My first ever football match at Goodison Park I would have
been when I was about 7 or 8 years of age. My dad wanted to take me to see Brazil
play during the 1966 World Cup final, however my mother thought it might be a
bit unsafe. This was possibly because I was known as the great little escaper
due to the fact I could just go off to wander on my own from a incredibly early
age. Mind you, I suspect that even I would have struggled to have got onto the
pitch to play with Pele.
So the first match I actually went to would have been a
midweek match (I remember it was floodlit) probably sometime in 1968. My first impression was that it was so huge
and there were people everywhere!!! I think we were probably in the Gladys St end
but I couldn’t say for certain. I was happy to just follow dad as he seemed to
know where he was going.
We found a good spot and could watch the team warm up and I
helped dad hark up the team on the back of the match programme. Then the match started and the noise almost
overcome me. I was blown away Trying to keep up with who had the ball. However,
I made it 10 minutes into the match before the excitement hit my bladder (as a
matter of fact 10 minutes would have been quite good for me)! When I have to go
to the loo when I really have to go to the loo. It’s the same to this day! I
asked dad where can I go and he just pointed over his shoulder and said it's up
that way, up some steps, down the other side and you'll be able to smell it. It
was obvious he wasn’t coming with me but as I've said I quite liked the exploring,
so I wandered off toddled my way through the crowd. It didn’t take long to find the incredibly
smelly trough with like a low concrete wall that passed for a toilet.
The problem started went I back into the terraces I'm
thinking to myself it can't be that difficult to get there back to dad. How
wrong I was. When I got to the top of the steps I just saw a wall of incredibly
tall men. I couldn't even see the pitch. Suddenly I began to feel very afraid.
I must have also looked it too because some man turned around and looked at me
and said, ‘where you going, lad?’ I said I just got back from the toilets and I
can't find me dad. So this bloke said ‘where are you standing?’ and I told him
it was just behind the goal. He laughed. ‘we're all behind the bleeding goal,
son!’ But he shouted has anybody lost a little lad. But there was no response so
he actually picked me bodily and asked if I could spot dad. I still couldn't
see couldn’t so this bloke literally passed me forward like a prototype mosh
pit saying 'This lad's lost, pass him on until he can see his dad.' Can you imagine
that happening these days? I don't even think I would want it to happen these
days.
After what seemed like a few hours I could see dad walking
towards me with a face like Thunder. I said to the bloke who's holding me at
that point could you let me down which he did. I ran over to dad who looked
really angry. I thought I was in trouble because he had probably been looking
for me for ages. When I got up to him, he looked down and just said, ‘Did you
find the toilet OK?’ It was like he hadn’t noticed how long I’d been gone for! ‘You
didn’t miss much. Joe Royal’s just scored a bloody own goal.’
Like I say that was nearly 60 years ago. Last weekend was
Everton’s last first team match at Goodison Park. Dad’s been gone 40-odd years
he was there in spirit. me and my brother went down. We didn’t have tickets but
we took photographs in the crowd, we all had a laugh and maybe add a bit of sniffle.
The crowd was loud both inside and out
the stadium. But somewhere at the back of my head all I could hear was a
singular voice saying; ‘Joe Royal's just
scored a bloody own goal.’
