You could hear the groans rising over both sides of the Pennines when the Carabao Cup first round draw paired Preston North End with Huddersfield Town.
Despite being in different divisions for the past two years, both sides were given more than ample opportunity to grow sick of the sight of one another after they were drawn against each other both in the League Cup and the FA Cup in 2022/23.
Deepdale has been far from a happy hunting ground for Huddersfield over the years, either. The Terriers’ 2-1 Championship victory on Boxing Day 2022 – right in the middle of that season of four head-to-head meetings – is the only time they have won there in 21 trips since 1969.
Goodison Park sees men's football again in unlikely circumstances
But a curious change of venue turned the game into a proper novelty. The relaid pitch at Preston was not going to be ready in time to fulfil the fixture, and a change of venue was required.
Huddersfield offered to reverse the fixture and host the game, but were rebuffed. Instead, the game would be held at Goodison Park and potentially become the last competitive men’s game ever to be played at the famous old stadium.
There were plenty of fans of both teams who had never visited Everton before. Huddersfield had made the trip just four times since 1971, Preston just twice since 1961, the last of which was for a League Cup game in 2004. Out of nowhere, what looked like forever being a blank space on the mental stadium checklist could now be fulfilled.
The stadium itself still looks good enough from the outside, and there were still reminders around the place of Everton's rich history, most notably Z Cars getting a run-out half an hour before kick-off and Stuart McCall's presence in the Preston dugout, still rocking the same haircut he's had since 1988.
But the interior tells a different story. Only the lower tiers of the Goodison Road stand and Gwladys Street end, as well as the Park End stand, were open to fans; the Bullens Road stand has been completely covered in tarps bearing the words ‘Welcome to Goodison Park, the home of Everton Women’.
The upper tier of the Goodison Road stand remains in use by the press and assorted club suits from both sides, but many of the seats around the press box have been torn out and taken away. Some of the dismantled still sit in the kind of plastic boxes that supermarkets use to make home deliveries.
The feeling of post-apocalyptic desolation is amplified by liberal use of yellow and black tape to keep members of the media from wandering up to comb through the wreckage and grab a souvenir – which, in hindsight, I wish I had done anyway to take home to my Evertonian brother-in-law.
Perhaps it was only apt, then, that it was Preston and Huddersfield in action on the day. These are two clubs whose histories are marked by fabulous glories in bygone years – England’s first-ever back-to-back title winners against the first side ever to go three in a row, and who faced each other in two FA Cup finals in the 1920s and 30s – but who have have gotten used to decade upon decade of lower-league football.
The whole experience must have been particularly surreal for Huddersfield captain Ryan Ledson, a Scouser who came through the youth ranks at Everton and spent seven happy years at Preston before making the move across the Pennines last summer.
“I don't know Everton for being in the new stadium,” he said at Town’s pre-match press conference. “I only know Everton being Goodison Park. I was a ball boy there. I grew up there from the age of four or five.
“It's going to be a special afternoon for me and on a on a personal level to to be back there, and obviously to play against the club where I spent so many years.
"It's going to be the last time I’m ever going to play there, isn't it? So it’s a moment for for me for my family to to cherish”
That’s not how it turned out for Ledson, unfortunately.
Preston were reduced to ten men after just 21 minutes and went behind to Radinio Balker’s header seven minutes before the break, only to come out much stronger in the second half and grab a 93rd-minute equaliser through new signing Jusef Erabi.
That took the game straight to penalties – and the first man to step up at the Gwladys Street end was Ledson.
Preston keeper Daniel Iversen saved his spot kick, then denied Marcus Harness too. It may come as some amusement to Everton fans that Ledson is, in fact, a Red.
Huddersfield's Sunderland loanee Matty Young kept out Andrew Moran’s effort in response, but former Huddersfield man Delano Burgzorg converted the winning penalty to send Preston through.
All told, the whole experience had a strange, dream-like quality - an imaginary experience football game that actually really happened.
