Positive Futures Attend Last Ever Goodison Park Merseyside Derby

Last night, Positive Futures was lucky enough to take 10 of our young people over to Goodison Park for the last ever Merseyside Derby at the historic Everton ground, as the struggling Blues went head-to-head with league leaders Liverpool.

The match was originally planned for late last year but was postponed to this month following severe winds due to storm Darragh.

The tickets were given to us by Everton in the Community and Merseyside Police as part of an initiative designed to clean up the streets in the areas around both Anfield and Goodison.

Prior to going through the turnstiles and finding their seats, our 10 young people and one lucky staff member, Lee, spent an hour and a half litter picking – working for their tickets and providing a great service to the community.

Of the whole night, Lee, who is a member of our youth development team and the night’s chaperone said: “It was my pleasure to take those kids to the match, and it was amazing to watch how happy they all were together, reds and blues mixed. At one point I was watching how much the kids were enjoying themselves instead of actually watching the match! Each young person worked incredibly hard to complete the community litter pick, making the streets cleaner around the ground, I am really proud of the kids that came with me and words can’t describe the unbelievable memories we made together.”

While the match ended in a draw, with both sides of the city walking away with a point, it will be the Blue side with perhaps the bigger smiles on their faces, following a 98^th minute equaliser from centre-half James Tarkowski – with one of the young people summing it up best, saying: “Now that’s what you call a Positive Futures memory I will never forget!”

Another young person said: “Thank you for a really good night last night, much appreciated. I’m so grateful to have seen such an amazing moment.”

We would like to say a huge thank you to all the young people who came along for being on their best behaviour and not causing Lee any extra stress!

Also, thank you to Everton in the Community and the Merseyside Police for giving our young people such great memories.

We hope we get more opportunities to have our young people attend moments in history such as this one again.