Move on

Steve Guy 24/08/2007 20comments  |  Jump to last
Having been born and lived within hearing distance of the Goodison roar, the stadium and its surrounding aura will mean I will always have great memories. Even before I was old enough to go I was infected by the match day experience just playing in the street. Once I was old enough to stand on the terraces I was hooked every which way.

However, in the immediate present; once it was accepted (by a significant majority it seems to me) that staying at Goodison was unfeasible, the focus of an increasingly heated debate has focussed wholly on whether a stadium located on one side or another of an artificial line spelt doom or glory for the Club.

Whilst for the aforementioned attachment I have to Goodison, I totally understand the desire to remain close to the centre of the city with which we are associated, I do not define my allegiance and active support for Everton Football Club on the basis that they remain in Liverpool 4,5, 6 or any other post code.

Those who were eligible were given the opportunity to vote on the issue and the majority of them did so. The decision by the Club to do this was unique and should be acknowledged as at least brave; for it could easily have backfired spectacularly in terms of the result they clearly wanted.

After much soul searching I voted "Yes". I am not proud of this decision, but neither am I embarassed. I have been a season ticket holder for 25 years and moving the ground five miles isn't going to change that. For all the chest beating currently evident on this site and elsewhere, I would hope that those who are now suggesting they will never go to Goodison again (let alone Kirkby) will quickly realise the folly of such a choice once they have calmed down. If they can't, then my honest view is that their passion for the Club is not as real as they would have us believe; else how could they make such statements (except in the heat of the moment when we all say things we immediately regret)?

The more rabid of contributors to this site, who use vitriol and spite to make their point when all else fails, who see the only valid viewpoint as being from those supporters who hold their own views and / or who live within the City boundaries, should be ignored. They lost the argument when they sought to divide the Club's supporters into an 'us and them'. Although he is not the only person guilty in this regard, I have been increasingly angered by the hysterical utterings of Tony Marsh on the subject of the ground move. I used to find Mr. Marsh's anti-Moyes rants occassionally pointed and sometimes amusing. However, his stance on this issue and his berating of fellow supporters has made me angry and sick in equal measure. Whilst I would not call for his exclusion from this site (it is not my site) I would suggest that he has overstepped the mark which allows him the title 'columnist'.

I will be at Goodison on Saturday as normal. Eventually I will be sitting in the new stadium too. I will, in both cases, be doing what I have done for more years than I care to mention: shouting myself hoarse and enjoying every minute of the roller coaster our team put's us through.

The decisions to move and to where have been made and I for one will be moving on from this issue now; getting back to supporting my team. I hope that is something we will all be doing.

Reader Comments

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Dan Mckie
1   Posted 24/08/2007 at 14:26:39

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Spot on Steve,its now time to get back to supporting Everton on the pitch(not that I ever stopped) and I hope the people that are considering not watching anymore reconsider! What gets me is the way they say "I will still support them emotionally but not finacially" because how are they supporting them then? By looking at SSN at 5 on a saturday and probably thinking "shit,they won 3-0,should have gone"?
Eversteve
2   Posted 24/08/2007 at 14:47:05

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I voted the opposite way but you hit the mail on the head "The decisions to move and to where have been made and I for one will be moving on from this issue now; getting back to supporting my team. I hope that is something we will all be doing". PS Do you reckon we will get a discount on beer and stuff from Tesco ?
jr
3   Posted 24/08/2007 at 14:56:15

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Well said Steve.
Anyway, big game Saturday and lets hope everyone gets behind the boys tomorrow. COYB!!!
Tom Emanuel
4   Posted 24/08/2007 at 15:04:51

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Well said Steve.

Being a southern blue, the whole move thing doesn’t have too much effect on me. One thing that has effected me is seeing my fellow blues tearing into each other on this very passionate issue. I just hope that now "the vote" is done that we can start to show a little more unity for the rest of the season.

Onwards and upwards!!
Gavin
5   Posted 24/08/2007 at 15:30:06

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Here Here!!!

At last some sanity.

Forwards together.
Peter
6   Posted 24/08/2007 at 15:31:12

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Agree with you wholeheartedly Steve.

The majority voted to give green light to the club to further investigate this possibility..

Now it’s time for us fans to close ranks again and show a united front to other teams and supporters to let them know that no matter what happens, we all support our club and will continue to do so.

COYB! and come on all Everton fans! Time to show the rest of the world what we are made off!
P Higgs
7   Posted 24/08/2007 at 15:35:10

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I am writing to regards the Stadium design, rather than the location debate.

Does anyone else not think the Kirkby stadium design is dull, un-inspiring, and generally out of the box rubbish.
If we had designs to build a brilliant, striking, stadium to be proud of, then I believe a lot of the "No" voters would’ve been swayed.
It’s the symmetrical, Identikit, cheap, design which really pisses me off. Total Crap. I thought we wanted a 55,000 all seater with possible expansion to 70,000 originally. Now its 50,000 with potential to go to 55,000-60,000. Why?
Cos its f****n cheap.
The whole plan is f****n cheap, done on a Tesco’s budget. I will always support Everton, but no number of images with floodlights on a dark night will make this proposed new stadium inspiring.
Jon Sellick
8   Posted 24/08/2007 at 15:44:43

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Superb. Agree with evey word. Cheers.
Rupert Sullivan
9   Posted 24/08/2007 at 15:57:02

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Steve, the hardest thing I find to accept about this type of debate is that if as a fan I refuse to agree with the decision and therefore remove my financial support for the club, I am branded ’no longer a fan’ or am told that I should live with the result and move on. Why? Should we all just follow regardless of where this Board leads us? Is it not possible to be a Blue and yet disagree with the way the club is managed and therefore show this disagreement?
Steve Guy
10   Posted 24/08/2007 at 16:21:55

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Rupert you don’t have to agree with the decision, but you must surely understand you can’t now change it ? I do not understand how withdrawing your financial support (by which I assume you mean not buying a match day ticket) helps at all. As a true supporter you should surely continue to do just that; i.e. support the team by attending games and helping them win (as we most surely do as ’twelth man’)and helping pay the wages of the players we need to keep at the club to have any chance of success. If you want to show your feelings then write to the Board and let them know, demand they look at other options besides Kirkby, insist on an input to the new stadium’s design; but don’t stop going to the game and supporting the team it makes no sense to me and is to coin a phrase ’biting off your (blue)nose to spite your face’.
Dan Mckie
11   Posted 24/08/2007 at 16:30:17

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Rupert,I really cant understand your thinking,so you might not agree with the decision but is it really worth casting Everton aside because if it? It could turn out that this is the worst decision Everton have ever made,but it could also turn out to be the best! We dont know but we support them anyway!
Ed MacDonald
12   Posted 24/08/2007 at 16:30:39

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Steve, I respect your opinion but I’m disappointed guys like you have decided to settle for second best.

You get what you ask for and on this occasion we have not demanded the best.

Steve Guy
13   Posted 24/08/2007 at 16:46:46

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Ed, Thanks. However, I don’t understand why a ’yes’ vote to moving to Kirkby implies that I accept second best. It is only second best if there is something else on offer which is ’better’. I don’t believe Kirkby will be second best to an (unfortunately) increasingly worn looking Goodison. The (suspiciously) recent proposal to site a new stadium on ’the loop’ panders only to our joint sense that an inner city site would be preferable to an outer site at Kirkby. I saw nothing in the drawings of the loop site to suggest it will be better than the stadium in Kirkby. By the way, I read elsewhere on this site that the proposal for Stanley Park should be held up as a comparison of what we should aspire to. Not for me. A) I am disgusted that a Victorian park is to be ripped up to provide the Dark Side with a new facility when according to the LCC there are many feasible sites around Liverpool good enough for Everton (and by implication therefore good enough for that lot too)and B) I don’t want my stadium to look like an airport terminal.
Brian Williams
14   Posted 24/08/2007 at 17:11:28

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This is the correct vote and it will prove it in years to come......I voted yes and cant wait to move,,,Kirkby yes,,, coyb
davey
15   Posted 24/08/2007 at 17:27:50

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P.higgs I have not seen the ground only a outline proped picture of a stadium so how can you say its crap?????? i voted yes and glad the majority got their way and look forward to supporting us in our new stadium kirkby-yes please
Bob Bailey
16   Posted 24/08/2007 at 18:17:52

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The fans have voted the majority said yes, now the anti Kirkby people including this website are having a poll to say is 60% a big enough mandate. The president of the USA is elected on a 50% mandate, the prime minister even less, so will you people who dont want to move to Kirkby move on now we are going.
Paul Hardy
17   Posted 24/08/2007 at 17:44:47

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59% against 41% is not a "limited margin of the result" as the Toffeeweb site states - if this were a national election that would be classed as a landslide and the losing party would be fearing for their future. I am still not sure about the long term outcome of a move to Kirkby but please try to be a little more balanced in your reporting.
Dan Mckie
18   Posted 24/08/2007 at 19:36:57

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Most ’no’ voters would probably,if asked would have said that only a 100% to 0% would have been good enough to move to Kirkby :)
SD
19   Posted 24/08/2007 at 20:21:21

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quote Paul Hardy;
"if this were a national election that would be classed as a landslide"

Paul - If this were a national election - A lot more people would have been eligable to vote...

My opinion is this situation is this;

There are approx 850 000 thousand people in the Liverpool area, and lets say for the sake of this argument 50% follow the reds 50% follow the blues. (We can argue all day about these percentages, also about the fact that a certain percentage don’t follow football and dont have a preference).

Assuming a 50/50 split, that gives in the region of 425,000 evertonians in the Liverpool Area.

15,000 supporters have decided on behalf of the other 410,000, that Everton FC are going to up sticks and leave Liverpool.

Its Just doesn’t seem fair, that such a small percentage of our fans, can make a decision of this magnatude.

Just because you have a season ticket, or are privilaged enough to be able to afford a season ticket, why does that make you anymore of a fan than any other fella out there, who may save all year to buy his son a kit for Christmas?

Therefore, How can this be considered general consensus of Everton fans?




Steve Guy
20   Posted 24/08/2007 at 20:52:20

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SD, It wasn’t a national election ! In line with most elections though you have to be registered to be eligible. The only ’registered’ voters at Everton are the season ticket holders; that’s why Everton gave them a say. How practically could they have extended it further (show us yer tatts ?) ?

Personally I was more disappointed that, even though they were given a franchise 10000 didn’t bother to have their say.


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