Four things we learned at Everton new stadium including wow...

It may seem apparent, but the relocation from Goodison Park to Bramley-Moore Dock will mark a “new” Everton.

Although we have been anticipating this for nearly 30 years, with numerous ground moves being suggested and the

site on the Mersey waterfront undergoing a dramatic makeover since the summer of 2021, the extent of the change is

only apparent when you enter the finished stadium for the first time.

This correspondent’s first Goodison Park game as a primary school pupil occurred 35 years ago this month. Now that

I’m a middle-aged guy and a foot taller, the first triple decker in English football doesn’t seem nearly as daunting,

even though the Main Stand looked to approach the sky.

In terms of size and quality, the new Everton Stadium, which was built for little under £600 million with a total cost

of about £750 million, is undoubtedly impressive when viewed up close for the first time.

Everything in football is relative. When the Blues’ present was first built in 1892, Out of Doors magazine proclaimed:

“Behold Goodison Park!… No single picture could take in the entire scene the ground presents, it is so magnificently

large, for it rivals the greater American baseball pitches.”Back in the 1990s, when Peter Johnson first seriously

proposed to exit L4, he offered Evertonians a 55,000 bowl which at the time would have been the largest capacity in

English club football. A generation on from its inception, the Premier League has grown to such an extent, neither

that figure of the 52,888 capacity at Bramley-Moore Dock, are enough to make it the biggest stadium in the

city. Neighbours Liverpool are now operating at over 60,000, as are London trio Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and

West Ham United while Manchester City are in the process of following with Manchester United having risen to over

70,000 a long time ago. While the Reds Devils are bigger, they are no longer better though. Like Everton for most of

their history with Goodison, being number one before your rivals can allow the chasing pack to catch up and

overhaul you if you end up standing still.

Although many Blues believe that their future home could have been even larger, architect Dan Meis, who deserves a

great deal of credit for designing this contemporary masterpiece, has always made a strong case for the current size,

which will still allow the team to play in front of the largest regular crowds in their history. This is because the team

has only ever had an average crowd of over 50,000 over the course of a season, during the 1962–1963 championship

campaign. The same people who comprised what manager David Moyes dubbed “The People’s Club” when he was

first hired in 2002 will be moving the two miles from Walton to Vauxhall starting in the upcoming season, and this

illustrious football institution will continue to have its unique identity.

Four things we learned at Everton new stadium including wow factor that will shake English football