You may have seen on our Instagram that we're starting a new feature where, every month or so, we pull out a shirt at random from a delivery box and then go and watch that team play. We could be off to anywhere in the world - but for episode one, Rob pulled out a 2013/14 Tim Howard goalie jersey so we headed off to Everton (where it pissed down all day, by the way) to see them take on West Ham.

"You're gonna enjoy watching Beto today lads - he couldn't trap a soggy fucking fishcake."

It's fair to say that the cabbie taking us from Lime Street Station to Goodison Park is not the Portuguese striker's biggest fan

 "Thirty million quid - they fucking saw us coming."

Our trip to Merseyside turns out to be a blessing in disguise though because Goodison - even in the unrelenting pouring rain - is just beautiful.

 

 

The Grand Old Lady will be gone soon, replaced instead with the Toffee's magnificent new home at Bramley-Moore Dock. It makes commercial sense, for sure - Goodison is pretty much always sold out but there is little realistic opportunity for expansion on account of the stadium being squeezed into densely packed terraced housing.

 

"Loving you is not a choice, it's who I am."

 

 

Then there's the additional revenue opportunities. The new stadium will be open seven days a week, matchday or no matchday, and therefore able to generate millions more than the current ground ever could.

And that's before you factor in the considerably more comfortable 'fan experience' and unobstructed views of the pitch at Bramley-Moore (our vista from the back of the Lower Gwladys Street End was like watching a match through a letter box).

 

 

But leaving Goodison will be painful. There are few grounds left anywhere on planet football as steeped in history and tradition as the Old Lady.

It’s a glorious old relic: the old Archibald Leitch architectural flourishes, St Luke's Church squeezed between the Gwladys Street and Goodison Road stands, The Winslow Hotel serving pints on the other side of the road, the unyielding sense of community and togetherness... this is a place that reminds you how and why you fell in love with football. 

 

Buy Tony Hibbert, Everton bootleg tee here. 

 

Our visit to Goodison was also a reminder that Everton is a special football club. Any fanbase that endures, at best, grim mediocrity like Evertonians have over the last three decades has to have something about them.

No trophies since 1996 (and living in the shadow of Liverpool for most of that time), points deductions, relegation battles, false dawns... it's been tough to follow this club at times. And yet they keep coming back, week after week, loud and proud.

 

 

You can feel what this club is and means to people in the pubs before kick off (we were in The Brick - an Everton institution - and it was rammed). In the Premier League era of gloss and glamour, Everton is a reassuring throwback to an era of genuine, sincere football fandom.

 

 

The late Bill Kenwright, the club's former Chairman, said it best when he described how he felt about the Toffees using a Stephen Sondheim lyric: 'Loving you is not a choice, it's who I am'.

The walk from The Brick to the ground, down terraced streets, with the Goodison Road Stand towering above, is perfection. It feels like Goodison is sucking supporters on to its old terraces.

 

 

As for the game, it was likely pretty representative of what fans of Everton have experienced for years: a gutsy performance that probably deserved better - but which ended in a 3-1 defeat.

 

 

As the final whistle sounded and the rain kept falling, supporters packed into the pubs surrounding the ground, thoroughly pissed off but knowing they'll be back for more soon.

 

 

We reckon we might be, too. Up the Fucking Toffees.

_

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