The Toffees: the history behind the Blues’ nickname
Do you know how Everton Football Club gained the nickname the Toffees? The story behind the Blues’ alternative name is a rather sweet tale.
Not so surprisingly, the name comes from two toffee shops that were near the stadium when the club started back in 1878. The club was known as St Domingo’s FC then, and a year later it became Everton FC. Both Ye Anciente Everton Toffee House and Old Mother Nobletts Toffee Shop claim to have created the unusual nickname.
Ye Anciente Everton Toffee House was popular with fans as it was close to where Everton first played: Stanley Park and then Priory Road. However, once the Blues moved to Goodison Park (aka The Grand Old Lady), they were closer to Old Mother Nobletts Toffee Shop. Here, they sold sweets called Everton Mints, which proved even more popular with the fans.
Sadly, Ye Anciente Everton Toffee House was faced with the threat of going out of business. The solution was to throw free toffees into the crowd inside the stadium before the match, at half-time, and afterwards. This is a tradition that has stuck with Everton even to this day. It honours Molly Bushell, the original Toffee Lady, who created the recipe for Everton Toffee in the late 1700s. It is said that Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens used to travel all the way to Everton for some of her famous toffee.
Although it used to be an adult Toffee Lady in the 1960s that handed out the sweets, Everton now choose to have a junior fan perform the duties of the Toffee Lady. Usually a girl is chosen from the crowd to walk around the perimeter of the pitch and throw the sweets to the fans. She is dressed in a long blue dress and a white frilly hat, and is given a basket full of Everton Toffee sweets to give to us Blues: sounds like a brilliant honour to me!
