This was absolutely 100% a day to remember for any Evertonian. So proud and happy to have been there.

The fathers amongst us will surely understand that, as a dad, I was perhaps more excited about my son (32!) seeing the new stadium for the first time than about the actual result….

However, given that (unsurprisingly) he loved the stadium, the game, performance and outcome made the whole event that much more amazing and memorable.

This time around, we decided that once we’d shown my son the whereabouts of our stone, we’d do a full circuit of the ground. Till today I had only seen videos of the West stand side - the steps and the re-done dock section. Aesthetically it is fantastic - far less busy than the plaza next to the East stand where we now reside. The plaza was full of smiles and energy and it made you realise just how big our fan base is; indeed what might be given the potential of this new stadium.

Learning curves abounded today. We waited 20 minutes to get in from the plaza - entrance 17. Fortunately, like many others we’d gone earlier than normal, so go to our seats with over a quarter of an hour to go before kick off. Entrance 17 had 5 possible turnstiles. Some queues arrive at two separate entrances - left and right - and therefore you can get twice as many opportunities to enter.
If you queue on the far left as we did, there is only one available turnstile for your queue. 15-20 mins to get to showing your digital ST at the entrance of the queue. Next time we know to choose the middle queues!

That atmosphere - well we did wonder - after the Roma game - if it would ever be the same.
It’s NOT the same - it can’t be, given the acoustics we were used to in Lower Bullens - wooden stands, overhanging Upper stand, letterbox feel etc.
It’s just different - but still fantastic, and will serve us very well - just as Mr Meis and others predicted/promised. We bloody loved it!

The match: totally different from the Leeds performance thankfully. It just wasn’t Brighton’s day. They hit both bar and post, AND missed that pen….. that said, we could/should have scored 3 or 4.

But we were fully deserving of our win.
We said on the way out that there wasn’t one Everton player who had a really poor performance.
Even Tarkowski, who very nearly gave a goal away like a primary school CB, still gave his all and it did t actually feel that we’d let them back in it.
Keane had a couple of moments, when it was even clearer than ever that he lacks the requisite pace, but he played a couple of scintillating cross field balls and headed/challenged really well when required.

You have I’m sure seen the first goal - proper quality from Grealish and NDiaye. Barry did well with his two touches for the second goal - we thought perhaps their keeper should have done better but, having watched it on TV post game, it was hit with some power by Garner.

Stand-outs: Grealish obviously - calm, clever, strong, experienced and bloody good!
O’Brien and Garner did so well against two very tricky, fast opponents in Mitoma and Minteh.

Pickford. Superb save after Tarkowski’s back passing blunder. So chuffed he saved the penalty after Welbeck’s over prolonged and rather theatrical stalling. :-)

Great to see the squad and Moyes doing a lap of the stadium at the end - and genuinely loving the fans.

Summing it all up - well this was certainly up there with any of our previous ‘We were there!’ moments at an Everton game.

More of the same please.
It’s starting to sink in properly now that this is our new home.

COYB :-))