COLUMNIST JOHN HOLMES

An imperfect compromise

By John Holmes :  25/08/2007 :  Comments (19) :

Whatever your outlook on the Kirkby result, yesterday was a sad day for Everton. If not perhaps the final nail in the coffin of a stadium whose concrete pillars seep with over a century of glory, passion and devotion, only a few more hammer blows are needed to condemn it to ruin. Most, though not all, fans seem to accept that there is a reality that we must leave Goodison and, with a heavy heart, move on. Yet it galls that, no matter where those who voted put their cross, few fans believe that the move to Kirkby is the ideal solution.

No matter how the financial deal, the potential revenue and the night-lit artist impressions are dressed up, Kirkby is not the ?optimum?. It may not turn out to be the disaster some predict, and its benefits may herald a new era for Everton but there is no escaping the reality: Kirkby is a compromise. If we must seal shut the Old Lady?s coffin it would have softened the blow to use a platinum hammer on silver nails.

The way the decision was made has been criticised and I?d like to address some of those points. Firstly, the issue of the mandate; 59.27% said yes to Kirkby of the 70.27% who voted. Is a mandate of just under 60% enough to act? It may interest some to know that no post-war government of the UK has had such a high mandate from those who voted. The high-point of 49.6% (of those who voted) achieved by the Conservatives in 1955 is belittled by the Kirkby majority (for those who care the current government secured just 37% of the vote).

As for turnout, 70% is not bad in modern terms. Prior to 2001 the general election turnout hovered in the 70s, but since then it has plummeted to 54% in 2001 and 61% in 2005. A last comparison can be made on the more simple referendums which gave the Scottish a parliament and the Welsh an assembly. The former was carried out with a 74.3% mandate (turnout 60.4%) but the latter on a mandate of just 50.3% (turnout 50.1%).

The reality is, by the standards the country is governed, the Everton Board has a reasonable mandate to follow through on its proposals. Some have argued that a simple majority is not enough and major decisions often require a two-thirds majority or similar. To my mind, however, this sort of threshold-setting is a somewhat arbitrary means of accounting for sampling error when there is a smaller number of voters (for instance in boardrooms). With an ?electorate? in excess of 36,000 people, we can be fairly certain that the result reflects the will of the electorate and not chance variation in its makeup.

It is disappointing that so many supporters who had, by the definition of eligibility, invested money in Everton Football Club abstained from such an important decision. Returning to the political comparison, it is easy to speculate why turnout has fallen at elections. Political apathy, cynicism and a dislike or distrust for all parties are major factors. However, the very criteria which gave them the vote implies that those who abstained had a significant interest in Everton and its future. Why did they abstain?

It is difficult to believe that the best part of 11,000 people misdirected their returned votes, were the subjects of misdelivered voting forms or simply forgot to post them in time. There has to be a more pressing reason for this level of abstention. Objectors to a lack of ?Plan B? who hoped that by mass abstention they could derail the vote may account for a significant number. Cynicism with the Board, its motives and the inevitability of the outcome may also have gone some way to convince those eligible of the pointlessness of the endeavour. I also believe, because it may have been my course of action if I?d had the opportunity that some were literally unable to choose. As I wrote above, inertia is not an option for Everton Football Club, yet Kirkby is a compromise rather than a solution. Faced with the rock or the hard place, I suspect some fans simply allowed themselves to be crushed between the two.

The high number of abstentions from an electorate who should have had a greater level of interest is, although not so great as to be damning for the Board, at least a mild embarrassment. It reflects a process marred by all parties; the Board, the city council, the media and indeed websites such as this. The failure to offer Plan B was disappointing from the Board but far worse was the shameless face-saving of LCC in pulling a deformed foetus out of a hat and claiming it would be a rabbit if we waited long enough.

The Loop looked fantastic on the back of the envelope on which it was described and, had it been deliverable, I can?t imagine many fans would have voted for Kirkby. However, Everton are reliant on commercial partners to build a new stadium and they could not have been expected to hang around whilst proper feasibility studies taking upwards of 12 months were conducted on a rival site which may or may not have resulted in a new stadium whilst Goodison crumbled further. The Loop, and other proposals like it, were much too little, far too late. Action was needed and Kirkby remained, at the time of the vote, whilst far from the most attractive, the only viable option on the table.

Some have suggested the club went overboard and waged a PR, or propaganda 'war' (as some would have it) to sell Kirkby to the fans. The suggestion that there was a queue of players at Finch Farm just itching to tell evertonfc.com how wonderful Kirkby was justifiably raised a few eyebrows.

The Board was not the only culprit of the hard sell however. Those with raised eyebrows were not shy in publicising Duncan Ferguson?s opposition to Kirkby, nor were they reticent in maintaining a torrent of opinion of variable quality regarding the move. Suddenly, everyone was an architect, a surveyor, an economist and irrespective of whether they were giving the full picture they had an authoritative view to give. Was this justifiable? Absolutely; the internet, where much of it was rooted, is a place for debate, circumventing the official line or pooling amateur expertise and it?s nature makes it ideal for managing activism. Nobody is forced to read anything they don?t want to, I personally ignored hundreds of articles and statements from fans, players, club officials and journalists. So, should the Board have kept itself above this and not engaged in shooting down rival proposals, proffering statements from star players and writing open letters? No, to ensure a balanced and true reflection of the debates it was necessary for the club to release material. It might have considered a less dictatorial approach and engaged in more actual discussion (it would have been interesting to see Arteta or Cahill face questions from fans regarding their views) but the reality of the information society we live in is less one of quality and more of flooding the internet with information and leaving the consumer to pick over the bones and synthesise a coherent and informed opinion from the truth amid the half-truth.

I think it is likely that most of those who voted for or against Kirkby did so on a reasonably well-informed basis. The whole truth is rarely known and no soothsayer can tell us where Everton will be in 20 years time as the repercussions filter through, but the facts as far as we knew them were there for those who wanted them and that means that, no matter how virulent and tedious the debate may have become, the result was as reliable as it could have been.

So what now? Where do those who loathe the idea of relocation, who see the death of Everton as we know it on the horizon, go? I have one simple request. I don?t ask you to agree with Kirkby, if you feel so strongly as to boycott Everton when we move, I won?t begrudge you your protest. But, put to use the networks and structures that have been established in opposing Kirkby to ensure that, even if it is an unwanted compromise, we make the best of it. Scrutinise the details and challenge the Board and those who secure the commercial contracts at every turn to ensure that when we move to our new home we are moving to the best stadium it could possibly have been.

The optimum was lost en route to yesterday?s vote but it can be rediscovered and, whilst much of Everton?s future will be decided on the pitch, off the pitch, those who see our pride as battered can work to restore it by refusing to sulk and instead acting to ensure the club?s motto is upheld even when it seems lost. Even if you will never love Kirkby, for the sake of Everton, make it work.

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