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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nOnce more we are up at Sparrowfart, as the Guv\u2019 would\u2019ve said, bushy-tailed ahead of a trip to the Northwest. This is our first and indeed last visit to Goodison, home of Everton for 133 years, but shortly to be abandoned for a shiny new riverside stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having left home at 4.50 am, we arrive at South Mimms services to pick up the coach which departs at 5.45 am. There has been much criticism among Arsenal fans generally of the poor outsourced ticketing experience, but this is one area they have got right. \u00a330 for a return trip to Everton is darn good value, especially on a day which combines with Grand National day and has train ticket prices through the roof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is fair to say that with a combination of an injury list which must be the result of Mikel breaking a mirror while walking under a ladder in order to avoid the black cat crossing his path, the latest wholly explicable (sic) PGMOL cock-up which sees Tarkowski being available rather than quite rightly banned for his tackle on a Liverpool player the other day, and the prospect of playing a David Moyes team, with all the physicality and dullness that embodies, hopes are somewhat muted. Still, it\u2019s an away trip and we\u2019ll have a laugh along the way and a pre-match beer in the ground before watching The Arsenal. We are assured by that venerable, seasoned away traveller C100 that Goodison is a unique experience and one that I am glad 21CG will get to experience – a ground which is a real throwback to the ones older generations experienced before the sanitisation of the sport took place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First port of call is Stafford services on the M6 for a scheduled comfort and food break. Rumour has it that the Michelin guide is considering upping its rating from \u201c!\u201d to \u201c?\u201d. At 8.30 am these services are unprepared for a coach load of football fans so we can\u2019t have the standard issue away-day, low fat, cholesterol-free eggs, bacon, black pudding, chips, beans, mushrooms and tomato and have to settle for the ersatz Burger King version. Disappointing doesn\u2019t begin to describe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019re back on the coach at 9.15 and arrive to park up next to Stanley Park at 10.20. From outside the coach we see Goodison, rising like a phoenix from the old 2-up 2-down terraced houses surrounding it, bathed in glorious spring sunshine, a phoenix rising from the ashes. The sight is every bit as awesome as C100 promised me it would be. We had time, so chose to wander round the area surrounding the ground. Outside the main entrance was the statue of Dixie Dean and we look to take a selfie. A steward immediately steps in and asks if he can take it for us. The first of many kind and welcoming acts shown to us. We wander further round and come upon the church of St Luke the Evangelist on the corner of Goodison Road and Gwladys Street. They have an exhibition on, celebrating the time Everton have spent there and some of their fabulous players. They have a whole section on players we have shared with them. We skip over Franny Jeffers and look at original programmes and pictures of Alan Ball and then latterly Anders Limpar and Kevin Campbell. Another really nice touch, we thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We left with a warm glow and wandered down the fabled Gwladys Street. I explain to 21CG how once upon a time, in fact not that long ago, all grounds were like this. The 70s and particularly 80\u2019s were not pleasant times to go away and the tight streets around away grounds were to be feared rather than venerated for the cathedrals of working class culture that they, in hindsight, were. But it made me think how it used to be at Arsenal: hot dog sellers vying with fish and chip shops, badge and scarf sellers, the ritual stop at the programme seller outside Aubert Court opposite Lucerne Road, 50 yards from the Clock End. Soon this will all be just a memory for Evertonians and football fans worldwide who look to visit a proper old-fashioned football ground. While it is here it remains a kind of omphalos, the centre of the footballing world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Merseyside police are helpful and chirpy as are the army of stewards, keen to assist. At 11.30 we go into the temple itself and, again, I am taken back to my first experience at the Arsenal. Old fashioned windowless concrete steps rising up and spewing you forth to get your first inside view of the pitch in all its glory. And it is a glorious sight. We take some pics and wander back downstairs for a beer. 10 quid for 2 pints of decent beer. Are you listening, Arsenal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 12.15 we\u2019re back in place awaiting the traditional entrance of the players. The famous siren blasts and hairs stand up on my neck. The visceral familial connections to football flood back. My grandparents were evacuated from Islington during the war. My great-grandmother narrowly avoided death one night on Liverpool Road when a bomb fell as she was walking back from her job as a nurse. The Z-Cars theme starts up and the generational link between us and football once again wraps around me like a blanket in winter. I abandon myself to the emotion and thoughts of those gone before. Football is about so much more than the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The game starts and I am catapulted back to the present. We are well in control, despite the number of changes made by Mikel, which certainly surprised me. On 9 minutes the away fans and the whole ground erupts into singing \u201cSuper Kevin Campbell\u201d, a lovely touch, remembering the passing but more the effervescence and sheer power of one of our own whom we shared with Everton. Very fitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The game followed the inevitable pattern of Arsenal dominating the possession, tasked with breaking down another low block. Which made it all the more surprising that our goal came from a counterattack. Following a headed clearance from a hopeful Everton ball into the box, the ball found its way to the ever so popular Raheem Sterling who drove through the centre of the pitch. Instead of falling over or losing possession, Sterling was able to find a teammate in Leandro Trossard, who took a touch before slamming the ball across goal into the far corner on his left peg clinically. It was the kind of finish we\u2019ve come to associate with the Belgian who is perhaps the best finisher at the club. And it was also a third assist in two starts for Raheem. Finding form in time for Madrid perhaps? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We saw out the remainder of the half and the mood on the concourse was nice and jovial. We were in total control and were playing at a good intensity. Another goal would certainly be enough. The sun shone, the beer was affordable, and Arsenal were surely on their way to a routine three points to set them up nicely for Real Madrid. The kind of day where nothing can possibly go wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then in the second half, the inevitable happened and for the umpteenth time, not just in the last few years but also just this season, the PGMOL representatives conspired to change the course of the game. Lewis-Skelly – who seems to attract inexplicable decisions the same way candy floss attracts blue-bottles – had a tussle with an Everton player outside the area which continued into it. MLS fell and then so did the Everton player. That we were not in the least surprised by the referee\u2019s decision to award a penalty and the VAR representative confirming this decision, is in no way reflective of the nature of the tussle. Rather, it is reflective of the increasingly, let us say, downright odd way in which PGMOL seems to think games ought to be officiated. Fresh from a week in which we have seen the Tarkowski challenge be green-lit by both referee and VAR as not being dangerous and of excessive force (compare and contrast MLS vs Wolves) we have another abhorrent display of what the kinder members of the choir regard as incompetence. I\u2019m sorry, but incompetence only takes this so far. The entire purpose of using TV evidence post event is, surely, to mitigate against decisions made incorrectly in haste or with a referee, understandably, not having the best sight line. When this evidence is not used for this purpose but rather for the sole purpose of backing up the initial decision then it becomes rather disconcerting. Everyone can see what happened. Everyone has a common understanding of how the rules have and should be applied. And yet the footballing commissars tell us to disregard the evidence of our own eyes and historical experience and that we have to agree with the verdict as set out by them. It is frankly Orwellian in its utter contempt for the fans, with the decisions of former days, weeks, years being memory-holed so that we are forced, not encouraged, to regard each incident as discrete, wholly unrelated to similar events before. It is truly sinister. No matter how much Big Brother tells me that we have always been at war with East Asia, I know that only last week Eurasia was the enemy. And so do you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest of the game passed in the same vein it had before, with Arsenal in control and Everton doing what David Moyes teams do – stylistically take us back to the age where football was about how much you ran and threw your weight around with skill and style barely an afterthought. If public healthcare had moved on as little as David Moyes tactics, we would still be a nation of Rickets and TB sufferers. He truly is a footballing throwback. The most notable chance was generated by Martinelli who almost curled a beauty into the far corner but was denied by a fantastic save from Jordan Pickford. The Brazilian has looked much more dangerous in our last few games. He may well be our most dangerous player over the two games against Real Madrid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We played fairly well and we deserved to win. We know the Title is well and truly over and the result was always secondary to avoiding any more injuries and we did that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The referee seemingly had one more joke to play on the people who pay his salary, when, with time added on still to play, he decided to blow up for the end of the match. The entire ground and all the players were in uproar and eventually, and with a typical lack of clarity, he ultimately played on for another minute or so. I have no idea if this was sheer incompetence, or some kind of effort at footballing prestidigitation. Either way, this man should not be refereeing the village jam making competition let alone Premiership matches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s not end what was a fabulous awayday focusing on the negatives. Which, thinking about it, might actually be an appropriate epithet to apply to PGMOL. Because it was otherwise a fantastic day. A great trip there and back for a reasonable price; glorious spring sunshine; the warmest, most hospitable of welcomes; a tiny window back to a simpler, happier time and how things, football and social, used to be. Denizen of this place and awayday veteran, C100, is so right. Everton is a proper football club. Goodison is a proper football ground. I am so lucky to have attended a game there, possibly more so to have attended Arsenal\u2019s final game there. Thank you, Everton. See you next year at Bramley Dock, I hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By ClockEndRider & 21stCenturyGooner Once more we are up at Sparrowfart, as the Guv\u2019 would\u2019ve said, bushy-tailed ahead of a trip to the Northwest. This is our first and indeed last visit to Goodison, home of Everton for 133 years, but shortly to be abandoned for a shiny new riverside stadium. Having left home at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11056"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11070,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11056\/revisions\/11070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}