I suppose I could ask Thaksin’s wife over for a tupperware party.

Point taken. I’m working hard in my career to becoming a multi-billionaire, if not, multi-milllionaire. I will buy the club and place us back on the map where we belong. No more 4-5-1 and if anyone hoofs he’ll get one in the backside from the groundstaff. We will ONLY release news of playing signings WHEN they have donned the shirt at Goodison! Otherwise the manager and PR dept will keep their trap shut! I’ll even sign Rooney and have him apologise and score wondergoals back in the day against the arse, that is, if he’s not retired by then. Wish me luck. Cheers,

Great idea ... but can you imagine an approach from Mr. Marsh? "Buy this club and invest hundreds of millions, you stinking capitalist shitbag or you’ll be a wearing a fucking concrete suit to your next champagne supper."
Hmm. Why not? Perhaps his brand of honesty might swing a maverick financier.

You emailed Bradley eh?

Good luck with that, the man is a complete TOOL.

Problem with this is that eventually a rule will be put on your email address and they will ALL be sent to the bleedin? Deleted Items of their Outlook application.

I don?t reckon buggin? the livin? shite out of someone is the way to go. At the end of the day, these twats at Goodison are employed coz the team plays on a Satursday afternoon; the teams plays becuase of us - granted though that our cash is not the be-all-and-end-all.

So, if we stop goin? or the club folds, they will lose their jobs. At the end of the day I will keep my job and won?t let EFC affect my life adversley anymore. Fuck em. Sick of it me......

I’ve just been reading an article about Phil Knight, Nike’s founder and apparently the richest man in sport; he’s also sport’s biggest benefactor and supposedly a bit of a maverick too.

Why don’t you give him a try Gavin.

The article suggests that he doesn’t enjoy the limelight too much, which would be a pleasing aspect and we could have a kit that was designed by humans.

Good on you Gavin, good point lad. I’m just as pissed off as everyone else with everything that has or hasn’t been going on at our club, but every day I’m reading sarcastic and negative comments on peoples posts and I’m getting sick of it. I’d rather write a few letters and try and help the club I love move forward. If it doesn’t work then at least I’ve tried. Maybe we’d be wasting our time.. But i’d rather waste time trying to help the club than write about everything wrong with it.

Our kit is designed by humans.

Granted they are humans living in squalid conditions employed second hand by JJB who are working in sweat shops but they are still humans.

They still have feelings just like the rest of us.......

Sorry Brian.

But how can you be so sure? Do you have a reliably sweaty source?

All joking aside, this is a fantastic post with many good points and suggestions.

You right, we do a hell of a lot of pissing and whining on here expecting others (Like yourself) to come up with solutions, whilst we sit on our arses tying to think up the next witty, shitty, offensive and self-righteous post to type up going over the same negative shit covered by the previous poster but in a different and ’clever’ way.

You have actually tried to make a big splash in the pool of hope and hopefully one of your e-mails will have an impact, no matter how big or small.

Instead of suggesting ideas for protests for other people to carry out, you have been resourceful and innovative and attempted to assist the club in the search for investment.

I for one am interested in helping the cause and would like further info from you about the type of e-mails you have been or now propose that we send to potential ’Investors’.

I look forward to hearing from you further.

Well done again.

Ant.

Gavin, hands down the most constructive post I?ve ever read on this website, thank you for sharing your thoughts, I hope your words are as motivational to everyone else as they have been to me

Gavin,

I must applaud your excellent article, I think you come up with many valid and interesting points. I am not knocking your sense of enthusiasm or your ideas but it’s not our club to sell or find investors/investment for is it? We as fans support Everton with great dedication and passion but we don’t own the club, the current owners have to be willing to want to sell their stake/shares in the club. Realisticly you can write all the letters and emails you want but it’s not going to have any effect because Mr Kenwright & Co have to be the ones seen to do the running to attract investment.

All the soundbites about looking for investment "24/7" are just words, If Bill wanted to find investment then I am sure that there are people out there with the money that can see the potential for EFC. For a start the loyal fanbase have never been able to buy the clubs merchandise very easily, it would take somebody with a bit of vision to realise that this is a very profitable revenue stream. Next there is the catering and service issues at GP to address, I am sure everyone who has been to Goodison has encountered problems getting food or drink becuse of the fact the catering has been outsourced and the service is frankly very poor, next we have the issues with ticketing again this is something that most people have been affected by ie Metalist at GP etc etc. The fans are the lifeblood of the club and the club know we are so loyal that we’ll accept almost any sub standard crap, the right investor with the right team around them could rectify all the mistakes very easily so that the customers are recieving the best possible service and a happy consumer will spend more money this is simple economics.

The supporters need to get their point across to the current custodians that NSNO is the only standard we’ll accept! Bombard the club with emails and letters, protests may be the most successful way of getting the point across but can have a detrimental effect on the team. Get behind the team on Saturday but let the powers that be know that what is happening at present is not good enough. COYB

Brendan, also some good points made there.

I think, however, that e-mailing around potential investors can do more good than harm though, it’s worth a go.

Just imagine if, and it’s a big IF, one of us sent an e-mail, and it just got somone thinking, then they made a phone call, then sent an e-mail of their own to BK, and BK liked what he saw/heard, maybe this would snowball into something suitable for eveyone.

Here’s hoping.

Another point you make is about protesting, well how about this.

Why don;t we protest in or masses, daily, by sending in thousands upon thousands of e-mails evey single day to the club, I am talkiing one per day, each, until we get some satisfactory responses.

Surely the club would get fed up of having it’s inbox flooded every single day with our opinions and they would have to respond in some form or othere, whether it’s a meeting with supporters groups or individual responses, which would take time and effort.

Any takers????

Brendan Fox... you dont win the prize if you dont buy a ticket. Only people who try succeed... So Gavin is quite right in his article. If everyone just bitches about the club that does nothing other than produce negativity. But if our emails show how much we love the club, how much we care then who knows. Doing nothing produces nothing, doing something creates possibility. Why do people invest, because they see possibility in it being a success.

Great to see someone come out for once and write something constructive towards helping the club.

I have 200 million emails on my computer at home which I got from a company in the USA, I think I’ll look at bulk emailing a letter over the weekend... if anything people who didn’t know Everton existed, will do in a weeks time after reading there email. I look into companies who run bulk emails and if its not expensive then I’ll get a letter out. I have ideas of what to put in the letter but any more suggestions would help??

Some funny points from Brian Wolf, but wittiest comment of the day has to go to Mike McLean, that was funny!! Pissed my sides laughing at that!

Nice to see some humour on here for a change, it?s getting more light hearted!

Gavin, why don’t you post an example of the letter you have sent to Virgin somewhere - on here perhaps - that way, we can copy it, edit, format or amalgamate it to suit and send on to all of our ’contacts’ or any other high profile potential investors for out club.

That way, you can pretty much ensure that you will get more (lazier) fans who have read your post signing up to your idea of ’spreading the word’ - as there is less work involved for them! ( And yes, that includes me! )

Gavin, following from Steven, it would be a very good idea to form a generic example letter that holds all the information you would like to send out....then many people can get involved!!

What should it include? Needs to be informative, passionate, but snappy!!

I have access to Bloomberg at work and I could help by finding direct line phone numbers and email address for a whole range of companies, million & billionaires, ect ect....it has them all! Tell me who you want?

Pesonally, Gazprom, the Russian oil company that owns Zenit St. Peterberg sounds like a good investor to me? There not short of a few and like to invest in sport! What better way to get there foot in the English door!

Does Abramovich have shares in Gazprom?


Good Luck.

Gavin, hats off to you, we need people who are prepared to act rather than simply talk about it.

But it pisses me off that we, the fans, are having to take it upon ourselves to contact businesses with regards to finance, marketing, PR, etc. We the fans already do our fair share by buying tickets and merchandising and most importantly...by turning up each week and cheering the team on on through thick and (lots of ) thin. People at the club who are being paid handsomly should be doing this!

Great post Gavin!

I visit this site every day, as it is by far the best Everton fan site IMO. However, over the last few weeks I have dreaded my daily visit as the continual bithching, moaning, wailing and general gnashing of teeth really does get me down.

i?m with Gavin - let?s all do something positive for a change. Put up a generic letter for us lazy sods, and how about emailing the entire post and all its replies to BK just to show him what "24/7" really means!

2-0 on Satdy!!! COYB

This positive response is very refreshing, let’s keep this going and actually see this through.

We just need to wait for Gavin ’The founder’ of this campaign to wake up now in Oz and liase with us.

What should we call this....OSOBE - Operation To Save Our Beloved Everton?????

Strewth Gavin, you really have started something here ya Mongrel ha ha!

Come on Blues, let’s really rip into this and do what we are promising to do and see what happens.

Here is the email I sent to Virgin. I am no business or financial expert but I hoped the email would at least bring the club to his or Virgin¡¦s attention. I have had no response thus far but you never know! ?º

This email has been tailored to Virgin and I know there are people out there who can write a better letter, i.e. add more statistics, charts, etc, so I do urge people to do just that or contribute to the one I have written. We need to get it spot on.

Most of it would need to be generic so it can appeal to different people and companies so if can get that bit right I think we could be onto something. Then we tailor it for each recipient.

I think our next steps should be to:
a) Finalise a generic letter that can be distributed.
b) Get other fans on board from other sites, i.e. Blue Kipper
c) Conduct research into potential recipients of this letter discuss this on the Toffeeweb site
d) Update everyone on progress
e) Maybe ask Toffeeweb to create a sector on the website so we don¡¦t have to trawl through hundreds of posts

There will be people out there who think it is not worthwhile because nothing will be agreed with the Everton board and BK but at least we are trying and you never know, one of these recipients may have a genuine interest and make an agreement with the club. We cannot predict the future but the one thing we know for certain is that we have made a good effort to secure Everton¡¦s future and we can all sleep well at night.


Dear Mr. Branson,

I have read your book ’Losing My Virginity’ and thought it was brilliant. Your ideology is something I admire and believe is needed within a business I have close to heart.

Everton Football Club is desperately looking for investment. They have wonderful support around the World, with supporters clubs in Australia, America, Asia and all over Europe, it is the ¡¥People¡¦s Club¡¦ of Liverpool and the history on the field is one of the best in the country. They have a terrific manager in David Moyes, their training facilities are one of the best in Europe, the first team is young and talented, and the youth academy is bringing through some terrific young players. The club just needs some investment and business guidance and I believe your company can do just that.

Having read you book I know you like to take calculated risks by investing in new and diverse business sectors such as aviation and trains and believe an investment in Everton would be beneficial to the Virgin Group.

Tesco have been in negotiations with Everton and Knowley council over the last two years about a new stadium in Kirby which is just outside the City of Liverpool. They wanted to build a massive Tesco superstore next to the new stadium and calculated huge profits in doing so. They planned to support Everton financially in the pursuit of building a new stadium because of the huge number of potential customers coming to watch the club on a weekend. This plan has hit a brick wall however because it has been called in by the Government. They want to analyse the impact on Kirby itself, the transport plans and the project as a whole.

I, and many thousands, believe that this is an opportunity for a new company to come in and make a partnership with the club so Everton can build a new stadium within the City. Everton were the first club in Liverpool so why should it leave? I think you can redevelop a new plan that would ensure Everton remain in the City, ensure the transport infrastructure and designs are excellent and work together as a partnership to ensure prosperity for both parties.

I am no financial expert but I think you could potentially make a good return here. You could build a Virgin Megastore, Virgin Hotel, sponsor the team during the Premier League and European matches, invest into the club and reap the rewards from TV revenue and reward money. Football is big business these days and I think a company with your ethics and standing would put all the investors to shame and would help create a Football Club that is back to the top of the game in terms of performance on the field and at the club.

An example of how you could generate a good profit in partnership with Everton is the club’s inability at present to generate sufficient income from the merchandising sector. In 2006 the turn over from ¡¥Merchandising and Catering¡¦ was 7,623,000 pounds yet this figure dropped to just 1,082,000 pounds in 2007. If you look at the revenue at Tottenham, for example, you will see their revenue from merchandising alone in 2007 was 7,051,000 pounds and a majority of this revenue was through their club store next to the ground. If you consider the capacity of Tottenham’s stadium is 36000 and average gates are around 34000 then Everton’s 40000 ground capacity, the 36000 average gates and profits in 2006 indicate a good opportunity here to tap into that demand and profit via your superstore. Everton would gain through a certain percentage from profits (until end of long term contract when parties can go alone or keep agreement) and the financial assistance with a new stadium. If this new stadium of course was in the City of Liverpool even more revenue could be generated.

Mr Warren Bradley, Leader of Liverpool Council, has openly expressed his desire for Everton to stay in the City and has been offering a number of land opportunities to Everton and potential partners. Bill Kenwright, Everton owner, has spoke recently of looking for investment and I am sure would consider a business approach. An agreement could be made that would suit all parties and I hope that you will consider this opportunity by at least asking a member of your team to investigate the possibility. I honestly believe a partnership can benefit all parties and look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin Harris
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