35 Years of Everton in the Community

35 Years of Everton in the Community

35 years ago, a converted house in the shadow of Goodison Park, the Everton stadium, became the operational centre of ‘The Community Programme’, a Government-sponsored scheme to foster closer links between football and the local community.  

 It was headed up by former Everton forward Duncan McKenzie, with the support of Alan Whittle and a team of part-time activity organisers who started delivering sessions in local schools before expanding their outreach to include disabled participants and the under-privileged.  

Today, that very same scheme is known as Everton in the Community – and equipped with 120+ members of staff who deliver over 50 programmes at various venues across Merseyside – is a beacon of support to thousands of people across Merseyside who heavily rely on the charity’s services. 

 A long list of custodians can be recognised in playing their part in shaping the charity into what it is today, and under the stewardship of McKenzie and Whittle, and funding from the Manpower Services Commission, the PFA and the Football League in the early days, the programme took its first steps to supporting local people in the area. 

In September 1991, Neil Dewsnip was appointed Community Manager with the focus of getting the local community involved, interested and to feel part of Everton Football Club. The baton was handed over to Ted Sutton in 1994 who – as Community Officer oversaw the programme grow to a team of nine. 

 Football in the Community expanded into all corners of the city with community coaches delivering in all boroughs of Liverpool on a daily basis and on the 10 September 2003, following an application submitted by Ted Sutton and David Connor, Everton Football in the Community was officially granted charitable status. 

 In 2004, Everton Women’s player Mo Marley was brought into the fold to lead a programme specifically designed to get women and girls more involved in sport, whilst the charity mobilised its workforce to build on the programmes it delivered across the city whilst forging long-lasting partnerships with the likes of Alder Hey Childrens’ Hospital and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust.  

 The charity headed into the next decade under the leadership of Denise Barrett-Baxendale, winning the FA Community Club Charter Standard Award and a Sports Industry award for its outstanding community provision in the same year she was appointed.  

In November 2011, Everton became the first Premier League Football Club to receive government approval to open a Free School. A £4.2million development, Everton Free School opened in September 2012 and today welcomes 200 students through its doors each year and has an annual revenue of £2.4million.   

Everton in Community’s ‘Big Society Award’ preceded the charity being named ‘Community Club of the Year’ five times in succession at the North West Football Awards. 

Over the next few years, the charity began to rapidly expand its footprint in L4 with various venues opening across the area to provide dedicated purpose-built facilities to house its programmes.   

The People’s Hub and Cruyff Court opens in 2017 on Spellow Lane, and three years-later, the same venue is visited by Prince William who witnesses a selection of the charity’s mental health programmes.   

 In 2018, the charity opened The Blue Base which hosts its older person programmes, and in May 2020, Everton Football Club received Government approval for its community-led legacy development at Goodison Park which would see Everton’s current home redeveloped to provide a range of community assets in Liverpool 4 after the Club has moved to a new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.

The Goodison Park Legacy Project, that builds on the life-changing and life-saving work of Everton in the Community, could include high quality and affordable housing, a multi-purpose health centre, community-led retail spaces, a youth enterprise zone, office and business facilities and green space and will ensure that Everton remains in the heart of the Liverpool 4 community once football has moved to the waterfront.

The charity received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2021, the highest accolade a volunteering organisation can achieve in the UK, and a year later, EitC launches the first regional community-based Digital Skills Lab to tackle the widening education inequality gap in Merseyside, all whilst Everton in the Community’s most ambitious and exciting project to date, The People’s Place rises from the ground. 

To the present day, Everton in the Community is months away from opening its purpose-built mental health and wellbeing hub which will house the charity’s mental health programmes, provide a layer of professional support, and will complete the charity’s Goodison Campus.