Why are Everton Called ‘The Toffees’?

If Liverpool supporters want to talk about Everton then they might disparagingly refer to them as ‘the Ev’, whilst many will call the team ‘the Blues’.

Neither of those terms are official nicknames for the Merseyside club, however.

Instead, the correct nickname for Everton is ‘The Toffees’, which is a tradition dating back more than 100 years.

The club has won the top-flight title nine times, as well as having been responsible for building all three of the stadiums that have existed in the city of Liverpool; albeit with numerous changes taking place to Anfield since 1888.

The question is, why is the nickname of ‘The Toffees’ theirs?

Toffee Shops Nearby

It is perhaps not a huge shock that the nickname afforded Evertonians of being ‘The Toffees’ has something to do with the sweet treat. Since as far back as the 1700s, the area of Everton, a suburb of Liverpool, has had a number of toffee shops there.

Of all of those that have existed, there are two that stand out above all others as having had a relationship with Everton: Ye Ancient Everton Toffee House and Mother Noblett’s Toffee Shop. The reason for their link to the club was that they were based in areas close to the club, allowing them to have a link to the Blues by serving the supporters sweet treats on a match day.

The Toffees 💪 pic.twitter.com/aPKtsuw9AN

— Tony Scott (@Tony_Scott11) October 19, 2024

In spite of the fact that they both served Evertonians as they were heading to the match, the shops actually had a rivalry and it was this healthy competition that helped to lend the name of the sweet treats that they sold to the football club whose supporters they sold them to.

In the November of 1879, the Queen’s Head Hotel on Village Street was the location for the moment that a decision was taken to rename St Domingo’s Football Club to Everton. Just a stone’s throw away stood Ye Ancient Everton Toffee House, run by Old Ma Bushell. She was famous for the Everton Toffees that she offered, with the shop becoming a must-visit for fans.

The Move to Goodison Park

The trip to visit Ma Bushell made sense when Everton played their matches on Stanley Park and even stuck with supporters as the club began playing its matches at Priory Road and at Anfield. Yet when they moved to Goodison Park it became more and more difficult for all but the most hardy to plan a visit there on the way to the game.

Meanwhile, Mother Noblett opened another Toffee Shop close to Goodison, ensuring that she could catch the supporters as they headed along to watch their club play its football. Rather than offering exactly what Ma Bushell had offered, Mother Noblett created the Everton Mint.

The sweets were similar but had huge differences. Mother Noblett’s offering was a mint with a toffee centre, covered by a hard sugar shell that had black and white stripes. That colour scheme was similar to an old kit that Everton had worn, which appealed to many supporters.

Old Ma Bushell’s sweet, meanwhile, was a traditional English toffee that was made from boiling raw sugar with some water and adding butter, then putting some lemon scent in it. It wasn’t Ma Bushell that invented it, with the credit for that going to Molly Bushell in the 1700s, but she carried on the tradition that was started in a house on Everton Brow.

A Marketing Idea

Just as Father Christmas was turned red by Coca-Cola in a bid to win customers, so too did the popularity of Everton as ‘The Toffees’ come about thanks to a marketing idea. The shops were desperate to win match day revenue from one another, with Old Ma Bushell coming up with a genius idea to try to win back the custom that she had lost to Mother Noblett’s Everton Mints.

She spoke to the club’s owners and gained permission to distribute her toffees insides the stadium, essentially taking advantage of a captive audience. She enlisted the help of her granddaughter Jemima Bushell, who dressed in her best clothes and went to the ground.

@thetoffeeblues The Toffees 🤝 3 Points = Perfect Weekend #everton #evertonfc #premierleague #footballtiktok ♬ original sound – The Toffee Blues

Once inside, she would give people in the crowd one of the toffees from her basket, allowing them to get a taste of the goods that would then encourage them to head along to the shop after the match to buy some of their own. Whether this is true or just an old wive’s tale is difficult to prove, with some suggesting that the club’s nickname actually comes from a bastardisation of ‘Taffies’, given Everton’s close association with Wales.

Regardless, the sight of the Everton Toffee Lady throwing sweets into the ground before a match remains one that visitors to the club’s ground can see every time that they play, with supporters stuffing their mouths before cheering on the Toffees.