Pele’s Pain, Rooney’s Rocket and Great Escapes: Everton Bids Farewell to Goodison Park

The “Grand Old Lady” of English soccer is about to bid farewell to the men’s game.
Goodison Park, the long-time home of Premier League team Everton, has staged more top-tier games than any other stadium in England. It was where Pele was kicked to pieces before losing a World Cup match with Brazil for the only time. It was where eight English league titles were won, and where several nerve-shredding escapes from relegation in the Premier League were completed.
Everton will leave Goodison at the end of this season to move to a new 53,000-seat stadium at nearby Bramley-Moore Dock. Sunday’s visit b Southampton marks the final game in the team’s home of 133 years and the occasion will be marked by what Everton is calling an “End of an Era” ceremony afterward.
The stadium will continue to operate instead in the women’s game, as the new home of Everton Women.
Goodison wasn’t always Everton’s home Goodison Park has been the home to eight of Everton’s nine title-winning campaigns. The first came somewhere you might not expect.
Everton became a professional club and played its first Football League fixture at Anfield — now the storied home of neighbor Liverpool — from 1884-92. The club’s first league title was won there in 1891, with Everton matches watched by crowds of up to 20,000.