I have a friend in Ireland who knows people in the front office or old players and they actually send messages on the field during the games like, “Hey Spoonie and O’neals Pub in Philadelphia hope everybody is well and thank you for the support.”
Greg “Spoonie” Rand is the owner of O’Neals Pub. The business is celebrating 43 years of operation. He is hoping to retire soon, “Ideally I would like to retire on the 50th anniversary of the pub being open,” Spoonie said. The pub is located on 611 S. 3rd Street just off of the notable South Street. Stepping into the bar patrons can see a scarf that reads, “Goodison Blues and right below Supporters Club Ireland,” with the flag of Ireland on the right and the Everton FC crest on the left.
O’neals is a home for the official supporters’ club of Everton FC, a club based in Liverpool, England who competes in the Premier League.
How did O’neals become an Everton FC affiliate?
We had an employee, Robbie who was born in Liverpool and he asked us to see if we could play Everton games, as we grew as an Everton bar we decided to contact Everton to be the official Everton bar of Philadelphia. That’s why you see a flag over there that makes us the official bar of Philadelphia.
Robbie ended up moving to Oakland, California and that’s when this other guy Rich Ballezzi ended up taking over our official Everton Facebook page called Philadelphia Evertonians And through social media we actually grew the Everton culture here in Philadelphia. We have picked up more and more people through the season. I think if you look up Everton bars in Philadelphia we are the first one.
I always tell everybody if you’re gonna be an official supporter bar you need to make sure you show every game no matter the time. If they’re on at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning then we are open at 7 a.m. in the morning on a Saturday.
If Everton were to get put down [demoted to a lower division] we would still show their games. We will be an Everton supporter bar no matter what, it just makes it that more difficult. That being said we give anyone an avenue who is an Everton fan, wants to become a fan, we give an opportunity to meet the other fans. These guys will take trips to Goodison Park and this is actually the last year of the team playing there.
When Everton FC played the Philadelphia Union in the summer of 2011 we took two buses of Everton fans down to go see the game. After the match Everton did a little meet and greet upstairs. Players like Leighton Baines and some of the coaches came. They were actually supposed to raffle off a team-signed jersey, but they forgot to raffle it and ended up giving it to us. We framed it and it is now upstairs.
When the soccer show, Premier League Mornings Came to Philadelphia in 2022 they did it over by Dilworth Park Plaza and the Everton spokesperson did a meet and greet for two days.
What are match days like?
It’ll range depending on the time of day: If it’s a 7 o’clock game it’s light, for a 10 o’clock it’s medium, and later games it gets busier. Light is around ten people or less, medium is twenty-five-ish, and heavy is usually when they play Liverpool FC we’ll be fifty.
The big ones are when Everton play Liverpool FC. The opening game we were packed too.
It also varies like any other sport when a team does well the supporter bars do well. Like when the Phillies do well so does the bar, it’s like that with Everton. The unfortunate part is the past two years Everton have been in a relegation battle and we are currently in the same situation.
The biggest thing for game days is getting ready to serve them and not have opening duty. We run a Guinness special during all Everton games and Guinness sponsored us. For the early games it’s about getting the coffee on some do not drink in the morning, others do.
If it’s an early game or a 10:00 am game I can usually manage the bar and dining, but for later games we’ll have a few staff since we have a few other sports other than soccer.
Another fun thing is when you have the volume on for the game and you have people who haven’t experienced a soccer culture they enjoy it. They spend time talking to the people who are really into it and it helps. We in the United States are behind in soccer and so it’s really starting to make some headway over the last five to ten years and people get interested.
I like the fact these guys who know the soccer culture love teaching the people who don’t know the soccer culture whether it’s the history of Everton or soccer. Or explaining the rules like, “why is that an offsides,” stuff like that.
If Everton were to get put down [demoted to a lower division] we would still show their games. We will be an Everton supporter bar no matter what, it just makes it that more difficult. That being said we give anyone an avenue who is an Everton fan, wants to become a fan, we give an opportunity to meet the other fans. These guys will take trips to Goodison Park and this is actually the last year of the team playing there.
We’ve been doing Everton fanbase here for 15-20 years. We have a lot of rich Everton memories here. A lot of people come from out of town and come to watch the game.
We actually had Tony Bellew the boxer who is a huge Everton fan come in when they were shooting the Creed movie. We invited him over and he showed up one day, we were packed then. If you look up Philadelphia Evertonians you can find a picture and he’s in the center.
There is a whole second floor what’s up there?
We host dart competitions and have our own team.
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