Harland is among the last to play at Goodison Park

The Premier League season in England ended on Sunday. Liverpool were crowned champions in what was a memorable year for the Merseyside club. Yet, for an entirely different reason, for one Liverpudlian who is living in Carlow he will have memories of the 2024-25 season which he will never forget.

He is an Everton fan but Stephen Harland got the opportunity to play at Goodison Park at the beginning of May this year. That came about when the club put up an advertisement on their website looking for 30 fans to play a match at their home ground. Everton were moving from Goodison Park to their new Hill Dickinson Stadium next season. It was one of many initiatives the club took when bidding farewell after almost 130 years at the famous ground. The Carlow based Evertonian applied.

The applicants didn’t have to be good footballers or anything like that. Stephen is a member of Carlow Choral Society. He is taking singing lessons from Celtic Tenor, James Nelson. He sent in a video of himself singing Una Furtiva Lagrimo. He performed the whole song and was accompanied by a sound-track on his phone.

“One fella sent in a video of himself balancing a ball on his head, doing tricks,” explained Stephen.

He didn’t think anything of it but four days later Stephen got word confirming he had been successful in his application to play on the final supporters day in Goodison Park.

Stephen had played his football in Carlow with Palatine Celtic but hadn’t kicked a ball competitively for over six years. That didn’t matter. The game was fixed for a Thursday so on the Wednesday he travelled to Liverpool with his wife, Majella. The club gave him a jersey and a pair of socks.

The teams were managed by former Everton players, Phil Jagielka and Leon Osman. It was a 3.00pm kick-off with the players arriving about three hours earlier.

Not being shy when the managers went looking for captains, Stephen put his hand up immediately. All was going well and the Carlow based soccer player was enjoying the experience when he went in to a tackle and came out worst.

“I cracked a rib. I knew straightaway. I had cracked it several times before so I knew I was in trouble. The adrenaline had kicked on at this stage so I knew I could continue. You can’t do anything with a cracked rib or a broken rib.

Three was no way I was going to pull out,” he said.

Staying on the field, he absorbed the atmosphere in front of an empty stadium with just over 50 friends and relatives of the players making up the attendance.

“The pitch looks soft but these pitches are not soft. They are not hard either but there is no real give in the pitches. If there was a crowd there the players are literally a metre and a half from the spectators,” recalled Stephen.

Ironically, Stephen came from a family of Liverpool supporters.

“We got red socks at Christmas when we were young. There was a story that Bill Shankly used to come to my granny’s house for lunch. We don’t know. A pinch of salt maybe. That was the story my Dad used tell us when we were kids,” laughed Stephen.

His uncle, Stan Harland, who played for Everton in the late 1950s captained Swindon Town to a sensational 1969 League Cup 3-1 final victory over Arsenal. Stephen still has the jersey his uncle wore in that final.

“I ended up being an Everton supporter as I went to see Swindon play Everton in Goodison Park. I think in 1975. I fell in love with the place straightaway. I went to loads of matches after that. I was there to see Bob Latchford get 30 goals in one season. That was 76-77, I think,” recalled Stephen.

Yet blood is thicker than water and Stephen’s Dad brought his son to Wembley for the 1977 League Cup final when Everton played Aston Villa. There was no dream result with the game finishing 0-0. In a second replay at Old Trafford Villa beat Everton 3-2.

“I don’t know how my Dad felt after that. He being a Red and me being a Blue,” mused Stephen.