'A Stage it Deserves': Everton Women's Move to Goodison Park Saves Ground from Bulldozers

Goodison Park, one of the UK's oldest football stadiums, has been given a stay of execution and will become the country's first major stadium dedicated solely to a women's team.

- Alexandra Topping

Hailed as a game-changing move for women's football, Everton Women will kick off their first season at Goodison in September, 133 years after the men's team started playing at the ground in Walton, Liverpool.

Goodison, which has hosted more top-flight games than any other stadium in England since it became the home of Everton Football Club in 1892, was to be bulldozed when the men's side move to a new 52,888-seat stadium in Bramley-Moore dock on the banks of the Mersey next season. Sunday's game against the relegated Southampton will mark Goodison's last Premier League fixture.

But in a shock move that has delighted fans, the club's new American owners have announced that the historic ground will become the new long-term home of the women's team in an attempt to make the ground "one of the most distinctive homes in European women's football".

Nikki Doucet, the chief executive of Women's Professional Leagues Limited, said the decision would provide a blueprint for how clubs could build the future of women's football.