Everton held their first test event at the new stadium on Bramley-Moore dock on Monday night.
The under-18s played Wigan Athletic and 10,000 fans were allowed to attend the game, which ended in a 2-1 defeat for the young Toffees.
The reduced capacity is a requirement as Everton are still obtaining the relevant safety licensing certificates.
Everton’s next test event is in March or April, with the under-21s due to play a friendly fixture in front of an increased attendance of 25,000.
Supporters took to X, formerly known as Twitter, and shared largely positives about their first experience at the stadium, however, there was one negative.
Everton fans not happy with Sandhills
Many of the Everton fans who attended last night’s game at Bramley-Moore Dock were wowed by the experience but there was also one common negative and that was Sandhills – with many having lengthy queues at the station en route to the ground.
“Sandhills is a disaster waiting to happen,” @ste1jones posted.
“Ugly scenes here on the ground at the new Sandhills fan park. Lengthy queues beginning to form in the cold due to a fault on the Ormskirk line,” @LukeA1993 added.
@pete316 commented: “If we didn’t know already, we do now. Sandhills absolutely not fit for purpose. Needs a big and quick rethink.”
“Making a shambles out of Sandhills and massively restricting the parking not just on match days but 365 days a year which affects all the businesses in the area is nothing short of diabolical. Absolute shameful behaviour whoever made those decisions,” @toffee_tower posted.
@__JJK__ said: “Great to see you’ve done literally nothing in the area around it other than restrict everyone from getting to and from it. Sandhills couldn’t cope with a 10k crowd. What’s going to happen with over 50k plus away fans?”
“The whole experience around the stadium today was amazing.. The terribly designed “fan area” at Sandhills was utter crap though,” @RWillguys explained.
Everton must address Sandhills issue before next test event
The purpose of these test events is indeed to see what works and what doesn’t, so evidently the club will take the complaints on board about Sandhills.
Ahead of the next test event, the club will likely be exploring options available to them to help reduce queues on the way to the ground.
Some fans also complained that there were no shuttle buses for the long walk up to the docks, so perhaps they’ll consider implementing that service.
Aside from that, it was certainly a successful debut event and many supporters left amazed by the state-of-the-art infrastructure.
Certainly exciting times ahead for all involved at Everton.
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