic.
Today, of course, being the final Merseyside Derby at Goodison Park. The final match against local rivals and league leaders Liverpool at a stadium that has stood, in many forms and configurations, since 1892. Goodison was the first purpose-built football stadium in the world, and it has since hosted a club that has often shown small peaks of brilliance, but never sustained ones. Liverpool, on the other hand have consistently been a global brand for their stature and their performance, and have long since left their proud neighbors behind in terms of trophies and star power. Liverpool have occupied Everton’s original home, Anfield, since their formation in 1892, after a former Everton shareholder formed the club to recoup revenue on the stadium he owned after forcing Everton out.
Going into tonight’s game, Liverpool led the league with 56 points from 23 games, 6 points clear of their challengers and looking to build on a campaign that had only seen sporadic, shocking defeats. They play enviable football through high-priced global superstars. Everton, meanwhile, had 26 points from 23 games, reasonably well clear of relegation but mired in a years-long cycle of poor performance made worse by off-field issues. The recent and extremely sordid history is too long to do justice in this piece, but to make a long story short: Multiple failed attempts by former owner Farhad Moshiri to sell the club, often to charlatans, had plunged them up to their neck in debt as they finally began construction on a new stadium; a process which has been ongoing in some form since the 1990s. Years of overspending on subpar players meant many had to be sold or let go for free, replaced by whatever they could find in the bargain bin. Insolvency was a real and looming possibility. Their finances were so bad that last season Everton were deducted 10 points (later reduced to 8) for breaking the Premier League’s regulations, a nearly existential blow to the club.
Everton’s performances during the troubled years were always just good enough, surviving relegation and the resultant disastrous loss of revenue long enough to find new owners in The Friedkin Group, who were approved in December to give the club solid financial and executive footing. Former manager Sean Dyche was relieved of his duties last month, replaced by David Moyes, returning to the club after over a decade in various other jobs. The new stadium, a brilliant ground on the banks of the River Mersey, is nearing completion. It will increase the clubs revenues, modernize the matchday experience, and may yet help to propel Everton to the heights they have yearned for since the 1980s. But to enter the modern era, something Everton have never properly done, means waving Goodison goodbye.
It’s a hard thing to do. The ground isn’t the same as it was, having gone through a number of renovations since its inception. But its location in a residential neighborhood, surrounded by terraced houses, means it is a claustrophobic affair. Concourses are narrow, facilities are prehistoric (there are no corporate facilities, and the number of boxes is in the single digits), and it sticks out quite significantly compared to the modern stadia that define the world’s commercial and sporting elite. Which is what makes it so beloved. The ground creates a unique atmosphere that fans, coaches, and pundits revere for its ferocity. A character all its own, referred to as the Grand Old Lady, which has created so many special nights over its 133 years. But its time is coming, and the farewell tour has just months left to run.
Liverpool may have been the last away side to play under the floodlights, and the spectacle did not disappoint. Fans waved dozens of banners displaying their pride for the club and the stadium. The players walked out to the drum and fife theme of 1960s police drama Z Cars, a level of kitsch that befits the stadium and belies its age. It is my favorite introductory music in all of sports.
In a game that lacked control from referee Michael Oliver, the tables turned. Liverpool reduced themselves to Everton’s level, playing a direct, physical game for long stretches, and troubling Jordan Pickford’s goal far less than they would against nearly any other opponent. That physicality often landed them in trouble, with the red side committing a number of fouls, including a free kick after 10 minutes that allowed Everton striker Beto, often a substitute forced to start due to injuries, to curve a run into the box and slide a composed finish under Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker. It was a joyous moment cut short minutes later after Liverpool equalized, the kind of blow that would have broken most Everton teams of recent years.
Everton played with a guile that flattered their relative lack of skill, especially after star winger Iliman Ndiaye left the game with an injury in the first half hour, seemingly heaving sobs into his shirt, collar pulled over his eyes as he walked off to applause.
Another injury to a team so heavily burdened by them ought to have brought them low, and it nearly did. In the second half, Liverpool made changes to avoid players getting second yellow cards, and scored after capitalizing on a failed clearance by the Everton defense. It silenced the crowd and stunned the players, robbing Everton of their composure and reducing them to confused and archaic tactics: long balls to an unsupported striker, disorganized passing play, and weak long shots from distance. Liverpool’s away support were singing against little resistance, and the dwindling clock made worse by apparent time wasting. Moyes made substitutions and it seemed futile. Liverpool brought on multi million Pound signings like Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota. Everton brought on 39 year old Ashley Young, signed as a free agent, and free loan Carlos Alcaraz.
I ought to explain here my relationship with Everton. I didn’t grow up caring about or playing soccer. In my earliest years I was a basketball fan, a sport I have long since lost my interest in. In its place were the Mets and Islanders, but both spent years in the doldrums, with the exception of a few playoff runs. Baseball is easy to follow but hard to live and die with, the repetition making for relaxation more than fervor, and hockey season is relegated to the back burner until closer to the playoffs. I love both teams, as well as the Buffalo Bills, and I follow them with love and a healthy sense of detachment. I do not cry, I do not scream, I enjoy that the worst thing that can happen to them is mediocrity or the 2015 Royals, who deserve to be punished in the pits of Hell.
I don’t know how I stumbled upon Everton. It was during the 2021-22 season, during the astonishingly bad and equally short tenure of Rafa Benitez (formerly of Liverpool) as manager. I don’t recall an inciting game or incident. It simply was, and I have followed them with more fervor than any other club since. I own more Everton memorabilia than my other teams combined, I listen to the songs constantly, I scrounge through their history and news with fanaticism. All of which has been repaid by years of players sold below their values, underwhelming performances, and sparkling moments of backs-to-the-wall defiance. Nothing easy or grand or rarely even fun.
I have watched them survive relegation on three continents. First in Rome, on a school trip where I watched them complete an astonishing comeback against Crystal Palace at a Pittsburgh themed bar, drinking a soda and stewing in fear turned to ecstatic relief. The next year in Aotearoa New Zealand, waking up before dawn to watch them play Bournemouth on the final day with everything to lose. Abdoulaye Doucoure’s goal, and Peter Drury’s call of it, looms large in my mind. The next year I watched them defeat Liverpool in the derby, the first win at Goodison in over a decade, then seal survival that weekend, from my college apartment. All of them were alone. I became enraptured in atomized silence, mediated by thousands of miles, an internet connection, and my parents’ mooched cable login.
Today I went to an Everton fan club meeting at a local bar, full of adults juggling work (some still on meetings with their phones muted just before kickoff) and the club they have loved for years or their whole lives. I ordered my coffee and took my seat. All we asked, collectively, was a moment to be proud of. Just don’t lose. When Liverpool scored with fifteen minutes remaining in normal time, heads hung low and the mood was glum. All I could think about was how the Liverpool fans must have felt, and how we were doomed to leave this stadium on an impossible low note. If the score at that point had held, Liverpool would have had more wins against Everton, at Everton’s home stadium, than the Blues themselves. The match was in its eighth minute of stoppage time, originally intended to be only five minutes, and surely there was nothing left to say.
But football is about moments. Goodison Park, more than anywhere else, is a stadium which can create moments. Enter, James Tarkowski:
Yes, the goal was only for a draw. Everton have had much bigger nights than this in their history. It matters not. At the bar we screamed in joy, high fived relative strangers. I exhaled sounds of stunned, relieved joy, and the fans in the ground lit flares and ran onto the pitch and everyone lost their good sense because robbing Liverpool matters more than good sense. VAR, the video replay system, conspired to ruin the joy, and we all sat around confused at how they could conjure a disqualifying offside from the evidence available. Thankfully, it could not. Upon confirmation I clapped my hands until they stung and laughed at the shocked Liverpool fans as we all celebrated again, and a third time at the final whistle moments later.
The mood was somewhat amplified by a scrap near the away fans, as Doucoure taunted them and Liverpool midfielder and academy graduate Curtis Jones took offense, shoving him before reinforcements from both sides arrived. A bottle was thrown at Doucoure, both were shown red cards by the referee, and the Liverpool manager, the usually calm Arne Slot, was shown a red card as well. It was a frenetic moment, the kind which commentators refer to obliquely in a “we can’t say we like this in the game because someone can get hurt but it does give the game the sense of passion which the league uses to market itself” sort of way. But it showed just how much the game matters even to its professional constituents. Everton fans want players who would give just as much as themselves to wear the royal blue shirt, and on such an emotional night they did, fighting for everything and showing their support to the crowd after full time. It created a moment which could not possibly soon be forgotten, in the only ground which could have produced it. Liverpool may yet win the league, Everton might just be glad to have gained a point in the fight against relegation, and in just over three months the curtain will come down for good after a match against Southampton, undoubtedly to tear-stained smiles and hugs.
But the goal and the moment, and the emotion of Goodison Park will live forever.
Up The Toffees.