New Everton Stadium could hold rugby league Ashes Test, claims report

A report claims the new Everton Stadium could host a rugby league international and if it does so then the Blues’ future home could follow on from Goodison Park in terms of staging major non-football sporting events. An article in the Daily Mail states: “Everton's new stadium is under serious consideration to host an Ashes Test.

“Australia’s all-conquering rugby league side is set to head on a UK tour for the first time in more than 20 years next Autumn to take on England in a three-match series. One of the games will be held in London, with one each on either side of the Pennines.

“Wembley is one of a number of grounds being looked at in the capital, while Leeds are set to battle it out with Hull in Yorkshire. However, in a potentially eye-catching move, league bosses are looking into the possibility of staging the north-west encounter at the Premier League club’s impressive, yet-to-be opened home on the side of the River Mersey at Bramley-Moore Dock.”

READ MORE: Asmir Begovic makes Jarrad Branthwaite transfer claim and lifts lid on Everton punishment wheel

READ MORE: 'I will never forgive myself' - Ex-Everton winger opens up on drink, drugs and cheating shame

Everton are currently playing their historic final season at Goodison Park, the first purpose-built football ground in England and venue for the most top-flight matches plus five World Cup games in 1966, including a semi-final. They will then make the two-mile move from Walton to Vauxhall for the start of the 2025/26 campaign.

The piece adds: “Officials are hoping to cash in from what would be the first Ashes Tour in more than 20 years and are currently exploring options. Taking a Test to a stadium with a capacity of 52,888 would be an ambitious move, although there would have to be a confidence that the venue would prove popular with supporters.

“Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium has also been looked at, although it is considered a long shot. Grounds in Bolton and Wigan are also in the running, albeit with much smaller capacities.”

Between 1908-21, Goodison staged four rugby league matches involving touring Antipodean sides. During the 1908/09 Kangaroo tour of Great Britain, Australia defeated a Northern Union XIII 10-9 on November 18, 1908 before England beat Australia 14-7 on March 3, 1909.

The 1911/12 Kangaroo Tour saw Australasia (a combined team of Australians and New Zealanders) overcome a Northern League XIII on October 25, 1911 before the 1921/22 Kangaroo Tour witnessed Australasia’s 29-6 victory over Lancashire on November 30, 1921.

Baseball was even played at the ground between the 1920s-40s. Danny Bloyce’s Baseball in England recounts how Goodison was one of two English stadia (the other being Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge) used in this country during the 1924 World Tour by Major League outfits Chicago White Sox and New York Giants.

Their exhibition match on Merseyside only drew in a crowd of 2,000 spectators but one of the players managed to hit a ball clear of the large Goodison Road Stand.

Steven R. Bullock’s Playing for their nation: Baseball and the American military during World War II records that a game between two Army Air Force baseball teams attracted an 8,000 attendance at Goodison, which had been commandeered by the military, during the Second World War, raising over $3,000 for the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance fund.

Liverpool Trojans’ history documents that they and the Formby Cardinals were the last two teams to play baseball at Goodison in the 1948 Lancashire Cup final.

Meanwhile, life imitated art when Tony Bellew defeated Ilunga Makabu at Goodison on May 29, 2016 in what was the first outdoor boxing event in Liverpool since 1949. Lifelong Evertonian ‘Bomber’ Bellew had played ‘Pretty’ Ricky Conlan who fought a fictional fight against actor Michael B Jordan’s character Adonis Creed in the film Creed the year before with Goodison the supposed venue thanks to real footage taken during an Everton match against West Bromwich Albion.