The history of Everton Football Club is so much more than the players who have graced the hallowed Goodison Park turf.
There's more to Everton than the trophies in the cabinet; the Toffees have been constant innovators in the footballing world, ceaselessly striving to be the best, and the first to accomplish new feats, while establishing new norms. The Nil Satis Nisi Optimum ("Nothing but the best is good enough") motto could not be more appropriate.
From becoming one of the founder members of the football league in 1888, right through to present day when we announced a new service which allows fans to purchase match tickets through text message, Everton have always been at the forefront of new ideas.
Did you know we were the first to wear numbers on our backs, the first to have a purpose-built football stadium, and the first go on an overseas tour?
Below is an extensive list of some of the significant landmarks that Everton Football Club has accomplished since its birth.
- Founder members of the Football League in 1888
- Founder members of the FA Premier League in 1992
- First club to be presented with the League Championship trophy
- First club to present medals for winning the Championship
- First club to stage an FA Cup final - Notts County v Bolton Wanderers, 1894 (a final replay was held at the Racecourse Ground in Derby in 1886)
- First club on Merseyside to win the FA Cup, 1906
- First club to construct a purpose-built football stadium
- First club to have a four-sided stadium with two tier stands
- First club to have a stadium with a three-tier stand
- First club to issue a regular match programme for home fixtures
- First club to have a player (William Ralph Dean) score 60 league goals
- First club to wear numbered shirts from 1-11 in an FA Cup final (1933 FA Cup final)
- First club to have a church attached to its stadium
- First club in England to install dugouts
- First club to install undersoil heating
- First club to win a penalty shootout in the European Cup, 1970 v Borussia Monchengladbach
- First club to play 4,000 top-flight games
- First club to amass 5,000 League points
- First club to play 100 seasons in the top-flight
- First club to stage a World Cup semi-final in Britain
- First club to have the youngest Premiership goalscorer in two consecutive seasons with two different players
- First club to break the £100,000 transfer threshold when Alan Ball moved from Blackpool for £110,000 in 1966
- First club to be featured in a TV game; August 1936 v Arsenal. Not live (pre-recorded).
- First club to have scoreboard half time/full time facility
- First club to have its own podcast
- First club to have its own online social networking site
- First club to sell tickets via text message
- First club to have more than 50,000 in attendance for a women's game. When Dick Kerr's Ladies played St Helen's Ladies on Boxing Day 1920, they pulled in a crowd of 53,000 at Goodison Park, with thousands more fans locked outside
- First £400 player when Jimmy Settle was signed from Bury in 1899
- First £4,000 player when Stan Fazackerley was bought from Sheffield United in 1920
- First £350,000 player when Everton purchased Bob Latchford from Birmingham City
