All Together Now launched in December 2018 with the aim to tie together the Club and Everton in the Community’s collaborative equality and diversity work to ensure all fans – and those visiting Goodison Park, Walton Hall Park or any of the Blues’ community facilities – feel welcome and catered for at all times.
Now, the third anniversary of the launch shines a further spotlight on the initiatives and events the Club has created, developed, and actively supported, staying true to All Together Now’s tag line ‘A football family for everyone’.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, World Down Syndrome Day was marked with a special event at USM Finch Farm that saw Club captain Seamus Coleman and Colombia international Yerry Mina play five-a-side with members of Everton in the Community’s Down Syndrome team.
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 10: Andre Gomes of Everton wears an ‘All Together Now’ t-shirt before the Premier League match between Everton and Watford at Goodison Park on December 10, 2018 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Emma Simpson/Everton FC via Getty Images)
To further illustrate a desire to be inclusive, the Blues teamed up with Technical Partner hummel and players from Everton’s disability football teams to unveil the Club’s 2020/21 third kit. In doing so, Everton became the first club in Premier League history to unveil a kit using only its disabled players.
The launch also marked the 20th anniversary of Everton in the Community’s Disability Programme and led to hummel investing directly into the project by funding a year-long education and training initiative that saw 20 Everton in the Community participants join an FA Level One coaching programme.
Looking to the future of mental health support, Everton in the Community launched a fundraising appeal to create ‘The People’s Place’ – a purpose-built facility that will provide an overarching service to anyone, regardless of age, gender or location, and offer support related to mental health, suicide awareness and suicide prevention. The facility is due to open in 2022.
Launched at the start of the 2020/21 Premier League season, Everton’s shirt sponsor and Main Partner Cazoo’s ‘Goals For Good’ charitable initiative sees the UK’s leading online car retailer donate £1,000 for every goal scored in the Premier League by the Blues.
In 2020/21, Cazoo donated £48,000 to Everton in the Community, which equates to £707,520 of societal value generated. The money raised in the 2021/22 season is supporting two social mobility initiatives, Imagine Your Goals and Girls on Side.
This commitment to on-going, meaningful change has seen Everton achieve the ‘Advanced’ level of the Premier League Equality Standard (PLES) – the highest equality accreditation available to an English top-flight club. Following an assessment, the panel commended the “commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion and how it is embedded in everything [Everton] does”.
Director of People, Culture and Workplace Wellbeing, Kim Healey said: “The progress we have made since the launch of All Together Now is a testament to our ongoing commitment to actively embracing equality and diversity across the Everton Family.
“People remain at the very heart of everything we do and ensuring the Club develops policies that reflect the ever-changing world we live in is just one way in which we are a forward-thinking football club.”
Highlighting the power of sport as a tool to support positive mental health, Everton in the Community hosted The Duke of Cambridge in January 2020.
During his visit, the Duke visited three Everton in the Community projects which each provide crucial mental health support to different sectors of society.
His Royal Highness also met with Everton first-team players Coleman, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Tom Davies to discuss his own Heads Up campaign and the importance of encouraging more people, particularly men, to feel comfortable talking about their mental health.
October 2020 saw Everton defender Mason Holgate and Club management accountant Louise Price add their voices to Anthony Walker Foundation’s ‘You Cannot Be What You Cannot See’ anti-racism campaign to help showcase and celebrate leaders from the region’s black community.
Continuing the conversation into 2021, Andros Townsend joined an array of guest speakers for Everton in the Community’s Premier League Inspires Black History Month event, the winger answering questions from year nine and 10 pupils from schools across Merseyside and discussing his experiences in the game. Striker Calvert-Lewin followed teammate Holgate in lending his support to the ‘You Cannot Be What You Cannot See’ campaign and appeared on digital screens across Liverpool.
The Blues began the 2021/22 season against Southampton at Goodison Park in specially-designed rainbow warm-up shirts to highlight the fight for diversity and inclusion in professional football.
The shirts – a mash-up of all flags recognised by the LGBTI+ community – were designed by hummel and were auctioned off to raise money to support Everton in the Community’s youth engagement programme. Shirts retailed both online and in store and sold out within 20 minutes, highlighting Evertonians’ support for the initiative.
The Club also joined all 19 other Premier League clubs in supporting Stonewall’s Rainbow Laces campaign earlier this month, while, in April, the British LGBT Awards’ inaugural ‘Football Allies’ prize recognised Everton forward Richarlison with a nomination for his work towards breaking down barriers in the game and society.
The nomination followed the Club’s seventh year supporting Pride in Liverpool and, as an ‘Official Supporter’ of the festival, members of Everton’s LGBT+ Staff Network joined more than 12,000 people celebrating the LGBT+ community.
Everton Football Club pledged to #GetOnside in 2021 – a campaign launched by Women in Football to encourage fans, clubs and organisations to actively promote change when it comes to gender equality in football.
Everton CEO, Professor Denise Barrett-Baxendale, appeared in the launch video
The Club also joined forces with Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust during Gynaecological Cancer Awareness Month to ensure women and people with a cervix who work for the Club can attend cervical screening and other important medical and health appointments during work hours.
Taking an active role in highlighting the transgender community, Everton supported Trans Day of Visibility, an annual event held in March, having already become one of the first football clubs to sign up as a Stonewall Diversity Champion .
The partnership with Stonewall – Europe’s leading charity for lesbian, gay, bi and trans equality – has helped shape and inform everyday processes and HR policies within the Club to ensure inclusivity.
To learn more about Everton’s All Together Now campaign and some of the activity that has taken place over the past three years – or to keep up-to-date with the Club’s inclusion work and initiatives in future – visit evertonfc.com/alltogethernow
Image credit: Getty Images
