Everton fans have descended on the area around County Road for 130 years.
Goodison Park has been the Blues’ home since 1892 and, on matchdays, Kirkdale and Walton are awash with Evertonians.
However, the club is set to move into a new £500m stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock at the start of the 2024/25 season.
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The country’s first purpose-built major football stadium will be knocked down and the flurry of fans will stop.
Though they will not play matches in L4 from that point, Everton FC will not be leaving the area entirely.
Last month, the club's Goodison Park Legacy Project had outline planning application approved by Liverpool City Council.
The £82m project, which imagines a community-led future in the area that is currently Goodison Park, is based around expanding the work of club charity Everton in the community, and will include housing, a health centre, green spaces, retail and business facilities.
Though the legacy project aims to support the L4 postcode, Everton's move from Goodison to Bramley-Moore will have significant economic ramifications for an area where a number of businesses - such as takeaways and pubs - are at their busiest on matchdays.
The ECHO spoke to local residents and businesses about how the area will change once matches at Goodison are a thing of the past.
The Brick is an Everton institution. Thousands of fans come to the County Road pub, which is decorated in Royal Blue and white, to steady their nerves before kick off.
Mark Leary has owned the pub for 13 years. He spoke to the ECHO before Everton’s FA Cup fifth round tie against Boreham Wood on Thursday (March 3).
He said: “What we take during the week is a bonus, in effect. It's mainly a matchday pub.
“We do ok in the week and it can tick over. Everton play tonight so by 4pm it will start getting busy.”
With most of Mark’s revenue coming from matchday takings, he has a decision to make once Everton stop playing at Goodison.
Though the legacy project promises investment in the area, the loss of match-going supporters will mean a significant drop in footfall for pubs like The Brick.
Pub landlords have two years of match days left before the crowds will follow Everton to Bramley-Moore and Mark believes that Everton's investment in the area - through new houses or new office space - may not be enough to save all of its pubs.
After being asked about Goodison's time coming to an end, he said: “[Goodison won't be here for much longer] ... and neither will I."
He said: “There’s not much that anyone can do for matchday pubs. They can’t replace 10,000 people coming in and out of here on a matchday.
“Maybe I’ll stay for a bit, but my tenancy takes me just after [when Everton are set to move grounds] and you only have to give six months’ notice.
“So, I might keep it for a bit, see how it goes and decide then. Everybody who goes the match at the moment says to me, keep it going, we’ll keep coming, but it won’t happen.
“Once they find somewhere easier to get to town then they’ll start going there.”
Elaine, who works at The Barlow Arms on Barlow Street - another popular matchday pub - believes that venues across the area need to prepare for Goodison’s closure.
She said: “I think the fact that Everton will be leaving soon is on everyone’s minds.
“At the minute, you have to prepare for when there’s no football. You have to make enough money during the season to cover June and July and before it starts up again at the end of August.
“When Everton go, obviously it will affect everyone, but down this end - compared with the top end of County Road - we get the crowds from the Liverpool games, so I’m hoping that’s going to balance out with us not having Everton much longer."
Popularity among Liverpool fans makes the prospect of Everton leaving less severe for the Barlow, but this is a comfort not likely to be afforded to Everton-specific watering holes, like The Brick and The Winslow Hotel, in the future.
It's not just the impending closure of Goodison that is affecting County Road and the wider area, according to The Brick's Mark.
Sharing a sentiment expressed to the ECHO by a number of residents and business owners, he believes County Road has long been suffering from a multitude of issues, which has left its local economy reliant on football.
High streets across the country have faced a particularly tough time in recent years, with the covid pandemic exacerbating issues that had affecting shopping habits for some time.
A combination of the current cost of living crisis, over a decade of austerity and significant cuts to local authority budgets (up to 63% of the council’s budget was cut from 2010-2019) have also left shoppers with less money to spend and councils with smaller budgets to make improvements from.
County Road is not immune from such problems. Mark said: “County Road is a main road. You look outside and it’s dead. There’s no traffic.
“Other than the pub, there’s nothing on this road anymore that’s worth coming for.
“Going back years, we used to be able to get the kids’ trainers from here. There were plenty of shops - you’d come here for it.
“What would you come for now? A chicken place? A takeaway?”
Mark is not the only person worried about changes that County Road has seen in recent years.
A local resident, who did not wish to be named, told the ECHO that he felt that the road was already in decline and the closure of Goodison Park would continue to “decimate” the area.
He said: “These days, the road is just a combination of nail bars, burger bars and pizza places. There used to be a good variety of shops the whole way down the road.
“It’s changed a lot since I was a kid but Everton leaving will decimate the area. The decline is already happening.
“There’s no incentive for people to come down.”
Other local businesses have expressed their disappointment with the road’s current standing.
George Cropper (pictured above) from Cropper’s Garage, which is found at County Road’s most northern point, also told the ECHO last year he felt the road had been allowed to decline.
He said: “It has gone from being a bustling community with lots of little shops along the road to what we have now.
“Many of the shops have gone - the area has gone down.
“It’s been allowed to slowly deteriorate.”
Walking the length of the road on a weekday afternoon, there are some businesses on the road with their shutters down, while there is a number of pawnbrokers, fast food outlets, bookmakers and discount stores.
Jack's is currently running a closing down sale, which will leave the road without a supermarket and delayed roadworks, which have beset County Road for some time, embody the challenges facing the road.
The roadworks cost in excess of £5m and the final stage began earlier this week.
It is hoped the final stretch of unrepaired road will be completed by April, but an initial deadline of this month was missed.
When asked in October how he views the current problems within his County Ward, Cllr Gerard Woodhouse reflected much of the same frustration as his constituents.
He told the ECHO: “We are trying our utmost for the area. [Getting the road fixed] is a start of moving forward. That's what we want to do - work with businesses, work with residents and community groups - and for them to tell us what they want.
“A big issue is funding. The council has had major cuts from the government which has hit us all.”
Everton’s legacy and the council’s future plans
The football club believes that the Goodison Park Legacy Project is a sign of its continued commitment to L4.
When its outline planning application was submitted to Liverpool City Council in February 2020, Professor Denise Barrett-Baxendale, Chief Executive of Everton, said: “Everton is a football club deeply rooted in its community and the Goodison Park Legacy Project is a symbol of our ambition, desire and commitment to Liverpool 4.
“We’ve been delighted by the support of the local community to our plans and the acknowledgement that we are creating facilities to empower and equip local people for generations to come.
“This project at Goodison Park is as ambitious as our new stadium development at Bramley-Moore Dock and will build on the £10m investment in buildings already made by the Club and Everton in the Community in Liverpool 4 over the last five years.”
Everton’s project in L4 is not the only scheme designed to aid the recovery and regeneration of the area.
In January 2021, a £1m stimulus programme to regenerate Walton was launched.
The city council worked with Everton FC and Merseyside Police to set out a 10-year masterplan for the County District Centre - Walton’s historic retail heart.
The masterplan has seven 'strands', which include a community hub, grants for businesses, a community police team, the employability training and the refurbishment of Spellow Library to be: "to be a multi-service inclusive space for the community, providing adult learning, children services and business support."
What's next?
Despite the various projects, the area will find itself at something of a crossroads in two years' time.
For some, the closure of Goodison Park presents an opportunity for County Road and its surrounding communities.
Elaine, from The Barlow Arms, added: “It (County Road) should move beyond football, because that road is the main road into town and Walton Vale, so they should be able to put things there which still mean that it’s still going.
“With it being the main route in and out, I think it should be able to keep itself ticking along.”
Though he doesn’t harbour much optimism for the future of football-specific pubs like The Brick, Mark believes that the new housing and office space promised in the Goodison Park Legacy Project gives local pubs in the area the best chance of survival.
Whether people brought to the area by new housing and commercial facilities can replace the economic impact of 40,000 punters arriving every other week, or if they present an opportunity for the area to build a more ever-present and local economy, remains to be seen.
Mark said: “It depends how many apartments they build. If you have a few thousand people living up there, you’re hoping that 100 to 200 people will go out drinking.
“A lot of pubs around here have survived. There aren’t many closures - which might be seen as a surprise.
“If you look at other high streets, they’ve been decimated. These pubs probably have survived due to the football, there is every chance the majority will go in the future.
“But, if you’ve got 200 more people about, they might have a chance.
“The ones that survive will survive, it’s just who can ride it out the longest.”
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