We actually did link to an article by Tony Barrett a couple of weeks back, if only for one quote that screams out at you: "here is no way back after you have signed away your birthright, and to do so to become subordinate to the Tesco shareholders and all for an extra £10m... each year... is as ridiculous as it gets."

As I said in another comment over the weekend, deep down we do care what the Reds say. We sing that we don't because we like to think that we're superior in every way, but in raw economic terms we're not. The fact that they are building a £200m stadium next door to Anfield on a park previously preserved under Victorian covenant while we scrabble for land in a roundabout or risk putting our very survival on the line by moving wholesale to Kirkby is all the evidence you need of that.

Everton have been in North Liverpool for 129 years, the club is woven into the fabric of the area, one that has sadly fallen behind much of the rest of the country. Do we have an obligation to that part of the City? Probably, but if you discount redeveloping Goodison as an option, perhaps there's not much more the club can do.

Does the club have an obligation to the North Liverpool area as a whole? Again, perhaps, and, as the text Mr Barrett quotes attest, a stadium in an area like the Tunnel Loop would be a fantastic boon for the immediate locale and if a concrete proposal does come to light for that site over the coming three or four weeks then we should examine it fully. It would certainly bring into sharp focus where the priorities lie — securing a £400m development for retail interests in Kirkby or doing what's best for Everton FC and the area which has been its home for a century and a quarter...

Lescott header! 1-0, GET IN THERE!!!!

LL’s above peice and the RS’s post are emotional and unhelpful. It is POLITICIAN’s job to look after the area, not EFC’s! Everton FC have been outside Everton council ward for over 100 years!! The Everton FC Board and EFC fans/supporters have a duty to doe what is best for EVERTON FOOTBALL CLUB, that is why it has to be KIRKBY, so we can have best chance of rising above those lovable pinkies (without selling our soul to the Dallas Hillbillies.)

Lyndon..the birthright is the soul (the club) not the body (the ground) wherever an evertonian is is the soul.. and where is it written that we have signed away our birthright to Tesco for £10m a year.. All Tesco are doing is providing the means for Everton to acquire a stadium. pray tell, what is so wrong with that?

I don’t give a shit what they say!! We’re top of the league, COYB!!!!

Lyndon, pack in the propoganda will yer....or is it only EFC who have to do that?

I knocked around with Tony as a kid and he’s red through and through,as he works for the Echo as a reporter there is the obvious conflict of interest on ’doing what’s best for Liverpool’. On the one hand there is the feeling from Tony and many others who follow the shite that they cant wait to see the back of us, on the other they would love kirkby to fall through, the loop to remain nothing more than pie in the sky and we rot for an eternity at GP. I’m supporting kirkby as its the only concrete and workable proposal on the table, we are getting it right for once on the pitch and the momentum of progress is palpable. I would personally prefare that the RS worry about their own affairs, the debt repayable to the Yankee’s and leave Everton and its own supporters to make up our own mind.

Everton is completely about the community in which we exist and which we support. Why are people trying to remove the ’local’ and ’emotional’ side from the debate. The team we support, live and breathe for is driven purely by emotion, call it irrational, feelings we have. If it were down to pure economics and facts, we would all support the same team - because they win and give us the greatest ’joy ratio’... The ground move is, and should be, an emotional matter. Everton, our history, and what it all means inside us is important; as is the important role the club has to support the community that has made it what it is. The fact that the ’Kirby’ numbers don’t add up makes the head and heart argument complete.

This is getting really desperate now isn’t it? So can I sum up the no vote as "listen to what the RS say?"

For a site that every other time dismisses any RS link or story to now rely on them for the "No" propaganda leaves me speechless.

ANDY N: Your points are incorrect and irrelevant, in my opinion, ofr the following reasons:
1) TOP FLIGHT football is money driven and so we have to do what is right from the money angle.
2) The Kirkby numbers do add up, Sir Terry knows his stuff!
3) Emotional happiness with EFC is primarily results orientated (look at correlation between Everton doing well and attendances vs Everton doing poorly and attendances).
4) Due to point one, Kirkby is the best chance of success we have.
5) Due to the upwards path we are on, fans should get behind David Moyes and the Everton Board. They are beginning to deliver (after the low starting point from the PJ and Wally show). Give them their head, they deserve it.

I sympsthise emotionally with your view but it just does not cut the mustard in the harsh real world of modern day football.

Embrace the change and we (and EFC) will be much the better for it :-)

Best wishes, COYB!

Don’t you think if Everton are that important to the Walton/Everton area then the council would have some sort of obligation towards us? If you believe what you read they pushed us out of the Kings Dock harshly and refused us Stanley Park first, is it any surprise that we as a club then look elsewhere?

What about north liverpool having an obligation to the club, they reep what they sow, If they wanted it could be done but they don’t and we need to move on, fuck em.