Inside the £800m stadium that's 0.01° off the legal limits: What makes Everton's new ground special - with reclining 'sofas' and 'Instagrammable' food that tastes as good as it looks Join DailyMail+ to get more exclusive news and analysis from inside the Everton camp By LEWIS STEELE, FOOTBALL REPORTER Published: 17:00 BST, 23 August 2025 | Updated: 17:00 BST, 23 August 2025 In 1892, Everton made a gamble that could have destroyed the football club. After a rent dispute, the directors left owner John Houlding behind and moved homes to what history books describe as a ‘common wasteland’ with four months until the new season. It left Houlding with a stadium, Anfield, but no club to play in it (he eventually formed Liverpool Football Club to play there, but that is another story…). Heroically, the constructors worked night and day to build Goodison Park from the ground at a cost of around £3,000, according to Everton Heritage Society. The players went on a pre-season trip to Chester and enjoyed a picnic on a boat down the River Dee to celebrate. On September 3, 1892, wearing what reports described as ‘blue shirts and white knickers for the first time’, Everton played their first match at their new home. ‘They were doing everything but scoring,’ read the match report. Some things never change, fans may joke. So here we are, 133 years later, in the same situation. Many (not all) things are different. Everton are moving homes again but that £3,000 is now roughly £800million. Everton played their first match at Goodison Park all the way back in 1892 (Pictured in 1920) The stadium became much-loved by Evertonians, and home to many a great memory (pictured in 1972) But Everton waved goodbye to the famous old ground at the end of last season on an emotional occasion The pre-season preparations this time took the team on a three-stop tour of the United States, with no offence to the picturesque setting of the riverside stretch in Chester. And this home-moving mission took not four months but a whole generation to turn from dream into reality. Moving from Goodison Park has been in the pipeline since the turn of the Millennium but several failed efforts came and went before spade met ground on this project. Now the long-running saga is over and will reach a brilliant crescendo at Hill Dickinson Stadium, the futuristic and swanky setting on Bramley-Moore Dock. Expect a few tears of pride and an attack on the senses at English football’s latest showpiece stadium. After three test events including a sold-out friendly against Italian giants Roma, who share owners in The Friedkin Group, the first competitive opponents are Brighton & Hove Albion, a club who knows better than most how a new stadium can transform a club’s fortunes. The Seagulls were, of course, turfed out of their Goldstone Ground in 1997, became homeless and dangerously tap-danced over the door of oblivion for several years before finally moving to their new site in Falmer in 2011. Six years later they ended a 34-year wait for top-flight football and have remained ever since. Fabian Hurzeler’s men, who have spent money wisely in an era where Everton have been punished for doing the opposite, feel like appropriate first real visitors. Like Goodison Park in 1892, this site was a wasteland – a disused once thriving dock – and the area in general got little foot traffic. That is now changing, with Liverpudlians coming down for a mooch around and tourists making it a must-see on a trip to the city. Constructors Laing O’Rourke used the club’s motto, Nil Satis Nisi Optimum, or ‘nothing but the best is good enough’ as their blueprint for the mammoth task on their hands. The biggest challenge was the first one: how does one build a stadium on top of water? This season marks the start of a new dawn at the club's new Hill Dickinson Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock The capacity of the new stadium is 52,769, slightly fewer than the number originally slated (52,888) due to minor late changes Well, here is the answer: it was filled in over the space of three months, with a dredger making 130 round trips 20 miles into the Irish Sea to collect 480,000 cubic metres of sand. They were pumped in to form a solid base for the stadium foundations. When constructors took control of the site, they discovered 12 unexploded aircraft shells from World War Two at the bottom of the dock. The stadium’s skeleton is made up of around 12,500 tonnes of structural steel. During its construction, the stadium was recognised as the largest single-site private sector development in the country. When construction commenced, only the now-scrapped High Speed 2 was larger. American architect Dan Meis designed the project to give nods to modernity while also respecting tradition, which is seen with the restoration of the old hydraulic tower, built in 1883, which still stands in one of the plazas. Just next to that is a shrine to Michael Jones, a 26-year-old Evertonian who died in an accident when working here as a construction staffer. Fans are also planning to honour him. Cobbles and tramlines have also been retained, while the walls of the existing dock have been incorporated into the design. Individual bricks had to be taken out, marked and put back in the same order during the building of supporter entrances. The Toffees played their first game at the new ground in pre-season, though the first competitive game at Hill Dickinson will take place on Sunday against Brighton & Hove Albion Tens of thousands of eager Evertonians will walk down the new 'Everton way' tomorrow, where people paid to get their names etched It's not just the new stadium which will keep excited Toffees fans up tonight however, with new signing Jack Grealish set to make his home debut in the first game at Hill Dickinson Should Everton move home again in the distant future, the site is equipped to be reverse-engineered into a working dock. The capacity of the new stadium is 52,769, slightly fewer than the number originally slated (52,888) due to minor late changes to accommodate TV cameras and give more space to segregate 3,500 away fans in the north-east corner. There is railing to allow safe standing in the away end, as there is in the lower South Stand, a hulking and eye-catching structure. Daily Mail Sport has scaled that end from top to bottom – slowly, pausing for breath – and even the back row feels close to the pitch owing to the design. Meis wanted to recreate the sense of fans being on top of the pitch and close to the action, akin to Goodison Park, and the acoustics of the roof have been designed to allow sounds to bounce and reverberate around the ground. The legal limit for a gradient of a stand is 35° – the 14,000-seater South Stand is 34.99°. Overall, the stadium will be the seventh biggest in the Premier League and will be a host venue at Euro 2028 and a rugby league Ashes Test between England and Australia. It is hard to put a definite figure on how much of a money-spinner it will be but the numbers will dwarf those of Goodison Park. Rarely a day goes by when Everton are not putting out a press release confirming yet another commercial deal. There is a sponsor for everything these days! The big one, of course, is Hill Dickinson, who bagged the stadium naming rights deal worth at least £10m a year to the club. The Liverpool-based law firm are keen for the ‘the’ to be omitted – ‘Hill Dickinson Stadium’ not ‘THE Hill Dickinson Stadium’. Don’t ask. When constructors took control of the site, they discovered 12 unexploded aircraft shells from World War Two at the bottom of the dock During its construction, the stadium was recognised as the largest single-site private sector development in the country With a higher capacity, more hospitality packages, non-football events like concerts, plus the sponsorship opportunities, Hill Dickinson Stadium will be not just a cultural asset but a catalyst of financial gain for the club and local economy, with £1.3bn the estimated figure it will bring in. The local area has been redeveloped and nearby pubs, usually sleepy old watering holes, are now thriving again. An old tyre company down the road is now The Terrace bar, while Bramley Moore Hotel, which first opened in 1848, will enjoy its busiest day of trade for many years. There is also a bustling 17,000 capacity fan park outside the ground and an ‘Everton way’ where people paid to get their names etched. Former Toffees hero Tim Cahill was one of the paying customers, much to the delight of fans who spotted his name before the Roma friendly. Inside the ground, away from the breeze of the waterfront, is where it feels like you are taking a step into the future. Self-serve bars and help-yourself food kiosks (you scan your card and it knows what you have taken) are designed to reduce queues at peak periods like half-time. The head of catering, Adam Bateman, has worked around the world in Michelin-starred restaurants in Singapore all the way back to Silverstone and has developed a matchday menu that takes a modern twist on classic football favourites. Aramark, who look after the food options, insist they want the food to be ‘Instagrammable’, the sort people want to take a photograph of to show their friends. The acoustics of the roof have been designed to allow sounds to bounce and reverberate around the ground Everton are billing Hill Dickinson Stadium as the most accessible club venue of its kind in the country There's little doubt that the new home of Everton football club will be bouncing at 2pm on Sunday There are salt and pepper chicken tenders, Korean sticky bowls, many flavours of pies, a posh take on a sausage roll and a bright blue-iced ‘Toffee doughnut’. Daily Mail Sport review: 10 out of 10. Everton are billing Hill Dickinson Stadium as the most accessible club venue of its kind in the country, with the most wheelchair spaces in the Premier League plus a dedicated British Sign Language interpreter and audio descriptive commentary available. Another first for English football will be premium seating options known as ‘loges’. Essentially, they are reclining sofas – think of those you get in modern cinemas, with cup-holders. Let’s hope for fans that this season is not like watching a horror movie. The excellent fan group 1878s will put a flag on each seat in home areas which will make three stunning tifo displays and there will be a special A4 programme on offer for £10. At the final Goodison Park game, they sold more programmes than tickets! On the front and back of that programme cover is a glimpse into the pulling power this grand new stadium can have. Not just all the sponsors dotted around, but the Treble-winning Jack Grealish as a cover star. As the many legends of yesteryear, from Dixie Dean to Howard Kendall, see their statues remain at Goodison Park where the women’s team will play, today is the start of a new chapter. Who can be the first hero of Everton’s bold new era? Share or comment on this article: Inside the £800m stadium that's 0.01° off the legal limits: What makes Everton's new ground special - with reclining 'sofas' and 'Instagrammable' food that tastes as good as it looks Add comment