Grealish reinforces sense of new beginnings at Everton

If it was the day Evertonians feared would never come, it was an afternoon that may be seared into memories for years.

- RICHARD JOLLY

Not merely those of Jack Grealish, either, though his first start for his latest employers reinforced the sense of new beginnings. Goodison Park was Everton's home for 133 years, the new Hill Dickinson Stadium for one game, but first impressions were uniformly positive.

Everton have exchanged a 19th-century ground for a 21st-century stadium, a gleaming dockside monument, of red brick and shining steel, with steep-sided stands rising into the Merseyside skyline, blue smoke rising above the river. Wide-eyed fans looked at it with a sense of disbelief; for all the mishaps of Farhad Moshiri's ownership, he ended their long quest to get a ground for fitting for the times. This looks like a lovely legacy. Some £802m may have been well spent.

Perhaps, too, the same will be said of the £12m cost to borrow Grealish for the season. A statement of a stadium may have needed a flagship arrival, a crowd-pleaser, and Grealish began in the right way. “As soon as I spoke to David Moyes on FaceTime, I wanted to come here and today shows why,” said the man who cost £100m four years ago. His last season at Manchester City produced a lone assist in the Premier League. His first hour at Everton's shiny new home yielded two.

It was that sort of occasion. There have been times in recent years when Everton have become wearily accustomed to things going wrong; on their big day, everything went right. The first goal, win and penalty save at the Hill Dickinson all went to them. In the bigger picture, too, there has been a happy ending that sometimes seemed hard to envisage.