Meet the Everton fan creating hand-crafted Goodison Park memorabilia ahead of the club’s move to Bramley Moore Dock.
Rhiannon Hodgson’s amazing models of Everton’s home since 1892 are gaining a huge following among supporters.
She told Merseysportlive: “After the first couple of hours, I got 50 likes.
“I thought, oh, that’s nice. I was still a bit shy about it, but since then, it’s like it’s snowballed and snowballed and gone crazy.”
Rhiannon studied art at university, and during that time, she taught herself how to make models.
She mainly worked as a freelancer and was a regular match goer at Goodison Park up until the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020.
Soon after, she began to lose her hearing, which created new obstacles when visiting Goodison Park on matchday.
Rhiannon suffered from labyrinthitis, a condition that left her profoundly deaf in her left ear, and moderate hearing loss in the right ear.
She said: “After I lost my hearing, the experience was just totally overwhelming.
“I usually go on my own. I’ll just get a ticket and just go wherever I can.
“And I loved chatting to people next to me and getting to know people.
“But when I lost my hearing, people would talk to me, and I wouldn’t know what they were saying.
“It made me lose confidence in being anywhere on my own, communicating with anybody.
“And it just made, if I’m honest, it made the world quite a scary place.”
The 38-year-old’s work became popular after she posted her first model to the social media site X.
The demand for Rhiannon’s models has been ‘astronomical’.
She outlined the skill and time needed to create the models.
She said: “It’s not like flat pack IKEA where I can just get something out…every single element of the model, even down to a drainpipe, an alarm box, I’ve made them with my hands. They’re not printed.”
She has combined her artistic talents with her love of Everton by creating picture-perfect models of Goodison Park to bring her matchday experience to life at home.
She added: “I thought I could do these models. I can do them at a high level.
“I’m going to focus on making my parts of my matchday experience, making these models, and having them here with me.”
With the demand for her models at its highest, Rhiannon is looking to create memorabilia for fellow fans who wish to pay homage to Goodison Park.
“People love these, and I love them. And if people want them, I’m willing to sell them.”
She discussed her love for Everton, and fans’ wishes to create models that capture people’s individual matchday experiences.
“It’s been there for so long and it’s so many people’s lives like some of these turnstiles, people have gone through them for decades and you know whether they want to buy one now or in three years’ time, that’s up to them.”
If you want to find out more about Rhiannon’s models, you can visit her website here: https://imakesmallthings.co.uk/
