Goodison Park

Goodison Park was the first football ground in England built purpose for the game, and it opened that way in August 1892, with the first match played against Bolton Wanderers on 2 September. Everton set the standard others in the country later copied: separate stands, proper terraces, a ground built for football rather than adapted to it.

The name never went to a sponsor. Through more than a century of Everton football, the gate still read "Goodison Park," even as the ground was rebuilt piece by piece between 1907 and 1938, until it became one of the first stadiums in Britain with four two-tiered stands.

The record attendance dates to 18 September 1948, when 78,299 came in for a Merseyside derby against Liverpool — a figure the later Safety of Sports Grounds Act made impossible to repeat. That 1977 law cut capacity from 56,000 to 35,000 in one stroke; investment through the 1980s brought it back to 53,419 by 1986.

Goodison hosted the 1894 FA Cup final and its 1910 replay, staged three matches of the 1966 World Cup including the West Germany–Soviet Union semi-final, and once put on a baseball game, in 1924. Dixie Dean died there in 1980, watching a derby from the stands; Harry Catterick, who managed Everton to two league titles, died there in 1985. Liverpool played their first match after Hillsborough at Goodison, on 3 May 1989.

Everton left for the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock in 2025. Goodison Park now belongs to the club's women's team.