A View to a Kill

My gut churns at the thought of us playing in some reebok esque stadium outside of liverpool, but we honestly cannot stay at goodison ,
So what are the options , were getting told we carnt move to anywhere were tesco are not involved , for money reasons , an the loop site? how are we going to pay for it if tesco rnt involved,?
I'd rather see us playing at goodison than in some fucking ricoh arena in some shitty town , and thats what it is i live in westvale so i should know

they got the vote its going ahead they have shown the plans and video make your mind up-- in or out- we all have the choice -follow the team or not -all other options are zero unless the government take a hand - every little helps

the good old neighbourhoods?

does that include the burned out and boarded up rows of terraces within a stones throw of goodison, specifically the estate behind the mega store.

the option for pub to pub will arrive in kirkby, the trade will follow the drinkers because the drinkers will follow the 90 minutes on the pitch - more so with no restricted views and the half time possibility of a pint, pie AND a piss. fancy that, fed and watered and access to the urinals all in the halftime 10 minutes. heavenly.

just a quick addition, arsenal make more from the corporate boxes per season than they do from the fans through the turnstyles.

you dont want to follow follow follow everton anymore on the back of a 4 mile move, then good riddance to you.

, and thats what it is i live in westvale so i should know

Well why not fuck of out of it then if its so shitty??

So true. I’ve been the Reebok too, and it’s a souless place. I’ll follow the blues wherever we end up, but will any of the next generation have any interest in our club in Kirkby? I hope so, but think not.

harry

i live there cos i have to not by choice

borris

arsenal are in the champions league every single year , there based in the capital of our country not some overspill called kirkby thats probably why there boxes are full which is probably why they make alot of money out of it.

colin

here here

Boris

do you think for 1 minute by moving out of this city that thats going to attract the corporate that you mentioned make a hell of alot of money for arsenal???

fucking no chance mate , why would anybody wiyh any sense of business knoledge come flocking to the ricoh arena when theres a thriving city that where moving out of??
walton is not the best but neither is kirkby your the person who compared the two!

Boris...... The pubs will not follow, do they exist in great numbers around the Reebock? A 20 times a year venue could never sustain any new pubs apart from the standard fayre of a token beef eater that may come with the retail park, although I haven’t seen any of them at the speke retail park. The multitude of pubs in Walton are there because there is still a relatively large and high density population to support them for the other 340 days of the year. The whole of Kirkby has only a handfull of pubs and they are spread out. You can also find dereliction and deprived areas there very easily....... also, don’t you think you can solve your all important half time pie cravings for a fraction of the £50m+ that we are going to have to cough up for Kirkby? also before you make parallels with Arsenal, don’t you think their fans demagraphic is completely different to ours. We cannot fill our meagre exec facilities for most games,and they’re the only parts of the ground completely empty for our European games..... hardly banging on our doors are they?

The location is less than ideal - 6/10 at best.

The design is bollocks, no imagination and a boring 4 identical sided piece of architecture that gives no heed to the traditions of Goodison or Everton FC, and smacks of cheap and easy. 2/10 ( and that’s only for the 50,000 seats and no pillars )

Nil satis nisi optimum? Oh, please!!!

As the self proclaimed ’People’s Club’ you would think they could at least have asked a forum or two, or requested ideas from fans, for the design. Whilst I realise this is no simple task, we don’t change stadia very often ( could be there for another 100+ years ) and getting it as right as possible is important. Wyness never addressed more than one or two aspects of the design back in the Summer and he should be trying to include those of us who feel it’s not up to scratch rather than ignoring us. There’s a lot of talent in our Supporter base - a lot of it would come free of charge too I’m sure.

What has he really got to lose by canvassing opinion on the design? Time may be important what with Planning applications and the cost of steel etc, but there’s more to be gained by getting some harmony in the fan base than rushing through this bland and soulless design.

I’m sick to death of all these people coming on here and saying that they are going to give the club up because we are moving ground.

Tell you what, don’t talk about it, if you’re that bothered just fuck off, you’re obviously not a proper fan. Even though you state your credentials at the end as every fan who is turning their back on the club is wont to do they mean fuck all if you are ready to jack the club in just like that because of a four mile move.

As someone said before, either put up or shut up. To paraphrase, I’d like to say either turn up or shut the hell up.

Gisle Kevin, there?s no way you are an evertonian..............an evertonian would watch them on a tennis court....anywhere.
The stadium might be rubbish, the alternativesinvolve hundred?s of millions, and we have no money, lack of success is the cause of this.
Whatever we say about Liverpool fc (and I hate the derogatary remarks made about other clubs on this site) they have had success and the cash to go with it..........so do you think Wyness and Kenwright are magicians??? where?s the money coming from
I?ve watched everton since Tony Macnamara thundered down the wing, and Tansley played full back, I?d watch them anywhere and if a move to Kirkby is the reason you stop going then you?re a sad excuse for a supporter, sorry mate not trying to be rude but your explanation is just not good enough.
I?d love any anti Kirkby voter explain logically and clearly how and where we build a new stadium, oh and with what.

John Sreet,
According to Wyness himself....Kirkby is going to cost us at least £50m.... not to mention all the issues regarding poor public transport, location, loss of tradition/history/identity. That £50m, (other sources say £80m +) will get you all the redevelopment you need at Goodison to more than match Kirkby’s capacity. Conversely it also exceeds the contribution required for the Loop site. I hope that’s logical enough!!!

Brian Wolf
"If your that bothered just fuck off"
Nice one mate, not just Kirkby, but empty Kirkby for you then

John Street
"Your not a real Evertonian" then he says "your not an Evertonian for selling out" and this shite goes on and on and on . . . . . .
its not the Yes voters or the no voters I cant stomach its people who are hell bent on perpetuating this petty name calling

Tom, you are either very stupid or very clever. How do you know what the loop would cost? Do tell.

Brian Wolf people are gonna jack the club in all because of this 4 mile move that’s the whole point.

It’s not in the city and it’s not gonna be the same club in a lot ov supporter’s eye’s there’s no escaping that fact. The images of the new stadium were embarrasing, cheap looking and utter shite. It made my blood boil just looking at it and certain away fan’s will have a field day.

I still find it hard to believe that the people in charge of our football club even contemplated a move out of Liverpoool. John Moores must be turning in his grave.

Barry Bragg< I don’t have to be either to pass on what was reported months ago do I? Bestway anticipated the club’s contribution for the Loop site would be of the order of £60m. This was based on estimates of stadium cost and enabling finances. I repeatedly asked on these forums what the cost Of Kirkby would be to EFC, a lot of yes voters seemed to think they knew what it was..... It would seem they are now wrong..... Following your logic, do yo think they are stupid?

Me and mates would follow Everton wherever they ended up. If there was only us four there then so be it. I’m not gonna turn my back on the club and neither will they wherever we play. The people who claim they will turn their backs on the club they supposedly "love" could never have been a proper blue blooded supporter in the first place.
If you cut me in half I will bleed blue, if you cut them in half they will bleed yellow.
Like I said before, if they’re are that bothered about it don’t turn up, but don’t come on here bleating about it like some sort of martyr. The move is now inevitable, it will happen, it’s as simple as that, nothing anyone can say or do will change that fact now.

Brian, I think you will find there are lots of things that can stop Kirkby.... whether or not you bleed blue or yellow (amber maybe?). (They haven’t even applied for planning permission yet, and that’s only the first stage) Regardless of the colourfull language it has nothing to do with the main issues. This desperation to be vindicated for voting for Kirkby regardless of whether or not it is best for the club is very disconcerting though. We will support them wherever, whenever etc? What’s that got to do with anything? Are you saying we can build it anywhere and it will be a success? That we will fill it? We have a great away support that will travel all over, but that alone will not fill a stadium anywhere...... and that’s what we need to do to make any new incurred debt manageable.

As usual you take comments out of context to suit.

I said we would support them wherever as a retort for all these fans saying that they would drop the club after the move.

Out of interest, will you be one of these fans turning their backs on the club?

Brian, what do you mean "as usual", where have I taken your comments out of context? I was just saying that regardless of your own commitment and that of a very healthy travelling support we cannot simply move anywhere and think it will work. For every diehard there are 10 casual but regular home supporters. As far as I’m concerned....who knows? There was a time when I said I would never miss an away game, and that lasted nearly 10 mostly bad seasons. I miss plenty of them nowadays, or maybe that was me getting a life (or a gang of kids more to the point). On the otherhand apart from when at Sea, I have only missed 3 home games since Alan Ball was playing, all for very serious reasons. We are all creatures of habit, I can’t say if Kirkby wont be too different for me. I’d give it a go if I have to, but can’t say any more than that really. I do believe though that the increased inconvenience of out of town can only reduce our turnouts mid to long term unless we get some serious success of course..... not to mention the potential damage to identity, and therefore even longer term support.

Brian

you and your four mates would go anywhere, so you dont care about anyone else ? Everton is a club mate, one of the oldest footballing institutions in the world and by telling people who dont want to go to Kirkby to fuck off you widen the divide, what if the no voters and took your advice and stopped going now ?
20, OOO against Sunderland might give You the Bolton/Boro type of atmosphere you seem to be comfortable with, BUT THE REST OF US WANT SOMETHING BETTER
Do you really believe BK would dare to go anywhere if that happened ?
Next time you tell fellow blues to fuck off remember its about more than you and your four mates, much ,much more

I’m pretty sure that the corporates everyone is banging on about not following us to Kirkby don’t give a fat rats arse where the stadium is situated. All they care about is the ability of the club to generate publicity for their brands.
The only way that will happen is to build a culture of success at the club and that is the regular winning of silverware, high profile players on the pitch (they don’t live at the ground, they can live anywhere in the Greater Liverpool area they want) and provide corporate facilities that their customers want to come too, look at ManU and Arsenal they have all these in spades and they have the corporates on board.
How much footage of the outside of a stadium do you see on game day, not much so what does it care what it looks like or where the it is, once you’re inside (in person or watching on TV) it could look like a shoebox and it wouldn’t matter ’cause everyone is watching what’s going on on the pitch, not taking an architects tour of the outside.

Corporates follow success not shiny new stadia, putting the cart before the horse with promises of queueing corporates waiting to fill our new out of town corporate facilities has never added up. Corporates going to a game want to be with the successful clubs, get that right first. For corporate meeting events they would be looking for facilities and those go beyond the event itself. Can anyone name a corporate hotel in Kirkby? Can anyone name any swanky bars and clubs in Kirkby likely to appeal to corporates after the event? Just FOUR miles down the road is Liverpool awash with all and a stadium which will no doubt offer corporate facilities and instantly negate the half arsed attempts Everton will offer in Kirkby.

Gavin, All visiting away teams stay at the Howard Johnson or Holiday Inn, guess where?

With reference to £50m being used to redevelop Goodison instead of spent on "Destination Kirkby". Has it not been reported by the club that the £50m, or at least part of it, would be derived from the sale of Goodison and from the new stadium naming rights? if so then then this money is not actually available to redevelop. One is dependent on the other unless I’m mistaken.

Keith, Goodison is already remortgaged to it’s full value I believe. Also the latest cost estimates are far greater than £50m. As far as naming rights are concerned, as with Nuremberg’s stadium and other European stadia: naming rights need not be confined to new builds, Huddersfields is already on its 2nd sponsor. How lucrative do you think this is compared to being able to rebuild in phases over a longer period as opposed to finding all the funds in one go?

Not another bloody Kirkby debate. Cant we just have 1 forum for it - its getting tiresome to read the same views over and over and over again.

Dave Wilson, well said.

kevin tully,

dont make me laff hoilday inn ???


probably 95 % of teams stay in the sas radisson of the marriot mate not some 50 quid a nite effort in kirkby!! think west ham have stayed there an wimbledon!!

wouldnt call them corporate anyway which top class business men stay at the holiday inn??

This isnt just about Kirkby - (Although the announcement of a Liverpool based institution to leave Liverpool in Liverpools’ capital of culture year is diabolical).

The stadium designs are cheap. Souless doesnt even come close. Tesco football for the club with limited ambitions. The business plan is wrong. How would a site Kirkby attract more investment than a site in Liverpool city centre? How would this Reebok, Ewood Park style generic stadia ever inspire Evertonians when weve been brought up with Goodison?

Why are Evertonians telling each other to fuck off? If half of us did then there would be 25,000 watching EFC in the Tesco arena.

I fear the nail in the coffin for Everton. Not because we will go bankrupt and disappear from existence. But the nail in the coffin of our ambitions. Yes we cant stay at Goodison but there are other options. There has to be. We will never conquer domestically again with a move to Kirkby.

I refuse to take the "it will have to do" attitude! Goodison will have to do -until we find a new home. Not a retail park with a cheap set of stands surrounding a field

Hey fellow evertonians

Stop this bullshit name calling, lets just face the facts.1 we all LOVE everton footballclub fullstop. 2 We all know we need to get a new stadium just to compete in the premier league. 3 The new stadium is a fucking joke!! 4 Why cant we find any investors????? 5 If we move to kirby we WILL lose our history and tradition, ffs the stadium is in tesco carpark!!

We as evertonians deserve better, we work our asses off every week just to get to watchour beloved everton and for years we have been putting up with sub standard faciltiys and still paying top dollor to watch our team. The board dont own everton WE DO. without us the club is nothing!! However i would still go and watch our team play no matter they played.

The board has stuck two fingers up at the supporters. yes they gave us a vote, but they didnt show us those (great pictures of the new stadium in tescos carpark untill After the votes were counted) If we have to move to kirby why not build a stadium so grand that the fans could be proud of. As for the clubs debt, dosnt manchester united owe somthing in the region of 700 million??? Every club has debt, we all have debt thats the way of the world!! So why not spend 150millon on goodison?? keep the tradition the history and all evertonians happy!! investors will come knocking, knowing that we are the only club left in the premier league that has tradition fanbase and the best squad the club has assembled in years.. You owe it to yourselfs as loyal everton fans to protest to this kirby project, not because kirby is not in liverpool, not because the stadium looks crap cheap and in a tesco carpark, but because this massive club DESERVES better.

Kevin Tully almost as well said as JJ do you honestly think Arsenal and Chelsea would be seen dead in Kirkby and that’s just to name two? Are you for real?

If liverpool were offered a 80,000 seater stadium in kirkby would they take it? no would they shite

I have to say, I admire a lot of the articles placed on here. They are well thought out. Eloquently put and my god how long they are. I just wish I had that kind of skill to put articles and even letters together with that kind of detail. No I am just a simple man with simple needs and when I have something to say I just say it.

The way the stadium is going to look?
I understand about the Stadium not being a stand alone stadium not being very good and I have to say I agree with that. I am not however saying I don?t like the design of the New Stadium nor am I say I do like it. What I do think that there are enough people who are of the opinion that it isn?t a good design and it needs to be changed. Well if so many Evertonian?s feel it needs to be changed, why don?t we make a representation to the club and try and get a design we would all like and be proud of. I am sure we could rally enough support to get quite a good team together to ensure we put enough pressure on the club to make some of the changes. No I know there are a lot of hurdles to get over before the stadium becomes a reality but if these are overcome and the likelihood is that the club and Tesco will. I think we should have some sort of say in what our stadium is going to look like. What does everyone think on that one.

Bestway site or any others for that matter.
Now if you haven?t already picked it up. I voted for the move to Kirkby but just before I voted this proposal came out of nowhere. Well not exactly nowhere but from the council and others. I think you could forgive me for thinking this was a bit of a desperate measure form a city council who have throughout the years seriously undermined everything that is or even ever was Everton. I think you can also forgive me for not thinking it was a viable alternative when every man and his dog ( including Liverpool FC as it turns out) didn?t think the Loop was anything like big enough to house a 55 000 stadium of course taking into account the logistics of moving that amount of people and accompanying vehicles around the entrance to the tunnel. I am sure someone will come up with the idea of bridges across the roads etc. On that just visit the JJB Stadium at Wigan then try to get over the canal bridge at the back and see how long it takes you. That my friends, is only part of the 25 000 crowd (if full).
I have yet to see a proposal detailing any financial structure or even what the stadium design would be. I do hear an awful lot of rhetoric and preaching but all pyrrhic.

I was left with a choice then, how do I vote.
Hang on what about Redeveloping Goodison Park. Absolutely without doubt would have been the best option in my eyes. Now what would that require. Let me see.

Money and lots of it. Who will pay
Design and build ? Can it be done.
Council approval?? Has it ever been forthcoming in the past.

What would that take the compulsory purchase of a number of houses and maybe some businesses A a cost of?? I don?t know. Any sign the council would sanction that. Do we really want to be seen as the club who evicted a 80 yr old woman who had been living there for almost as long as the club has?.

Does anyone see my dilemma here.
I know there were other places mentioned such as Speke, Long Lane etc but the situation about the finances still remain.

Anyway using the information at hand, and my eligibility as a season ticket holder to vote. I voted for the move to Kirkby. I still stand by that decision and will even if we end up with a shite looking stadium. What we will have is a collection of Evertonians inside cheering on the team. I defy anyone who believe themselves to be an Evertonian to deny that they would not scream with delight when Everton scored whether they was watching on telly or in a stadium which looked like a cow shed. (By the way, when the Redshite start slagging us off over the name cowshed) Remember it was an Evertonian that said it first.

My point to all of this is that We are Everton and we all have a point of view. The likelihood of what is happening will be we move to Kirkby. Is there going to be any representations made to the club from Toffeeweb about the stadium design or are we all going to keep going over the same old ground which in actual fact wont change anything. . Save you a job Lyndon

Mickmac,
Where have you been.....All your assumptions have been discussed ad nauseum on here.
Even Wyness accepted that GP was able to be redeveloped before the vote at a shareholders meeting..... he just said at the time that it was undeliverable because the funds weren’t available. Since the vote he has now said at another shareholders association meeting I believe, that Kirkby will cost Everton £50m min, the latest figures are apparently £80m, hardly nothing?! If we can now afford that we can afford to redevelop. The loop will not be accessed by bridges as such. The majority of the tunnel cutting will be covered to form open circulation and access routes. HOK the biggest stadium designers in the world assessed the site and have confirmed that it is indeed viable. They have fit bigger stadia into tighter spots all over the world. I don’t believe LFC have ever assessed the site, or certainly not fully, since it was only really proposed this year by Trevor Skempton to the city council..... several years after LFC applied for planning permission for Stanley Park. Therefore your well written analysis for voting yes would appear fundamentally flawed on several counts.

You know Tom You may say it is flawed. Yes it is true that HOK have allegedlly said it would fit and it lets just say it may be true about the tunnel accessed being covered. But still no mention of how it wil be paid for. As for Goodison being redeveloped as in your post of Keith Wyness. Where will the money come from? There are 2 there which you challenged and I dont accept either proven. Several means ?

Mickmac KW himself gave those costs for Kirkby, not me..... where do you think that money is coming from? These are costs to the club. They are to be long term debt. This is a big climb down from "practically nothing" which is what he said it would be pre-vote. So, if we can incur such debt for Kirkby why can’t that be the case for redevelopment of GP or as our contribution to the Loop? HOK haven’t "allegedly" done anything. They produced their report and the Liverpool Echo reported on it last week having received a copy. They are a highly reputable stadium design company with a portfolio which includes the greatest stadia in the world. As far as covering cuttings is concerned it is hardly an unusual construction method, nor is it that expensive in relative terms especially if the cutting is already there. BESTWAY were/are hoping to generate the finance in a similar way to the Kirkby project, via enabling developments in the immediate vicinity. (They had only a few weeks to produce an outline plan, we still haven’t seen the one from Tesco more than 18 months since they started). This area has great potential since it joins the city centre (with all its massive developments currently taking place) to project Jennifer in the North end or Everton district. The levels of investment in the city centre dwarfs anything planned for Kirkby, and is consistent with that required for a high profile stadium development, which is why both Bestway and LCC promoted this possibility.

Mickmac,
Where has your original post gone? apologies if I’ve jumped thread, but it doesn’t appear listed anymore.

Been moved to the mail bag

Dont you think this smacks at the Kings Dock fiasco. If that was a posibility and we were to get a Stadium built there. Which wold be seen form everywhere in the city even from the ships comnig up the mersey. If it looks a better stadium that LFCs do you really think the Redshite councillors would allowmit to go ahead

Mickmac, I assume it was your Mailbag article that I first read, and mysteriously answered in fan articles. Suppose it serves me right for posting on 2 threads at once in between doing hard sums for a project I’m on at the same time.... haha. well done for even responding!

Mick, the council did allow the Kings Dock, it was fully sanctioned by LCC. It failed because we couldn’t stump up a measly £30m. Incidentally several of the council are blues including the leader, as are several members of the city planning department. However none of that should make any difference.

I dont think the 30 million was the problem in that instance. I beleive the problem arose when the councill asked Everton to provide a contingency just in case prices rose o the build

Mick mac: It’s all a bit dim and distant to be honest. That said, I don’t find it hard to understand that the main beneficiaries of the development, should accept the additional costs especially as they were supposedly getting the equivalent of a several hundred million pound facility for a nominal injection of just £30m. I do remember that when Kenwright was asked about this at an AGM pre-collapse of KD, a concerned shareholder asked if there was the prospect of any additional costs to the club and he said no, it was all covered. I just assumed that it was all on fixed contract etc. Since that particular debacle, others have stated that Gregg was either prepared to underwrite this or had querried this potential problem prior to the collapse. Politics took over, and the now famous boardroom rift began. I may have got the chronology wrong there, but again, I’m not sure the council can be blamed entirely, if at all. I don’t think that they demonstrated at any point that they could raise just £30m and they were given a few deadlines to do so.

Exactly...now that Wyness has declared this "stadium for nothing" will actually cost EVERTON FC £50-80mill lets put this shite idea to bed.
The only reason anyone would vote YES was because they thought we were gonna get a decent look stadium for next to nothing.
Well now we’ve seen the generic stadium pictures for Retail Park FC and also its been established that £50-80m is not next to nothing.
We could rebuild Goodison with that kind of money or surely use that money to finance a development elsewhere (in the city)?

Can all the people who voted yes put their hands on their hearts and say with a clear conscience that they would have voted yes had they seen the wonderful daylight pictures and heard any true financial projections being mentioned in advance. I doubt it, for those who say this is a fruitless debate I am amazed we are only talking about the future viability of our football club! - not exactly a small issue. Location matters because it is about identity, community and belonging, for those who say this is senitmental crap, the very act of supporting a football club is sentimental and emotive, its certainly not logical is it?

2 words

wyness. bonus