The former striker is back at the stadium for the first time since he left the club’s board
Graeme Sharp, the man who has scored more goals for Everton than anyone else alive, was back at Goodison Park for the ground’s penultimate fixture against Ipswich Town. Sharp, whose image adorns both the Main Stand and Bullens Road, netted 160 goals for the Blues – a figure second only to Dixie Dean (383) – in 447 matches between 1980-91.
The Glaswegian also won two League Championships with Everton, the European Cup-Winners’ Cup and FA Cup, scoring in the final of the latter. Sharp top scored with 30 goals in all competitions in the Blues’ most-successful season of 1984/85, a campaign in which he also netted the winner against Liverpool at Anfield with one of the most spectacular strikes in Merseyside Derby history.
However, the 64-year-old, who most recently served as a non-executive director at Everton, had not attended a game at Goodison Park since 2023 in the wake of fan protests against previous owner Farhad Moshiri and the board. Speaking about his situation in an interview with the Scotsman newspaper last October, Sharp said: “I know people say it will be fine, but it’s scarred me a little bit.
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“It’s a shame to say it. It’s not the same.
“It will be interesting, because no doubt this 40-year celebration (of the 1984/85 season), the lads will all be back out for the last game of the season. But not for me, I don’t think. Not for me.”
Everton have been counting down Goodison’s top goalscorers on the back of the team sheet for every Premier League fixture this season and with Sharp second on the all-time list, his image features on the one for the Ipswich Town game.