Stadium woes continue for Everton Women as Sunday’s match postponed due to frozen pitch

Everton Women are having an incredible season, despite having one of the worst home stadiums in the league.

The Blues are in fourth place and were looking forward to a challenging game against WSL giants Chelsea on Sunday but the game was called off by referees due to a frozen pitch at Southport, a stadium that the Toffees were supposed to no longer be playing at. They had been scheduled to play at their new stadium, Walton Hall Park, in late October, but that has been postponed indefinitely.

A few fans were upset about making the long trip to Southport on Sunday, a stadium that is not conveniently located and is a big reason why Everton has the lowest attendance rates in the WSL:

There continues to be some mystery behind the opening of the new stadium. The club did not update the public about the stadium postponement until 24 October, only three days before they were slated to start playing at Walton Hall Park. The announcement stated that there would be four more additional games played at Southport until December 1st due to a “slight delay.”

However, Everton’s website is selling home tickets for the 15 December home match against Arsenal at Southport and no other further dates are available yet, suggesting that the delays may be continuing.

Not even manager Willie Kirk knows the exact date, as is evidenced by the comments he made to BBC only a few days ago:

“We’re patiently waiting for [the stadium change] to happen. We hope it happens sooner rather than later, because goals like [last] Sunday’s [3-1 win over Spurs] deserve to be seen by a few thousand, not just a few hundred.”

Kirk has bemoaned the state of the pitch at Southport last season and has been very candid about the lack of atmosphere there:

“Southport just feel likes a venue that we play our home games at.”

Kirk promised that the new stadium will be “a place we can call our own and will look and feel like an Everton ground” and that it will even have “blue and white seats.”

No word yet on when the new date for the Chelsea game will be but their next game will be away against Manchester United on 8 December.

Photo by Lewis Storey/Getty Images