I've never been to a football match before. I've never even been inside a stadium.
Sure, I've done a tour of Croke Park in Dublin and boarded a bus to watch my county team train, but that's Gaelic football. And I once went to Anfield Stadium, but that was for a Covid-19 vaccination, so again, it doesn't count.
But when I was invited to watch Everton play Liverpool at Goodison Park in the Women's Super League derby on March 24, the teams' first at the historic stadium, I thought, why not?
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People travel from all over the world to watch a game in this iconic ground. One teen flew 3,000 miles on his first time leaving the USA, just to see Everton play on home turf, documenting it in a viral TikTok watched nearly 300,000 times.
This could be one of the last chances to see Goodison in all its glory before the club moves to their new home on Bramley-Moore dock, due to be completed in the 2024/25 season, so I jumped at the opportunity.
It got off to a great start with Everton captain Gabby George curling the ball past keeper Rachael Laws in the 27th minute. Liverpool soon levelled the score through Katie Stengel.
The game gripped me, even if it didn't progress past those two goals, with one disallowed for each team in the second half.
Throughout the game it was hard not to notice how at times footballers going down easily under challenges seems almost as true for women's teams as it is for the men's. And how booing the opposing team when taking a corner is maintained by some fans.
Nonetheless, it was a relentless game fought with integrity by players carving out a space for women in a sport too long dominated by men.
The women's teams usually play away from these mega stadiums in the north of the city. Everton Women's home ground is the nearby Walton Hall Park, with a capacity of 2,000, while Liverpool Woman plat across the water to at Tranmere Rover's 16,587-seater Prenton Park.
But here they beat both combined, drawing a crowd of 22,161 people - a record for women's football at Goodison. That gives me hope for the future, and I loved the chance to be there.
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