GOITRES NEWS AGENCY - 12th August 2001

The much publicised and long-anticipated grand opening ceremony of Everton Football Club's new stadium turned to an utter farce yesterday, firmly cementing the club's reputation as the laughing stock of the English League. Chairman Peter Johnson is currently under heavy police protection after a hate mob gathered outside his Cheshire house brandishing Molotov cocktails and baseball bats. The season-opening Nationwide League Division One clash with Northampton Town was never played after the celebrations turned to disgrace.

In the spring of 1997 the decision was taken to uproot this famous old club from its historic home in the Walton district of Liverpool to a site at Cronton Colliery near Widnes. A ballot of 24,000 fans was taken and the board of directors received an overwhelming mandate to build a stadium for the new millennium just four miles away in Kirkby.

However, it soon emerged that no concrete plans had been made at all with regard to the ground's construction or location and a number of sites were bandied about by Chairman Johnson before the Cronton site was decided upon. There was uproar among the fans but the former Park Foods supremo was adamant that the "It's Your Move" vote had given him license to do as he pleased with regard to the planned stadium. He even went so far as to have the leaders of the Goodison For Ever-ton action group arrested for threatening behaviour but the case was thrown out of court.

Having secured a joint construction deal with a Sheffield business conglomerate for a massive shopping and leisure park project, Johnson began construction with a view to opening the ground on the first day of the 2001-2002 season. Gigantic screens kept the building process absolutely secret from both press and fans' attentions and yesterday was the first glimpse the ordinary public got of Goodison Park II.

The crowds gathered, as did television and radio crews for the grand opening and at precisely 12:00 noon, the colossal curtain was dropped to reveal the result of Johnson's dream. The gathered throng was awestruck as the magnificent exterior of the stadium was exposed and a loud cheer went up. Johnson, lined up on a long balcony with the current Everton squad, was visibly moved by the reaction and he waved ecstatically to the masses below.

However, it was at this point that the dream, and quite possibly Johnson's livelihood, died. A 6 year old boy was heard to enquire of his mother why the stadium looked plastic. The crowd gradually hushed as Johnson went bright pink and the little boy ran over to one of the towering walls and began peeling away the exterior. One by one nearby fans joined in and before long the entire facade of the stadium had been stripped to reveal the famous J. Sainsbury logo and a five story supermarket arcade.

After four full minutes of shocked and bewildered silence, the 70,000-strong crowd turned into a seething mass and Johnson was hastily airlifted clear of the area in his private helicopter. The angry supporters rampaged through the new construction turning it to rubble and tearing up the pitch onto which the shopping aisles looked from above. All police fled the area and the unrest was not quelled until the last wall had been demolished by irate supporters.

In the quiet of his ocean-going yacht, millionaire Peter Johnson wept uncontrollably at the death of his dream. I was granted exclusive rights to talk to the Everton owner but he was in no state to give an interview. The following is all he muttered:

"We thought we would have the best of both worlds, you know? A supermarket and a football ground. We didn't think they [the supporters] would mind. We thought we could get away with it by making it look like the artist's impressions by just putting a huge custom-made sticker over the front. Well.... it worked with the shirts."

All of Everton's Division One fixtures have been postponed indefinitely while negotiations on the prospect of merging the club with Manchester City continue.

Report by Travis Furious