Everton's second season at Hill Dickinson Stadium kicks off this weekend against Crystal Palace — a club that will forever carry the memory of that extraordinary Goodison survival act. Nothing against the Eagles, but they've already set the bar impossibly high. What this game can be is the start of something better than last season's slow fade into midtable mediocrity under David Moyes, whose clock management and substitution instincts drew justifiable criticism as the campaign crumbled.
To mark the occasion, here's a proper look back at the opening-day moments that actually meant something in Toffee history. Not all of them led to glory. Some of them did — emphatically.
The title-launching openers
September 6, 1890. Everton put West Brom away 4-1, with a 20-year-old Scottish goalkeeper, Jack Angus, making his mark and new signing William Campbell opening his account. Dick Molyneux's side had finished runners-up the year before, and they weren't stopping there. By season's end, they'd edged out two-time defending champions Preston North End by two points to claim the title. That opening-day 4-1 wasn't a statement — it was a blueprint.
August 27, 1927 told a similar story. A 4-0 demolition of Sheffield Wednesday began the campaign that handed Everton their third First Division title, two points clear of Huddersfield. The real subplot was Dixie Dean, who scored just one that day — just one — before going on to score 60 league goals across the season. Add the FA Cup and international games and he hit 67. It's a record that hasn't been touched in nearly a century and won't be. Dean's opening-day contribution looked modest. It was anything but.
Harry Catterick's champions arrived for the 1963-64 season opener having just beaten the same opponents — Fulham — 4-1 on the final day of the previous season to clinch the title. They beat them again, 3-0, to start the next one. An own goal after five minutes, then Temple and Scott in the second half. Fulham have never won a league game at Goodison Park. Twenty-three attempts, twenty-three failures. That run started long before 1963 and has never come close to ending.
The 1969-70 season brought another title — and another sharp opener. Everton went to Highbury and won 1-0, John Hurst's 84th-minute volley from a free-kick doing the damage. That season was compressed by the upcoming Mexico World Cup, meaning Catterick's side faced seven games in the first three weeks. They won six and drew one. The opener set the tone for what became one of the most complete title-winning campaigns in the club's history.
The debuts that stopped Goodison in its tracks
August 27, 1988. Tony Cottee had been signed from West Ham for a club record fee, having scored close to 100 goals in just over 200 appearances for the Hammers. The expectation was high. Then he scored after 35 seconds against Newcastle. Then he got a second. Then a third. A hat-trick on debut, alongside a Graeme Sharp goal, in a 4-0 win. He'd go on to score 72 goals in 184 Everton appearances and bag six hat-tricks in total in blue. But none of them will ever land quite like that first one.
Wayne Rooney walked out at Goodison on August 17, 2002, aged 16, and didn't score in a 2-2 draw with Spurs. He was substituted in the 67th minute. By any objective measure, it was an unremarkable debut — except that it wasn't, because everyone in that ground already suspected what was coming. He became the Premier League's youngest scorer that season, hit six goals, then nine more the following year before Manchester United came calling in 2004.
Tim Howard's debut on August 19, 2006 was quieter — a 2-1 win over Watford, conceding only an own goal. Not exactly headline material. What made it significant was the longevity that followed: 400-plus appearances, 130-plus clean sheets, a goal, and a decade of genuine reliability. The loan that turned permanent turned into an era.
Then there's Richarlison on August 11, 2018. Marco Silva signed him from Watford for somewhere between £40-50 million, and the Brazilian repaid the fee within 90 minutes of competitive football. A goal, a red card for Jagielka, a Ruben Neves equalizer, and then Richarlison again — cutting inside, beating two defenders, curling it past Rui Patricio. Everton drew 2-2 with Wolves, but nobody left talking about the result.
The Ancelotti effect and a 2021 comeback to remember
September 13, 2020. Everton hadn't won at Tottenham in the Premier League since December 2012. Carlo Ancelotti had spent the summer bringing in James Rodriguez, Allan, and Abdoulaye Doucoure. The gap between what Everton were and what they suddenly looked like was jarring. Dominic Calvert-Lewin headed home the winner. Jose Mourinho lost an opening-day game for the first time in 19 years of management. It felt, briefly, like something was genuinely shifting.
It wasn't — at least not sustainably. The 2021-22 opener against Southampton illustrated that clearly enough. James Rodriguez was out. Rafa Benitez was in. Michael Keane dawdled on the ball and Southampton scored. Then, somehow, it clicked: Richarlison equalized, Doucoure fired into the top corner with 15 minutes to go, and Calvert-Lewin met an Iwobi cross with a diving header to seal a 3-1 win. Alex Iwobi, of all people, was the architect of the revival. Everton won, but you knew even then that this squad was running on fumes and occasion rather than any structural improvement.
One more: August 15, 1992. Everton played Sheffield Wednesday in the first-ever Premier League game at Goodison, drew 1-1, and finished 13th. Barry Horne scored. In the 34 years since, the Toffees have managed one trophy and zero league titles in the competition. The Premier League era has not been kind. The move to Hill Dickinson Stadium was supposed to change the trajectory. Last season suggested the jury's still out on that.
