Generational Evertonians

Like so many Evertonians, Jamie Scorgie comes from a long line of Toffees before him. Here he, and his dad, recount their memories while also paying tribute to his grandad and the legacy he has left behind at Goodison Park. 

Jamie himself is an avid Everton matchday photographer, all photos shared in the article are by Jamie, you can find him on X here. 

Callum, Brian & Jamie

Words by Jamie and his dad, Anthony.

There are many paths to becoming an Evertonian, our family’s like many other Evertonians is, generational being passed down. We think it started with my grandad’s grandfather, whose family used to attend some of the early Everton matches according to my grandad, although we will never be sure exactly when it started, we know that my grandad (Brian Scorgie) used to attend matches regularly as a child with his dad (Charles Scorgie) back then – grandad recalls one of his Uncles owning one of the original shares in Everton Football Club LTD, god knows what happened to that!

Grandad soon progressed to the boys pen and eventually had his own season ticket! – even back then like many other Evertonians he and his friends would often be ‘let in’ at the other place too when Everton were playing away! During the 1966 season, he was privileged enough to attend the 1966 FA Cup Final where he saw Everton beat Sheffield Wednesday 3 - 2 to bring the cup home. Like all good Evertonians, the final came first and he managed to race home in time after the game with enough time to spare to take my Nan out for her birthday meal! I’m sure that my Nan would agree today that she wouldn’t have wanted to get in the way of him seeing his heroes such as Alex Young and Colin Harvey winning a cup for the blues.

Brian (left) and Anthony (right), dad & lad

In the 1970s my grandad started to attend with my dad, and they had many an enjoyable moment through the 80s. My dad loved the 80s, the football was ‘amazing’ and numerous cup finals including the 84 FA Cup and 85 European Cup Winners Cup. I’m reassured by my dad that the Semi-final 2nd leg against Bayern Munich under the Goodison lights was particularly memorable, but his main memories are the two league titles and runners up in between.

It was during the 90s that my dad and grandad both moved to our current seats in the Upper Gwladys Street, GS2 right on the front row just behind. Although less fortunate times followed the 90s period, the 1995 FA Cup final is particularly memorable to my dad, as he never went to the '95 semi final - I was born only a few days after it. But me and mum had to wait to come home from hospital because dad was watching the match on TV.

Eventually they would end up sat around familiar faces, Tommy Cahill and his family (Sandra, Sue, Paul) – who would become a staple of the match days. Tommy would often call my grandad to give his ticket to me or my brother when I couldn’t make it, and we would reciprocate to Tommy and his family when my dad or grandad couldn’t attend.

I eventually started to attend games when I was young in the early 2000s with one of my first matches I can remember being in the Top Balcony for an FA Cup game against a David Moyes’ Everton Preston team. I can’t recall a lot from that day, aside from we won and being very high up!!

Later in the 2000s I got my first season ticket around the Moyes years, followed soon after by my brother, and matchdays became a bi-weekly family routine for us: driving would rotate each match between my dad and grandad. The familiar walk past the (now closed) Mons Pub, down Carisbrooke Road before seeing Goodison and St Luke’s church opening up into view as we intersected the corner of Gwladys Street & Goodison Road. I remember back then going into the Church Hall if we arrived early (which was often the case) picking up a tube of fruit pastilles and 15p cup of coca cola!

I think my favourite moments come from the late 2000s, there are too many matches to pick that I can remember vividly! The 3-0 against Liverpool, many other great victories and goals, several players and cult heroes – Landon Donovan, Yakubu, Saha, Fellaini to name a few.

Brian's lasting legacy

Dixie Dean stands proudly in front of Brian Scorgie's design

It was during this time that I saw a small article/advert on Everton’s website or in the Echo (I can’t remember exactly) advertising for fan volunteers to form the first Fan’s Forum. My grandad soon applied to join the forum and was elected to the forum to serve 2 years. During his time on the forum, he championed many improvements to Club concessionary ticketing during the early 2010s when there was a national drop in attendances (likely due to the recession). Him and his forum colleagues managed to convince the Club to trial reduced ticketing prices for under 16s at League Cup games.

This paved the way for the excellent concessionary tickets we see today at the Club, such as the then £99 season ticket for under 10s and the range of pricing up to young adults aged 25. In 2014 with my grandad’s service on the forum reaching an end, he was asked to extend his tenure in which he was re-elected for another year and at the time the Club were looking at redesigning the wall surrounding the Dixie statue to include memorial stones.

My grandad being an engineer took the ‘do you have any ideas?’ to creating and drawing his own idea for the wall (along with a few from the forum who assisted) which were presented to the forum and accepted as the chosen design. I remember my grandad referring to the wall as being designed as a ‘wave’, which is ironic as Dan Meis has previously quoted the new stadium as being a ‘big blue wave’. I have the plans in my cupboard and we’re hoping to get them scanned and framed eventually! Grandad passed away earlier this year, we laid some flowers by the wall in memory.

Our matchday routine has barely changed in the past 20-30 years. We park in the same spaces, leave at the same time and have the same post-match debriefing listening to the football phone in on the way home.  One thing that did change for us in recent years, is we’d always wait afterwards at the end, especially in more recent years after the new stadium was announced – soak up the delight, entertainment or plain emptiness to the previous 90 minutes and change.

My favourite matches for atmosphere are always and will always be the night games. There is an additional grit and tension to Goodison under the floodlights, that I’ve rarely felt during the standard 3pm kick offs. There are almost too many to list off: Liverpool 1-0 (tik tac game), Liverpool 2-0, the Palace game… the list is endless of how many amazing night games I’ve been to!

I have many personal moments, however, my favourite individual moment has to be the Osman goal vs Larissa, brilliant team move capped off by a great strike (that I missed because I was perfectly behind a post in the Upper Gwladys that blocked both goals, as my brother had taken my ticket for the game) – it wouldn’t be Goodison without a restricted view.

Our memories of Goodison and going to the match will mainly be of the people around us, Adam who sits next to me, Steve and Joe to my dad, Mike and Pete next to my grandad (and many many more) – these are people we’ve all grown up around and will be the main thing I’ll miss when we move. I used to say to friends when they ask ‘we desperately need a new stadium’, but now it has come it feels daunting. I’ll miss the mundane, the pee sodden Upper Gwladys bogs, the posts, the smells.