New book captures hundreds of Blues fans’ emotional memories of Goodison Park

A new book captures the memories of hundreds of Blues fans as they prepare to say a final goodbye to Goodison Park at the end of this season.

Liverpool author Anthony Roche spent eight months compiling stories from supporters across the world, including well-known ones such as former Beatles drummer Pete Best, snooker legend John Parrott and long-standing kit manager Jimmy Martin. He’s now released the result – The Leaving of Goodison Park: The Real Fans’ Tales – which contains 133 chapters, one for every year the club has called the ground its home.

For Anthony, who is a lifelong Everton fan himself, it’s been a tough task just deciding which to include when there were so many great submissions, all unique.

Ultimately though he says it’s about bringing together those special moments which have defined the club and its loyal followers through the decades.

“This isn’t just a book about football; it’s a book about people, place, and passion,” he explains. “Every story is very personal and everyone’s recollections are different, even of the same match.”

Having penned two previous books about the Blues, former actor Anthony first had the idea to write a fans’ tribute while he was at the ground.

“I’ve always loved writing and this is my fourth book,” he says. “The second one was about Everton, Having A Ball with Kendall and Harvey, and the third one was about going to get the players’ autographs at Bellefield with my mates in the 1980s.

“That was called Welcome to Bellefield and Tales from Within and came out just before Christmas, so I was actually working on two at the same time. 

“I had the idea for The Leaving of Goodison Park: The Real Fans’ Tales when I’d just come out of the ticket office at the end of last season. I phoned my mate Francis Robb, who’s helped put this one together, and said, ‘I want to write a book about Goodison,’ he suggested writing about the fans’ stories and it just went from there.

“We both know a lot of Evertonians so we started with a shortlist of who we’d like to include but I was also going to the match and sitting next to people or chatting to them on the way to the ground and asking them questions. 

“We didn’t want it to be just people we knew so we made sure we had people we’d never met before who all had interesting stories to tell.”

Anthony says there are around 200 tales in total which feature in the book – some are heartwarming, some funny, others are likely to move readers to tears.

His own first experience of Goodison was back in 1978, watching from the main stand as the Blues beat Ipswich 1-0, and his story features in chapter three, behind the those of the families of Everton’s famous Holy Trinity, Harvey, Kendall and Ball.

Fittingly, he says creating The Leaving of Goodison Park: The Real Fans’ Tales has been a real team effort.

“It’s like a club – I’m the manager, Franny is assistant manager, Marc McLean from Adapt Outdoors who sponsored the book is the director of football and then there’s all the backroom staff who’ve helped us.

“The book isn’t just for die-hard football fans or devoted Evertonians, even readers who have never set foot in Goodison Park, or know nothing about Everton, will find something to connect with. That’s because Goodison Park is a kind of metaphor—everyone has their own ‘Goodison Park.’ That one place, that constant in life, that you never want to let go of.”

Find out more The Leaving of Goodison Park: The Real Fans’ Tales here.

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