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Not so sure about the north American fans, but on youthful journeys, particularly to England, I would look out for the unmistakable sights of floodlight pylons reaching for the sky on the approach to towns or cities.
It meant that’s where the local football club was. It would depend of course on who was driving, but I’d often wonder if it were possible to nip in and see the stadium.
Or simply going to a match in an unfamiliar location, you’d look for the towering floodlights and know you were on course.
Didn’t help me right enough the time I gave a girlfriend a book with the directions for Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium, and asked her to navigate as I drove. Saw the floodlights and thought, ‘great we’re nearly there’ only to discover she was reading from the opposite page. We arrived at Bramall Lane, home of Sheffield’s other big club, United.
I’ve walked these streets around Goodison many times. Everton’s famous old stadium is without doubt one of my favourites, a proper football ground, with plenty of hostelries close by.
A pre-match pint in Orry’s maybe, and a post-match one in the Nettley, or the Harlech Castle. But there were planarity ore choices along County Road a stone’s throw from the stadium.
Soon the landscape will change forever when Everton move, and you wonder what this will do for the immediate population around the football club who’ve been its neighbours for the best part of the last 100 years, perhaps beyond.
Everton first played at Goodison Park in 1892.
Check out the latest, The Ball Is Round Podcast (Episode 25). Recorded Wednesday evening (14 April), the TBIR team discusses the CFM v TFC clash (with special guest Michael Singh of Waking The Red website, Montreal football issues of the week, their top three picks for per Conference, Concacaf Champions League & Canada’s WNT in the UK...
Plus all the usual favourite features... including, Eve’s Time Machine... Don’t miss it!
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