Derby called off as Storm Darragh wreaks havoc

In the event it is postponed, I just hope they give that announcement in plenty of time.

Merseyside given an amber warning with 70 mph winds…

Maybe we can get them back at Goodison under the lights in April again or something?

I can't see it going ahead based on the weather.

A ginger warning.

Sky Sports are saying the game is definitely on, Jimmy.

I looked at the weather forecast and there is a lot of rain forecast some wind but not according to the Met Office, that severe during the Match time.

Pickford's clearances should reach the Irish Sea.

Fingers crossed the forecast is not as bad as predicted.

Both are sons of scousers, one red, one blue.

It took me 5 hours to get over from Leeds only for the game to be postponed as I was coming down the Dock Road.

Can't imagine coming from San Francisco for it to be called off.

High winds will obviously affect the game, but also the safety of fans going to the game. Remember that one of our own died on the way to a game at Leicester 20 years ago due to high winds.

I am sure it will be called off – PERLLEEEASE...

Aussie Everton fan jets in for last Goodison derby

Walking back to the train station after the game, already aware that a travelling Toffee had been killed by flying debris wasn't a pleasant experience.

God bless Bernard Murphy, a man I never knew but a name I will never forget, especially with Leicester having a little remembrance garden for people who have died in such tragic circumstances.

I also remember the game being awful because of the wind, which definitely generates the hardest conditions when playing football.

I hope the game goes ahead tomorrow because I can still remember the only time in my life that I have ever watched an Everton team come from behind to beat Liverpool, was on the 7 December (Billy Kenny) but only if it's going to be safe for everyone who is attending the game.

The weather is going to be bad, fact.

If it is as bad as they are suggesting, I guess I may give the game a miss.

I don't think playing in high winds and rain is, within reason, an issue.

That was away to Leicester if I recall and the supporter got hit by flying debris.

That would be my main concern, tiles coming off the roofs of the nearby houses.

I guess we'll await the decision.

If this game gets postponed till the end of the season the RS will be presented with the title at Goodison Park while sending us down the same day -– nailed on.

Get this game on and out of the way at all costs.

That scenario was on the cards after we crashed at Stamford Bridge earlier this year, until we pulled a few rabbits out of the hat in the final fixtures of the season.

The game will go ahead, if our all-powerful neighbours have their way, and I have no problem with that. However, I'm not looking forward to traveling via public transport tomorrow, as any excuse to pull trains and buses is a regular occurrence in good weather, never mind when weather alerts are in place.

If I could nail anything on, it'd definitely be Michael Oliver onto the picture on the timeline that got struck by a curse, that sits above the ticket office on Goodison Road.

Whatsapping with my girlfriend who lives in Llantarnam, South Wales, she received the same, said the flashing screen message was accompanied by this noise that sounded like a WW2 air raid warning.

We have endured much worse since Moshiri and Kenwright took charge. Get it on and let's bring our storm to them. Broja to score the winner. UTFB

Lived in Newport for 30-odd years and played for Croesyceiliog for a good while.

So if there's any doubt whatsoever that the game is in doubt then call it off because I'd hate to see another family lose someone they love.

Anyway, the weather will hardly be conducive for playing a game of this importance, with it being the last derby at the Old Lady.

Then again, knowing the corrupt FA, we will probably draw them in the Cup... if we get through.

The only escape option is that said person/s were under orders/guidelines (whatever) not to drive in any circumstances.

Naturally, the same advise for both sets of supporters will at Anfield should there be a similar situation regarding the weather!!

By then the rest may of overtook our neighbours at the top and we could already be clear from the bottom three teams, so I would not worry too much of your scenario happening, it could, but my guess we will be in a better position later in the season, should the game get called off.

I don’t want us to win pretty, I want to win by the scruffiest ugly goal, to wind them up even more.

Potentially damaging winds associated with Storm Darragh.

What should I expect?

Damage to buildings and homes is possible, with roofs blown off and power lines brought down.

Roads, bridges and railway lines may close with delays and cancellations to bus, train, ferry services and flights.

Power cuts could occur and affect other services such as mobile phone coverage.

Flying debris and falling trees could result in danger to life.

There is potential for large waves and beach material being thrown onto sea fronts, coastal roads and properties.

Small world mate, I was born and bred on the Wirral, but moved to Jersey 30 years ago. My parents were originally from Newport moved to the Wirral in the early '60s, my Grandparents and all my cousins were/are from Newport.

My girlfriend is from Cheltenham, works in Bristol and now lives in Llantarnam.

I can see Wales from Crosby beach.

I just watched highlights of the game and after Wright scored the RS fans were singing "Going down! Going down! Going down!"

It is shattering to think that nothing much has changed for us in the last 32 years.

I hope and pray that the Friedkin takeover sees a major change in our fortunes – on an upward trajectory.

However, the Palace game in 2014 was postponed 45 minutes before kick-off.

If they can get a game on, surely we aren't postponing.

Come from the supporters club chairman. Police have called it.

Also, someone has had an email from Sodexo, Caterers? saying game is off.

The warnings don't seem to sway thinking.

I'd be surprised if the game is played, it's going to be awful getting to the game. Let's hope it dies down and we can turn these red bastards over again in our last league derby! COYB UTFT!!

I'm not risking driving from Caernarfon in these conditions.
Common sense would be to call off the game for safety reasons.

Game off!

Not exactly new information at this point.

The club can only follow rules and regs – they don't get to call it off themselves.

It was clear from the forecast this would happen.

I think it's a sensible decision, very disappointing but sensible, we can beat them under the lights instead

Thank God you don't have to negotiate the challenging journey through darkest Birkenhead today.

It's been over the news most of the week, so we knew what was coming.

The decision should have been made earlier.

There was no way that thing was changing course. We knew what was coming.

Point taken mate but it's not the club's fault is it?

Everton don't get to make the decision mate, they can only follow what they're instructed to do.

I wasn't going anyway mate, had a lovely appointment to have a heart monitor fitted.

That's still on btw. :-))

Then I'm off wind surfing on West Kirby marina as it's only a bit of a breeze here in Greasby.

Winds of that nature are extremely dangerous and when all types of travel are cancelled well in advance, it is obvious that this game should also have been postponed to ensure all those Norwegian and Cornish RS fans stay at home safe and sound...

All the best mate, that monitor will give us another 3 weeks of you, fucks sake.

It would the Police and Council making the call.

I don't know, but my assumption, is it won't be concerns over inside the stadium, as it is sheltered. It is probably concerns over public safety in the crowded narrow streets around the stadium, with the risk of flying roof tiles and those temporary barriers that the stewards put up to block Goodison Road.

Amber warning for 70-mph winds and 40k people amassing when it's at its worst? No-brainer.

Stay safe all Evertonians - stay safe

Following a Safety Advisory Group meeting at Goodison Park, attended by officials from both clubs, as well as representatives from Merseyside Police and Liverpool City Council this morning, it was decided that, due to the risk to safety in the local area due to strong wind gusts, and an amber severe wind warning that remains in place until 6am on Sunday, today's fixture should be postponed on safety grounds.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank supporters for their understanding. Whilst we appreciate this will be deeply disappointing for supporters, the safety of fans, staff and players is of paramount importance.

Information relating to a rearranged date for the fixture will be announced in due course.

All tickets purchased for the original fixture will remain valid for the rearranged fixture.

Sensible decision.

Hope she doesn't suffer too much damage in that weather too…

Not weather related, but one of my earliest matches at Goodison was in the Top Balcony.

A mere youngster, I was convinced I would fall into the Main Stand!!

Best wishes Brian. My brother-in-law has just had his 4th defibrillator fitted and leads a normal life with a few restrictions. I don't claim to understand it, but they had already put three in his heart, the had to put one in his armpit.

Take care Brian.

I really feel for those who have already begun their journey. We've known about this for days.

Could probably see HMS Prince of Wales from the top of Thurstaston Hill but not sure even I'm stupid enough to go up there today.

Cheers, Paul. :-)

Mind you, I saw us take West Ham apart up there in the glory Kendall days.

Really allows you to see the available openings and passes that we invariably fail to make. :-)))

I'm assuming you're not going wind surfing today, otherwise you'll be in the IoM before you know it!

My Grandad had a minor heart attack in the Top Balcony.

Getting back might be hard like.

Now I'm getting older, I prefer the Upper Gwladys or Upper Bullens.

Onto Arsenal with the great Mark Murphy. We just need to sort out a meeting place near the stadium, that serves refreshments.

I blame the lack of lead and mercury in the water.

Behind the goals is for the loonies who just want to scream, shout abuse and see leg breakers. 😂

Over the years Danny, I've had season tickets for the Lower and Upper Gwladys, Park End and the Upper Bullens.

My half-way line seat in the Upper Bullens was my favourite.

I'll now have to do the bloody hoovering and shopping.

If Palace and Southampton lose then it would have been an even better day.

Players will still have time to change their team, but will cost them a few points if they have already selected their team. 😂😂😂

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” (Matthew 27:46).

Best of luck today, Brian, you'll be okay and in better condition when the game eventually gets played.

My first season ticket was in the Enclosure in Howard Kendall's first season, I loved it in there; you could walk the full length. I was in there for the Bayern semi-final, it was incredible, absolutely packed in like sardines.

One thing we won't have to put up with today is the inevitable stick we would have took about the flooding at the new stadium, bet you the RS had some daft chant lined up to goad us with.

Everton er magi - Koppites er gobshites

Cheers mate. It's no biggie by the way. Just like wearing a Sony Walkman for 24 hours. I had an Afib incident.

It was funny as it happened. I'll tell you the story when I see you mate. ;-)

Liam#108

Top Balcony (and other elevated side views) is for the more cerebal fans who understand the mechanics of football and want to analyse the game properly.

Liam, that's exactly where I sit but I'd check with Dave Abrahams and see if he agrees with you regarding myself. :-))

I would have preferred it had been able to be played because I did fancy a result after the Wolves game. Though I believe Everton are better with game time rather than hanging round Finch Farm, a break before the Xmas rush may be an advantage.

But the biggest advantage of all: under the lights at Goodison.

This will now be rearranged for a night game and Broja will have had a few games before we play them. We also might have a few more of the squad fit.

I don't care if they've already won it or not by then, just get the last Merseyside derby at Goodison wrapped up with an Everton win.

I was in the back row of the Top Balcony watching David Johnson score the winner

Easy on the eyes but hard on your butt!

Upper bullens was my preferred spot...

I know most fans will be local for this game, but both clubs have a number of fans who travel. I was up at 06:00 this morning and only found out when my train had departed Manchester. There were fans of both clubs on the train. I got to Lime Street at 10:30, grabbed a coffee and set off back before the really bad weather kicks in.

My guess is Sky TV were putting pressure on it going ahead hence the late decision, but once again nobody bothers thinking about the fans that attend the games (see the Peterborough FA Cup game kick-off time).

Glad you seem confident that the operation will not trouble you, hope to see you sometime in the New Year.

As for watching the game, I have been in every stand and different parts of the standing-up areas and realised as I got to my late twenties that watching from the stands gave you a good position to watch the whole area of the pitch and a degree of comfort as well.

Me and my mate had a season ticket for the old Main Stand, right in the middle and half-way up. I'll tell you the story about that when I see you. We had season tickets for the Lower Bullens the year we won the league in 1970. For two seasons, me and Tony had season tickets in The Gwladys Street stand courtesy of my son's mate who was on Everton books Jimmy (Buddy) Coyle. But for the last 30 or so years I've been in the Upper Bullens mostly with Mick, my sticky-fingered mate, he passed away about four years ago so I sit on my own now.

I'm in the near centre of the stand about one-third of the way up with a near perfect view and you see most of the pitch and see all the good and bad moves, the full effort and the lesser and poor efforts, although I thought I saw Dominic's second non-goal on Wednesday!

Standing up is for the young and in lots of stands everywhere you pay to sit down but mostly stand up so I'm fine where I sit and I bet you are, Brian, where you sit and strangely enough we seem to see the same game as each other most of the time.

They had a player suspended. But I think another day may be better when we don't have Dyche. Hopefully.

Hopefully that is the case. It would be a big advantage. I was just judging the situation on now. I'll just wait until things are complete.

Velkommen!

In a later development …

Apparently the Premier League have rejected Everton's appeal against the sending off of Ashley Young in the second minute, rejecting the grounds for appeal, ie, the game was cancelled, as irrelevant.

In an unexpected development, they then awarded Liverpool the 10 points Everton were fined last season - to avoid the reoccurrence of "You lost the league at Goodison Park" … in the rearranged fixture next April.

Dave, if you want to sit down at the away matches, you can't see anything as everyone stands up!!

Again no consideration for fans travelling.

Arsenal 14th Dec.
Chelsea 22nd Dec.
Man City 26th Dec
Forest 29th Dec.
Bournemouth 4th Jan.

That's five games alone in 21 days. If the derby was thrown into that mix, that would be six games in 21 days. Ain't going to happen.

Surely you give those no credence?

Not particularly… but when it comes to the Premier League and TV companies nothing would surprise me.

The club, through Everton in the Community and suppliers Sodexo, made the gesture after the match was called off on Saturday morning. It means huge quantities of food – including sausage rolls and pies – will now be distributed to some of the region's most vulnerable.

Brian, mate, hope all is well today.

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/everton-make-incredible-gesture-after-30535765

I really do hope Mackenzie is flown back here by Everton to watch the re-arranged derby game – that would be the ultimate gift for the lad.

Did we lose?

Oh - game cancelled. Good job we didn't actually play.

https://www.irishnews.com/news/uk/everton-fan-who-travelled-from-south-africa-shattered-as-derby-is-called-off-CL4FBKX3RRNAVCJWSTCPU5D5LI/

I feel so sorry for these guys that have spent all that money to chase a dream that gets killed so abruptly - having come over from Houston, etc., myself, I have every sympathy

If you come from overseas, you are taking the risk that something could go wrong - I hope they had travel insurance - so I wouldn't criticise the timing of the announcement in regards to them despite them having my great sympathy. But the announcement timing screwed over Everton fans from outside the city and Norwegians. If you paid any attention to the weather forecast in the last twenty four hours, you'd have seen that this game couldn't go ahead. They should have put out the announcement last night.

PS - I had no problem nor any worries about the welfare of Tom Daley or St Virgil.

That is, of course, if it made any headlines, and not just a throwaway line which would only be read by us !

Just do it.

Great gesture by Seamus for this kid, but as you and I probably understand, there will be hundreds who travelled from overseas for the game. I know of a fair few from Australia. The club is pretty good at supporter club liaison but can't exactly fly them all out again - it's the individual's risk, not the club's.

Andrew - travel insurance won't cover this. They've flown... and match tickets will be refunded.

So, it would be nice if the players who will look nice and charitable and earn brownie points posing for pictures with Mackenzie at Finch Farm took the initiative and gave him let's say 1/150th of their weekly wage for something that he would never ever forget and millions more would admire..

Personally, I know of someone who travelled. Does so much for Evertonians and the club overseas. But he's one of hundreds who didn't write into the Echo so only a few people know. He'll suck it up.

I guess what I'm saying is, what you read in the media isn't everything. There are hundreds in this boat.

What if Liverpool need to win that rescheduled game to clinch the Premier League and we need the three points to stay in the league.

Of course we would win and it would be a fecking great way to say goodbye to Goodison but I don't think my ticker would take it.

“When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high”

Well the gobshites couldn’t walk through a storm today, could they, and so wanted the game called off!

The game being cancelled was the best thing ever for these fans as Seamus invited them to Finch Farm. How many regular season ticket holders did he invite? Boo, fucking hoo.

I suppose I'm going to have to let her in soon…

But who contacts the press when you can't get to a match? Shit happens to people every day, just get on with it, it's called life.

I get it's a good PR exercise for the club but I just don't get contacting the press etc to say how unlucky you are. As Kieran rightly says, boo bloody hoo!

For me, getting Old Nick at Goodison Park on a Wednesday night next year will be better for Everton. There hopefully will be a new Everton FC, proper board, governance, strategy and genuine hope!

Make the last Goodison Park derby one to remember for the right reasons, for Everton.

There's a fair old movement saying the club should be paying for his flights back for the next derby. I disagree. He's one of many.

They were due to play us the game after breaking the record - but then had a postponement, so played us to get the 27th (from memory) record-breaking unbeaten game.

Needless to say we won 1-0 (Wayne Clark) and they were lamenting afterwards it wouldn't have come down to it if that earlier game hadn't been postponed...

Let's hope history sort of repeats itself!

Not far away, Matt, it was the 29-game unbeaten run we stopped, if Liverpool had won or drawn that game, they would have equalled Leeds Utd's record of going 30 unbeaten league games from the start of the season.

We were staying at my Aunties at the time, and with a big smile on my face, I decided to walk all the way from Goodison to Croxteth.

For this game, I'd been given some tickets for the Top Balcony, and took my best mate from school (RS season ticket holder – to be fair, he'd got me tickets for Anfield before – albeit in one of his families seats so right in the midst of them).

The Top Balcony seemed full of them. Saw one bloke buying 10 programs, saying it would be a historical game.

On the way out after the match, saw a pile of torn up programs on the floor on Goodison Road. Sort of hoped it was him.

We had played a Liverpool County FA Cup semi final, second replay, up in Old Roan. We had drawn the first game in Old Roan, so had a replay at our ground, The Simpson ground on Hillfoot Avenue. We were literally a corner kick for the opposition away from making the final, but unfortunately they equalised from that corner kick, sending the game into extra time. The game ended in another draw, so back to Old Roan, on the day of the derby game. We eventually lost in extra time, with their winner coming about two minutes before a potential penalty shootout.

So off to Goodison, and even the winning goal by Wayne Clarke couldn’t make up for the disappointment of that cup defeat earlier in the day. Must have been the day of nightmares for the Liverpool fans in our team that day!

In the earlier game it had Leicester City v Ipswich and Lineker and Alan Smith led the line for the Foxes, with Mark Bright also in the Leicester side alongside Ian Wilson. Look what happens to a club when it sells its best strikers.

The Palace bench at Birmingham was a little wooden shack type thing with one of the three lonely staff members, lighting up a ciggy and puffing away on it. The facilities at Filbert Street and Selhurst Park were a world away from today's Premier League grounds.

Is it just because they accepted the match was postponed and carried on as normal but disappointed?

Probably because their situation wasn't made known to the club whereas the young lad's situation was and was plastered all over the media.

The club won't know who's travelled and from where unless they're an international season ticket holder, which is highly unlikely.

Imagine stopping them winning the league? If that happened Goodison would go out with the loudest bang our famous stadium has ever known.

They don’t fear us but they would sooner play at about 17 other stadiums before Goodison, with the stakes being that high, I’m 100% sure.

I understand now how the club would not know who came from wherever. I was born in Bootle an Evertonian in 1951 migrated to Australia in 1965; my son was also born and Evertonian in 1981.

He tried to get tickets to the derby a few months ago to take me and him but had no success. I am too sick now to travel but he will still try and get a ticket for himself. But if not, he will just try another match.