Everton making major USA impact and supporter overheard in New York shows true value of trip

Everton making major USA impact and supporter overheard in New York shows true value of trip

ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley writes this week's Royal Blue column from New York City where David Moyes' men are for the Premier League Summer Series

Iliman Ndiaye, Thierno Barry and Jordan Pickford are in New York City with their Everton team-mates for the Premier League Summer Series

Among the series of speeches that punctuated the raucous atmosphere at the Everton Supporters’ Club Welcome Event at The Turnmill bar, there was one poignant line that stood out.

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With David Moyes’ men hitting The Big Apple, it was party time as the Spirit of the Blues and the passion of Goodison Park were captured inside darkened rooms – albeit bedecked in various ‘Evertonia’ – on Manhattan’s 119 E 27th Street. When the ECHO arrived earlier in the evening to record a special episode of the Royal Blue podcast, the venue’s Irish manager Peggy told me how there were several private functions going on from 5pm onwards but the groups of local office workers had been crowded out by the Everton hordes come the official start time of 7:30pm.

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Even seasoned master of ceremonies Darren Griffiths, bedecked in a 1994 retro away shirt, had – like he was presiding over a boisterous darts audience at the Ally Pally – to call for “the best of order” from the assembled throngs on several occasions as guests stood up in turn to deliver their lines.

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Fresh from inviting the ECHO into his own ‘inner sanctum’ on nearby Third Avenue, Hill Dickinson Stadium architect Dan Meis was present and had brought along his wife for the occasion and while he got up to offer some inspiring remarks about what he has found to be the most engrossing project of his career, this was not an occasion where those in attendance were hanging of your every word.

It was James Rogers, originally from Huyton but now a resident of Brooklyn, and co-chair of NYC Evertonians, who arguably made the evening’s most profound observation when he pointed out that Everton had not played in New York since 1961. Over twice as long as the Blues’ current painful record-breaking trophy drought that now stretches back more than three decades, a period of 64 years is a long time in anyone’s book not to be around, making your mark in what Frank Sinatra sang was a city “that never sleeps.”

A year before they’d even participate in a UEFA competition for the first time, Everton’s last jaunt to New York came when they took part in the North American-based International Soccer League, a tournament featuring clubs from three continents which featured a gruelling schedule and required four transatlantic flights.

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Starting off on May 24, almost a month after the Blues had completed their domestic programme with a 4-1 victory over Arsenal at Goodison Park, Harry Catterick’s side defeated Montreal Concordia 1-0 in their home city in their opening group game.

Scottish side Kilmarnock were then beaten 2-1 before Everton switched to New York City where, playing at the Polo Grounds, which had been home of the New York Giants baseball team until they relocated over two-and-a-half thousand miles to San Francisco at the end of the 1957 season. In New York the Blues defeated Karlsruhe of West Germany 5-2; Romanians Dinamo Bucharest 4-0; lost 2-0 to Bangu from Brazil and then beat Turks Besiktas 4-0.

Everton then crossed the border back to Canada again to complete their group matches with a 7-0 victory over a representative side Americans of New York but despite qualifying for the final, faced a six-week wait to contest the trophy and flew home to Merseyside as the second section of the competition began. The Blues then went back to the Polo Grounds for a two-legged final against Dukla Prague.

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The Czech champions seemed to benefit from going straight into the games from their own group matches in North America and thrashed Everton 9-2 on aggregate, winning the first leg 7-2 and second 2-0. After the initial game, Blues boss Catterick remarked: “I don’t want to detract from the Czechoslovak’s magnificent performance, but I must say I’ve seen our boys play a better game.”

Everton fans enjoy themselves at the Supporters’ Club Welcome Event at The Turnmill

Everton’s marathon from back then won’t be repeated here, but the three games that they’ll play in the USA on this trip is the most in a single visit during the Premier League era, including half a dozen previous visits in David Moyes’ first spell in charge. As outlined in my first tour diary, these cities are major US centres too and New York were inevitably always place itself number one with Chicago top five and Atlanta also comfortably top 10.

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At this juncture, it must be pointed out that the Blues’ opening fixture against Bournemouth will be played at the MetLife Stadium, which despite being the home of New York’s two NFL teams, the Giants and Jets, is actually situated on the other side of the Hudson River in the neighbouring state of New Jersey, a bit like if Everton had decided to build their new home ‘across the water’ in Wirral. While that would obviously be a non-starter, there’s little space to build a major stadium on a densely packed small island of skyscrapers like Manhattan, so it’s been a long-standing arrangement for the city’s American football outfits while Major League Baseball pair, New York Yankees and New York Mets, are based in the boroughs of Bronx and Queens respectively.

Speaking on our podcast, Everton fan Stephen Neave was at pains to explain how he’s Brooklynite first and a New Yorker second but varying quirks of local geography aside – and there’s nobody who has got that down to a finer art than Scousers – the Blues being in the United States’ largest metropolis is huge. There is a terrific sporting heritage on the site where Everton play this weekend with the old Giants Stadium being the venue where the Republic of Ireland famously shocked Italy in the 1994 World Cup finals, and a few years before – as detailed in another exclusive interview with the ECHO this week – where a young Tim Howard fell in love with the sport after being taken to a US national team game by his mother.

The MetLife Stadium staged the FIFA Club World Cup final a mere fortnight ago while in a week shy of a year’s time, it will host the World Cup final. It’s naive to suggest visits to a city and a country as wildly diverse as this will somehow make Everton ‘The People’s Club’ among New Yorkers in particular or Americans in general.

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However, at what is a pivotal juncture in the Blues’ existence as they move from Goodison Park, the first purpose-built football ground in England and their home for the previous 133 years, to Hill Dickinson Stadium on the Mersey waterfront with US owners The Friedkin Group at the helm (Brian Walker was chatting to CEO Angus Kinnear during Thursday's open training session at the Icahn Stadium, where the good doctor, David France has informed me that Everton played twice in 1956 in its previous guise, defeating American Soccer League All Stars 7-0 and Scottish side Aberdeen 6-3), this is still a significant opportunity to make an impact and everyone – both on and off the pitch – is pulling out all the stops.

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