My Goodison Park Pilgrimage

My very first trip to Goodison Park from Los Angeles, and thankfully, the gods were kind. Home against Wolves and even better, the match was moved to Sunday, which meant I wouldn't have to take a train straight from the airport.

Everton 3 - 2 Wolves

So you may or may not have seen my post before the Wolves match two weeks ago, announcing that I was en route to Liverpool for my very first visit to Goodison Park, but several kind folks — including Andy Crooks and Derek Knox — encouraged me to write about the experience… and even though I posted a few impressions in the immediate aftermath, I thought I'd provide a more detailed version of my ‘pilgrimage'.

First, a bit of background. I live in Los Angeles (yep — another Yank, like Mike Gaynes and Jamie Crowley) and my Mom wanted to take me to London for my birthday — neither of us had ever been before. Of course, an Everton match immediately topped my list of things to do, but unfortunately we had to start planning and making arrangements at the start of summer… so all I could do was cross my fingers and leave myself at the mercy of the scheduling Gods.

Worst case scenario, I could have tried to attend an away match (unless it involved dragging my butt all the way to Newcastle or something), but c'mon — there's no substitute for Goodison Park. And assuming (god forbid) Bramley-Moore Dock actually progresses according to schedule, there will only be so many opportunities left to experience the Old Lady.

Thankfully, the gods were kind. Home against Wolves (great opponent!)… and even better, the match was moved to Sunday, which meant I wouldn't have to take a train straight from the airport (which I was fully prepared to do, but would have left me tired and stressed, to say the least). I really can't emphasize how perfectly everything fell into place — I should have taken it as a sign that I was in for something special (or a kick in the teeth).

So the big day arrives and, functioning on minimal sleep but fortified by a pasty from Euston Station, I hop on the train to Liverpool. Plenty of gents in Everton shirts on-board — no doubt rolling their eyes inwardly as I grin and tap the badge, as if to say “That's right — I'm part of the tribe.”

My friend Nick, who lives in Lancaster, was nice enough to come down and meet me for the match — he's a Derby County fan, and a pretty beaten-down one at that (I asked him if he was excited about Rooney's impending arrival and he just sort of snorted). FYI, Liverpool seemed like a really cool city with a lot of character, and I wish I'd had time to actually explore it, if I hadn't been on such a tight schedule.

I wish I could offer a more profound account of my impressions upon arrival and walking into Goodison Park for the first time, but it was all a bit overwhelming and surreal at that point. I was in the Lower Bullens (section LB6, to be precise) and was a little apprehensive, since I'd heard it's not the best place to watch a match, particularly if you're near the back… and yes, okay, I was seated directly behind a post, so I sort of had to crane my neck around any time there was action inside the box, and had to lean forward to actually see the game clock… but I wouldn't have traded it for anything. Okay, maybe I would have swapped seats with that kid a few rows up who had an unrestricted view but spent the entire match with his nose glued to his Nintendo Switch, but otherwise I was pretty much a happy clam.

Of course I wanted Everton to win, but if you'd asked me my hopes for the experience, bare minimum, I would have said “We have to score. I have to hear Goodison erupt. I can't leave empty-handed.” I thought back to that limp 1-0 home defeat we suffered against Leicester City after New Year's and felt that would be an awfully depressing experience to take back home with me. So you can imagine my delight when, just five minutes into the match, Wolves botched the back pass and Richarlison was on hand to bury the deflection (and me in my Richarlison shirt no less). What a perfect start and what a fantastic feeling!

Of course, it was a pretty short-lived euphoria as Wolves leveled just minutes later (I thought to myself “Oh… it's going to be one of *those* afternoons”). I kind of figured an agonized groan would pass through the crowd or something, but it was more of a withering silence (like “Oh, sod off, Everton!”). Thankfully, we answered in short order, with Sigurdsson and Iwobi hooking up on a great goal, and suddenly it felt like we'd packed more excitement into those first 15 minutes than we had in our previous three League matches combined.

Nick was also thoroughly baffled at this point, as my pre-match scouting report was basically “We struggle to score goals, but we're quite sound defensively.” I probably shouldn't have spent so much time bragging about how we hadn't been breached at Goodison since, like, March, because of course we end up conceding the most Charmin-soft goal imaginable.

The match settles down from there, though we look extremely dodgy at the back and I'll admit to having a heart attack virtually every time Wolves launched a remotely threatening attack… but we make it to halftime otherwise unscathed. Great.

A quick note about English efficiency - I was pretty impressed that the park appeared half empty when I sat down 20 minutes before kickoff and yet, when the air raid siren went off, it was suddenly and magically at complete capacity. Likewise, at halftime, I had to go to the bathroom and Nick wanted to get something to eat and I thought to myself “This is crazy. Literally every person in the park is going to get up at once. We won't be able to move. The line to the toilets will be halfway down the street.” And yet… we somehow took care of what we needed to, and were back in our seats moments before kickoff. It was bloody marvelous. The last NFL game I attended, I went to get food at halftime and ended up missing nearly the entire third quarter.

Not much to say about the second half other than, when the inevitable Wolves equalizer finally occurred, I threw up my hands and said “Welp… if a largely entertaining 2-2 draw is to be my inaugural Goodison experience, I think I can live with that.” And yet… I had a feeling we weren't finished. My gut told me “Not today...”

I've watched Richarlison's game winner countless times on replay and man was it a beauty… Digne somehow hooking a superb cross into the box before sprawling out of bounds and Richarlison rising up to meet it and just steering it past Patricio perfectly. The subsequent eruption/celebration was a very special moment that I'll remember for a long, long time. And I was too busy losing my damn mind to really care that Richarlison ran to the *other* side of the pitch to celebrate — c'mon man, where's the love??

Upon seeing out the last 10 minutes with a minimum of fuss to officially clinch victory (hooray!), it was off to the pro shop to pick up my new Moise Kean shirt, which I can't wait to debut this Sunday for the Bournemouth match (Nick: “Where was this Moise Kean magic you promised me all afternoon?” My Mom, upon my return: “You bought ANOTHER jersey?!”).

The rest of the trip was pretty cool — Westminster Abbey, the Churchill War Rooms, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Tate Modern, Shakespeare's Globe, St Paul's Cathedral, the Charles Dickens Museum, Borough Market, a bit of theater in Piccadilly Circus (The Comedy About a Bank Robbery), Windsor Castle, Oxford University, Kensington Palace, Harrod's, the National Gallery and much more… but nothing could top my Goodison pilgrimage.

On a side note — to the gentleman I was conversing with while in line for the buses, the self-proclaimed “Bitter Blue” who was at the match with his daughter, who's going to be in LA in a few weeks for the film festival… I don't suppose you're a ToffeeWeb reader? She was really cool and we got swept onto the bus before I could even get her name!

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