Everton must hope new stadium finally kicks-starts them into Premier League era - 30 years on from 'false start'

Thirty years on from the revolution in the English top flight, there is only one club left who were founders members of both the Football League in 1888, Premier League in 1992 and remain ever-presents in the latter – Everton. Although the Blues are now playing in a record 120^th top flight season the current campaign, they came perilously close to surrendering that status with what was almost a first relegation for 71 years last term, recording the joint lowest equivalent points total in the club’s history.

The Premier League years have generally been tough for Everton, without a major trophy since 1995, and while they are indeed the only club who were there at the start of the Football League and Premier League who still haven’t gone down from the latter (Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers were the other two dual founder members), they are by far the least-successful of the half dozen clubs never relegated since 1992. The Blues have picked up less than half the aggregate points of Manchester United over the past three decades and are the only one of the Premier League’s ever-present six (which also includes Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur) to have found themselves fighting for survival going into the final day of a season – twice, in 1994 and 1998 – and of course earlier this year only saved themselves with a dramatic 3-2 comeback win over Crystal Palace in their last home fixture.

Legendary Everton chairman Sir Philip Carter, whose name now adorns the Park End at Goodison, was one of the leading administrators in the formation of the Premier League, at a time when his own club were considered one of English football’s ‘Big Five’ but in truth the Blues have struggled to keep up with the game’s elite over the past generation and are currently enduring the longest trophy drought in their history. Having fallen behind both on and off the pitch across the last three decades, Evertonians will be hoping that their move to a new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, which remains on schedule to be completed in 2024, will help them to bridge the gap.