Everton’s motto proudly declares that “nothing but the best is good enough”, said The Guardian. The Premier League club’s decision to move to a “sparkling new stadium” at Liverpool’s Bramley-Moore Dock is an ambitious attempt to live up those words.
After 133 years at nearby Goodison Park, the men’s team will on Sunday play their final match at the ground, which will become home to Everton’s women’s team. The move brings hopes for the “birth of a new club”, after years spent languishing in mid-table or worse in the Premier League.
‘Catalyst for regeneration’
A new stadium has become “akin to a financial free kick” for clubs, said The Guardian, promising not only increased capacity for loyal fans, but “chunky revenue streams for decades to come”.
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For Everton, such plans are already in the works, said Liverpool’s The Post. The “52,888-seater behemoth” is already being talked about as a venue for non-sporting events such as concerts and conferences. That income could help with everything from “signing footballers to new contracts” for existing players.
The club forecasts that the Bramley-Moore Dock ground will bring a “£1 billion boost to the city’s economy”, said Sky Sports, “and provide up to 15,000 jobs for local people (12,000 during the construction phase)”. It estimates that 1.4 million people will visit the city each year to attend matches there.
But that ambition comes with a cost. Liverpool was stripped of its Unesco World Heritage status in 2021 because of the recent development along the city’s historic waterfront, which includes Everton’s new stadium.
The club’s near neighbours Liverpool chose to scrap plans to explore the “profitable opportunites” offered by a new stadium in favour of substantial redevelopment of their existing ground at Anfield, said Football Ground Map. In so doing, they chose the best of both worlds: Anfield retained its reputation as a football “fortress” while the additional investment cemented a future promising “sustained success”.
‘Glory of Goodison Park’
But while the “commercial reasoning” behind abandoning one’s “ancestral home” is hard to ignore, it’s unlikely fans will find the “glory of Goodison Park” elsewhere, said former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy in the Daily Mail.
History offers cautionary tales. West Ham‘s transfer from Upton Park to the London Stadium in 2016 made big promises but delivered a “very dull atmosphere”, said The Athletic. The nostalgic aroma of “onions, burgers and chips” was replaced by a “sanitised” and “apathetic” experience for fans.
Arsenal’s challenges were similar, as a move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium in 2006 was supposed to usher in a new era of dominance. But as the manager at the time, Arsène Wenger, later admitted, “we left our soul at Highbury”, said ESPN in 2020.
Everton will be acutely aware of these pitfalls. But whether its brand new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock will be an “asset or albatross” remains to be seen, said The Post.
