Pele's pain, Rooney's rocket and great escapes: Everton bids farewell to Goodison Park

The “Grand Old Lady” of English soccer is about to bid farewell to the men's game.

Goodison Park, the long-time home of Premier League team Everton, has staged more top-tier games than any other stadium in England. It was where Pele was kicked to pieces before losing a World Cup match with Brazil for the only time. It was where eight English league titles were won, and where several nerve-shredding escapes from relegation in the Premier League were completed.

Everton will leave Goodison at the end of this season to move to a new 53,000-seat stadium at nearby Bramley-Moore Dock. Sunday's visit of Southampton marks the final game in the team's home of 133 years and the occasion will be marked by what Everton is calling an “End of an Era” ceremony afterward.

The stadium will continue to operate instead in the women's game, as the new home of Everton Women.

Here is Goodison’s story so far:

Goodison Park has been the home to eight of Everton's nine title-winning campaigns. The first came somewhere you might not expect.

Everton became a professional club and played its first Football League fixture at Anfield — now the storied home of neighbor Liverpool — from 1884-92. The club's first league title was won there in 1891, with Everton matches watched by crowds of up to 20,000.

But a dispute with Everton's then-chairman, who owned the land, pushed club officials to buy a field just across Stanley Park and build a new stadium — Goodison Park.

It opened in 1892, staged an FA Cup final two years later and, in 1924, hosted an exhibition baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and New York Giants on their world tour.

Goodison Park is a celebrated example by the greatest architect of soccer’s early years, Archibald Leitch.

The Scottish architect who designed dozens of soccer and rugby venues in the early 20th century started work at Everton with the Goodison Road stand in 1909. The huge construction was popularly compared to an ocean liner called the Mauretania.

The main Bullens Road stand is now 99 years old and still has the signature Leitch feature, crossed trusses on the upper-tier balcony.

What Leitch didn't build was another unique feature of Goodison Park — St. Luke’s Church in one corner of the ground next to the Gwladys Street end that's home to Everton’s noisiest fans.

Pelé played in 14 games at four different World Cups from 1958 to 1970 and lost only one: at Goodison.

Brazil was based at Goodison for its group-stage games in 1966 and the two-time defending champion’s superstar was targeted for rough treatment. Pelé scored in an opening 2-0 win over Bulgaria but was too injured to then face Hungary, which won 3-1.

Pelé came back for a decisive game against Eusebio’s Portugal and again was repeatedly fouled. Portugal won 3-1 and Brazil exited with the sad sight of Pelé limping around the Goodison field.

Goodison hosted an epic quarterfinal — North Korea took an early three-goal lead before Eusebio scored four and Portugal won 5-3 — then a semifinal that controversially didn't involve England. FIFA, led by its English president Stanley Rous, switched the England-Portugal game to Wembley and Goodison instead hosted West Germany beating the Soviet Union. Fans in Liverpool were not impressed, calling it an “England fix."

Goodison was “the best stadium in my playing life,” Eusebio said in 2009 on a return visit.

For many Everton fans, nothing quite tops the atmosphere that was generated in the stadium — often fondly referred to as the “Grand Old Lady” — when their team beat Bayern Munich and Lothar Matthäus 3-1 in the second leg of the European Cup-Winners' Cup semifinals.

The old stadium rocked with relief as much as joy when Everton came from two goals down to beat Wimbledon 3-2 on the final day of the 1993-94 season to stay in the Premier League, and again four years later after a final-round 1-1 draw with Coventry to stay up on goal difference.

A 16-year-old Wayne Rooney announced himself to the world when coming off the bench to score with a last-minute, long-range curler in off the bar to end Arsenal’s 30-game unbeaten league run in October 2002.

And there was the final men's Merseyside derby at Goodison in February. James Tarkowski smashed a shot into the roof of the net in the eighth minute of stoppage time to secure Everton a 2-2 draw with Liverpool.

Everton is moving to Bramley-Moore Dock on Liverpool's waterfront to start next season. The new stadium already staged test events, is slated to host a high-profile rugby league match between England and Australia on Nov. 1, and is a host venue for the men’s European Championship in 2028.

The plan was for Goodison Park to be demolished but Everton's new owners — the Friedkin family from Texas — announced this week that the women's team, which plays in the top-flight Super League, will play there from next season, moving from its nearby current home in Walton Hall Park. Goodison's current capacity of nearly 40,000 will likely be reduced.

There aren't many around, with most clubs moving — often with a heavy heart — for financial reasons to bigger and more modern arenas.

The demise of Goodison will soon be followed by Manchester United building a new 100,000-seat stadium next to its Old Trafford home. Over the last three decades, the likes of Manchester City (2003), Arsenal (2006), West Ham (2016) and Tottenham (2019) have moved into new grounds, while Wembley — the home of English soccer — was rebuilt and reopened in 2007.

Among the classic stadiums hanging on in there are Anfield, Villa Park (Aston Villa's home since 1897), St. James' Park (Newcastle, 1892), the City Ground (Nottingham Forest, 1898), Craven Cottage (Fulham, 1896), Hillsborough (Sheffield Wednesday, 1899) and Molineux (Wolves, 1889).

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FILE - Everton's Goodison Park Stadium is seen in Liverpool, England, Wednesday, April 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)

FILE - Everton's Goodison Park Stadium is seen with Liverpool's Anfield Stadium in the background, in Liverpool, England, Wednesday, April 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)

FILE - Everton's Wayne Rooney looks on during their English Premier League soccer match at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge ground in west London, Saturday April 17, 2004. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

FILE - Brazilian star Pele lies in agony on the ground after being injured in a tackle during the Football World Cup match against Portugal at Goodison Park, Liverpool, on July 19, 1966. (AP Photo/Bippa)

FILE - A general view of Goodison Park stadium ahead of the English Premier League soccer match between Everton and Liverpool, in Liverpool, England, Wednesday, Feb.12, 2025. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation likely remained elevated last month as the cost of electricity, groceries, and clothing may have jumped and continued to pressure consumers' wallets.

The Labor Department is expected to report that consumer prices rose 2.6% in December compared with a year earlier, according to economists' estimates compiled by data provider FactSet. The yearly rate would be down from 2.7% in November. Monthly prices, however, are expected to rise 0.3% in December, faster than is consistent with the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation goal.

The figures are harder to predict this month, however, because the six-week government shutdown last fall suspended the collection of price data used to compile the inflation rate. Some economists expect the December figures will show a bigger jump in inflation as the data collection process gets back to normal.

Core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, are also expected to rise 0.3% in December from the previous month, and 2.7% from a year earlier. The yearly core figure would be an increase from 2.6% in November.

In November, annual inflation fell from 3% in September to 2.7%, in part because of quirks in November's data. (The government never calculated a yearly figure for October). Most prices were collected in the second half of November, after the government reopened, when holiday discounts kicked in, which may have biased November inflation lower.

And since rental prices weren't fully collected in October, the agency that prepares the inflation reports used placeholder estimates that may have biased prices lower, economists said.

Inflation has come down significantly from the four-decade peak of 9.1% that it reached in June 2022, but it has been stubbornly close to 3% since late 2023. The cost of necessities such as groceries is about 25% higher than it was before the pandemic, and other necessities such as rent and clothing have also gotten more expensive, fueling dissatisfaction with the economy that both President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden have sought to address, though with limited success.

The Federal Reserve has struggled to balance its goal of fighting inflation by keeping borrowing costs high, while also supporting hiring by cutting interest rates when unemployment worsens. As long as inflation remains above its target of 2%, the Fed will likely be reluctant to cut rates much more.

The Fed reduced its key rate by a quarter-point in December, but Chair Jerome Powell, at a press conference explaining its decision, said the Fed would probably hold off on further cuts to see how the economy evolves.

The 19 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee have been sharply divided for months over whether to cut its rate further, or keep it at its curent level of about 3.6% to combat inflation.

Trump, meanwhile, has harshly criticized the Fed for not cutting its key short-term rate more sharply, a move he has said would reduce mortgage rates and the government's borrowing costs for its huge debt pile. Yet the Fed doesn't directly control mortgage rates, which are set by financial markets.

In a move that cast a shadow over the ability of the Fed to fight inflation in the future, the Department of Justice served the central bank last Friday with subpoenas related to Powell's congressional testimony in June about a $2.5 billion renovation of two Fed office buildings. Trump administration officials have suggested that Powell either lied about changes to the building or altered plans in ways that are inconsistent with those approved by planning commissions.

In a blunt response, Powell said Sunday those claims were “pretexts” for an effort by the White House to assert more control over the Fed.

“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President,” Powell said. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”

FILE -American Giant clothing is displayed at the company's showroom in San Francisco, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

FILE -A cashier rings up groceries in Dallas, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)