ToffeeWeb - Season 2006-07

The Mail Bag

Stadium Move

This parochial small-mindedness of some you "Everton fans" is ridiculous, you should all take a long look at yourself because you sound like country bumpkins.

Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes is the same as Everton moving 6 miles down the East Lancs? Come off it, Milton Keynes is a different city over TWO hours away!

Ideally, we want a great stadium with increased capacity. To get that means we have to move somewhere else. In a few years time we could be playing in a 55,000-seater, state-of-the-art stadium, with extra revenue, attracting a better class of player and a better chance of keeping our best players.

So, fellow Evertonians, if you want the club to stand still and stagnate just growing older and even less successful then keep up all the negativity. But, if you want the club to move forward (and ten minutes down the road!) get behind Bill and see that what we have now is a great chance to build a stadium that we can be proud of. Let's look to the future and stop living in the past.

To Kirkby residents... I'm from Kirkby and it's a shithole. There are two ways to improve Kirkby - 1) Major regeneration involving blue chip companies. Or 2) bombing it.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! It's a great idea.
John Gee, London Posted 26/06/2007 at 12:59:25

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Colm

Oh dear!

Steve Syder
1 Posted 26/06/2007 at 17:31:01

Most people clamouring to keep Everton in "Our city" seem to either:

Have a vested interest in businesses around Goodison;

Live in Kirkby and not want EFC in their back yard;

or be too bloody lazy to travel more than 400yds to support the team.

Of course I’ll be gutted to leave Goodison - I’ve been going since 1960 - but come on! We’re being left behind by everybody.

Dave Roberts
2 Posted 26/06/2007 at 19:57:57

Spot on John. I hope you have a season ticket for the vote!

Steve Molloy
3 Posted 26/06/2007 at 21:06:48

John Gee. The comparison wasn’t to Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes but to Wimbledon moving to Crystal Palace, which was a disaster. Try reading past the first paragraph - I know it takes time when you’re moving your lips as your read. Secondly, you have obviously never, never been to Kirkby. This move that is being contemplated is a potential disaster and should not be taken lightly. Nor should opponents be dismissed as lazy or not real Evertonians or have ulterior motives or all the other nonsense

John Gee
4 Posted 26/06/2007 at 23:51:09

Okay steve moloy, i stand corrected on the crystal palace thing. But there is a caveat to go with that. Wimbledon were ground sharing with crystal palace because of the taylor report. It was a forced plan to "lodge" with their neighbours very far from building a new stadium.
Far from never having been to kirkby, i was born and lived there for 20 years. It?s my home town and having my football club there has been, in my mind, a good idea since the first time i heard about it back in the mid eighties.

Roy, I?ve been an everton fan for as long as I?ve been alive. To me, everton football club isn?t just about goodison. If we didn?t change anything then we?d be watching guys running around stanley park wearing salmon pink.

This move needs to be done now while the game is awash with more money. If we wait then that money will be consumed by a budget chasing increasing transfer fees. remember the first law of economics, buy yesterday and sell tomorrow.

One thing that I?d like to say is lets make the outside of the new stadium a little bit grand. a piazza where we can celebrate together (the league or new year) Some fountains to dance in when we win something, just don?t take the water from the alt otherwise the next ballot might be a short one!

Eamonn Byrne
5 Posted 27/06/2007 at 01:33:49

John, your first point is brilliant and unfortunate because Manchester got loads of money because it was bombed.

Secondly I quite like the idea of having a fountain outside the ground. Great suggestion.

I still think we all should wait and see the final plans before making our minds up. Long way to go yet.

Gavin Ramejkis
6 Posted 27/06/2007 at 12:56:19

Not all supporters against the move don’t want to travel the extra distance, Kirkby is closer for me but I’m not voting for it as it’s a shithole and I have family there and spent lots of time growing up there visiting them. I also don’t feel it’s an attractive prospect for new long term growing investment even if it gets a new shiny makeover. My view is it’s just as bad as Stockbridge Village, we all know it’s still Cantrill Farm and still a hellhole, a new name makeover fooled nobody.

kieran fitzgerald
7 Posted 27/06/2007 at 19:28:37

So Kirkby isn’t the greatest of areas,we shouldn’t move there. I don’t quite follow. All these green field sites that were suddenly promised last week by the council, 6 or 8 sites I think, they are all in the midle of prime real estate then are they? The posh ends of Liverpool are they?
The council, or any council for that matter, offer such sites to a premiership football club for a reason, to redevelop the area. Not because all the local yuppies and toffs are crying out for it.
You don’t hear rival fans, rival clubs or the media knock a club because of the area it’s built it’s new ground in. Our reputation won’t suddenly disintergrate because we’ve moved to Kirkby.
You don’t have to move there yourselves lads. Get on a bus, a tram, a train or into your car, go to the game and then go home again, it’s that simple.
What makes the club attractive or not is the deal it gets on the financing of the ground. It’s how well built the ground is. It’s the team playing the football, the feelgood factor amongst the fans, the atmospere in the ground itself.
Considering what’s at stake for the future of the club, these are the points that are important to me, not the area we build the ground in.

Tom Hughes
8 Posted 28/06/2007 at 11:26:40

Simon Inglis a world renowned stadium expert has said that he believes it could potentially be a disaster for the club to move to an out-of-town site. He’s completely independent with no political axe to grind nor business in Walton. I haven’t got any connection with Walton nor any ulterior motives or hidden agendas, but I certainly do not want us to move to the periphery of our city inside or outside the border because amongst other things I believe it will be a nightmare to get to and from, as are most similar venues, and because it goes against all current stadium planning theory worldwide, where the majority of new venues are being sited in or close to downtown areas. These are the questions to be answered not speculation about a group of Evertonian’s motives. The council have more than edge of city sites to offer BTW.

Andy Callan
9 Posted 28/06/2007 at 12:33:10

Here, here John - my sentiments exactly. We need ot move to generate extra income if for no other reason. People don’t want this move as it is ’too far’, ’its out of the city’ or ’we might have the piss taken out of them’. What a load of shite. It is probably closer for many, many fans; boundaries are just geography and basically bollocks; piss taking - I have had the piss taken out of me for supporting Everton for years. When we move and make more money - thus being able to buy better players and then winning something - we can ram the jibes back down the throats of the twats that are takin’ the piss.

Get real - Goodison is finished...

Tom Hughes
10 Posted 28/06/2007 at 14:01:28

Is it closer for the 300,000+ people on the Wirral? or the 250,000+ in South Liverpool? or the 200,000+ in North Liverpool and Bootle/Crosby? No, but the 36,000 in Kirkby Metropolis should be better off with a few in Croxteth and Fazak, as long as they can get onto the east lancs before the rest of Liverpool tries to squeeze through. Even the San Siro would be feck all use in that location when, after the novelty has passed, thousands of fans will decide to watch in the pub rather than sit in the grid-lock that is the handfull of lanes that bottleneck into Kirkby from Liverpool, or attempt the bombay express that will be the meager 5 trains an hr into Kirkby...... (as opposed to 50 an hr at Sandhills) there wont be any extra cash gained from all those lovely new seats when thousands have given it up as hard work. I can just see the tumbleweed now!!!