I designed Everton's new stadium - now I have an 1878 tattoo
Two relegation battles, a change of club ownership, a global pandemic and even discovering unexploded World War Two ordnance on site - just a few things designers and engineers had to contend with before they could deliver the Hill Dickinson Stadium for its opening last August. "Just about everything that could happen did," said Dan Meis - the Los Angeles-based architect who designed Everton's new ground. Aside from some of the issues already mentioned, the American had to deal with transposing the Premier League club's fans into a new site - away from Goodison Park, which they had called home for 133 years.
Meis was used to pressure, but nothing prepared him for Everton. "I live in LA, I did the Staples Center - home of the Lakers," he said. "That was an important building to people, but it was nothing like Everton.
"I don't think I will ever have another experience quite like that because of who the club are, what the city of Liverpool is and the site where we built. " Meis said he was initially sceptical a club like Everton would engage a firm in the US for the project, let alone one based in Los Angeles, but dove into the history of the club and city. "I learned pretty early through fan engagements how passionate they were about this.
It was not always super friendly," added Meis. One of the big debates was about capacity. Hill Dickinson seats more than 52,000 fans - an increase of more than 12,000 on Goodison, but 9,000 less than Liverpool's Anfield Stadium.
"I can't tell you the number of tweets I got from fans saying, 'it's OK as long as we have one more seat than Anfield'," recalled Meis. "In the end, fans felt like they were talking to the club. Hearing from them really made me think about these things - making sure they were right on top of the pitch, making sure we weren't sacrificing that football-first energy in any way, while delivering revenue.