I was very, very luck in that I won 2 tickets to see Everton vs Man Utd in the Premier League at Goodison Park at the start of March by entering a competition with Barclays!! I was very excited!! So, we decided to make a weekend of it in Liverpool. It was decided that Ben was going to go to the game with me whilst Kelly took Aaron and Coby to the cinema, so they were all very excited then as well!! heehee
We booked a Premier Inn for the Saturday and Sunday night just off the main road into Liverpool and I took the Monday off and Kelly rang the boys in poorly, as the game kicked off at lunchtime on the Sunday.
We drove up on the Saturday morning as Ben’s Plymouth Kolts match had been rained off (like most of them this year!) which was a blessing in disguise really!! We made good time and went to the Everton Superstore at Goodison before going to the hotel, to have a look around. We weren’t meant to be buying much but we (myself, Ben, Aaron and Coby) ended up spending a bit too much money and came away with the current home shirt, joggers, other kits and other bits such as Everton Top Trumps!! Well, we aren’t there very often and a lot of it was selling off as it was coming to the end of the season!! We then headed to the hotel, unpacked and went to the Beefeater next door for tea. We had basically booked the Beefeater beforehand and we were glad we did as it was full! The food was nice as well!
We went there again in the morning for breakfast, which was nice, and ate plenty to keep us going through the day. We then relaxed in our hotel room until it was time for Kelly to drop me and Ben to Goodison to watch the game. We got there a fair amount of time before kick off so we could take in the atmosphere and have a good look around the pre-match entertainment which included a band playing, people in costumes such as Darth Vader and The Predator, and we also had a look around the Everton memorabilia in the Church, which was very interesting. We did buy a couple more things as well!! tut tut! It was a nice day as well, sunny and dry, which was ideal, though it was quite cold!
When it was time to find our seats, we walked around to the Main Stand (as the tickets were for there) and eventually found our way to our seats, which were situated towards the back of the middle section of the stand. They weren’t brilliant seats but we weren’t complaining at all!! We were so excited! We took plenty of photos whilst we were there and settled in for the game and tried to pick out as many people as possible, including Richarlison, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Sigurdsson, Tom Davies, Bernard, etc, etc. All the best players played, even Andre Gomes, who had just come back from a horrific ankle dislocation break, so that was a bonus!
As for the game itself, well, VAR robbed us of a perfect ending unfortunately. We were very gutted at the end and the 1-1 draw felt like a defeat! Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored in the first few minutes when David De Gea kicked the ball out and it hit DCL and rebounded into the net. Ben and I were jumping up and down ecstatically, and the stand was literally rocking!! Unfortunately, half way through the half, Bruno Fernandes scored when Jordan Pickford should really have saved it. It stayed like that right up until the end of the game when controversy struck. There were a couple of attempts on goal, one by Sigurdsson and he ended up lying on the floor in front of the goal. DCL then got the ball, went past a defender and struck a shot which deflected off another defender and wrong footed De Gea in goal and went in!! Ben and I, and the rest of the home supporters went crazy excited, and the referee and linesman gave the goal only for VAR to interrupt things several minutes later. The Everton players were all celebrating as it would have been a great win but then it was announced that VAR had ruled it out as they said Sigurdsson was in an offside position in front of De Gea which impeded his sight of the ball. So the stadium went quiet for a moment before a load of boo’s rang out at full time, at which point Carlo Ancelotti went and confronted the referee and got sent off. So it was a really bad end to the game even though it was a draw. But, like I said above, it felt like a defeat to me and Ben, and the rest of the Evertonians. Oh well – we had still had a great time at our first match at Goodison Park!!!
After the game, we made our way away from Goodison and waited for Kelly and the other two to pick us up. We then got back and headed over to the Beefeater for tea again before heading back to the room and having a quiet evening. Kelly, Aaron and Coby had gone to see the new Sonic The Hedgehog film and said that it was really good, so I was pleased that they had had a nice time as well.
The following morning, we had breakfast at the Beefeater again, before packing up and heading home.
We all had a nice weekend away, and were stuffed with all of the food that we had eaten, but it was just a shame that mine and Ben’s first trip to watch a Premier League game ended in VAR controversy, but it was great watching Everton live!! 🙂 We will definitely have to do it again, if we can get tickets!