Lessons for Man Utd from Everton's new stadium by the architect

Tuesday 18 February 2025 12:37 pm

The architect behind the new Everton Stadium on marrying history with future and why Manchester United chiefs should take note as they plot an Old Trafford rebuild.

American architect Dan Meis knew he was going out on a limb when he submitted his design for Everton’s new stadium.

Eschewing the trend for modern spacecraft-like arenas, he proposed a building that paid homage to the club’s historic home, Goodison Park, such as brick latticework, and the dockside location, with a vast glass wall that affords views of the water spanning the back of the south stand. 

To his surprise, Everton went for it, and supporters seemed to love it when the £750m venue opened its doors for the first test event on Monday night. Verdicts included “breathtaking”, “out of this world” and “spine-tingling”, according to the BBC.

It was a form of vindication for Meis, director of global sports design at property consultancy AECOM, who incorporated fan feedback to his sketches during the design process. 

“My biggest challenge at Everton was, ‘how do you capture the lightning in a bottle that is Goodison Park?’,” Meis tells City AM.

“I don’t believe in this big, shiny object with LED video screens everywhere. I think that this really comes down to what makes a football game so special – particularly an English football game. There’s just nothing like that experience.

“With Everton, we worked really hard to make it feel like the building kind of grew out of the historic fabric of that area. And I think that’s important. 

“I didn’t start with talking about a stadium. I started with diving deep into the history of the club and the fanbase, and what makes that club unique to those fans.”

Meis has previously worked with Manchester United on a masterplan for renovating Old Trafford.

As the 20-time English champions near a decision on whether to improve or replace their stadium, he has urged owners Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the Glazers to look beyond the likes of Real Madrid’s gleaming new Santiago Bernabeu and opt for something, like Everton, with soul.

“Old Trafford has that history too, so I don’t think it’s about ‘how do you become the most flashy, over-the-top, state-of-the-art thing?’ – and I hope that’s not what Manchester United does,” he says.

“I think you need to be both. You need to be at the cutting edge of technology and fan experience, but it has to feel like it’s English football and true to Manchester.

“That doesn’t mean it has to look like an old building. It’s just being evocative of the place, and Manchester has an incredible industrial architectural history.”

How Man United can marry pull and heritage

United seem certain to follow the trend of making their new stadium multi-purpose, with scope for concerts, other sports and complementary retail and leisure facilities that make it a destination in its own right and, crucially, generate revenue on non-matchdays.

It’s a case, Meis explains, of marrying the club’s unique pull and its heritage.

“There aren’t that many clubs that will have the type of VVIP band that could fly in for a game, and yet Old Trafford, obviously, is not state-of-the-art and pretty tired in lots of ways,” he says. 

“This is a globally recognised brand, and therefore can capture a global fanbase and provide the kind of amenity and opportunity to generate revenue that smaller clubs cannot match.

“One of the things that’s incredible to me about Old Trafford: it was practically destroyed in WW2, and yet on any given weekend it’s still a viable football match. 

“There should be a recognition of that too, that these buildings aren’t throwaway, that the best thing we could do is design a building that could last for another 150 years.

“As architects, often we fetishise technology too much, whether it’s a retractable roof or retractable turf. I think you really do have to start with the magic of English football. 

“Whatever happens there, I hope it is both. I hope it is new and forward-looking and future-proofed as much as you can, but doesn’t lose the magic of the game and the history.”