Fans Comment
Ring any Bells? Peter Scoffield adds a pointed historic angle to current concerns over the lack of funds for new players 4 January 2004
I’d like to respond to Shaun Cox’s recent offering which quite rightly focuses on the Everton Board’s stinginess, showing a total lack of ambition and commitment to the cause.
Reading recently young James Corbett’s most excellent history of the club “The School of Science” there is a passage that just jumps off the page and smacks you straight in the face.
To set the scene, in the early 1950s the Everton Board were proving uncooperative when it came to making money available for new players. In 1951, Everton were relegated to the Second Division and, early on in the season — after having been beaten 5-1 at home to a Notts County team fielding ex-Everton great Tommy Lawton — an article was printed in the Liverpool Echo (see Chapter 6 in the book):
“The following Monday Ranger used the pages of the Liverpool Echo to write an open letter to the Everton board. It was a blistering attack: 'Gentlemen, in saying that the prestige of our club today is lower than ever before, and that unless something is done quickly you are going to have difficulty keeping out of the Third Division, no-one can accuse me of exaggerating the seriousness of the position. It is nothing but the unpleasant truth. At the beginning of the season I wrote that the best I could see this side doing, unless there were several strengthening signings, was to keep a place around the middle of the table. I said that to be charitable. Privately, I had grave fears that you might be where you are today, but I felt it unfair, on the threshold of a new season, to express too pessimistic a view publicly. Perhaps it would have been better had I done so. 'For a club of Everton’s traditions and wealth you are in a most humiliating position. I wish you could see some of the letters I have from Evertonians of lifelong standing. Many of your supporters seem almost heartbroken. I have refrained from publishing these letters in order not to embarrass the club so long as there seemed a chance that a realistic attitude would be adopted to tackle an increasingly desperate situation. So far as I can see, there is still no sign if that. 'The board still seems to be burying its head in the sand. There has been far too much wishful thinking in the past. Too much hope is being placed in young players who lack experience. Many of these would do well if introduced into a winning side… ' Finally he issued a challenge: 'For the last few weeks unthinking folk have been joking about the possibility of ‘Derby’ games against Tranmere Rovers, Southport, and Chester at Goodison Park next season. It is no joke. It is a tragic possibility. It is up to you, gentlemen. The ultimate responsibility for the club rests on your shoulders. What are you going to do about it?' ˝ — Corbett (2003); page 113.
“The following Monday Ranger used the pages of the Liverpool Echo to write an open letter to the Everton board. It was a blistering attack:
'Gentlemen, in saying that the prestige of our club today is lower than ever before, and that unless something is done quickly you are going to have difficulty keeping out of the Third Division, no-one can accuse me of exaggerating the seriousness of the position. It is nothing but the unpleasant truth. At the beginning of the season I wrote that the best I could see this side doing, unless there were several strengthening signings, was to keep a place around the middle of the table. I said that to be charitable. Privately, I had grave fears that you might be where you are today, but I felt it unfair, on the threshold of a new season, to express too pessimistic a view publicly. Perhaps it would have been better had I done so. 'For a club of Everton’s traditions and wealth you are in a most humiliating position. I wish you could see some of the letters I have from Evertonians of lifelong standing. Many of your supporters seem almost heartbroken. I have refrained from publishing these letters in order not to embarrass the club so long as there seemed a chance that a realistic attitude would be adopted to tackle an increasingly desperate situation. So far as I can see, there is still no sign if that. 'The board still seems to be burying its head in the sand. There has been far too much wishful thinking in the past. Too much hope is being placed in young players who lack experience. Many of these would do well if introduced into a winning side… '
'Gentlemen, in saying that the prestige of our club today is lower than ever before, and that unless something is done quickly you are going to have difficulty keeping out of the Third Division, no-one can accuse me of exaggerating the seriousness of the position. It is nothing but the unpleasant truth. At the beginning of the season I wrote that the best I could see this side doing, unless there were several strengthening signings, was to keep a place around the middle of the table. I said that to be charitable. Privately, I had grave fears that you might be where you are today, but I felt it unfair, on the threshold of a new season, to express too pessimistic a view publicly. Perhaps it would have been better had I done so.
'For a club of Everton’s traditions and wealth you are in a most humiliating position. I wish you could see some of the letters I have from Evertonians of lifelong standing. Many of your supporters seem almost heartbroken. I have refrained from publishing these letters in order not to embarrass the club so long as there seemed a chance that a realistic attitude would be adopted to tackle an increasingly desperate situation. So far as I can see, there is still no sign if that.
'The board still seems to be burying its head in the sand. There has been far too much wishful thinking in the past. Too much hope is being placed in young players who lack experience. Many of these would do well if introduced into a winning side… '
Finally he issued a challenge:
'For the last few weeks unthinking folk have been joking about the possibility of ‘Derby’ games against Tranmere Rovers, Southport, and Chester at Goodison Park next season. It is no joke. It is a tragic possibility. It is up to you, gentlemen. The ultimate responsibility for the club rests on your shoulders. What are you going to do about it?' ˝ — Corbett (2003); page 113.
RING ANY BELLS??
I’ve been a humble fan for 40+ years (and now an exiled one at that) and all this hurts me just as much as it hurt the Blues supporters of 50 years ago.
Being exiled and only able to make it to a handful of games both home and away every season means I don’t fork out as much cash as so many of you loyal ever-presents do. Even so, what I feel is not mere frustration but total outrage and anger that a bunch of no-marks who seem to get regularly elected to the board unopposed can continue to take us down the same road as the dark days of the early 1950s, when Everton truly plumbed the depths of their long, long history.
Surly it is now time to begin to put the running of the club into the hands of professionals who are accountable to those without whom the club wouldn’t exist – THE SUPPORTERS. I’m not suggesting that there should be some sort of bloody revolution. To begin with just a few necessary steps in the right direction.
The first step would be transparency in the running of the club — something which Bill Kenwright promised but hasn't delivered!! What are they afraid of? What are they hiding? What’s in it for them? Why does a man like Paul Gregg, a multimillionaire who won’t even part with a few million pounds on the club's behalf, bother to be involved with a club he holds no affiliation to?
Everton were eventually saved in the 1950’s by Saint John Moores. Oh that he or his reincarnation was winging his way back down to us again!
Pete Scoffield SE London
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* Everton deducted 8 pts; †Forest deducted 4 pts for PSR breachView full table
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