Description

The ‘IF YOU KNOW YOUR HISTORY’ event is a 5k journey from the birthplace of big time football on Merseyside to a glorious finish alongside Goodison Park.

In August 2018 Everton in the Community launched a high-profile fundraising campaign with an ambitious target of raising £1million called the Peoples Place.

The People’s Place is a new purpose-built facility positioned adjacent to The People’s Hub on Spellow Lane just 500 metres from Goodison Park. The purpose of the building will be to provide a centre that anyone can access to receive tailored support to promote positive mental health and that also best meets their needs in relation to suicide awareness or suicide prevention.

The run/walk starts at the 1787 Lock-Up Tower which is at the heart of Everton FC’s famous badge. The tower will be open on the day. Various informational points along the route will be manned by Friends of Everton Park and the Everton FC History Society.

The tower stands just inside the modern Everton Park above Netherfield Road South and is the only physical reference to old Everton Village.

The original Everton Toffee Shop is long demolished, but the site is marked adjacent to the tower. Everton toffees became famous nationwide, first thanks to Molly Bushell who began to make them around 1753 to a recipe provided by a local doctor.

It was a successful family business that would eventually be taken on by Mary Cooper. Everton FC would be nicknamed the Toffees and a 'Toffee Girl' symbolically throws sweets to the crowd before every Everton home game.

 The event heads up Village Street and the site of the former Queen’s Head Hotel where, in November 1879, St Domingo’s FC became Everton FC. The pub was the club’s first official headquarters.

 A left turn at the top of Village Street guides competitors the length of Everton Park towards the Northumberland Terrace entrance, taking in the greatest view in Liverpool.

The next marker point will be the site of the 1871

St Domingo Chapel at the junction of Breckfield Road North and St Domingo Vale. Members of this Methodist New Connexion church formed the fledgling football team that would become Everton FC in the winter of 1878.

 St Domingo Vale provides access to the next site on the route, the Sandon Pub on Oakfield Road, which became the club’s second headquarters following Everton’s move to their new Anfield ground in 1884.

John Houlding, Everton’s president at that time, owned the Sandon and event participants will follow in the footsteps of those pioneering players who initially changed at the Sandon and walked to the ground on match days. 

The route then passes Anfield itself, Everton FC’s third pitch, where they played for six seasons, 1884/85 to 1890/91. Beyond the Kop stand, the route turns right into Stanley Park where St Domingo’s began their football dream in 1878.

That historic first Park pitch is now under the car park opposite the Arkles Hotel on Utting Avenue.

Competitors will look towards Priory Road where the Blues played for three seasons between 1881 and 1884.​

 Those taking part will have completed a unique run/walk through 141 years of Merseyside football history.

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