Everton Football Club is an English professional football club based in Liverpool that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Supporters of the club are known as Evertonians or "Toffees". Everton take their name from the district of Everton in Liverpool where it was originally formed. Everton's nickname is the Toffees, or sometimes the Toffeemen. This comes from one of two toffee shops that were located in Everton village at the time the club was founded.
Everton has a large fan base by virtue of being an original founder member of The Football League and contesting more seasons in the top flight than any other club.[citation needed] For the first nine seasons in the football league, Everton had the highest average league attendances of any team in England.[1] The club has recently[when?] averaged attendances of around 36,000 to 38,000 in league games at their home stadium Goodison Park, which has a capacity of 39,572, despite having the most obstructed views and poor sight lines in the Premier League.[citation needed] A 2006–07 fan survey by the Premier League listed 15% of Everton fans as being unhappy with sight lines at Goodison Park, and only 19% described match views as "very good".[2] For the 2009–10 season, Everton sold over 24,000 season tickets.[3] For the 2016–17 season, this had been upped to 31,000.[4] In the same season, around 7,000 Evertonians travelled to Lisbon for a match against Benfica.[5] The highest ever season average attendance at Everton was in 1963 with 51,603, the best of any club in that particular season.[6] The following season, the club was once again the best supported side in England.[7]
The 2004–05 Premier League survey, which asked almost 1,400 Everton fans various questions, found that 30% of those fans lived in Liverpool.[8] The 2007–08 survey found that Everton fans on average live 44 miles away from Goodison Park, three miles less than the average and a huge difference compared with fans of rivals Liverpool and Manchester United, who were on average 82 and 78 miles from their respective stadiums.[9] Everton draws the vast majority of its support from Merseyside, Cheshire, Southern parts of Lancashire, Western enclaves of Greater Manchester and North Wales.[citation needed] Everton also has a notable number of supporters in countries such as Australia, Ireland, South Africa, Thailand, and the United States.[citation needed]
The 2003–04 survey found that 71% of Everton fans earn under £30,000 a year, the lowest average income in the league.[10] The 2002–03 report found Everton had the highest number of season ticket holders from the two lowest social classifications with 16%.[11] A study in August 2012 by property website Zoopla found that houses around Goodison Park were the cheapest of any Premier League club, averaging £66,000, almost £30,000 less than the entry above it.[12]
In 2009, Everton became the first Premier League club to have an official Facebook page.[citation needed] As of October 2023, the club has the following social media statistics:
A 2003 survey by The Football Fans Census found that Liverpool are still Everton's main rivals.[13] The intra-city rivalry between the two is commonly referred to as “the friendly derby”, as it is common for families and households in the city to have both Everton and Liverpool fans. Whilst performances on the pitch are heated and passionate, the off-pitch behaviour of fans is largely amicable in comparison to other rivalries, and it is one of the few matches in the Premier League to not enforce total fan segregation during the matches.
Everton have fan clubs located all over the world. The three largest clubs outside England are Emerald Everton Supporters Club in Ireland, ESCNI in Northern Ireland, and the Everton Supporters Club on the Isle of Man.[14][15][16]
Ken Loach's 1968 docu-drama The Golden Vision concerned a group of Everton fans and was named after Alex Young, who also appears on-screen.[citation needed]
InAlan Bleasdale's Liverpool-based series Boys from the Blackstuff, socialist plasterer Snowy Malone tells Chrissie that his militant trade unionist father brought him up "to believe in what was good and proper." Loggo quickly quips, "I didn't know your dad supported Everton."[citation needed]
The Rutles, a parody of Beatlemania, sees Eric Idle interviewing respected Liverpool poet Roger McGough (a real life Evertonian). He introduces him to the camera as "he was born in Liverpool, grew up in Liverpool, drank in Liverpool, wrote about Liverpool and his football team is of course... Everton".[citation needed]
The 1997 television drama The Fix told the story of the exposure of a match fixing scandal in 1963 that centred around Everton player Tony Kay. Jason Isaacs (himself a Liverpool fan) played Kay while Colin Welland portrayed then manager Harry Catterick with a broad Liverpool accent, despite the fact Catterick himself was from Darlington. The drama also featured lifelong Liverpool fan Ricky Tomlinson playing Gordon, a fictitious character and Everton fanatic.[139]
The 1979 television advertisement for ITV's ORACLE teletext service a disembodied voice in the strong Liverpool accent asks, "How Did Everton do?" To which he receives the response, when the page is searched on the teletext service, "Everton 1 Stoke 1."[citation needed]
In the comedy series Harry Enfield and Chums episode "The Scousers Visit That London", one of the three stereotype Scousers is an Everton fan. Starting off on the National Express coach to Wembley, he sits cross from the two Liverpool fans singing "You'll Never Walk Alone". When they finish he replies "up the toffees", which then erupts into an argument.[citation needed]
The 1994 episode "To Be a Somebody" of Cracker, in which Robert Carlyle plays a Liverpool fan who becomes a serial killer after the mental impact of the Hillsborough and the death of his father. With the police looking for a Liverpool supporter with a skinhead he is questioned by DS Beck but he manages to avoid arrest by claiming he has been diagnosed with cancer. He further avoids suspicion by claiming he is from St. Helens and supports Everton.[citation needed]
A 1972 episode of BBC Sitcom The Liver Birds, "Liverpool or Everton", which features future Everton chairman and actor Bill Kenwright playing a Liverpool supporter dating Sandra who has to endure Evertonian Beryl and her friends returning home celebrating a derby win.[citation needed]
1975 ITV sitcom The Wackers starring Ken Jones returning home from a stint in prison to his family described as a "mixed marriage" which is split between the maternal Catholic Evertonians and paternal Protestant Liverpudlians.[citation needed]
2017 ITV drama Little Boy Blue focused on the murder of Rhys Jones. The series recreated the Jones family appeal for information and the minute's silence and applause at Goodison Park.[141][142]
^ abcdefDMA'S, The Wombats, Circa Waves + more. Everton Football Club. 23 May 2020. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021 – via YouTube. DMA'S, The Wombats and Kieran Shudall of Circa Waves are among a host of top Everton-supporting artists who have recorded session tracks from isolation for our first virtual music event this Friday – in support of the Club's 'Blue Family' campaign.
^Gang of Youth at Everton training ground. Everton Football Club. 2 October 2019. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021 – via YouTube. Formed in Australia with a shared love of Everton Football Club, Gang of Youths might just be your new favourite band of Blues.
