Junior Blues Consulted On Goodison Farewell And Everton Stadium ...

Everton’s Junior Fans’ Forum have been given the opportunity to have their say on how the Club should mark the final season at Goodison Park and what the move to a new home on Liverpool waterfront should look like. The Club’s Insight team met with the youngsters aged 11-15 during the recent half-term break as part of a series of face-to-face focus groups that have taken place on the migration to Everton Stadium.

The focus groups have seen Everton officials meet with a wide and diverse range of supporters, including Season Ticket Members and those on the Season Ticketing waiting list, and last week’s session allowed the Club’s youngest supporter group to feed back on plans for the relocation. The Forum received a presentation on the new stadium and what it will have to offer, before being asked for their thoughts on key themes and findings that came from the Club’s fan survey on migration conducted late last year.

They also discussed their own matchday behaviours, including who they attend with and where they would want to sit inside Everton Stadium, how to transfer the Goodison atmosphere to our new home, and what they would like to see from stadium test events.

Finally, the group were asked to put forward ideas for events and ideas to celebrate the final campaign at Goodison Park and how planned activities can be tailored to include or appeal to junior Blues.

Everton’s senior data science and insight manager Mike Gittins, who hosted the session, said: “It was great to be able to sit down with the Junior Fans’ Forum and, in particular, to talk about the migration of Season Ticket Members from Goodison to Everton Stadium.

“For such a young group of Evertonians, they showed great levels of maturity when discussing topics such as the priority process for choosing a seat at the new stadium.

“However, the most pleasing aspect of the focus group was the discussion on how we evolve the atmosphere at the new stadium. The creativity the entire group displayed was brilliant, coming up with ideas we had not considered before. Having an Everton version of ‘The Bat Signal’ shining above the stadium for night games was definitely one of my favourites!”

The Junior Fans’ Forum was initially launched in 2013 and gives members the opportunity to learn more about the work of all Everton’s departments and act as a sounding board on Club initiatives.Members serve a year-long term and the initiative is open to any Blue within the 11-17 age bracket, with an open application process being held every summer.

Updates on the work of the Junior Fans’ Forum are shared on the Club website throughout the season.

Supporters can also follow the wider work of the Club’s Fan Engagement team via X (formerly Twitter). Their handle is @efc_engagement.