Everton – Past, Present and Future

Forget then the management failures, the failure to get a new stadium, the failure to even improve and extend GP, the lies, the deceit, the failure to go the extra mile with finance to buy a player who could have made all the difference when we were so close to CL qualification, the mystery over who is pulling the financial strings etc etc. Just shout more support during the game and we'll rise to the top again. That's me sold. If that's all it'll take, count me in.

Unfortunately, the young ones are easily led by agents and 'bling'. There's no way to close their easily-manipulated world-view off to the dodgy media, so lots of them will still be warming benches and missing their rightful glory.

The vague reports about Stones wanting to go makes me sadly angry, the reports equally vaguely saying he's level-headed and wants to improve makes me happily hoping he'll give the middle finger to warming a substitutes bench!

"It would be hard to rename Goodison Park, as it would always be referred to its original name." No need to rename the whole stadium, just rename each stand for x years according to the money provided to renovate it.

"How can 4,000 fans at Southampton be louder than 37,000 fans at Goodison?" Because they are all concentrated in one section of the ground at away games but spread around GP at home games.

Naming rights can apply to old structures too..... a few grounds have changed their sponsors in recent yrs, so it's a myth to believe that Goodison cannot have some element of the same. Of course, it probably wouldn't be as lucrative as that for a new build, but it wouldn't have to be because it wouldn't be going towards the cost of a whole new stadium.

There is also enough space at the Park end to incorporate hotel/exhibition/conference developments with car parking built in.... and this could form a major portion of an enabling project to help fund stadium expansion on that and the Bullens side.

The Bullens Rd side is abutted by only two streets of the cheapest houses surrounding any stadium in the UK. The School is prime for redevelopment and has been subject of such speculation for yrs..... so all in all there is the possibility for quite a major regeneration project on this side too.... again, with enabling potential.

Therefore, in summary GP is not only a viable option..... it is possibly the only option, and in many ways the most desirable and deliverable one too.

Everton fans have no patience whatsoever, one bad pass and the crowd quickly turns bad. They also booed the team off at half-time.

All around Liverpool’s ground, the houses are empty. There are people living in the Bullens Road Stand. If Tesco sponsored the Park End, fans would still call it the Park End. I've never heard individual stands sponsored in any stadium before.

As regards the Bullens, only a few end terraces would release enough space for a new upper Bullens built above and behind the existing stand. Yes, people still live in them.... just as they did in the houses that existed behind the Park end.... and at the Gwladys St upto the late 30's..... or at any number of streets around grounds that have been redeveloped all over the UK.

The Reebok is no longer the Reebok, the Walker stadium has also changed name.... as has the McAlpine Stadium. Individual stands can be sponsored. ... especially if they are landmark structures incorporating some element of the sponsors business activity.

Adidas provided funds for our noisy neighbours to redevelop on of their stands some years ago and had their logo plastered all over it.

However, just removing the existing two roof supporting columns will greatly improve the stands performance. Making the whole top balcony unobstructed in an instant, and the front half of the mainstand too. If a goal post truss, catenary or back tie arrangement is then used to support the roof, the two corner towers could house upto 30 exec boxes too.

An exec tier could be hung beneath the top balcony too.... increasing exec capacity dramatically on this side and simultaneously eradicating the worst obstructed views at the rear of the mainstand. The cost would be tiny compared to that for building a whole new stand of similar scale and capacity.

For comparison,and with the thought towards the ultimate Goodison. If we were to do something similar to the Man U's North Stand, modified slightly as in try and have the 2nd and 3rd tiers overhanging more to save a few metres. How much more footprint would we need, and what type of cost would it be?

Sir Alex Ferguson (North Stand): 25,500 = 102 rows of seats
Lower: 4,250 = 17 rows
Upper: 8,000 = 32 rows
Tier 2: 8,250 = 34 rows
Tier 3: 5,000 = 19 rows

Due to the height of the existing mainstand, a new larger top balcony would need quite a substantial structure to support and access it at the rear of the existing stand for any significant gain in capacity. That said, straightening of the back of the stand with a new street alignment could comfortably add 3000 seats to the mainstand tier alone, which if combined with say 2-3000 new seats in the larger top Balcony (of 6-7k seats) would create a very substantial stand in total. I actually did drawings of this arrangement at the time of the Kirkby proposals as Trevor Skempton wanted to look at future expansion phases to create the ultimate capacity. It wasn't as big as Man Utd's North stand, but big enough to help push the total capacity over 60k. If I can find them I'll measure the depth of footprint expansion..... but if I remember rightly it was only approximately street depth at the mid point of the stand (which was obviously greater depth at the Spellow lane end of Goodison Rd). All in all, more of an aspiration than a priority imo.

As greater capacity can be added more cheaply elsewhere in the stadium, and because of the perhaps more onerous issues with the older stands, I think the starting point would be on the Bullens and/or the Park end. The Bullens because of only having 2 streets abutting it, and a relatively shallow rake lower tier, thus allowing for an easy extension or replacement of the upper tier on a relatively small footprint enlargement area. The Park end because of the space readily available.

The expense of the Anfield stand is because the existing stand is quite substantial as a lower tier, and quite steep too. Meaning that they have had to build a considerable structure just to get up to that level. The relative steepness of the old stand has also meant that the new tiers have to also be set back with little overlap to comply with c-value guidelines...... meaning greater depth of construction and a massively expensive roof too. Of course they are also inserting substantial corporate facilities by way of a large exec tier with two rows of boxes and lounges.