Knowsley Council Admit Stadium Design Is Poor

David Thompson 06/06/2008 167comments  |  Jump to last
Ahead of the meeting of Knowsley's Planning Committee on Monday to approve the Tesco application, a 462 page Agenda and Report has been prepared by the Planning Office for the committee members.

It contains the following passage:

"Stadium ? the building has been criticised by some consultees and local community representations as being of poor design quality. It has to be acknowledged that the design adopted here, in contrast to some recent stadium proposals, is not one for an iconic exemplar building. Rather, the design is a somewhat more traditional stadium design with four separate stands and this shows in its outward appearance. Indeed, a somewhat utilitarian and cost-conscious design is evident in the way that the underside of the upper stands is revealed to outward view."

It goes on...

"Your officers are disappointed that the design / layout proposed is for a ?standard? retail park environment with an extensive central car park. This is considered to be a somewhat wasteful and visually over-dominant approach to the provision of car parking. Rather, your officers consider that a development displaying a stronger urban form, based on two-sided streets and spaces and creating a more harmonious and complementary urban structure to the existing town centre, would be an appropriate approach in planning terms for this site. Three of the retail blocks are of the same design, providing some degree of visual cohesion, although this is far outweighed by their arrangement around the extensive parking area and being interspersed by the Tesco building and the stadium.

In terms of functional cohesion, the development is hampered by the arrangement of buildings around the central car park. Indeed, a single circuit of the central car park (without walking onto Cherryfield Drive or into any part of the existing town centre) amounts to some 800 metres.

To conclude, your officers are disappointed that the design does not incorporate a stronger urban form based on sound design principles. With the exception of the stadium, the buildings for which full details of design are available are utilitarian in form and design. There is a repetitive treatment of building frontages, although fortunately some visual interest has been incorporated into the front elevations, thereby making the design more acceptable. The area along Cherryfield Drive has the potential, with appropriate public realm treatment, to form an attractive public space linking the existing town centre and the new development to the south of Cherryfield Drive. However, the quality of the space, as with other parts of the development, is not one that is defined and created by its surrounding buildings.

Conclusion

Your officers are disappointed that the design does not incorporate a stronger urban form based on sound design principles, meeting the expectations of policy. Officers can advise that the main visual impact of the development would arise from a combination of the stadium?s size and siting and the regrettable loss of the attractive wooded area adjoining Valley Road. There will inevitably be some harmful visual impacts, most particularly the outlook from nearby housing areas and overshadowing. These have to be acknowledged and taken into account in the final decision.

Within the development the design and quality of the landscaping and public realm, whilst creating some points of visual interest, disappoints when measured against sound urban design principles and the expectations of policy."

So it's not just CABE that think it's poor. Even Knowsley's own officers are highly critical. I know people will still come on here and say it's the best we can afford, but surely, not even the Yes voters can read that passage and say they are happy.

With Liverpool starting site preparation on Monday, on what you have to say (like it or not) is a high quality, iconic design, what chance will this Kirkby fiasco have of attracting 6 non-Everton games per season to generate the addition revenue needed to fund the huge borrowings?

It's time for the board to speak out and address the concerns of Evertonians everywhere, and admit that what is proposed is second-rate.

Nil satis, or Every Little Helps?

Reader Comments

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Ryan Rooney
1   Posted 06/06/2008 at 14:42:05

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As long as Keith gets his bonus, it will all work out fine.
Tony Marsh
2   Posted 06/06/2008 at 14:44:56

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Almost a year has past since our club was sold down the river by BK KW and all those who voted Yes. Don't say the warning signs were not there regarding this fiasco as many of us pointed them out last summer only to be shot down.

Well I can't for the want of trying seem to find many fans who actually admit to voting Yes and I find it very strange because you couldn't shut them up last July. Perhaps they are hiding behind the couch or have all gone on holiday.

Like I said then and I will say it now, the whole thing is a disaster waiting to happen and once again Kenwright and his cronies are keeping a low profile. Grow some fucking balls and admit you were wrong. Yes, you people who voted for a Tesco car park stadium and that shithouse Kenwright for making it the only option.

The Kings Dock fiasco was a disgrace but this Kirkby nonesense is utter fucking lunacy.

Dan Shearer
3   Posted 06/06/2008 at 14:54:00

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The stadium design was always going to be 4 stands similar to Goodison in that they wanted to try and keep the terrific atmosphere of Goodison where the fans are close too. I think thats good as I don’t like the americanised modern bowls much or the way fans are far away from the pitch. In their face like Goodison is good.
Dave Lennon
4   Posted 06/06/2008 at 14:52:10

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It really does raise the killer question - why on earth would you put a football stadium in the middle of a town centre retail redevelopment. Is there anywhere else in the UK that this has done or is being proposed ?. Is anyone seriously suggessting that if Tesco pulled out that Asda, Sanisbury’s etc would say - we’ll only put in our store if you slap in a massive football stadium
Tom Hughes
5   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:02:36

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Dan,
You only have to compare stadium footprints to know that the Kirkby design will have much bigger viewing distances than GP. There are no overlapping tiers at Kirkby which will send many rows of seats way beyond the maximum distance of GP. There will be next to no intimacy especially with the gaping corner sections.

This is a cheap off-the-shelf barr basic format. The corners haven’t been filled because this is more expensive than a repeated straight run..... it is not and has never been a nod at tradition nor desired aesthetic.
Gareth Humphreys
6   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:14:59

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The sole reason that this whole shambles should not go ahead is that the stadium design is very very average.
Anyone who is happy with that does not understand this football club.
I am not using NSNO as a stick to beat Kirkby with and I am aware that costs play a huge role in the process but lets be honest the ground looks absolute shite.
Lets do with Goodison what David Moyes is doing with the team. Slow steady progress into something we can all be proud of.
Stu Bailey
7   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:11:49

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Tony and others. Answer one question, what is your solution to this problem?
Answer: you all have not got one.
What can Everton do? I know let all moan and complain and dream of something we will never have. A great stadium.
I am afraid we will have to go along with this and hopefully improve the new stadium in the future. Or rot in GP? Reality lads please, what do we do? We need to be more constructive with this problem, like good ideas, I do not see many just complaints. We need to be real. To be brutally honest I blame the players wages for all teams wanting to build new stadiums in this country, for all the money in football, no team except for the rich ones (Who again should take some blame for players prices) have not go a pot to piss in. So while fans pay big prices for tickets and clubs pay big price for players and wages. Stadiums and fans suffer!
Dominic Buckley
8   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:15:57

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Chill out Tony

Myself and my three season ticket scouse blue mates (not that I think there?s anything wrong with not being a local blue but just to try and pre empt some of the inevitable carping) voted yes. Not because we wanted to move to a crap stadium but because we accepted the logic that the board put forward in support of it. This was that financially we couldn?t afford to stay in Goodison and keep pace with the other teams in the league.

The recent financial stats being hawked around for the 2006-07 season show us lagging far behing the upper middle prem teams, never mind the top four which we?re hoping to gatecrash. So it makes sense for us to move.

I admit that it does look like things are a bit typically shambolic but surely that?s not the fault of those who voted Yes. Would things have been any better ran if the vote had have been No? I doubt it. To be honest, Tony, some of your posts are insightful and poignant. But on more than a few of them it seems like that you just couldn't wait to be outraged and vent your spleen in an uncoherent manner.

Do you really think that Kenright is deliberately trying to ruin the club? Why would he want to do that?
Dean Mckenna
9   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:16:14

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This stadium sounds like an absolute shocker! Hardly ’state of the art’ is it?! How many more people need to come out and say the design dreadful?

We really need a new stadium but this isnt the solution.

The pictures dont fool anyone. It even looks like a turkey. Goodison Park has lasted us for a century and was once regared the best stadium in the country- this one looks like tin shed that will not even last 15 years! What is the point of building up a stadium that is not even in the top 10 British stadiums before we’ve even moved into it?!
Graham Atherton
10   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:12:03

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The larger footprint provides for far larger areas below the seating, improving comfort and facilities as well as corporate facilities - it is a far larger building overall - something not many are appreciating just yet. Stack everyone on top of each other and you lose that earning capacity and you end up with....Goodison...which could well be your desired result?
Tom Hughes
11   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:31:26

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Stu
It’s not Evertonians that haven’t got a solution it is the club......to quote KW: "there is no plan B".

Of course there are a multitude of potential solutions, especially now that we know Kirkby will cost at least £78m..... (probably much more now that the enablers are shrinking!)

One scheme is shown on here. There is at least 2 more on the same site and several more on drawing boards elsewhere:

http://www.keioc.net/index.php?page=redevelopment-plans

Graham,
There are several ways to increase concourse and corporate areas. Upwards or outwards, utilising corner sections or even under-roof or under tier areas. Kirkby’s stepped tiering with no significant overlaping pushes people much further from the action than at the current GP. For instance....Spectators in the front rows of the upper tiers at Kirkby will be 10-15m further away than they currently are in the upper Bullens. Those in the rearmost rows will be more than that again from the corresponding rows in the present stand. Exec boxes are relatively low offering poor viewing angles compared to several around the country.
Roy Walsh
12   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:35:20

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Graham ..

Size isn?t everything...

the term "Earning capacity" is just typical of todays uneducated modern football jargon...
I dont care if its got 300 exec boxes or 5 12,000sq foot suites for overweight bogus business men to pretend how minted they are..

its all about, the atmosphere and how away fans percieve it.. that will be the proof in the pudding...

Redevlop Goodison like Villa did with theirs... and get somebody in with a bit of Dollar... again like Villa did.

No need to move to a tin pot shed in middle of nowhere, just so 60 exec boxes can stay empty every other saturday.

Shame on you yes men... wherever you may be hiding!

Tony Marsh.. spot on lad..Moyes out, Goodison for ever.
Damian Wilde
13   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:44:44

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Tony,

I voted yes, what are you going to do about it, give me a beating? You need to get out a bit more Tony, calm down, relax a bit. I found your post very aggressive. To be fair it’s hardly helpful is it?

You like hiding behind the couch when Everton are doing well, don’t you? You’re normally pretty quiet then.



As for BK, bit harsh, but maybe you could get in there, I think you’d do a better job. TM for Chairman.

Stu B, some good points. People keep going on about a ’World Class stadium that Everton deserve’. I agree, but how do we get that then? You lot going to pay for it?

Tony, I did vote ’yes’, it’s not about right or wrong, and my balls are fine ta.
Trevor Skempton
14   Posted 06/06/2008 at 15:50:38

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Good design does not need to be expensive. Bad design can turn out to be very expensive indeed. Even without the issue of location, these proposals are very weak. The stadium design is dull, inefficient and offers little real hope of further development. It would lock Everton into a permanent position of mediocrity, signalling that the Blues had given up any hope of sustaining a challenge to the top clubs in Europe, or even to our nearest neighbours. There are several other options but these have been systematically blocked by the club, Tesco and Knowsley Borough. It is surely time to take a hard look at Plan B [and Plan C] and to start thinking ’long-term’ instead of ’quick-fix’.
Stephen Leonard
15   Posted 06/06/2008 at 16:15:09

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David Thompson provides an incomplete (and so misleading) quote concerning the stadium from the Knowsley Planning report. Immediately after the paragraph he quotes headed "stadium" is

"However, within those constraints, it is your officers? view that considerable efforts have been made to create an attractive design of building. In particular, each elevation is marked by capped tower structures (four on each of the longer side elevations and three on the shorter end elevations) that extend along the majority of the underside of each stand. These features help to break up the overall mass of the building, create visual interest and provide an effective means of masking the main entrance stairways, lifts and upper level circulation. They are further aided in this task by steel columns that project from above the towers and through the stadium roof, the overhanging roof and supporting cables. The corners of the stadium have been infilled, with a combination of high level glazing and a curved fascia, to resolve and add visual interest to the junction between each stand. Overall, the design of the stadium is considered to be an appropriate response to the brief."
Derek Turnbull
16   Posted 06/06/2008 at 16:37:36

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Re Dan Shearer:

The design is not similar to Goodison, I also would not consider it a nod to tradition.

It is 4 non-overlapping two tiered stands separated by Executive boxes. Not only have Everton never ever had any stands like this but it is also the worst type of stand for atmosphere.
Joe Ludden
17   Posted 06/06/2008 at 16:55:10

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Every Lidl helps...
Dennis Plummer
18   Posted 06/06/2008 at 16:49:14

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As a Knowsley council tax payer,what frightens me is not the design of the Everton stadium but the ever increasing rumour that it is to be known as the KNOWSLEY MET STADIUM for which we shall pick up the bill for naming rights.If it happens their will be widespread withdrawal of tax paymentfor certain.
Tony Williams
19   Posted 06/06/2008 at 16:56:30

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"It has to be acknowledged that the design adopted here, in contrast to some recent stadium proposals, is not one for an iconic exemplar building. Rather, the design is a somewhat more traditional stadium design with four separate stands and this shows in its outward appearance. Indeed, a somewhat utilitarian and cost-conscious design is evident in the way that the underside of the upper stands is revealed to outward view"

So because it is not iconic and is more traditional it is a poor design?

The rest is just padding about location and nothing to do about the design.

it "not incorporate a stronger urban form based on sound design principles. With the exception of the stadium, the buildings for which full details of design are available are utilitarian in form and design" What the???
Tom Hughes
20   Posted 06/06/2008 at 17:02:46

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Dennis,
Where has that one come from? And to think they shouted about having circulated the promotion video far and wide to all the big hitters..... and the biggest takers are Knowsley council? This was supposed to be bigger than the Emirates Deal!
Tom Hughes
21   Posted 06/06/2008 at 17:06:44

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Tony,
It is a poor design both aesthetically and functionally (although admittedly the former can be subjective). As a viewing platform it is also a very basic format with viewing distances as large as they can be for the given capacity, with relatively shallow viewing angles for the upper tiers in comparison to those at GP, and wide open corner sections that are just void spaces. In terms of location it ticks none of the boxes, and the transport strategy requires the largest park and ride scheme in the country just to be compatible with the more central GP, and the viability of this has been questioned by various bodies including Merseytravel which has prompted its third revision to date. All in all a cheap basic stadium which is what the design brief was..... hence the last line of the critique.
Ned Dilkes
22   Posted 06/06/2008 at 17:35:02

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As a Sefton Council tax payer,the name sounds OK to me-it’s only right Knowsley should pay for their sins!
A failure to find an outside taker for the naming rights would only be in keeping with this total farce.
Karl Masters
23   Posted 06/06/2008 at 17:34:31

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Stu b: you say


What can Everton do? I know let all moan and complain and dream of something we will never have. A great stadium.
I am afraid we will have to go along with this and hopefully improve the new stadium in the future. Or rot in GP? Reality lads please, what do we do? We need to be more constructive with this problem, like good ideas, I do not see many just complaints. We need to be real.


You are saying that we will never have a great stadium, but WE ALREADY HAVE ONE! For atmosphere Goodison is hard to beat. Yes, we know it needs improving, but it has at least that one great quality, plus all the tradition.

Kirkby has neither the design to recreate the Goodison atmosphere or any nods to tradition.

Paraprasing the report of KMB’s own planners, ’it’s a bland, uninteresting, disappointing job on the cheap.’ All it would have over Goodison is uninterupted views although they would be farther away in many cases and extra Lounge space. Big deal! Is that worth spending over £100m and dividing the fan base over?

Finally, you say we’ll rot in Goodison. Why? We’re there now and the team is thriving. Money is not necessarily going to make a better team - just look at Newcastle.

The answer is not easy, but it sure aint Kirkby. Redeveloping Goodison or a shared stadium are far more logical and less risky moves.
Arthur Jones
24   Posted 06/06/2008 at 17:12:45

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The main crux of the argument by the couple of ’ yes ’ voters i know who still think kirkby is a good idea is that ’ we know we’re not getting what we thought we were getting ’ and ’ we know it’s not going to be free ’ ...’ but there’s no alternative ’ or ’ its better than GP ’ .. Didn’t the exclusivity deal put paid to many alternatives ? Wasn’t it KW’s job to investigate every possible avenue , if he did this why were we not informed about this before the vote ? or at least an EGM called to put the alternatives to the shareholders , KW and BK made such a big thing about the vote , but in the end , in the words of David Prentice it wasn’t a vote , more a decree . The project is coming apart , bit by bit , even the announcement that GP is crumbling around our ankles and won’t receive a safety certificate in a few years time has never been proven , no documentation has been produced to support this . As Tom Hughes and Trevor Skempton have shown , there are alternatives . We may have to use them ! I hope
Brian Waring
25   Posted 06/06/2008 at 17:49:36

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Stu B, you say " improve the stadium in the future " I’m not being funny mate, but in 10yrs down the line, the stadium in Kirkby would be falling down. Also, I’ve said it before, but it’s worrying that some fans (even after this latest bashing of the design ) are still content to go along with it.
Matt Willey
26   Posted 06/06/2008 at 17:53:40

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To quote ’Dave Lennon’ ...

’Is there anywhere else in the UK that this has done or is being proposed ?. Is anyone seriously suggessting that if Tesco pulled out that Asda, Sanisbury?s etc would say - we?ll only put in our store if you slap in a massive
football stadium’

This has been done recently in Milton Keynes where the stadium has been built alongside an Asda and Ikea retail site as (I believe) ’an enabling development’... there are some crucial differences however..

1) The quality of the stadium is relatively high
2) The stadium design has integrated hotel and conference facilities (much like the proposed loop site)
3) The site is reasonably central to the Milton Keynes / Bletchley urban area
4) MK Dons are a League 1 side with little or no walk-up support, no long history and no local rivalries

All in all it seems like a good development but despite that, leaving the ground is an utter nightmare in a car and I do not feel that enough consideration was given to this in the design of the parking and access; given the comments above I would expect the same faults in Kirkby.

I feel that it would be a dreadful, dreadful shame if Everton, a club with so much history and city support ended up on a retail park like that after 130 years.


Alan Willo
27   Posted 06/06/2008 at 18:02:46

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Very selective paragraph from the whole report and not a true reflection on the project. Why all this fuss about the stadium, we have been shown pictures/drawings since day one and you can see inside on certain parts so why when they put it in to text it becomes so outrages. Look at the picture, its has not changed (apart from underground car park). Again, the only problem with this build is the location and that?s final. All these other points are just clutching at straws to degrade the whole project. The vast majority of EFC No people would take the same design tomorrow if it was put in the middle of Walton Park!!! LFC (RS!) cost is close to £300 million, EFC may be as much as £78 million so based on that price its looks good value for money to me, anything else you would have to add to tens of millions to the project. Guess what, EFC have a very limited purse, no billionaire and no investors queuing up to take over so all please get in the real world we are living within our means. WAKE UP WE HAVE NO MONEY< so stop dreaming. COYB
Chad Schofield
28   Posted 06/06/2008 at 18:04:01

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Arthur Jones, you hit the nail on the head.


There are alternatives, but it seems that those have been systematically ignored, out of prinicple rather than rationally dismissed - and that is SEEMS rather than having been a fly on the wall and knowing for sure.

I can understand the sentiment that the board may not want to actually say "we can not afford this"... but noboday is really under any illusion that we have mega bucks, anyone who knows anything about football knows that, and if BK was so proud why would he have been digging around for investment all those sleepless day and nights.

The muddy facts and predictitions like exactly how much it will actually cost, how much revenue it may generate, earning from naming rights, whether there is a big slice of Tesco cake waiting for Wyness in Kirkby, whether the transport links will cope, damage to fan base, or whther 4-4-2 suits better than 4-1-3-1 :) are as reliable as the rumour mill links... though people who seem to know what they are talking about have made some good educated guesses on some of these in my opinion.

All you can go on are the facts that are independently delivered, as it’s clear KW (at very least, but there have to be others) wants the Kirkby project. It amazes me though that some people seem to be able to ignore the actual facts as they come through and pick out the most mundane arguments as to why this project is our only way forward.

Stop looking into crystal balls and deal with what’s actually there. The saddest thing is that it has taken so long for these to become available.
Gavin Ramejkis
29   Posted 06/06/2008 at 18:26:58

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Alan W it’s a section of Knowsley’s own report by their own planners, the whole report is unlikely to be damning as it’s their regeneration but it’s highly critical of the design. The design which as published by the CEO would be World Class and even by a borough without a Premier League football stadium within it calling it poor. The £78m that everyone is talking about, which was the initial figures reliant on the full original proposed retail size would still need to be borrowed by the club. The club has no investment despite claims of a 24/7 search for it and a very well paid CEO who it would appear to have done nothing to attract investment beyond the Kirkby project, the knowledge he has his own stadium development company which BK is allowing him to run whilst on the payroll of the club surely smacks of a conflict of interest in the least? As fans and not shareholders we are doing what we can to ask the questions but the custodians and owners of the club are responsible for the Kirkby project and ALL it’s failures; location, transport, funding, poor design and all elements within each of those failures. Accepting Kirkby as our only option is a fallacy as the club have refused to investigate and publish alternatives and their unsuitability.
Roberto Birquet
30   Posted 06/06/2008 at 18:47:39

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It’s becoming tedious that there are so may of these debates and are typically round the theme of: Bully is a prat who is getting fat on our money.

The design is not world shattering, but neither is it yet another bowl. And thank God at least one has said: I won’t hit Kenwright and Wyness with NSNO.

We all want the best, but reality check. According to Deloitte Touche Everton spent a full 70pc of its income on wages last year. And despite that, our wage bill was less than Man U paid out in interest payments ALONE on its debt. And they still made a massive profit. FFS, we are not rich, we are a poor (financial) Prem League Club. The days of the Mersey Millionaires have gone.

As i see it, there are only three choices: Kirkby and enough has been said on that. Share Stanley Park (don’t think they’d let us) - yeah, sorry but they are rich and it is they who call the shots - another reality check; or finally re-do GP.

The last one has several problems: One, we would need to increase ownership of the land, esp behind Bullens Road and maybe a bit of St Park - Would we get it? Two: We would probably have to knock the old building down and start again (so where do we play in the meantime?), or three (and only if it is possible, which I doubt) is to build it bit by bit for four years and play with under a 30,000 gate making our income even smaller, while spending loads of cash on the ground. I’m sorry but it does not add up, unless we can do number two (That is, play elsewhere for two years).

And the only realistic bet on that is: Anfield. And i don’t think that idea has ever had support. But it’s about time people stopped the drivel about NSNO and got real. Choose something you would prefer AND admit its faults. Because all the options have faults as I have described. And don’t give me KD - Move on!
Derek Turnbull
31   Posted 06/06/2008 at 19:28:03

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Roberto you say choose something you prefer and move on, accept its faults?

Why not change the design? Constructive criticism?

It has outdated End Stands that have proved unpopular in this country by fans with similar stands. Answer move te Exec boxes to double up on the side stands to create single tiers.

It has vey limited options for expansion, allow each stand to hold additional overlapping (note overlapping as at Goodison) tiers.

Character, recreate the criss-crosses.

Feel free to add your own constructive criticisms
Alan Willo
32   Posted 06/06/2008 at 20:37:37

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Derek, does this now mean the location is ok in your eyes? Deisign and art can be dissected in many directions and the beholder will always have a slant on it. Let's forget the the location for one minute and we all want a new blue print with the same budget as is on offer, do you think we could come up with a far better plan?

Maybe yes, or maybe no and all would be subjective no matter was was posted. Do you know why... well becuase we all only have the same amount of money to spend so choice is limited. I agree, would love a 60k+ state of the art top class stadium but can anybody please tell me how we would fund it without a commercial sponsor or sugar daddy? Until any No voter can quantify that fact then all these other arguments are hot air.

We can't dissmiss a £400 million project becuase we just dont want to move, it has to hold more substance, thats why we have seen no protests, no songs against or any protest other than one person in a plane! The majority of fans are slient, that is becuase they understand the reality of the situation. For EFC to change and pull out you need to encourage them, not slag them off every other day. COYB

Colin Wordsworth
33   Posted 06/06/2008 at 21:06:39

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Tom

If the grand old lady was redeveloped, the old stands ripped down and only ....eventually the park end remaining....won’t the atmosphere og Goodison change, probably for the worse, particularly with new planning regulations?.

So sit in one, sit in the other....same as, same as!

Re the acousics in the new stadia,I do know the club have attempted to design the new build with the atmosphere in mind.

As far as the looks are concerned, the nos will say crap....the rest of us probably say it’s fine!

At the end of the day we were never going to get a san siro!.....we need to get real!
Peter Getkahn
34   Posted 06/06/2008 at 21:19:11

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Bad building, bad design, bad project.
Iconic club, run by moronic management.
Colin Wordsworth
35   Posted 06/06/2008 at 21:29:58

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Peter

just add..........but if it was in Lcc area it would be great!.......be honest!
Derek Turnbull
36   Posted 06/06/2008 at 21:04:37

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Alan, as I believe you do too, I always view the location and design argument as separate issues. I have not kept myself up to date with the location argument as I’ve have a feeling that it’s going to happen, so I’m more concerned that five years after it’s been built everyone gets onto the fact that yet again the design is not doing our fans justice.

Re the design, I’m talking about the basics in stadium design that Kirkby have ignored. For 45 years us Street Enders have been complaing about the design not being up to scratch for atmosphere. Further problems became apparent when the Lower Gwladys Street was seated with fans unable to stand in front of their seats due to obstructed views.

A new stadium was a chance to put these problms behind us and finally have a stand for the singers amongst us. So what do they do, put low lying Executive boxes to the rear of the new Lower Gwladys Street to put fans off from standing and have the nearest acoustical source an entire tier above them! Our singers cant go in the upper as its far harder to encourage standing there but its a safety risk to do so. Fans from Villa, Man U, Celtic and Rangers all have negative vires on these non overlapping two tiered stands.

The solution is hardly a piggy bank breaker. Double the Executive boxes on the side stands to leave large single tiers behind both goals. This amendment will transform the potential atmosphere in the Kirkby stadium. to one the greats in Europe.

Other improvements, allow the stands to have the capability to one day hold an extra tier. Just say Kirkby does turn out to be a success, we will need to expand. Why not have the choice how to do it? We may decide to add a tier to a side stand instead of (or as well as) filing in the corners. As it stands we’re putting the white flag up to Liverpool by not allowing our stadium of ever being able to compete with Liverpools for size.

Again, practical down to Earth improvements. I am not slating the design for the sake of it. I just want us to have good stadium, or at the least get the basics right.
Karl Masters
37   Posted 06/06/2008 at 21:06:37

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Alan Willo: The reason ’ most fans are silent’ on this issue is that they don’t know what to do. The vast majority, I am certain, would rather saty at Goodison than go to Kirkby.

At the match, we are there to support Davey & the Boys and we’re not gonna protest and upset the apple cart on the pitch, especially in what was a very good season.

Away from the match, we are all individual voices and realtively powerless short of boycotting the Club financially and that makes no real sense.

Make no mistake, Alan, we all know the reality and it’s not palateable. However, most of us simply don’t believe that Goodison can not be redeveloped over a period of say 5-10 years, but all we are told is that it’s not possible even though Villa, Newcastle, Spurs, Man Utd, West Ham and even the RS have done it.

Maybe the reasons given are valid to a point, but where is the drive, the determination, the savvy to make it happen? I don’t suppose if Leahy hadn’t turned to Kenwright during that 5-1 mauling at Man City in May 2004 and said, ’Hey Bill, I ’ve got a deal that you might be interested in’ that even Kirkby would have been dreamt up by our inept Board.

Bill may be a Blue, but he’s not up front and he’s not a Rain-maker as the Yanks say. He’s an undercover operator and those sort of people generally wait for something to happen rather than get off their arses and bloody well find it.

Even now, our Chairman should be publicly questioning why LFC don’t want a shared stadium. He should be kicking and screaming at every potential soundbite on the subject. 2 things may then happen. Either LFC under pressure LCC, NWDA, the Sports Minister etc would start seriously looking at it. If they rejected it, we’d have the moral high ground by saying that we proposed it and it was LFC who had blocked it and the aforementioned are then free to put their public money behind EFC rather than being obliged toshow neither club any public advantage. Instead we are told Wyness and Parry discussed it in a Leicestershire Hotel off the record in an FA meeting, where the conversation could well have gone something like:

KW: That Warren Bradley is going on about a shared stadium again.

RP: Yeah, I need that like a hole in the head right now. Hicks is after my arse and wants me out so even if it was a good idea, I have to bin it because he wants to own the Club outright and lease the stadium back to the Club and that’s where he can start getting his money back.

KW: Same boat as me mate. I have to condemn it. I have to promote Kirkby as Robert Earl wants to buy the Club and he won’t unless we go there. He’s already effectively paid for Yakubu and without him we’re never going to get it up to another level on the pitch. My 5 year bonus is riding on it too.

RP: Well, let’s get our story straight, Keith. We’ll just say the fans don’t want it and we’re not interested. Then we go silent and keep our fingers crossed. Hope to see you at the next meeting and winks in a ’ that means we’ll both have our jobs then’ way.

Could be my imagination couldn’t it, but without any proper analysis from the Club,we’re all left to wonder. My personal barometer is initial impressions. I have always found KW somewhat slippery and hard to trust whilst Parry strikes me as extremely mean spirited, something to with the way he curls that lip when he talks. In short they are init for themselves.

As Kirkby continues to be exposed as the Emperors New Clothes what seriously does anyone expect us fans to think?
Ste Delaney
38   Posted 06/06/2008 at 21:14:53

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i’m totally at a loss with all this. its wrecking my head. my heart says we stay at goodison til it collapses around us but my head sort of knows/accepts that we have to move. re-developing goodison would be my ideal option but how in gods name would we be able to pay for it out of our own pockets?? to accumulate the surrounding land would take ages an we’d fall further behind the top 4 while that was happening. then shutting certain stands down while they were re-built would, as has been mentioned, put a huge dent in revenue so i cant see the everton board going for that. even if this whole kirkby fiasco does go tit’s up which i think is a real possibility i really wont pretend to have an answer as to where we’ll go from there. as i said i’m at a loss...
Tom Ellett
39   Posted 06/06/2008 at 21:25:24

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I have to say, its really depressing reading all these comments. Its grand aspirations versus realistic pragmatism, oh if we could only marry the two!! Sadly, unless new investment pops up in the next few months (a double edged sword in my view) I believe pragmatism may hold sway.

Nobody wants to move out of the city, nobody, and nobody wants a second rate stadium like a riverside or a reebok or a walkers, (no disrespect intended I assure you, I simply compare them to Old trafford, the emirates, St James park etc). We appear to be running out of options though for one reason or another and so we are left with only two, Kirkby or a dissintegrating Goodison. Not an envious position to be in. But my own personal feeling is that to compromise on such a large decision at such a vital time in the Clubs history would be wrong and potentially disasterous. I usually find that if you wait long enough, something happens. What that something could be I couldn’t tell you, but I’d rather gamble than surrender to a mediocre fate that would surely befall us in Kirkby.
Derek Turnbull
40   Posted 06/06/2008 at 21:38:16

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Re Colin Wordsworth: if the club have built the new stadium with the intent of improving the atmosphere then they haven’t spent more than one second thinking about it!.

It is a non-overlapping double tiered stand separated by executive boxes!! Evertonians have beenwriting in to Liverpool on the sly trying to encourage them to have that as their new kop! That’s how bad they are!! And we end up getting it! They’ve been upto the same trick and our board fell for it!!

They only really came to the fore after the Taylor Report, at this time it was not anticipated that fans would try and stand in front of their seat as that’s such an important key to atmosphere. The non-overlapping tier doesn’t work because it inhibits this action. Standing can often occur in the front row causing the rest to stand, as this action occurs a number of times in a game, it’s easy for the singers to retain the standing and if directly under the roof then this is ideal for atmosphere. However, a break in tiers stops this. The singers at the back, if in the lower, won’t retain the standing as there’s a low lying exec box behind them and also the roof is too far above to reverberate the songs. The singers cant go in the upper, it’s too hard to get the standing going. Eg, are you going to form the front row of standing??, The fans are also split in two, as separate factions, you just don’t get the entire stand standing as one.

Whether we like to admit it or not, the kop is a superior design for atmosphere as it’s a large single tier. An overlapping double tier is next. Kirkby is neither.
Danny Naylor
41   Posted 06/06/2008 at 22:10:43

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Steven Leonard - good lad for pulling what the report says, that they are satisfied.

Has anyone thought that the quotes pulled up in this article are basically suggestions by KBC to utilise its surrounds and certain design aspects (which all seem aesthetic rather than that it wont be feesible to build) that could be improved?
Colin Wordsworth
42   Posted 06/06/2008 at 22:29:58

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Derek

I can only tell you what I have been told!

I am no engineer, so I bow to your superior knowledge.

But, we don’t want to copy the kop!
Bilbo Baggins
43   Posted 06/06/2008 at 22:15:14

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What does my head in, is the ex players not coming out publicly and slating the kirkby move. I have spoken to Ratcliffe Ried and Heath over the last year and each one of them are disgusted at the thought of EFC moving out of the city let alone moving to a peice of lego.
Sheedy and Sharp are both against it too but because there on the payrole they wont come out publicly.
As far as I am aware there is only Big Nev who has had the balls to say anything about the issue.
Shame on you Stubbs and Cahill, keep your opinions to your self, its us who will have to suffer in future years if this thing ever gets the go ahead.
Derek Turnbull
44   Posted 06/06/2008 at 22:37:41

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Hi Colin, we could argue that we’re copying their Centenary Stand!

I want the best design, Nil Satis Nisi Optimum. To dismiss a superior stand in favour of an inferior stand just because Liverpool have it is a bit silly to me. What Liverpool do is their business. (By the way, I don’t want the smell replicated!)

When it’s built we are going to have new generations of Blues coming through who are not (physically) aware of Goodison, they won’t know any different. Are we to teach them our bitterness, or are we going to compete? The next generation of Evertonians could be laughing at Liverpool cos they’ve only got one large single tier. We’d have 2!

Say Liverpool did not have that design, would you feel more at ease with it?

Another thing to consider is this. If we were to ever expand, we could design it to hold an extra tier. This extra tier would overlap the original Single tiered End Stand to form the ultimate Gwladys Street!

The difference then would be that the amplification for the original tier would be povided by the underside of the new tier. It would cover about a fifth of the stand rather than all of it, albeit the most important fifth! So it would still be a good stand
Colin Wordsworth
45   Posted 06/06/2008 at 23:03:20

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Derek

I feel we just need our own identity, to replicate the kop would be a mistake.

Call me silly...many have...and worse!, but i would hate the new stadium to look anything like the carbunkle on the park!

Bob Parrington
46   Posted 06/06/2008 at 23:14:50

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The ground move subject is going to stay with this site for a long time, even when it has been built (wherever). Personally, I don’t like the idea of a move to Kirkby but I’ve lived in Australia now for over 20 years and get back a couple of times each season to watch The Toffees. So, I think the locals have more say than I do on this subject.

At the risk of the wrath of many (even most) supporters I would like to ask why the ’shared’ stadium idea hasn’t had more investigation. OK I understand the feelings of not really wanting to share with the red sh. Notmy favourite colour either. But, shared stadiums have worked elsewhere.
Here in Oz (no wizard jokes, please) we have that strange aerial ping pong game called Aussie Rules Football. There’s plenty of passion and regularly it attracts crowds of 70,000 plus. Sharing of stadiums is relatively common but it doesn’t seem to reduce the passion.

What this does is reduce the massive capital cost of having a good quality stadium. Some have multi-sport usage - Rugby, Cricket, soccer (sorry - er, proper football).

I would like to see Everton stay within the city. I don’t like the plans for a move to Kirkby. Is the shared stadium idea really a non-starter?
Derek Turnbull
47   Posted 06/06/2008 at 23:55:05

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Colin I agree that identity is important, but not at the expense of quality. If identity was more important, no-one would even be discussing the stadium issue, there’d be no talk of new stadiums.


Quality and identity can exist together though. The Archibald Leitch criss-crosses can be replicated on the side stands. The old Main Stand gable can also be replicated.

If need be, the large single tier can be viewed as the lower tier of an eventual two tiered overlapping stand after expansion.

Don’t forget as well, the more tiers on an End Stand the more filtered the sound is. The maximum you want is 2 tiers behind the goal. If Kirkby does prove successful and we do end up having a choice over expansion via additional tiers, we’d end up with 3 tiers for an End Stand! Not acceptable. Start off on one, then go to two.

At the end of the day, our motto to aspire to is Nil Satis Nisi Optimum. A large single tier is just that. Single tiers are not as alien to Everton as people may realise. For the first 60 years of our existence our main End was single tiered, it then expanded to add a second overlapping tier.
stephen williams
48   Posted 07/06/2008 at 01:28:02

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tony marsh are you a red or just takin the piss what ever your taking its not working who on earth do you think would do a better job virtually every supporter around the uk I speak to rates davey moyes and thinks hes doing a good job when he has 20m+ to spend on one player then he can be judged if it was,nt for torres benethus would be out of a job now and we would have qualified for the CL twice in 4 yrs but after all the games with a small squad we run out of steam go buy a fishing rod mate
football aint your sport

Paul Gladwell
49   Posted 07/06/2008 at 09:04:01

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Mr Baggins the big fella came out and said his piece against it and our manager said as much as he possibly could about favouring redevelopment, as for the Cahill and Stubbs shouts, I wonder who put them upto that? not that either will be too arsed when it is built, Stubbs will probably be living in Magaluff with Ferguson and Cahill could be anywhere.
Neil Adderley
50   Posted 07/06/2008 at 10:57:27

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Stephen Leonard
Posted 06/06/2008 at 16:15:09 David Thompson provides an incomplete (and so misleading) quote concerning the stadium from the Knowsley Planning report. Immediately after the paragraph he quotes headed "stadium" is

"However, within those constraints, it is your officers? view that considerable efforts have been made to create an attractive design of building. In particular, each elevation is marked by capped tower structures (four on each of the longer side elevations and three on the shorter end elevations) that extend along the majority of the underside of each stand. These features help to break up the overall mass of the building, create visual interest and provide an effective means of masking the main entrance stairways, lifts and upper level circulation. They are further aided in this task by steel columns that project from above the towers and through the stadium roof, the overhanging roof and supporting cables. The corners of the stadium have been infilled, with a combination of high level glazing and a curved fascia, to resolve and add visual interest to the junction between each stand. Overall, the design of the stadium is considered to be an appropriate response to the brief."

Steve - If this is the best the Knowsley planners can come up with to promote the "positives" of the stadium, then it only serves to underline exactly how bog standard it would be. And not only the stadium. The approach, the setting and the lack of understanding of how people will move around the stadium have all been critisised. Design quality should be informed and comply with national planning policy (PPS1), as made clear by the Knowsley planners in their design report and in a earlier report by CABE - this development does not comply with quality design policy.

"Overall, the design of the stadium is considered to be an appropriate response to the brief."

What was it Keith Wyness said again? Oh yeah; "a world class stadium."

Never was and never would be.
Neil Pearse
51   Posted 07/06/2008 at 12:00:06

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Because - as all about the wilfully ignorant and self-deluded surely know by now - WE CANNOT AFFORD A WORLD CLASS STADIUM.

What is SO difficult to understand about this after all these months?

As the saying goes - ’denial’ is not only the name of a river in Egypt.
Tom Hughes
52   Posted 07/06/2008 at 12:15:22

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Neil,
So why sell it as such in the ballot literature and in the media for weeks before? We didn’t say it was going to be world class, the club did! What is so difficult to understand about that? Thousands of votes were gained off the back of this and all the other totally unsubstantiated promotional statements. None of which have come to fruition!

Redevelopment can produce something unique. A combination of classic and contemporary on one of the most historic football sites in the world. Kirkby can NEVER achieve this, and CANNOT be realised in afforadable incrimental stages.

Denial?
Alan Willo
53   Posted 07/06/2008 at 12:00:39

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At last a decent debate about the stadium, we can try whatever methods or designs they like but we will always have a different choice as it's personal. We have the option to fill in the corners at a later stage (subject to planning) so this gives us room for growth should it be needed.

Everybody keeps on about the singing at GP, apart from the odd game it's crap! We have crap songs and not many of them, and that "If you know your history" has to the worst of them all. I refuse to sing it at all times, especially when they play it on the PA system. Please play Z-Cars at the start of the second half!! Me and my mates run out at the end to avoid it, very cringeworthy!!

Any suggestion on new songs? Did anybody see BBC 2 last night and the lack of mentioning EFC in a programme about the City, Alexi Sayle even said "walk on" unites the whole city, I feel off my chair!!! COYB

Neil Pearse
54   Posted 07/06/2008 at 12:22:58

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Gavin and others - repeating endlessly that there MUST be other alternatives to Kirkby (wilfully ignored by BK and KW for utterly obscure reasons), really does not make it so.

By your own admission, we can scarcely afford Kirkby. As a matter of simple logic (think about it) - how could we therefore possibly afford a better quality stadium in a better location? Do more expensive stadiums in more expensive locations cost less in your world?

You are endlessly repeating: we cannot afford Kirkby, but we can afford something better. It is a complete and utter contradiction.
Neil Pearse
55   Posted 07/06/2008 at 12:34:29

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Tom, I am utterly bored discussing what KW did or did not say at any particular point in time. If he said we were going to get a world class stadium, he was wrong because we can’t afford one. Fine. He shouldn’t have said it. I didn’t vote yes because he said it. This is all past now anyway. So let’s get to the real issues.

The important thing for our club is not what KW said months ago, it is the real options in the real world that we have NOW. Since you have never argued to my knowledge that we can afford anything else apart from redeveloping GP (e.g. the fantasy Loop or any other such nonsense that won’t happen and we can’t afford), the issue between us is always the same: Kirkby or GP.

The arguments between us are well rehearsed. I believe that the cost / revenue equation of Kirkby will be better than redeveloping GP. And I don’t want to stay in the shadow of the new LFC monstrosity in Stanley Park. I have always said that redeveloping GP is obviously an option. My usual point is that - apart from sharing with LFC which I favour - there are no other options. And there still aren’t because we are too poor to afford them.
Tom Hughes
56   Posted 07/06/2008 at 13:13:45

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Neil,
It has a lot to do with what the club said.... We wouldn’t be having this debate now since far less would have voted for Kirkby, and far more would have voted NO without those scandalously innacurate statements!

I’m not bothered by any LFC shadow. Anfield lived in the shadow of GP for generations.... didn’t stop them from prospering on the pitch. At £78m+ costs I also believe that the Loop is viable. Can’t elaborate at the mo tho!
Alan Willo
57   Posted 07/06/2008 at 13:23:38

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Tom, that last statement about the loop ? Are you like me bored with the summer break or have you been spending too much time in the Blue House!! Even KEIOC and LCC have shelved this one so please stick to real issues. COYB
Paul Murphy
58   Posted 07/06/2008 at 12:58:17

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Er... couldnt we the fans all chip in like? I don't have a season ticket but I would definately be up for setting up a direct debit for say 20 quid a month to an organisation set up to redevelop Goodison. Unless it was Keith Wyness?s!

Not sure how this post is gonna go down but before you shoot me down or get too excited, just have a think about it and wether it could work. I know not everyone could afford to chip in but I also know that many fans would throw some money in. I reckon it could be good.
Neil Adderley
59   Posted 07/06/2008 at 13:21:48

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Neil - WE CANNOT AFFORD A WORLD CLASS STADIUM.

What is SO difficult to understand about this after all these months?

Neil - for some reason you are shifting the debate back to ?crying poverty.? I think it is fair to say that your stance is one of ?Kenwright is skint - let?s settle for mediocrity (Knowsley planners words) in Kirkby.? Can I shift it another way and ask a couple of questions? (not solely aimed at you Neil);

When Keith Wyness said "world class" did he deliberately mislead Evertonians? Or, is he simply incompetent? Or is there any other logical reason?

Neil - CABE have slammed the design quality of the stadium and the whole masterplan, as have Knowsley?s own officers. If this ?monstrosity? ever see?s the light of day, it will be the home of EFC for the next 50/60/100 years. That is an awful long time to settle for mediocrity purely on the basis that Bill Kenwright is skint.
Neil Pearse
60   Posted 07/06/2008 at 13:55:46

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Neil - on the KW issue, as I have said, i just don’t care to be honest. To anyone but an idiot it was obvious that KW was very much in favour of Kirkby and was talking it up. Given that apart from GP there aren’t any other alternatives which we can afford, he actually had a point. As I have said, I don’t think he should have said it because it is not true. But it does not affect the choices we have now, so is completely irrelevant unless you simply want to bash Wyness.

On the stadium, of course we should make it the best it can possibly be given what we can afford. But I for one am not at all surprised that it is not an iconic world class stadium. How would we afford that? Did iconic world class stadiums suddenly go down in price? (I think The Emirates cost £300M odd didn’t it?)

Yes, Neil - Everton are a poor club in financial terms. Sorry to break the news to you. Continue to believe that we are rich if you like; or that riches are just around the corner (much more likely actually if we have a new ground in place). But we are in fact poor. Any discussion that does not start here is basically hot air. It would be like me wondering endlessly whether I should go to Martinique or Barbados on my hols this year (I am not close to affording either).

All the major problems with Kirkby - and the fact that we have to go there in the first place - are because we are poor. If we were rich we would be building a world class iconic stadium somewhere in the city. Of course. BK would do that in a heartbeat. And Keith Wyness would be then be getting a REALLY BIG BONUS. But we are poor. That is why we are all discussing Kirkby.

We are not going to Kirkby because BK and KW have fallen in love with an underdeveloped suburb of Merseyside. We are not going because KW will get a bonus or BK’s shares will go up in value. They would both inevitably benefit much more if we were richer and about to build a much grander stadium in a much more prestigious location. Obviously.

We are going to Kirkby because we are poor. For God’s sake, can we at last accept this and have a proper discussion?
Neil Pearse
61   Posted 07/06/2008 at 14:14:45

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And Tom - I am bothered by living in LFC’s shadow right next to Stanley Park. We will look like a very poor relation indeed. I would rather have our own place in Kirkby.
Neil Adderley
62   Posted 07/06/2008 at 14:16:41

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Neil - your nonchelant dismissal of the lies Wyness et al sold the ballot on is baffling. Even more so because despite you admiting you knew he was lying and then voting ’yes’, you expect the Evertonians who did not fall for those deliberate mistruths and misinformation, to treat them as irrelevancies and then go on to brand god knows how many Evertonians who trusted the words of the CEO as ’idiots.’

Can you explain the logic behind that Neil?

You may feel that it ’does not effect your choice’ but it does mine and I’m sure thousands of other Evertonians who have come to realise the type of ’business’ man Keith Wyness really is.

Thousands were sold a pup Neil - the difference with you it seems, is that you knew exactly what you were buying in to; mediocrity. I find that thinking hard to fathom.
Neil Pearse
63   Posted 07/06/2008 at 14:44:09

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Neil - I said Wyness was obviously "talking up" Kirkby, presumably because he thought and still thinks it is the best thing for the club. I said nothing about "lies and misinformation". You said that.

More importantly, it is you, in common with most dismissive Nos, who assume that the only reason people voted Yes was because they "fell for the lies". Perhaps they voted Yes because, like me, they made their own judgements and decided that all things considered Kirkby seemed the best thing for the club? It is not only No voters who are capable of making up their own minds, you know!

Nor did I think, or do I think, that I was "buying into mediocrity". What I thought, and what I still think, is that I was buying into the best deal the club were likely to get in our rather straitened circumstances. I believe that Kirkby will not be an iconic world class stadium. After that, I assume it will be as fine as we can afford to make it. It would be rather silly to ask for another more.

Anyway, all this truly is unimportant now compared to the really important matter of what our club should now do to have the best possible future. If you can explain how we have any other options than (a) Kirkby, (b) GP, or (c) a groundshare, I would love to hear how this is the case. I don’t even need a concrete option! Just an explanation of how we are rich enough to do anything apart from (a) to (c).
Neil Adderley
64   Posted 07/06/2008 at 14:59:37

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Neil - "As I have said, I don?t think he should have said it because it is not true."

Keith Wyness has systematically (and very publicly) dismissed any other option than Kirkby for one reason only;



From the Tesco planning application;

?If an alternative viable site for a stadium could be found then the need
for the massive retail element in Kirkby could not be justified."

When, after having dismissed the Scotland Rd site on the basis that it couldn’t go beyond a 35k capacity, only later to proved wrong by world leaders HOK, Keith Wyness claimed that the site was not suitable due to the fact that it could not be expanded to a capacity of 70k.

From the Tesco planning application;

14. No event shall take place at the Stadium with an attendance in excess of
50,401 people.

Wyness lied Neil and yet you choose to believe there are no other options because he says so.

Here, with apparently your eyes wide open Neil, is an example of what you believe to be a part of the best deal for EFC;



(Knowsley) officers are disappointed that the design
does not incorporate a stronger urban form based on sound design principles.
Officers advised that the main visual impact of the development would arise from a
combination of the stadium?s size and siting and the regrettable loss of the
attractive wooded area adjoining Valley Road. There will inevitably be some
harmful visual impacts, most particularly the outlook from nearby housing areas
and overshadowing. The stadium will, though, create a visual landmark.
Landscaping proposed within the site, on approaches to the site and along Kirkby
Brook will aid the visual integration of the stadium. Within the development the
design and quality of the landscaping and public realm, whilst creating some points
of visual interest, disappoints when measured against sound urban design
principles and the expectations of policy.
Neil Pearse
65   Posted 07/06/2008 at 15:39:46

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Neil, none of this proves that Kirkby is not the best option that we can afford. It just shows that Kirkby is not going to be an iconic world class stadium (news only it seems to some of us), and that KW is at best incautious in some of the things he says (surely no longer news to any of us).

I care most about Everton Football Club and its future. I am not that interested to be honest in a forensic examination of the sayings of KW. To me he is obviously now, and has always been, supporting the Kirkby case in any way he can. This does not make Kirkby a bad idea, although it may make Wyness a low integrity businessman. In which case he will be in good company with most of the rest of the owners and executives of Premier League clubs - better than some, perhaps worse than others. I don’t expect such people to be saints.

This all reminds me of the endlessly irrelevant and boring debate as to whether Tony Blair lied over Iraq. To be honest, I don’t much care. I DO care very much that he was indirectly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. I think he should be banged up in prison for that for the rest of his days.

So instead of treading over old and pretty irrelevant ground about what someone might have said and meant at some point now in the past, why not use your energy instead explaining how any other option that we can afford is going to be better for the club than Kirkby? THAT would be adding usefully to creating a better future for the club that we both support.
Neil Pearse
66   Posted 07/06/2008 at 15:57:29

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Neil, I do get insulted when you say "you choose to believe there are no other options because he says so". Why do you keep repeating this? Do you believe it? Do you believe that I cannot think for myself? If not, why keep insulting me?

Once more: I believe there are no other options because I have my own mind and on that basis I cannot see how we could afford any options other than a relatively inexpensive option like Kirkby.

It’s not complicated. I don’t need Keith Wyness to tell me that if I am not very rich I can’t buy a Porsche. And neither should you.
Neil Pearse
67   Posted 07/06/2008 at 16:08:52

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Since we have got into a good and productive argument here, Neil (thank you for that!), I really am curious to ask you: if not Kirkby, what DO you think we should do and why? This really is the only topic I am that interested in.

We are wasting far too much time on what Keith and Bill said in the past, and how it might square with what is happening now. Who cares? Does this get us closer to having a better option for the future of Everton Football Club? (And, by the way, on big projects, things change. Ask the guys who re-built Wembley!) Cheers!
Dave Wilson
68   Posted 07/06/2008 at 15:11:08

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Neil (Pearce)

I have read your regular post?s with interest, though I?ve never agreed with you, I admire the way you?ve fought your corner with patience and dignity

I have in front of me the glossy brochure the club sent me with my ballot paper. To say the board "talked up " Kirkby, is a massive understatement. The boastful claims in the brochure are unrecognisable to what?s actually on offer. Are you really sugesting the people who voted Yes would do so again, if they were not so mislead? I really don't understand how you can believe that these claims are in the past and don't matter anymore, these claims may well shape our future.

I know we?re skint Neil, but tell me you're not prepared to accept that in our future, we will be percieved as a middle-of-the-road club with a middle-of-the-road ground ? even by our own fans.

Neil Pearse
69   Posted 07/06/2008 at 16:40:25

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Dave, it certainly could be the case that the vote would go differently with different presentation. Maybe it is hard for me to say, because I voted Yes for different reasons than the glossy brochure! As I hope is pretty evident by now. I could equally say that, if the club had been prepared to be more honest about our real financial position, maybe more people would have voted for Kirkby (they would have known that we could not afford anything else).

This will probably be pretty enraging for most readers of the this site, but I actually believe that Wyness was overstating but basically correct in the two most important things that he said. There IS ’no plan B’ in terms of another new stadium that we can afford. Even many No voters on this site admit this now by doubting that we can even afford Kirkby. And, while it would be certainly pushing it to say that Kirkby is ’the deal of the century’, if we do indeed get a brand new 50,000 capacity stadium for in the region of £50M borrowings, that would by any standards constiute a pretty impressive deal.

I guess my point is that, all the rhetoric on all sides apart, the important issue is what ACTUALLY is the best option for the club in the situation we are in right now. You are very right to say that it may be the case that we will be perceived as ’middle of the road’. I guess all I can keep repeating is: maybe that is all we can afford? Believe me, I would love to be building our own ground for £250M+ on Stanley Park!

Perhaps more optimistically, I think if the team is thriving on the pitch, and we are getting sell out 50,000 crowds (not at all impossible), Kirkby really won’t seem so bad after all. We will still be Everton.
Neil Pearse
70   Posted 07/06/2008 at 16:56:13

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My final point. We will certainly be perceived as a ’middle of the road’ club if we are still sitting in GP right next to the gleaming monolith which will be the iconic world class stadium of our dear Red friends. Visiting supporters will troop past it on their way to little old Goodison...

We really are between a rock and a hard place. That’s what being poor does for you. We can poor in GP or we can be poor in Kirkby. It’s unfortunately not a great choice.
Karl Masters
71   Posted 07/06/2008 at 17:12:52

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Neil Pearse? Why are you so afraid of Liverpool and their new stadium? Do you really believe that Everton will shrivel and die because those 2 Yanks have borrowed £400m and built a stadium?

There are so many possibilities. For a start, with that level of borrowing, who is to say that LFC won’t end up in the sh17 burdened with massive debts? Away fans would probably be chuckling at their stupidity whilst they made their way to a reveloped Goodison and saying, ’ why didn’t they just do waht Everton did?’

And if you think that is being optimistic, how about a touch of the reality you keep claiming is what your argument is all about? Aston Villa ( pre Randy Lerner ) rebuilt 3 sides of Villa Park between 1993 and 2003. They increased capacity, they increased corporate facilities and they managed to maintain a similar feel to the place as the old Villa Park. This included increasing the footprint of the Witton Lane stand, demolishing houses re-siting the road. They did not get relegated and in fact won a Cup and stayed in the top half of the Premiership for virtually all that time.

For all Doug Ellis’ faults he had a vision, he got on with it and he made it happen. That is precisely what Everton should have done and still could do.

It is also worth saying that Villa do not have a much bigger turnover than EFC despite all the corporate facilities and corporate facilities are about all tht Kirkby has over Goodison at present anyway. Villa and Everton are very similar clubs, except if anything we are even bigger. So just why can we not do what they have done?

Kirkby - short term gain. long term loss.
Redevelop Goodison / shared stadium - short term loss, long term gain.

Just think about it.
danny naylor
72   Posted 07/06/2008 at 17:37:53

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All the councils are at each others throat, they dont like each other and disagree all the time.

LCC, Sefton, St Helens (where Tesco’s are doing redevelpomet in) all dont want 300mill spent on Kirkby because it drops Sefton el all down the consumer ladder or they could lose money.

The RS have no money (minus loans etc) but can get proposals passed to build a 300+mill stadium on Standly Park, as well as a megastore in the centre of town.

LCC gave us the knock back and havent helped in finding a new area to build on.

A move to Speke can fuck right off. Scotty Road is a no. Loop hole is fantasy.

A government call could bring the whole thing in and take up to a year to finish. Meanwhile, cost goes up, nothing has been progressed, Tesco’s pull out, whole thing falls through.

EFC hasnt the money to redevelope Goodison. If they did, they would.

Season 2010/2011 - LFC has a new staidum a stone throw away.

EFC are still in a crumbling Goodison Park.



Any suggestions from a millionaire, a world class building contractor, a planning commitee etc with time on their hands that can see EFC making big money from a giving the club a new ground, are much aapreciated.
Gavin Ramejkis
73   Posted 07/06/2008 at 18:30:28

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Neil P a few points you seem to read between the lines so pointing out once and for all so as to help

I find Kirkby wrong because:

wrong location - a small town that is even smaller than Skelmersdale and never supported anything beyond a Northern Counties side and even that died a death after having to move to Huyton

insufficient transport - a small town expecting to handle more visitors in a few hours every second Saturday than live in it’s entirety

wrong stadium - a mediocre stadium that will be built on the cheap and put the club at least £78m more in debt (£78m being the figure the club provided when the full retail proposal was still going ahead, it does include the sale of GP which is mortgaged so unlikely to raise vast amounts and the naming rights again unlikely to set the world alight with a mediocre stadium in a small town)

The claims you keep making to say no voters are now claiming double negatives over needing to spend more and can’t afford Kirkby is a little rash as all along many of us have asked for proof of why alternative plans have been written off, the first part of any sane project is to define why a route has been taken and all alternatives given reasons for not being chosen/dismissed, we have asked why if the club has to lend over £78m then what is the difference of spending it in Kirby as opposed to other sites including Goodison Park which the club has refused point blank to even discuss.

I usually value your viewpoints as reasonable diatribes but you appear to be losing direction.
David Thompson
74   Posted 07/06/2008 at 18:11:34

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A couple of points:

With regard to the passage concerning the ’dressing up’ of the stadium, the planners are clear - it’s the best that can be done with a poor design. You can plish a turd, but it will still be a turd.

In terms of the assertions made on the official website, I contacted the club this week to ask them if they would be amending the answers in the ’Stadium FAQ’s’ that had now proved to be incorrect, such as concerts/no concerts.

The answer I received was that they were aware of all this, but would not be making any changes to the site until after the planning application process was completed.

After all, it’s worked in fooling so many people so far, so why give up now?
Gavin Ramejkis
75   Posted 07/06/2008 at 18:43:21

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Why do people continue to spout about living under the shadow of the RS we have lived under the shadow of Analfield for decades; how many cups and titles over the last nearly 40 years have they paraded in the city, victory nights at Analfield and have we shrunk away like a shithouse rat to a backwater? So why now, because a CEO from some Scottish team which he tried the same trick on?
Bob Turner
76   Posted 07/06/2008 at 19:26:54

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Gavin,

You keep banging on that, because GP is mortgaged, its sale is unlikely to raise vast amounts.

You do this, despite it being pointed out to you on a thread some time ago (can’t remember who it was now, but no doubt, because it was a "No" voter, the point got ignored) that the sale price of GP has nothing to do with whether GP is owned or mortgaged.

The buyer doesn’t care whether it’s mortgaged or not, its value is down to what the buyer plans to do with the property.

What would happen is that the value outstanding on the mortgage would follow onto the new property - otherwise none of us would be able to move house, would we?


Contrary to your claim that Neil is "losing direction", you are quite clearly sticking to your direction on this point - repeat it often enough, and it becomes "fact".

As for your speculation on the value of the naming rights, my OPINION (because again we don’t know what, if any, negotiations may have taken place between Everton and any prospective sponsor) is that the value of such naming rights would be more based on the success of the Everton team than the quality and location of any stadium we might build. It is as a sponsor of Everton’s ground that will provide value to any sponsor, not necessarily to the stadium itself.
Karl Masters
77   Posted 07/06/2008 at 20:14:19

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Bob Turner:

If we transfer the debt it’s still a debt isn’t it? If we use £15m ( optimistic ) raised from Goodison to pay back the mortgage on it, you can’t also deduct it from the cost of Kirkby - you can’t use it twice!

In debt £50m now. Add on £78m ( but we know it’ll end up at £100m anyway ) andwe are about £150m in debt. Take off £9m for Bellefield and an initial £5m ( and that’s about all we’d get, the rest being spread over the lifetime of the deal ) and we’ll be about £136m in debt, in a mediocre stadium in a small town with abysmal transport links and a divided fan base.

Is that real worth it just for a few extra seats ( that will be further from the pitch than now so bring your binoculars ), some cheesy lounges and no pillars? There may be extra corporate revenue, maybe not, but even if there is it won’t even cover the interest on the extra debt. An extra £10m a season for Moyesie? Like fuck! Plus the One Club One City shite and miserable matchday experience queueing for park and rides for you and me. Expect Wyness wil be long gone too by the way.

Or, we could start redeveloping in sensible, phased stages which would eventually bring Goodison up to the required standard. Or, if you want something more ambitious there is stil the logical and sane prospect of a groundshare.
Ian Hewitt
78   Posted 07/06/2008 at 19:50:04

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Speaking from a design point of view; the simple designs are the best. GP is no longer the world beating design it once was, but it’s the fan’s, the people that make my club what it is, a club to be proud of.

Speaking as a realist; we do not have the money to go out build a stadium that would win awards, so we have to make do with the design we have because we have no Russian sugar daddy (yet) to provide us with means to buy one. Anyway, look at Wembley, looks great, but at what cost? How long will it take to pay that money pit off?

We do not have the backing or the willingness of help from Liverpool (fucking) council to keep us in the City boundaries , which is what we all want, so again we settle for the next best thing.

So what are we to do? No one will allow the room to build a stadium in Liverpool, we don’t have the money to build a new one that will make people coo and revel in is architectural merits. We will have something new that is unlike anything any other new stadium in the country. Its not the design of the stadium that makes the club, it’s the team, the management and more importantly the fans that make the club.

We are told that GP cannot be refurbished, I will find it hard to let it go but business cares little for sentiment, it care only for success.

As far as the new name of the stadium goes are we not junping the gun a little, planning hasn’t been agreed yet alone the name. As long as the don’ t call it the Tesco sadium........, although I can see us with "Finest" on our shirts!

We will do what we do every week and sing our hearts out to the club we love were ever we end up as our new home.
Dave Wilson
79   Posted 07/06/2008 at 19:43:56

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Neil

I’ll accept your point about dealing with the here and now, no good crying over spilt milk, as they say
I also agree if the board put their cards on the table from day one, we may all have given much greater support, but they didnt and we dont



Middle of the road stadia will only ever generate middle of the road revenue, so why would anyone hope that by moving to Kirkby that we will generate enough money to compete with the big boys ?

A move to Kirkby would be irreversable and would condem our great club to a future were its greatest ambition could only ever be, to stay a "middle of the road club" thats always providing it doesnt break us financially



Opening match was crap but I had Czech Rep to win 1-0, already had the Derby winner today, if I carry on like this I’ll be able to buy four big fuck off stands for GP
Tom Hughes
80   Posted 07/06/2008 at 21:50:25

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Alan Willo,
Hasn’t he bluehouse been shut for years?

I don’t believe anyone would be dropping the Loop option if it had been allowed or encouraged to develop for longer than a few weeks.
Neil Pearse
81   Posted 07/06/2008 at 21:37:00

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Gavin, I’m afraid it is you losing direction now! (I know this is getting tiring for all of us.)

Your first point about Kirkby being a small town that can’t support a big team is simply ridiculous, and I can hardly believe you are making it. When did they pass a law saying that only people living in Kirkby were allowed to go to the new stadium? You and I both know that of course the catchment area for the new stadium is the whole of the North West (oh, and London in my case...).

You are factually wrong and contradictory still on the costs. The £78M does not include any money we get for selling Goodison, naming rights etc.. So it will be less. You know this, but keep repeating the wrong number for reasons best known to yourself.

You are contradictory because you keep saying that you want a better stadium in a more prestigious location than Kirkby - but maybe it will cost less. It won’t. That’s why all the alternatives (apart granted from developing GP) make no sense. They will be more expensive than Kirkby and so we can’t afford them. As you in effect have already admitted since you keep worrying about whether we can afford Kirkby. You want more than a ’mediocre’ stadium. Seriously Gavin, isn’t that going to cost more money? Since when did BMWs cost less than Nissans? Asking for proof all the time is like asking for proof that Lukas Jutkiewicz is taller than Leon Osman (and insisting on KEIOC representation at the measuring).

You think it might somehow be cheaper to build a world class stadium with an unsupportive council and a no-name enabling partner in the city, than a standard stadium in Kirkby with Tescos and a council that desperately wants us there? Have the laws of economics been recently suspended?

You and I simply disagree about whether Kirkby will generate more money tha a refurbished GP, so there’s no real point going there.

Karl on ’living in the shadow of Liverpool’. I don’t think you quite get that we will almost literally be living under their shadow if we stay at GP. My point was in response to Dave’s that we will be a lesser, ’middle of the road’ club if we go to Kirkby. Well, we will be just as much so if we are next to Liverpool’s fuck off stadium still in GP. Perhaps even more visibly so.

Imagine if say a refurbished Upton Park was a few hundred yards away from The Emirates. You’d really think West Ham were a top team wouldn’t you?
Neil Pearse
82   Posted 07/06/2008 at 22:02:01

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By the way Karl, I think you and I are in full agreement that the best option of all is a ground share. When both clubs are struggling to pay off their respective debts in years to come, people will be scratching their heads in disbelief that they didn’t decide to share.
Tom Hughes
83   Posted 07/06/2008 at 21:55:13

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Neil,

"And Tom - I am bothered by living in LFC?s shadow right next to Stanley Park. We will look like a very poor relation indeed. I would rather have our own place in Kirkby."

That’s funny because so would they. They wouldn’t have to keep up with the Jones’s when we’ve left their street (city). Out of sight, out of mind!

However, another definition of poor relation might be...... having to share our home with a supermarket in a small overflow housing estate, out in the sticks when the Top dogs have seized the middle-ground in a vibrant city in full rennaisance!

Stay close to your friends, but closer still to your enemies. In Kirkby we do neither!

We can all play with analogies, metaphors and cliches but they mean very little without backing. If GP was developed in situ. The Park-end might be the first phase. This will be the structure facing the park and whatever LFC are going to produce there. This can be as monumental and as tall as any part of their stadium.... no shadow cast by the new anfield will engulf it..... physically, and certainly not historically. Likewise, a new tier behind the Bullens will also face the park, and will be a similar height to the Top Balcony. Therefore one, or certainly 2 new stands (or even just 2 new tiers to these existing stands) can give us all that Kirkby promises and more! This could represent as little as 11-13,000 new seats (taking into account losing 5-7 rearmost rows in the lower Bullens). Cost would be £2-5k per seat dependent on format and exec box inclusion and fit out. Similarly, the Goodison road side and Gwladys street could be reroofed removing all upper tier obstructions..... cost £3-6m per stand.

Result would be continuity in terms of history/tradition/location/infrastructure etc, and possibly the finest example of traditional and contemporary football stadium design in the world..... casting far bigger shadows over the heathen hoardes than Kirkby ever can!
Rachael Esther
84   Posted 07/06/2008 at 22:19:57

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anyone who thinks the move to kirkby is a good idea and is the best plan to take this famous club forward is deluded its a fucking disaster waiting to happen,the stadium looks like some lower division shed,so will the bully apologists stop trying to fucking kid themselves its our only alternative,the redevelopment of GP is the best way forward and dont try and feed me the shit about it failing the safety requirements,thats more bullyshit,opinion about kirkby has now turned totally against and the sooner that phoney wyness leaves the club the better.
Danny Naylor
85   Posted 07/06/2008 at 22:46:38

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Maybe I?m not keeping up with everything but....

Where does EFC get the money for redeveloping Goodison?
Neil Pearse
86   Posted 07/06/2008 at 22:48:03

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Tom, I hesitate to ask this, but after all this time I think I will. You always present the refurbishment of Goodison as if is so blindingly obviously the thing do. Only a fool could object. Huge benefits, no need to interrupt revenues much as building proceeds, low costs of rebuild etc. etc.. Given all this, why do you think that the Board at Everton are not going to do it?

Please please don’t say anything silly like ’Keith Wyness’s bonus’ or ’Kenwright’s share price’. The first simply begs the question of why the Board would grant him a bonus for Kirkby (if indeed he has one!) if redeveloping Goodison was so much a better option. They would grant him a bonus for redeveloping Goodison instead.

And of course the value of BK’s shares only goes up if the value of the club goes up. If redeveloping GP was SO much the better option for the financial health of the club, then the value of BK’s shares would go up more on this option than on the option of moving to Kirkby (unless the laws of economics have been suspended here too as well as in the area of basic stadium economics).

So putting aside self-interest since those arguments are obviously silly, why do you think they are not redeveloping GP? Why do they think that it doesn’t make financial sense for the club?
Neil Pearse
87   Posted 07/06/2008 at 22:59:49

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Danny, the simple answer is that they would borrow the money, just as they would have to borrow money to build Kirkby. On the GP option, the club would by definition not get any contribution from the sale of GP (although nobody seems to know very reliably what that would be anyway).

Also of course on the GP option, since the club would be doing it alone, it would not get the benefit from Tesco’s huge buying power in driving down construction costs. But given that it seems pretty plausible to believe that rebuilding GP would cost less than building Kirkby for the club, this would not be a major negative factor.
Derek Turnbull
88   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:01:55

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Tom Hughes - hypothetical question for you. If all hope was lost for anything but a new stadium in Kirkby, ie. the point of no return was reached, what would you change about the design of the Kirkby stadium?

Generations of future Blues may very well grow up not knowing anything other than than the Kirkby stadium presuming it goes ahead. Goodison will be just something they’ve read in a book or heard their parents talk about, so there may well come a point (and we may have passed it already) where we have to focus on the Kirkby design and make sure future blues have something worthwhile, once it’s built we will all have to put up with it for ever.

Colin Wordsworth
89   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:08:18

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Neil

to rebuild Goodison properly, instead of like a mickey mouse add on would cost far far more than Kirkby.

And would we get the planning passed?

I think the proper genuine alternatives are becoming less and less!
Neil Pearse
90   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:16:31

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These could of course be the reasons we are not going to do it Colin - that the Board thinks it costs too much and so we can’t afford it, and anyway getting the planning permission would be difficult. But I’d love to hear from Tom on this, since he has obviously done a lot of work on it
Danny Naylor
91   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:09:38

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But what if the cost of redevelopment is more than £78million and goes over schedule? We?ll be playing on a building site... Won't that pull down revenue from gate reciepts?

It's not just the stands, its the facilites (toilets etc), the space to expand, the buyout of the residencial area.
Tom Hughes
92   Posted 07/06/2008 at 22:48:23

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Neil,
£78m is the minimum that Kirkby will cost EFC. Construction costs are only approx £100m with the rest of the value made up of land acquisition etc. We are infact paying for 3/4 of this stadium. Where is the amazing bargain? Where is the bargain at all especially considering the location is grossly inferior in terms of transport, history and identity?

For a much smaller amount EFC can add more quality seats, and corporate facilities at GP. In doing so they needn’t cripple themselves with debt, and can test demand for new seats while slowly increasing capacity as and when required. This is the most common stadium development model that still well out numbers the "whole new stadium" route, for good reason. Tesco are not giving us a brand new stadium for nowt as WAS intimated in all the pre-vote hype. In reality they are giving us very little (nothing financially despite the yes voters continually stating their turnover at every opportunity, until recently), certainly not enough to tempt us into what is a massive gamble on all levels. At present we are probably nearer to having a truly successfull team than we have been in 2 decades, I feel that we are really only a few good players away from really challenging...... Success on the pitch is the real wealth generator, and normally preceeds unwanted capacity. GP exists now, and can be added to whenever. Why not get those players we need first, get on the real gravy train then add to our capacity. It might be a long time before the planets align again and we have the playing potential we now have.

Conversely, if that level of debt is acceptable for EFC in your opinion, why not use the same cash to build a 40-45,000 seater (the same number we’re paying for at Kirkby) on a much superior site closer to the centre of the fanbase where the vast majority of Evertonians will be able to access via sustainable mass public transport. This could have expandability built into it with phased expansion allowed for. Get planning permission for a site at either the Loop, Vauxhall or Central docks, or wherever and perhaps see who comes in for the club or with their own enablers! This would much more closely resemble a genuine process to discover the best option for the club in terms of stadia! I know and you know the club haven’t embarked on any such thing as proven by the feasibilty study for GP not existing until several months after the vote and 18 months after the exclusivity deal.
Danny Naylor
93   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:27:53

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Hypothetically then -

Tesco?s arent going to be apart of a Goodison redevelopment or a move to a site within the city.

EFC have/or can get only £78-100million to build a stadium. They would have to find another partner. Land within the city will cost more than in Kirkby, LCC will no doubt say no to everything (which last time I heard they did anyway).

£78-100 mill on its own wont pay for a "world class" stadium. A "world class" stadium would need another £200mill (in comparrison to Wembley, Emirates, Old Trafford).

Would £78-100mill cover redevelopment of GP with all the factors (area, how much that needs to rebuilt, extra transport and facilites for another 10,000 fans)?
Colin Wordsworth
94   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:38:47

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Tom

£78 mill is the maximum it will cost efc!....the max! The steel price apparently has been fixed in the deal already.

KEIOC instead of putting bogus sites up a la the crap loop should have searched the city for alternatives!.........and made a proper case, they didn?t and couldn?t!

Instead they cosied up to a politician who then put a few political stories out re groundshare etc without any foundation.

This is the problem the club had when looking, LCC couldn?t come up with the goods, and now when they feel threatened because of the probable success of the kirkby project, they being the bully council attempt to protect their own interests.....NOT EVERTON.....BUT A SHOPPING COMPLEX!!........why can?t you see through this deception?.
Colin Wordsworth
95   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:53:25

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Tom

One more point, I read recently on this site that just to redevelop the Bullens Road stand properly it would cost in excess of £60 million....just one stand!

and that was from someone who said he was a structural engineer, I think if more people realised the true costings of the alternatives to Kirkby they would realise why it was chosen!
Ian Hewitt
96   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:35:39

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Tom

With all due respect, the "loop" is a bad site to build upon. it offers no future development and as transport to town is not great, getting to it would be a nightmare. If there was another site available would it not have been made known to us by now?The council only wants development in town for apartments. 1 sqaure mile of land buys you a lot of council tax.

We can coduct feasability study after feasability study without cooperation for Liverpool council we ’aint goin’ nowhere in the boundary.

Furthermore GP has its limits, we need to tender to a bigger corporate cleintel which we cannot do at the moment. If you have some magical way to redevelop GP and increase the footprint please do tell.
Tom Hughes
97   Posted 07/06/2008 at 23:27:05

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My fellow blues,(hope you like that touch)
Didn’t refresh my screen before posting last one, so wasn’t aware so many had replied to the earlier posting.

Firstly,
Neil, I have no idea why they have chosen Kirkby without fully considering the options. I could speculate about Kenwright’s business accumen being back of the fag packet in complexity (by his own admission), or KW lining up bonuses in relation to the number of new seats he creates in Kirkby as opposed to much smaller contracts for his stadia development company if that was at a redeveloped GP..... or whatever Terry Leahy is offering etc, I really don’t know. But I do know that it is relatively easy to show that they DID NOT exhaust the options at all by virtue of the late feasibilty study, and the appearance of the Loop and WHP etc..... and god knows what else that hasn’t seen the light of day yet. Perhaps it’s just plain incompetence, but unfortunately the whole charade that was presented to the fans as supporting evidence for Kirkby makes the speculation of sinister motives all too easy to be honest and shouldn’t really cloud the main issue that after all said and done....Kirkby is: a poor location for a stadium for Everton Football club both in terms of transport and identity/future perception of the club. The Stadium is a basic cheap design which is completely featureless echoing none of the historical status contained in GP. The cost to the club means there are real options by definition which means that NONE of the headline issues supporting Kirkby at the time of the vote are still valid. I reckon if just one of these had been shot down it should have had the alarm bells ringing...... but for all of them to vanish is despicable and indicative of the farce that destination Kirkby has become. A project that growing numbers of Evertonians don’t want (IMO), and one that no surrounding authority wants!
Ian Hewitt
98   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:06:00

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Tom


Firstly.....what options? You still haven’t outlined which options we have. Where ever we build bonuses will be earned as the is the nature of construction, this is no surprise. Some of this is out of our control, the gears of business are turning and we can do little to stop it. So please if you have the answer contact BK and let him know of your wisdom.
Colin Wordsworth
99   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:03:02

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Tom

I feel your points are becoming more desperate, I know Everton searched the city with a partner to attempt to find the land for a new stadium. The parks were not offered...and please do not keep going on about the loop, it really is poor!

Of course the surrounding councils are against it, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realise that they think it will be a success!

So, will it be a bad place for a stadium......nobody knows, the potential transport problem, as we have discussed many times before can be addressed i’m sure.

As to the design, this is very much a personal thing, I think it looks good, others not, but does GP look fine?....er no!,

We have to move and look forward Tom, yes GP has fantastic history but we must move on for the greater good of the club.

It might just be the best thing to ever happen to EFC, nobody has a crystal ball!......but it does give us a chance to compete and gives us the tools to do it and increase the money streams, at the best price!.
Tom Hughes
100   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:02:22

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Colin,
The stadium construction cost might be fixed, the enabling cross funding is not and is entirely dependent on how much retail Tesco can squeeze out of the planning process. £78m correlates to the previous proposal that was 31% larger than their reduced proposal that followed to try to avoid objections. Even this exceeds the original scheme, and also the recommended retail allowance for Kirkby according to legislation by 4-500%. Therefore, it’s very likely that EFC would have to pay more than £78m.... unless Tesco foot that bill. In effect we might be paying for the whole stadium..... how big a turnaround do you want? practically nothing... to the lot!

The cost to build stands is anything from just over £1k per seat for very basic stands upto £5k per seat at the likes of the emirates with lots of variables in between. Kirkby is only about £2k per seat, how can a new tier at the rear of the existing Bullens with say 5,000 new seats cost more than £25m (more likely less than £20m). A new tier at the rear of the park end or even just an extension of this stand with say 7-10,000 seats wouldn’t cost anymore if specification for the end stand was nearer £3k per seat that’s a total of approx £50m for a 55k seater stadium. Using lower specifications, such as that for Kirkby proposal would reduce this figure further. What about enabling developments at the Park end to help fund this stand? Hotel/residential/commercial? Where are the clubs figures to show they have studied these options? Trevor Skempton is a renowned architect and has overseen the whole Grosvenor project.... he believes it is more than viable and is constant contact with the city planners, so he knows the parameters there too.
danny naylor
101   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:17:55

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How does moving to Kirkby hurt the identity and future perception of the club?

Liverpool FC dominates the city for everyone outside the city. We can bang on about history, and that will never change, but we will always be seen as the "smaller" club compared to Liverpool in the city - a new stadium in or out of the city wont change that.

The only perception of the club is the ribbing from the RS which we’d probably get if we built a stadium in the city compared to their £300+mill one.

Who gives a shit what they say anyway?
Tom Hughes
102   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:27:58

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Colin,
The authorities don’t want it because they want the city centre, which has just had Billions invested in it to be a success. Not to jeopardise it before it has even had a chance to help build real wealth in the city region as a whole. A retail park in Kirkby cannot ever do that, and to build something that might threaten the success of the biggest employment source in the city by a long way would be farcical. That is why Kirkby is not even on the retail heirachy for the region. Its population just cannot merit what’s proposed. Liverpool City centre needs to be competeing with Manchester and Chester..... not itself!
Colin Wordsworth
103   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:31:44

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Tom

Just putting a new tier here and there is not the way forward for us!

We will be competing with a huge carbuncle on the park and will certainly soon become not second but third class citizens in the city!

It would have to be done properly, totally changing the whole atmosphere we already have.

I challenge you to redevelop GP for the same price as Kirkby, bearing in mind the demolition costs and loss of revenue when being built!

It will cost much, much more.

If it was so viable and cheap the club would have done it already. I think this chance was missed many years ago!

It really is head and heart and i will not critisise any no voter for their opinions, we all want what we feel is best for our great club.

But...I do know that alternative sites were searched in the city and as keioc have found.....there are no gud uns available!

And I will say again...if this project was within the city boundaries......everyone really would call it the deal of the century.

It’s all about Location Location and.......Location, some people will not accept them few miles!
Tom Hughes
104   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:38:53

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Ian,

"With all due respect, the "loop" is a bad site to build upon. it offers no future development and as transport to town is not great, getting to it would be a nightmare"

I guess you haven’t been on this site for long. Transport to Liverpool city centre manages to shift well over 100,000 commuters in and out of it every rush hr and many more besides over the day. There is capacity for more than double that. Public transport capacity for Kirkby is just 5,000 per hr (according to the consultants). Everyone in the city has a direct bus/train/ferry to Liverpool city centre. Only a handfull of Merseyside districts have any direct services to Kirkby..... none whatsover from the Wirral (which represents a third of our season ticket holders). A Mainline and local train stations is within walking distance of the loop with direct services to ALL northern line and Wirral stations. Kirkby has a single platform and track and only 4 trains per hr. Ask any stadium developer where is the ideal location for a stadium and they will practically always reply with close as possible to the city centre...... precisely because of transport!
Colin Wordsworth
105   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:45:58

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Tom

being crude I really don’t give a s...t about Liverpool 1. Life is all about competition, it will stand on its own merits or failings and not be dependent on whether Kirkby is built!

Again, all i’m interested in is EFC....not Liverpool Council.

People seem to like out of city business parks!.....are LCC being old fashioned?......they are feeling very threatened, you never know it could be a great success!

......and the right place to put our new stadium!



Colin Wordsworth
106   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:53:47

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Tom

Please stop harping on about that awful loop thing...it was always a red herring put out as an alternative to muddy the waters.

Even the most ardent no voters don’t like it, it really does weaken your arguments!

From a fellow Evertonian....good night!
Tom Hughes
107   Posted 08/06/2008 at 00:51:30

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Colin,
A few miles is one thing if it’s just a case of you jumping in your car..... when 50,000 others do the same and block your way it becomes quite another! Transport is fundamental. Stadia need mass transit. Kirkby doesn’t have it or anything close. Worse still there are only a limited number of access routes into Kirby itself that the vast majority can take, meaning that it was soon realised that nothing like the required numbers could get through the bottle-necks in the time windows required.... hence massive park and ride schemes for our side of the boundary. Merseytravel told them in an instant that the surplus capacity in their bus fleets and the other local operators simply didn’t exist. It was not viable. This was only quite recently, which begs the question how wasn’t this realised much earlier when the likes of myself and KEIOC flagged it up before the vote even?! As far as you knowing alternatives were searched for.... how can you? where are the feasibilty studies for the Loop for instance...... Everton Park or redevelopment or anywhere else? Where is the applications for expanding Gp’s footprint? They don’t exist! As a shareholder I requested these so that I could at least weigh up the options. I got no response! I tried the planning office where everything is archived.... there are no applications. The feasibilty study for redevleopment was carried out by Tesco’s own consultants, and there are several glaring omissions and they even had the temerity to use one of my drawings (which I thought was quite funny)..... but bottom line it is all dated many months after the vote meaning they hadn’t really studied this option at all!

As far as add ons are concerned. I’ve stated before that the vast majority of stadia have evolved in this way. Even Leitch’s classics have had this treatment. I agree it can be done poorly, but if done properly it cannot be matched. As regards enlarging the Parkend this is a much simpler process that can be achieved seamlessly, it can be made to look as if it was always intended to be 60-70 rows deep instead of 39, and that it bends around the corner into Bullens or whatever format is preferred. There really is no great constructional hardship.
Tom Hughes
108   Posted 08/06/2008 at 01:18:01

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Colin,

"being crude I really don?t give a s...t about Liverpool 1. Life is all about competition, it will stand on its own merits or failings and not be dependent on whether Kirkby is built!"

I don’t give a shit about tesco quite frankly!

I am a scouser who has sufficient civic pride to want my city to prosper. For the first time in my lifetime people have shown sufficent interest in Liverpool to invest in it to the tune of several times the value of the retail offering of Tesco. It exists and is a great addition to the real heartbeat and driving force of the whole city region and beyond that is Liverpool city centre, all its amenities, architecture, culture the lot. I believe vehemently that this needs protecting and enhancing if this city is to ever truly get off its knees. A small overspill housing estate can never match what the city centre provides in ALL respects, and to jeopardise it’s success and the tens of thousands of jobs for TESCO to build yet another bland retail park in a field is ridiculous. What next Belle vale to be expanded to Trafford centre proportions and the same at Huyton just to increase competition. How to shoot yourself in the foot in one easy lesson!
Tom Hughes
109   Posted 08/06/2008 at 01:33:35

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Danny,

"How does moving to Kirkby hurt the identity and future perception of the club?"

Football support is tribal and therefore territorial by nature. That’s one of the reasons why the "people’s club" slogan was jumped on and hyped to the max. It has marketing value and supports the apparently desirable notion that we are the locally supported club. We are the local club with the stronger roots in this city etc. Reinforcing the converse that they are the out of towners, the glory hunters etc. Moving out of the city is quite literally a seismic shift which turns the tables completely. How will the club be perceived when we are based outside the city that we currently relate to and make the connection with EFC. Future generations will have the choice of Liverpool, based near the city centre or Everton based in out of town Kirkby. To me that can only reinforce their attraction, not ours!


Bob Turner
110   Posted 08/06/2008 at 06:36:00

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Karl Masters

You miss the point I was trying to make - which was that whatever we get from Goodison has nothing to do with any mortgage outstanding on it.

Of course a debt transferred is still a debt. By transferring the debt, that gives us the full proceeds of the sale of GP to contribute to the £100m (which you "know", apparently, will be what we pay - again, repeat it often enough, it becomes fact!!)

Oh, and if you’re going to ignore any proceeds we’d get from naming rights that accrue in years 2 onwards, then I’m going to ignore the debt that’s payable after year 2 as well - it’s only fair!
Neil Pearse
111   Posted 08/06/2008 at 09:46:58

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Thanks for all the debate guys! Now I think we are getting somewhere.

Some responses back, Tom put out a number of around £50M for the redevelopment of GP. Okay. Now as far as I can tell that did not include the thorough modernisation fo facilities in all parts of the ground that would be required to really bring GP up to date (corect me if I am wrong on that Tom). They are vital because we need them to raise revenues (catering etc.). So let’s use a number of £60M to include that.

Now let’s compare (roughly) with Kirkby. This is a bit ’back of a fag packet’, but it will certainly serve to get us the basics. Since the £78M does not net back any proceeds at all from selling GP etc., let’s be rather conservative and get Kirkby down to say £65M.

Both grounds can be ’named’ as far as I can see, but it is plausible to believe that a brand new stadium will be more attractive to a potential sponsor. The ’New Tesco Stadium’, just to be provocative. So probably a bit more money for Kirkby versus GP there. And also there is obviously SOME additional cost on the GP option in terms of revenues foregone during rebuilding. £10M perhaps to be conservative?

Anyway, given the inevitable uncertainties of the precise financial outcomes of these kinds of projects, we can now see where we basically end up. REDDEVELOPING GP WILL NOT BE SUBSTANTIALLY CHEAPER THAN MOVING TO KIRKBY AND MAY BE MORE EXPENSIVE. I don’t want to make any major claims for Kirkby here versus GP, so let’s say ’it’s a wash’.

Not of course a major surprise, nor a reason in itself of course to go to Kirkby versus GP. But if this is the case then the whole landscape begins to look a lot clearer. So:

(1) The Board knows that the club cannot afford very much, so it simply cannot look at expensive options in the city which in any case may take years to come through with the LCC. Hence it did not waste the club’s money doing detailed studies on non-starters such as the Loop (I don’t waste my money researching cars that I cannot afford to buy).

(2) Moving to Kirkby to a completely new ground is not likely to cost much more than redeveloping GP, possibly less.

(3) Given that at Kirkby we can design a ground from scratch to maximise revenue streams (e.g. in terms of catering, hospitality, and corporate facilities), then clearly the ’revenue per seat’ will be higher at Kirkby than at a redeveloped GP. Bluntly, it will also be easier to initiate a wholesale increase in ticket prices at Kirkby. (Disputing all this would be heroic, but I know some of you will try.)

(4) Finally, a new ground at Kirkby gives the club more options in the future, at least in physical terms (planning always has to be dealt with) to expand capacity. Once you rebuild GP you are basically topped out. So there is more future financial flex in Kirkby.

So: on best estimates, Kirkby will be about the same cost as redeveloping GP, but with higher revenues. In other words: IT IS A BETTER FINANCIAL OPTION.
Neil Pearse
112   Posted 08/06/2008 at 11:18:41

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Thinking through this last piece has made me think that the REAL issue (on the financial side only of course) between Kirkby and GP is not the costs, level of debt and so on. Either at GP or Kirkby, we are going to spend the most we can possibly afford to enable us to generate increased revenue streams.

The major question is: will more or less people go to Kirkby relative to GP?

The only factor that can significantly worsen Kirkby relative to GP as a financial option is if there is a SUBSTANTIAL reduction in attendance at Kirkby relative to GP. Let me be clear on my position on this question: no-one knows the answer to it, three years before the event (and anyone who does is lying or acting out).

We all know the arguments by now. On the No side: poor transport primarily, ’no longer being in the city’ etc.. On the Yes side: better facilities, better views etc. etc.. I suspect the most important factor is completely unknown to us now: how well the team is playing on the pitch. Kirkby will get the crowds if the team is playing well. And that is presumably what the Board is gambling on. Well, we are a football club after all...
David Thompson
113   Posted 08/06/2008 at 12:24:18

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Can we just sort out the value of the naming rights issue.

I don’t think we will get anywhere close, but let’s assume, in the interest of fairness, that we get £40M over 15 years.

If naming rights income is to be used towards the cost of building the stadium, that £40M is required up front to pay the builder.

In reality, many of these naming rights deals have headline figures which relate to team performance over the period, but I am going to assume it’s a straight £40M, payable at £2.66M per year regardless of team performance.

We would get £2.66M up front, which would require us to ’securitize’ the remaining amount of £37.34M over the following 14 years.

Assuming we could borrow this at a very optimistic 7%, the repayment of both interest and capital over the following 14 years would be £3.49M per year.

That means we would receive £2.66M from the sponsor, and have to pay out an additional £830,000 for 14 years, just to finance the loan on the naming rights.

Of course, £40M plus the equity in Goodison after the mortgage has been repaid, plus any income from Bellefield - far from certain at present due to planning permission not being granted - wouls still leave the club a long way short of the required £78M to finance the stadium as it stands.

I appreciate these are fairly simple calculations, but the likely scenario is that the value of naming rights would be less, and conditional upon performance. Any reduction in the £40M figure quoted above would require greater borrowing, the repayments for which would have to be met from income from TV, gate receipts, corporate facilities etc. further reducing the money available to the manager of the day.



It’s all a gamble too far for me, particularly with the current incompetent incumbents of the boardroom.
Tom Hughes
114   Posted 08/06/2008 at 11:42:19

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Neil,
You beat me to it in mentioning the gamble of people turning up, despite the obvious transport issues that have so far caused the transport consultants to go back to the drawing board 3 times to my knowledge. This is absolutely fundamental. Even the best stadium in the world wont get filled if we can’t get there easily, a basic stadium probably less so! We haven’t got masses of surplus support waiting to fill the extra seats or to even replace those disgruntled with the whole situaution that may stop going.

For the sake of debate I gave a broadbrush of ONE potential solution. i.e. blending an extension/new tier into 2 sides of the stadium. Another option might be the complete redevelopment from scratch of one stand, most probably the Park end. The figures I gave were as shown to be at the top end, and therefore including predominently high spec provision, such as boxes and/or lounges. The expansion of footprint would facilitate this provision by adding significant "back of the house" floor space on these 2 sides. In this respect there is no way that providing say just 10-15,000 new seats/facilties at GP can cost as much as paying for 40,000+ of the 50k at Kirkby. Furthermore, just for the model I have tried to illustrate, the phased approach offers the opportunity to test demand and self fund in a way that can never be achieved at Kirkby where it is a complete shot in the dark. Adding say 3-5k on the Bullens including 30-40 boxes, will greatly enhance that side both in appearance and function. The concourse areas for both upper and lower tiers would be increased dramatically in size. As regards viewing quality, there are several measures of this, viewing angle/window, c-value, viewing distance etc. I can guarantee that Leitch’s stand will be superior in at least 2 of those measuring techniques as any comparison of cross sections would readily show. Most modern stadia simply adopt a basic c-value led method that usually leads to larger than necessary viewing distances due to poor interpretation of recommended c-values without considering elevation of different tiers etc. This is evident at some new stadia such as COM stadium where people can see the whole pitch from every vantage point, but are set back so far from the pitch to negate the benefits and reduce the atmosphere. GP is all about being on top of the pitch, adding to the capacity of the upper tiers will add to the atmosphere and preserve that intimacy. An expanded Bullens can be achieved without loss of capacity during development since it all takes place behind the existing structure. The new tier can also be completely stand-alone to allow for removal of the existing stand in the future if necessary. All Obstructions will be removed in the existing upper tier greatly enhancing the value of this section (this whole stand could become a premier seating area with increased lounge space behind) . Treads and risers can even be replaced to reprofile if required, although there is no legislation demanding this. The lower tier can also be reprofiled by shortening its depth, increasing rake and again reducing obstructed views dramatically there, and filling the existing pathway at the rear of the paddock to give a single sweep as with the lower gwladys St. The capacity at this point would be around 43-45,000. The boxes would enjoy far superior elevated views than that on offer at Kirkby where they are at the rear of a rather shallow lower tier. The viewing distances would be similar with viewing angle/window substantially larger than at Kirkby. Cost for even the highest quality effort at this side would not be more than £25m, probably less! The club could then see how the fans respond to the additional capacity. If it’s filled regularly, they can justify the next phase, and indeed the increased revenue streams will support it. On the otherhand, at Kirkby we can only build the whole thing, and if the people don’t break the profitability threshold by turning up in the required numbers (which must be approaching capacity given the cost increases) and we are lumbered with extra capacity that will not be paying for itself and only increasing our debt. Interpolating that further into a worse case scenario, the possible empty sections at Kirkby may also affect atmosphere deterring some, it may discourage season ticket ownership due to excess supply and compound itself with further attendance decline. GP averts those unknowns. Kirkby never can!

As far as expansion at Kirkby is concerned. The capacity has recently been reduced to just over 50k, although they haven’t made a fuss about it for obvious reasons. The reasons for this are two fold...... to reduce the overall cost to more pallatable levels, and because the transport strategy simply cannot make 55k work nevermind any further expansion. Once again, this fundamnetal parameter has come back to bite them. The site really is that poor in this respect hence the time taken to formulate something that should be a formality for the supposed "most accessible stadium" in the country. No amount of money will change this logistical constant!
Derek Turnbull
115   Posted 08/06/2008 at 12:43:38

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Neil Pearse- Re your point 4 and expansion.

Assuming Kirkby is a success and we need to expand beyond 50,000, I find it very disappointing that there is a lack of options on how we choose to expand.

If we were to expand, our only option is to fill in the corners at 2500 a time. What if we want to retain four individual stands? What’s wrong with building each stand so that they they are capable of holding an additional tier?

If we wanted to increase capacity by say 7500 rather than filling in 3 corners we could just add a tier to a side stand. It’s one thing a stadium getting us to the next level, but we want the level after that. Ultimately we want to be competing with the likes of Liverpool and Man U again. They would have stadiums in excess of 70,000, ours will only be 60,000. Of course, this is a question of ifs, but ambition is about ifs and being positive, we may also be talking about 25 yrs down the line, so why are putting a white flag up to them so early on?

We are in the top league in World Football, and we are one of the few clubs with the potential of taking those steps up to becoming one of the top clubs in that league.

So is it a lack of faith in Kirkby or are they only interested in saving a few quid in the short-term?
Derek Turnbull
116   Posted 08/06/2008 at 12:43:38

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Re Neil Pearse - your point 4 and expansion at Kirkby



I find disappointing that there is a lack of options on how we expand at Kirkby.

Assuming that Kirkby does prove successful, then we would need to expand beyond 50,000. However, the options for doing this is to fill in the corners at 2500 a piece. We should allow ourselves the option of retaining the individual stands and by allowing each stand to hold an additional tier. That way if we wished to increase our stadium by 7500 for example we could choose to add a tier to the side stand rather than fill in 3 corners.

As one of the few teams in world football with the potential of being another of the games superpowers, which after all is what our board should aiming to get us to be in the long term, then we will ultimately need a stadium in similar in size to the likes of Man U and Liverpool both who would have in excess of 70,000.

Yet, we’re holding up the white flag already by only allowing a maximum of 60,000? Sure, we may be talking about 20 yrs time, it may never happen, but I guarantee it won’t happen if we don’t allow it to happen.

So is it a lack of faith in Kirkby, or are we just trying to save a few quid in the short-term?

Tom Hughes
117   Posted 08/06/2008 at 13:34:52

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Derek,
Just read your pervious question to me. I agree with you that the end stands could be greatly improved. Perhaps making them proper single tier with the tightest permissable tread depths for increased capacity and density. They could also be gently curved or cranked in plan view to focus viewing and noise on the penalty areas, increasing the unity felt at these more partisan sections. All that said, I’m not sure if it would be wasted at this site! Partisan and non-descript out-of-town tribalism-sapping location don’t necessarily go together!
Malcolm McLeod
118   Posted 08/06/2008 at 18:21:57

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A lot of interesting comments from both sides of the aisle, so I felt as a 60 year supporter of our revered club I should at least add my 2 penn’th. Redeveloping GP is undoubtably the best option, and as most of those have already been stated I will not dwell on them - as I think the predominant motive for all of us is the preservation of Everton Football Club.
Having said that; what is the most meaningful solution?
In my opinion Redevelop GP, there are numerous ways this can be accomplished, it will not require significant startup funds if done in a phased mode which has previously been addressed and advised, would address both the modernisation and transportation issues and in approx. 3-4 years we would have a stadium that could be multi-functional without the negativity surrounding a move.
And for added interest I would add that Coventry City partnered with Tesco for a similar Stadia/Shopping Complex Plan some years ago and my understanding is that project, it’s facilities and access are a nightmare.
So as that saying goes "Caveat emptor" and for those of you unfamiliar, that is "Buyer Beware!!"
Derek Turnbull
119   Posted 08/06/2008 at 18:51:57

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Hi Tom, interesting you should mention about making the stnds slightly concaved. It is something extra I would like although it is not at the top of my list for essential changes. Wembley has an interesting feature, the lower tier stands are straight but the second and third tiers are curved.

What got me thinking was that if all tiers were built to hold an additional tier then when they came to be built they could be concaved while the lower tier was straight. Whether it would look good as individual stands prior to the corners being filled in I don’t know. Another way could be for the corners to arch round early rather than at a tight angle perhaps?

My priority would be to move the executive boxes to the side stands to allow for single tiers. Spurs and Villa both have doubled up Executive Boxes and more recently Arsenal and Wembley now have this. This would also increase slightly the no. of Exec Boxes and finally give us a stadium for atmosphere. I cannot see a logical reason why doing this would cost much difference to the current design, would you know yourself?

At what point would you say that we need to divert some attention towards the design of the Kirkby stadium in the event that it does actually go ahea? No use moaning about the design after it’s built. There could well be generations of Evertonians who are going to come along unaware of Goodison, who could be cursing our apathy towards the design. We criticisise Wyness etc for no plan b, but surely we as fans must have a plan aimed at changing the design, because this could still go ahead


Tom Hughes
120   Posted 08/06/2008 at 19:16:35

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Derek,
Funny you should mention it because I have toyed with placing a curved upper tier on the Parkend, which behind the goal merges into a single unified tier but curves into the corners to form a slight overlap there, and this is continued around to form an extended upper Bullens.

Wouldn’t want to give the Kirkby scheme any credibility by looking at how it can be improved. It falls over on several counts before design of the stadium itself.
Derek Turnbull
121   Posted 08/06/2008 at 22:26:05

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Tom - it’s about finding a smooth transition from a single tiered end stand to a two tiered side stand isn’t it. I do think that would work. My only requirement would be that a minimum of the middle 3 blocks of the Park End were of a single tiered nature so the concertina standing effect could flow from the first row to the last, but yes I would be happy with that, you could have the banners out hanging over the first and last couple of blocks of the Park End. Well if we got the Street Enders in there we could!

Re Kirkby. Yes it is full of mistakes, however if it goes ahead what are we going to do? Spend our future Saturdays saying ’I told you it wouldn’t work?’, while all the new Evertonians coming through, who don’t know any different, have to put up with a poor excuse for a stadium? Street Enders have spent 45 years questioning the Gwladys Streets qualities when it comes to atmosphere with the last 15 years being the worst of all. It’s a bit mean to let the next generations go through worse.
Dave Moorcroft
122   Posted 08/06/2008 at 23:01:04

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I still cant believe that, even after they have been exposed as liars, the shit stadium design, the continuous year-on-year propaganda that we are the only club in the money mad Premier League that makes no money ? If that was the case, they would not still be at this great club, If they dont know how to run the club and make money,Sell it to someone who does!

Even clubs like Derby and Birmingham are desperate to get back into the Premier League because they say that's where they make the big money. I can't even understand the logic of moving out of the city when it's just becoming the most vibrant in the country, with billions being spent, so many things for future generations to enjoy...

And it's those future generations I am talking about here. I am not saying they will go over to the other side but, because the people who own EFC don't think it's worth investing in having a club shop in Liverpool city centre, they are saying to the world "We don't belong in the city."

I fly the flag for EFC wherever I go, telling people of all nationalities that we are the biggest club in this city. Obviously not worldwide. But by moving to Kirkby we will only become smaller mainly because of transport. People do not like sitting around waiting to get to or from a ground. If your taking the kids they get bored; then the next time you say, "C'mon kids, we're going the match", they say "Can I give it a miss this week dad?" That is the start of the empty seats. By the time you get away from the Kirkby stadium, it's time for them to get ready for bed.

I think the biggest problem with the Kirkby thing is going to be filling it. And then we will be totally fucked... because who will want to play in a half-empty ground every other week? And who will want to invest proper money in a club that's fucked?

This whole Kirkby thing is about Kenwright making a lot more money than he already is and then fucking off shortly afterwards. Wyness has been lying from the start with Kenwright's full knowledge.Something as life-affecting as moving the club to a new home, no matter where it may be.

Wyness didn't even go to the meeting in Kirkby the other week. They dont give a monkeys about EFC ? if they did, they would have listened to every option instead of accepting the Exclusivity deal. Someone else may have had a better deal to offer. They already decided it was Kirkby from the start.

These people should have given Rooney £100k a week to show we meant business. We lose that every week through lower gates ? we had full houses every time he played. Shows they only want short term gain. They dont care about our long term pain.... "Kirkby".

Jon Grimond
123   Posted 09/06/2008 at 09:40:58

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?By moving to Kirkby we will only become smaller mainly because of transport. People do not like sitting around waiting to get to or from a ground. If your taking the kids they get bored; then the next time you say, "C?mon kids, we?re going the match", they say "Can I give it a miss this week dad?" That is the start of the empty seats. By the time you get away from the Kirkby stadium, it?s time for them to get ready for bed?

It's two stops further on the train, 3 miles from GP. Stop moaning, transport is not the issue.

Neither are the ?missed opportunities? in Liverpool as there are no realistic ones. Yes you might be able to build a stadium at the Loop site but who is going to pay for it?

As far as I can see plans B and C consist of a shared stadium or moving to Anfield, both of which sound better with each passing day compared to Kirkby.
Tom Hughes
124   Posted 09/06/2008 at 09:54:19

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Jon,
Is Kirkby getting closer to GP? It’s apparently only 3 miles now. Transport is the main issue. The extra stops on the train point doesnt take into account that there are only 4 trains an hr at Kirkby with one platform. There is a train every 2 mins at sandhills and nearly 10 times more buses serving Walton than Kirkby. In otherwords if you think that you struggle getting to and from GP, you’re in for a very rude awakening at Kirkby. The Transport strategy is in its 3rd incarnation, and park and ride has turned to park and walk since Kirkby simply isn’t accessible enough for the numbers required. Traffic flow through the limited corridors onto the site cannot be achieved without parking the vast majority on the Liverpool side of the boundary and bussing them through in the biggest park and ride scheme at any stadium/venue in the country. Unfortunately Merseytravel shot that down in an instant reporting that neither they nor all the combined local operators have the number of surplus buses/drivers to make this viable..... it has decended into farce! Pretty much like every other supporting factor connected with the project which was given such a fanfare at the vote.

As for realistic options, we live a very real option. GP exits. Relatively minor additions could turn it into one of the most magnificent and historic stadia in the world. Kirkby doesn’t come close to what can be achieved.

As far as the Loop is concerned....... people are forgetting that this wasn’t given the opportunity to grow into proper project...... it was rejected outright by the club. £78m for Kirkby and rising means that the Loop, backed by enabling developments on council owned land around that site should have been fully explored!
Gavin Ramejkis
125   Posted 09/06/2008 at 10:38:53

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Neil P thanks for your verbose replies and I still dont agree but flogging a dead horse is flogging a dead horse. I’d just like to thank Tom for his continuing flying of the flag of common sense and dare I say it truth even beyond his own viewpoints. Kirkby to me is closer to home but I will be alienated by the atrocious disregard to access as will my two disabled car passengers, if it ever see the light of day I will have to drive past it and queue to park somewhere probably closer to Goodison and cross my fingers that my car doesn’t get screwed at an unmanned car park, then queue for a mythical bus that apparently will have to come from outside the region to service the massive requirement then trundle in traffic jams to the place which was never designed to take that much traffic then queue again after the match for another bus and queue to retrieve my car for the journey home, a walk to the ground simply is not possible to my passengers and the club have never replied on how they are expected to do this before I am asked again. I’m alienated by the club so they’ll be alienated by my and my passengers season ticket renewal instead choosing away games as they will be accessible opposing teams having not disregarded the customer’s requirement to get to the place and back again. So many arguments about why Kirkby is so wrong and like I said flogging a dead horse over the obvious failings but some people continue to believe the lies from Keith Wyness who attempted this before at Aberdeen and being a qualified project manager myself know that its common to use your PM to deliver the bad decision he doesn’t want tarring with. BK will forever be tarnished as the man who removed Everton from the city to some overspill town after years of mismanagement. Mythical Russians or other bullshitisms will never wash that stain from him.
John Turner
126   Posted 09/06/2008 at 10:35:30

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Tom -

Tom Hughes
Posted 08/06/2008 at 11:42:19

Is there any way you could get the ideas in that post under the nose of the board? What reason would they would have to dismiss it, if it as affordable as a few grand per seat and can be done without reducing capacity? What power do you have as a shareholder? With the experience you obviously have from reading your posts I can’t help thinking that if you could somehow get hold of Kenwright yourself over a pint you could make him realise that Goodison is the best (and safest) bet!

PS. Does the following, from the Tesco planning application, mean that in Kirkby we wouldn’t be expanding to more than fifty-and-a-half anyway?

14. No event shall take place at the Stadium with an attendance in excess of
50,401 people.
Dave Moorcroft
127   Posted 09/06/2008 at 11:22:24

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Re. Jon G. I would not call my post "moaning". It's reality by everyone who has studied the transport issue. That is apart from you and a couple of others who no matter what bad points are pointed out, you never seem to be able to tell us how these problems will be solved.

As for the no realistic options, that has also been proved to be lies by the club. They have dismissed anyone and everything as an option with the exclusivity thing. Even as Knowsley council state, the poor design of the stadium, people like you and the club even dismiss that, saying we can improve it later. How will we do that when we will have less money than we have now because the place will be half empty because of the transport nightmare?

Again, I can't work out the logic of moving out of a resurgent big city with all the investment that's going in, to move to a 40,000 population small town.

Anthony Fielding
128   Posted 09/06/2008 at 12:46:44

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I’ve just been reading the article from the main page on the possible redevelopment of GP, and i’ve got to say the stadium design looks pretty good. On closer examination i noticed that the visuals of the inside look remarkably like the Kirkby project design, has anyone else noticed this???
Damian Wilde
129   Posted 09/06/2008 at 12:32:26

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Some good points on both sides. People keep saying about how they don’t want a mediocre stadium and how we deserve a world class stadium. Neil Pearse mentioned several times that we’re poor and that we can’t afford anything else and asked people how we afford something better. Nobody has come up with anything concrete. People have avoided answering the question and just gone on about being misinformed and how KW is a twat, etc. Answer the question!!

It’s all good and well wanting something better (don’t we all) and thinking we deserve better, but how do we afford it? Where’s the cash going to come from? I think I deserve a £500 suit, but I had to settle for a £200 one. We’re not the poorest out there, but we aren’t that rich really.

At the end of the day, nobody truly has firm answers (unless you work for the club and know everything thst has gone on). It’s all opinions and guesses - from everyone. I think it’s safe to say that we’re not that rich though!
James Power
130   Posted 09/06/2008 at 13:44:23

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My worry about redeveloping GP is that the LFC stadium, brand new and shiny, will be overshadowing us. It will be similar to your next door neighbour parking his Aston Martin next to your 9 year old VW Golf. Bit embarrassing isn’t it? Not in favour of Kirby either. Its a shame, we are skint, want loads of money for players and a great stadium and don’t really have money for either. Furthermore, our average attendances are something like 9th in the league last season at around 36/37k? But we are going to flood the new stadium with 55k fervant, free -spending supporters? Somebody somewhere with far more brains or preferably cash, than Bill needs to come riding in on a white horse methinks...
Gavin Ramejkis
131   Posted 09/06/2008 at 13:55:06

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Damian whether we borrow £78m for Kirkby or GP it?s the same £78m but if there isn?t a will (and before we get the "experts" saying there isn?t a way let?s here both sides discuss it rather than just the yes or just the no to prove it once and for all WHICH WE HAVE NEVER HAD) it will not happen. Why choose a council flat a growing number of people dont want over a phased development a good deal of people sound like they do, but then again the same question as to why KW is so quick to dismiss the shared stadium when it was the RS owners and not the CEO making the statements, let BK actually climb out of his hiding place and make some statements, how about:

What the stadium criteria Everton have that KW claims?

Why a shared stadia is NOT part of this criteria?

Who initiated destination Kirkby? - let him as the owner admit it once and for all

Let him show what alternatives were considered in the initiation phase of the project and why each was not chosen

Highly unlikely due to his favourite "commercial secrecy" bullshit but just what is the business case that still stands after the lack of transport, reduction in retail size of the overall project, multiple failed components such as concert income, poisoned underground carpark, expandable to 75k stadium now barely over 50k that makes it still viable?
Dave Wilson
132   Posted 09/06/2008 at 13:23:07

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Reading Gavins post has made me so fucking angry.

I can't for the life of me understand how the board ? and fellow blues ? fail to see the inevitable disaster.

Derek Turnbull
133   Posted 09/06/2008 at 14:01:02

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Damian Wilde

Kirkby is less than mediocre and there are things we can change about it that don’t cost a packet. For a start get the Executive boes out of the End Stands to double on the Sides like at Spurs and Villa, or more recently Arsenal and Wembley. This can allow the End Stands to be large Single tiers. There, atmosphere sorted and no of boxes slightly increased too.

Character and identity, replicate 2 of Goodisons 3 graces, the old Gable on the Main Stand, and relicate the Leitch criss-crosses. Sublte character, and not costing a packet.
Philip Bunting
134   Posted 09/06/2008 at 16:31:52

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A lot has been said about the stadium design and what we're gonna get at Kirkby for £78 million, terms like Cowshed, mid-level stadium to name but a few. And again a lot has been said about redeveloping Goodison for the same amount. What exactly are we gonna get for £78 million by redeveloping Goodison?....a smaller Cowshed?
Kevin Jones
135   Posted 09/06/2008 at 16:07:30

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Gavin ? FFS stop bad mouthing Kirkby, every opportunity you get on here you have a pop or two. Ok maybe you have relatives who live there but this doesn?t give you the right to have a go, take your frustrations out a little bit more constructively please.

You could go through almost every part of Merseyside and point out its ?not so nice? areas. You bang on about getting your car screwed ? does this not happen in the GP area?

You go on about Kirkby not being able to support a Northern counties team (Kirkby Town), FFS your going back to the 70?s and early 80?s there. In the 70?s Kirkby had the biggest population of kids in Europe for a town of its size, they didn?t all watch Kirkby Town because they were all at GP or Anfield. The kids in Kirkby back then were brought up on football, football and football, Kirkby has produced plenty of the best local players seen at either GP or Anfield, it?s also produced some of the best amateur sides competing on a national amateur level.

?Kirkby not as big as Skelmersdale? ? what has that got to do with anything and for your info Kirkby is just over 4000 acres whilst Skem is less than 2000 acres, but as I said what has that go to do with anything? And don?t come back to me with all that transport shit, I prefer to wait and see what?s proposed by the authorities on that.

Old Trafford is one of, if not the best ground in the country, I was there 2 weeks ago for a concert and whilst the ground and its facilities are excellent, the transport and the dispersal from the ground were horrendous to say the least.

Maybe the supporters attending Old Trafford love their club so much they?ll put up with a bit waiting around after the game or queuing up a bit longer in the traffic, to me this is to be expected, whatever your circumstances.
Steve Jones
136   Posted 09/06/2008 at 16:42:20

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Why is this so hard to understand for everyone?.

The only things that Kirkby had going for it were that it would be in better materiel shape than Goodison and some other beggar was paying to build it.

Now though, if we are going to be expected to pay for it ,then, very simply, the deal is off because we do not have that kind of money and cannot go that far in debt without significant impact on the club.

Many of the pro-Goodison-revmp brigade have spent many months pointing out that Goodison could be upgraded for the same cost as Kirkby...now the fallacy of their position has been underscored. There never was any Kirkby money to redirect to Goodison or anywhere else!.

So we get to stay at Goodison....great....til we have to start closing stands because of failed Health and Safety Inspections. At least, when the stands get to that point, we?ll not be losing any revenue on them when they get torn down...here?s hoping some money will be there to build something to replace them at that time eh?!
Gavin Ramejkis
137   Posted 09/06/2008 at 17:08:58

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Kevin Jones earn your fifteen minutes son:

Name one premier league side that has considered Kirkby?

Tell me how many people live in Kirkby and whether that figure has ever dramatically risen or dropped in the last forty years

Tell me what transport provision you expect to see in Kirkby that would ever compare with Old Trafford where 74,000 people regularly leave that stadium to traffic chaos even with a much larger and better motorway running nearby ? your own argument is bollocks... waiting for the authorities ? well you?ve waited for decades for anything else to happen in Kirkby haven?t you?

Tell me what the number of kids once in Kirkby has to do with the Kirkby stadium now? Peter McConville was a star of the Kirkby Town side and yes he?s my cousin but so what, as you would say?

My point on my car getting screwed was aimed at a non-named unmanned car park not even naming Kirkby but it?s irrelevent as you're obviously certain Kirkby is some sort of shangri-fucking-lar with no crime whatsoever. If you read it said closer to GP but hey maybe you don?t read so well?

If I had time I could point out lots more but if you think the whole point of not wanting to move is because I hate Kirkby you are wrong.
stan howard
138   Posted 09/06/2008 at 17:06:01

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karl masters, when the kings dock project was looking good did you complain about liverpool fc not being asked to share ?
also dont you read the papers the lcc the nwda and efc (underhandedly) have been doing exactly what you are asking them to do for years. Do you think the previous liverpool management were againt sharing for financial reasons ? or petty rivalry ? NO it is and was because of the dispicable behaviour of the efc management.
Paul O'Neill
139   Posted 09/06/2008 at 17:21:39

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Tony Marsh, I have never in my life heard such trivial, high minded pompousity. I voted Yes. I voted Yes. I?ll say it again, I voted Yes. And I don?t feel the least bit inferior to shining examples of Real Evertonians like you (despite the fact that you seem to despise Everton and reserve an almost bizarre obsessional hatred of David Moyes and only ever post after a defeat).

Do I have some regrets on my YES vote now? Yes, and some excellent arguments about the distance from the city centre almost persuaded me to vote No.

Would I still vote Yes if the vote was held tomorrow? I?m not sure, but probably. As there were and are simply no other properly costed alternatives on the table at the time, and the Scotty Road thing still seems quite vague and complicated to me.

Does the design and plans have faults? Of course they do!! Every single major project in the world does and it would be simply phenomonal if the initial plans on a project of this size were perfect. But guess what, they?ll be ironed out.

There will be teething problems on transport. the club will simply HAVE to do something about that once the thing is built.

Did Wyness sell us some nonsense? Yup, and I think Kenwright shold have walked the plank after the King?s Dock fiasco. But I still think it?s deliverable ? £78 million minus whatever we get eventually for Goodison and Bellefield is not bad in today?s climate...

And as for the design, call me easily pleased but I really like it! I like the four stands, the size at 50,000 is just right, I think it looks impressive, particularly the interior; I like the perspexy joining bits, and other things that make it different to Riverside style indentikit bowls, and moreover the design won?t be final! It?ll have plenty of nips and tucks before it?s built.

Regrets, I have a few, but then again, I still voted Yes and am not ashamed to say so.

Kevin Jones
140   Posted 09/06/2008 at 20:33:46

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Gavin

First off please don?t call me son I?m a 53 year old that has lived in Kirkby all my life, so don?t patronize me.

I?ve had a lot to do with the football in Kirkby over the years and sorry never even heard of your cousin Peter, but hey don?t fret.

I don?t need my 15 minutes ? I?m a regular reader here, but unlike some I only post when I feel I have something constructive to say or if I feel the sudden urge to reply to bullshit.
Q. Name a premier league side that?s considered moving to Kirkby
A. Everton on 2 occassions, currently, and the Golf Course was considered under Peter Johnson. Arsenal did consider it but felt in the interest of public transport they best stay in London.

Over the last few years the population has fluctuated between 40,000 and 55,000. I think this is a bigger population than Walton has, but that area copes quite well with matchdays doesn?t it.

The point I made about Old Trafford was that it doesn?t actually cope that well with traffic, as I said a concert I went to had a crowd of about 40,000 ? 45,000 people. I stayed over because I knew what the traffic would be like, and 3 hrs after the concert it was still gridlocked around the ground. Imagine therefore what it is like with 75,000 fans on a matchday!!

The much larger and better motorway is actually not much larger or much better and it?s a nightmare to reach it from the ground, hence the aforementioned gridlock.

The number of kids I refer to was to simply point out that in the days of Kirkby Town FC, as you yourself have reffered to on more than one occasion, the team wasn?t supported that well because most of the kids living in Kirkby at that time could actually afford to go to the match. Also to point out that both EFC and LFC have massive support from people living in Kirkby (if that?s allowed).
Dave Wilson
141   Posted 09/06/2008 at 21:39:25

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Kevin

I think your last point is the crucial one here
If the youngsters - and the arl fellas - in Kirkby already watch EFC or the LFC, were are the so called "new fans" going to come from ?

I have no problem with Kirkby as a place, but I cant for the life of me understand the reason for moving there, Even people claiming to be optimists have stated unless we become successful, they would expect us to average around 35,000, that would be in a middle of the road stadium

Correct me if I?m wrong, but I believe - providing the optimist are right - we?ll be paying £80-100 mill to be exactly in the same situation we are in now

The fact is, despite all the lies and the spin 10,000 people gave this a firm thumbs down, alienating 10,000 fans - rising by the day as each lie gets exposed - is hardly the way to increase attendances

Why the fuck do people keep claiming we?ll generate more money when these mythical "newfans" pour into Kirkby?

All logic would suggest the crowds will actually fall not rise

Karl Masters
142   Posted 09/06/2008 at 22:58:43

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Good point, Dave Wilson.

I travel from Kent and that is a pretty arduous journey at times. You can get all sorts of hold ups waht with the Dartford Crossing, M25 car park, M1 roadworks, gridlock round Brum on the M6 ( or get fleeced on the toll road - although it’s pukka motorway! ) and last season before the Fiorentina game they shut the Thelwall viaduct due to high winds and I went on a nightmare diversion through Warrington.

The point is that now, when I arrive, I can park in Stanly Park and walk to the stadium in 5/10 minutes easy. After a long journey or prior to getting off home that is essential.

The prospect of Park and ride nonsense or a long walk in Winter weather does not fill me with expectation at all. In fact, I can see me going to away games instead and giving Kirkby a miss. Let’s face it, a bland mecanno Tesco version of Ewood Park is hardly the promised land after a 250 mile drive is it?

I see a lot of Everton fams on the motorway and I think the Club may be quite surprised how many out of towners visit lessfrequently, and possibly give it a miss altogether in time, especially if the prices go up any more , fuel prices keep rocketing and the team hits a sticky patch.

We are very loyal, but there is a limit and in this case, the shocking PR surrounding this move has made me far more cynical about the people ’ running’ our Club.
Karl Masters
143   Posted 09/06/2008 at 23:10:50

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Oh, one other thing: Anybody who suggests Public transport to ’let the train take he strain’ and lessen the impact of fuel rises.

I’d love to, but even if I disregard the suspect reliability of trains, I am afraid that once I arrive at Lime Street, I’ll be a bit snookered. Whereas now, I could jump on a bus outside St Georges Hall and get to Goodison in 20 minutes easy, I’d be faced with god knows how many separate bus trips or an expensive taxi journey. No Thanks!! That’ll put a lot of local, especially those from the South End off too. And that’s nother issue that needs addressing with the average matchgoing Premiership fan apparently now 43 years of age!! The future is not looking so bright, is it?
Mark Billing
144   Posted 09/06/2008 at 23:05:23

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Kevin
We don’t have to imagine what it’s like getting to/from OT on a match day as we can go, at least once a year, to watch the Blues there! OT is accessible by car from all points of the compass (within the constraints of parking regulations) and doesn’t appear to me to present any problems with dispersal from my many experiences of visiting there (or the cricket ground for gigs) over the last 25 years; I usually make it home the same day even. Getting there is usually more time consuming, but it probaly all depends on your chosen angle of approach. The bigger issue with both OT grounds is the poor pedestrian access in their immediate vicinity; they aren’t readily approachable on foot from all directions. Kirkby will offer a comparatively less easy approach, evidenced even simply from looking at the A-Zs, for a smaller capacity, not least crossing th M57. Public transport to OT is poor though - the tram is no solution, and nor would it be at Kirkby!
Steve Brown
145   Posted 09/06/2008 at 23:36:09

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And so the blog that began on 6th June continues on 8th! Us Evertonians could continue an argument in an empty room. The one thing I’m sure of is that - whatever the location and whatever the design - it will be built before Shamfield.
Michael Dempsey
146   Posted 10/06/2008 at 11:36:12

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I strongly suspect that the quotes from the officers’ report are taken out of context in that I would be amazed if the conclusions were not that details of these aspects of the design would be reserved and that permission for design details will only be granted once officers are satisfied that the criteria they have set out in the report are met.

I think we should be told.
Barry Sherlock
147   Posted 10/06/2008 at 11:47:44

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Paul O’Neill,
Smack on the money there mate. Like you I voted YES. We love the club and want to move forward. The Scotty Road "Trumpet" site was a slap in the face as far as I’m concerned. This opportunity is a great forward step for the club. More fans will go. The team will be doing well. It will be new it will be the right size. And as we continue to grow and develop as a club, so we can "fill the corners in" for another 11k more capacity.

Where will the extra fans come from? All over the place! Kirkby, Wirral, St Helens, Magul, Walton, Kent, Wales......

People are looking at the attendances at GP and saying we are getting all we are going to get. We would get more fans into GP NOW but who wants to sit in the "Blocked View" seats for £35quid??? I know Blues that don’t go for that reason.
Tom Davies
148   Posted 10/06/2008 at 13:27:36

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Poor design, poor location, the idiots in charge of our club put themselves first not the club, simple.
john reilly
149   Posted 10/06/2008 at 15:20:32

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There are 2 main design priorities if we are to make this stadium work for us. 1. Fans close to the pitch. From the pictures we have seen the distance seems quite big. 2. The most important! At least one end which is complete and not 2 tier! All the most intimidating grounds have an end which is not split. It should be being designed and talked about now. It should have a name and it should have all the most vocal of supporters clammering to get season tickets for there.
Stephen McConville
150   Posted 10/06/2008 at 15:01:36

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I voted NO, not because the stadium was ugly or looked of poor design. but because I have been out to the stadium in cologne germany of which this is modelled on. The atmosphere was very poor at the very least.

The most important point all you yes voters are missing, is the fact that, if the MAJORITY of the fans dislike the stadium, it will hurt the club regardless of their views. If they dont like the stadium they won’t go there, simple as, and there is enough out there to suggest that this might be the case!! So I voted no on both sections, I dont want to move to a ground that will carry no atmosphere for two reasons, one of which being the total lack of numbers you will get inside somewere that a huge portion of the fans dislike

and roy, moyes out? id love some of what your on! what more could we wish for in a manager who can actually make something of this team!!!
Steve Taylor
151   Posted 10/06/2008 at 18:13:47

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So it’s not going to win any design awards, nor give the Emirates a run for it’s money in the beauty stakes - so what?

I don’t go to GP to marvel at the architecture! It’s a functional 50,000+ capacity stadium, with no obstructed views & much more concourse space - I don’t care if it’s clad in polystyrene & painted with emulsion - it doesn’t matter a toss to me. EFC is about what happens on the pitch - nothing else as far as I’m concerned & actually being to see the pitch, will be a huge improvement on GP - as much as I love the place - it’s a relic.

In a ideal world we’d build a state of the art gin palace of a structure, that would be in central Liverpool. But it’s simply not feasible - we haven’t got the cash - the Kirkby project is all we can afford - so what’s the alternative?

The GP remodelling plans I’ve seen, are (with respect) more than tad simplistic & to suggest that it could be cheaper to rebuild the entire stadium piece by piece, within the land locked streets of L4 - than building a new "off the shelf" stadium on an open brown field site - is ludicrous.
Even before taking into account the lack of the sale proceeds of GP & the lost revenue whilst part of the ground was unuseable.

I’ve seen no-one rushing forward with accurate (or even semi accurate) costings on any of the other so called alternative sites.

So what is the alternative? Wait at GP in the hope that BK sells up to a Russian mafia member or that his numbers come in on the Euromillions rollover?

If Kirkby is binned & we’re stuck at GP for the next decade will it still seem such a great victory?




Tom Hughes
152   Posted 10/06/2008 at 19:21:01

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Steve,
At what point have you seen accurate costings for Kirkby.....? When you voted it was "practically nothing"...... Gradually the truth was revealed, then by the time Tesco increased the retail it had mysteriously crept up to £78m despite supposedly being a fixed price contract. Now that cross funding enabler has just been decreased by 31%.... with a further decrease almost inevitable if this is called in.... What price now?

Fact is, only GP can be redeveloped in affordable phases as and when we need to. The majority of obstructions can be eradicated by just re-roofing. One new stand at the Parkend (15,000 new seats) or 2 extended stands (Parkend, Bullens upper) giving 10-15,000 new seats between them will produce more capacity and even more unobstructed seats than Kirkby, none of the transport nightmares, and would preserve heritage and identity, creating a unique combination of classic and contemporary stadium design at the home of the world’s first purpose built football stadium. What price would you put on that? Cost £2-5k per new seat dependent on actual format and fit-out etc. Just extending the upper Bullens by 20 rows would yield 5,000 new seats and 40 boxes at a cost of £25m max, probably less. That would allow us to test demand for additional capacity, and executive boxes and measure increased revenue streams. The extension would also greatly increase concourse areas at all levels on this side. Kirkby cannot offer this opportunity and requires £78m upfront. Failure to address the obvious transport problems that 3 transport strategies so far have failed to do, and failure to increase attendances to upper 40’s and Kirkby cannot pay for itself even at £78m cost!! What kind of position would we be in then..... ever increasing debt unless major success is achieved on the pitch. The GP option averts this That’s why redevelopment is by far the most comon solution for football clubs requiring new facilities/capacity!
Steve Taylor
153   Posted 10/06/2008 at 20:49:44

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Tom - I’ve read your ideas on the GP redevelopment mate - you make it sound so easy. The reality I would suggest wouldn’t be.

If we rip down the Bullens road stand as a starting point - what about the lost revenue whilst it’s being rebuilt? The exisiting footprint on that side of the ground is IMO too small to replace the current stand with something larger & have anything like the desired concourse space required for both regular match goers & corporates - it aint big enough. The option of purchasing the school & CP of some of the terraced houses behind, would make it possible, but at what cost & what timescale I’ve no idea. Before you come back at me with your theories - I’ve read them & I disagree with your conclusions with regard to that aspect.

Barry Heyes
154   Posted 11/06/2008 at 08:24:24

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We need a retractable roof on the new stadium! With the unpredictable weather over the last couple of years we definitely don?t need postponements of games, and especially now as were on our march to conquer Europe.
Barry Heyes
155   Posted 11/06/2008 at 08:30:09

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Unpredictable weather!
Tom Hughes
156   Posted 11/06/2008 at 12:42:42

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Steve,
There are a few schemes I’ve worked on. I’m not sure which you have read.

One involves replacing all three stands except the Goodison Rd side which can be remodelled within its existing structure, and building anew on the other sides. You’re right that the Bullens redevelopment requires a small land grab on this side. The city planners have seen the drawings and are not averse to this proposal at all. Also, the first phase involves replacement of the Park end, with the lower tier of a new double-decker at this end in service within approx one close season. AFL achieved this with Ipswich’s new end stand recently, and similar has been performed successfully elsewhere in europe using the latest prefabrication construction techniques. Given the scale of the new park stand No sustained loss of capacity is necessary. This process can be repeated aroung the 2 remaining sides to be redeveloped.

Alternatively, another scheme involves the extension of the upper Bullens, bridging the road itself. Again, this has been achieved many times all over the country as a route to expand capacity but without losing existing seats. This would result in a whole new roof for this side and zero upper stand obstructions. A line of upto 40 Exec boxes could be included along this side. The new structure would increase concourse area in the upper tier by at least 500% while doubling capacity. This new tier/extension could be carried around the corner into the existing Parkend, again never affecting capacity during construction. The result would be dramatic, and would offer all the continuity and assurance that Kirkby cannot given the transport and identity issues!
Steve Taylor
157   Posted 11/06/2008 at 13:16:50

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Tom - you undoubtedly know more about this issue than me & I admire your passion on this subject.

However, forgetting the practicalities of any proposed GP redevelopment for a moment. For me the option died, when the dark side were given permission to build on Stanley Park.

From a practical business standpoint, we’re currently considered outside of the city to be Liverpool’s 2nd team - as unpalletable as that is - nonetheless it’s a fact.

If we’re to develop our "brand" (I hate that tag btw - but it’s a fact of life in game thesedays) it wouldn’t matter what we did to GP - it would still look like the poor relation to the the new RS dome & the surrounding development that’ll go with it. Thus re-inforcing our "status" as the 2nd city club just by being there - literally in their shadow!

Whilst this in itself shouldn’t be a reason to leave the city boundary - I think it’s reason enough to leave GP behind, as when you add it to the problems that developing the current ground would undoubtedly bring, it makes it the wrong choice to stay IMO.


Trev Dean
158   Posted 11/06/2008 at 14:22:36

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The report does NOT say that the stadium is poor, and this article is a misrepresentation of that. Rather, the report points out simply, that in effect those against the stadium have suggested it?s a poor design. There is clearly an enormous difference between those two things. Never let the facts get in the way in the internet age though ...
Peter Howard
159   Posted 11/06/2008 at 14:23:07

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Sell GP to Netto so the RS have a supermarket as their neighbour- and a shite one at that! Ther’s poetic justice for yer.
Tom Hughes
160   Posted 11/06/2008 at 15:09:24

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Steve,
I’m not really sure what LFC’s stadium has to do with us to be honest. For nearly 100 yrs Goodison eclipsed anfield in the pecking order of football stadia and everywhere else in this country to be honest, it never stopped them from becoming the country’s most honoured club.

As far as rebranding is concerned, I can’t see how moving from a world famous city to a completely unknown overspill is positive rebranding. The only thing we require is an increase in profile due to success on the pitch. At this moment in time we are possibly nearer to that objective than at any other time in the past 2 decades. How are we going to secure those few missing pieces if we take on such a massive debt in one go! That need not happen with redevelopment. Kirkby to me represents far more unknowns and potential problems than does redevelopment. Polarising and/or marginalising the club’s future support due to geography of being out-of-town; Deterring fans due to the increased inconvenience of the poorly served public transport at this site; Loss of identity/heritage moving away from our roots etc. None of these apply to redevelopment. Furthermore, LFC are spending a fortune to try to preserve the identity of the old stadium in ther new design..... we can have the real thing with the majority of the development fronting the Park-end, Bullens Rd facing the enemy, not running from it. These will be every bit as tall as the New Anfield and will not be overshadowed either physically or certainly not Historically. I think there is real scope to create something truly unique and noteworthy at GP. Kirkby can never do this!
Paul Lally
161   Posted 11/06/2008 at 16:35:52

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Away at Old Trafford - 75,000 - back on motorway within 35 mins.

Goodison gone - club shop moved -

ALL TRACES OF EVERTON REMOVED FROM CITY OF LIVERPOOL

Yes voters, you have had your ballot, which you keep quoting was fair and a mandate.( I was entitled to 2 votes in my household and did not receive ballot papers). Plus you have the EFC marketing machine on your side.
So no problem then.

To EVERYONE who believes Kirkby is a very, very bad decision then please find email info.
Send to as many people as you can so that our voice is heard.

Below is the list of e-mails.
I have sent the template from KEIOC ( I simply opened up the template then copied and pasted into an email -

blearsh@parliament.uk contactus@communities.gov.uk
gonwmailbox@gonw.gsi.gov.uk michael.ashton@gonw.gsi.gov.uk
b.viner@independent.co.uk
boothg@parliament.uk daveprentice@liverpoolecho.co.uk neilhodgson@liverpoolecho.co.uk
sport@liverpoolecho.co.uk
sutcliffeg@parliament.uk
tony.livesey@bbc.co.uk
valwoan@liverpoolecho.co.uk
warren.bradley@liverpool.gov.uk

I could not find Andy Burnham?s email but his assistant is -

CALVIN.MULLINGS@Culture.gsi.gov.uk

?GET UP, STAND UP ! STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHT ! DON?T GIVE UP THE FIGHT !?
Paul Campbell
162   Posted 11/06/2008 at 20:39:13

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To my fellow dismayed bluenoses.

I have just spent a couple of hours mulling over the many thoughts and opinions of evertonians from all over the world and the following quesitons have sprung to my mind

1. How many of these complaints would come if Tescos had never had involvement in this project? It seems to me that some people are just pissed that this is being done with Tescos involvement rather than a supposed "trendy" multi-national company.

2. If Tesco were to provide the same development plan in LCC, would there still be this uproar?

3. If there was only a plan A of the Board's of redevelpoing GP over the next 5 years with a projected outlay of over £100M, therefore leaving us £20M less for players each season, how many of those vociferous fans would still be calling for BK's and KW's heads even when giving what they are now calling for instead of a new ground?
4. Are people really so clouded in judgement to believe the BK and KW are trying to run this club into the ground? If that was the case then why are we in the position we are in and potentially fighting for one of the lucrative top four positions??

5. If LCC had offered any real support then would the club really just dismiss this without any thought or investigation??

The real answer is that LCC have offered fuck all that is viable. Anyone who tells me that the loop is viable is really in cloud cuckoo land. Access to the ground and transport/parking for the match will become an impossibility so close to the city centre.

For the record, I voted Yes to the move and have been a non-Merseyside based season ticket holder for the past 20 years.

Graham Brandwood
163   Posted 11/06/2008 at 22:31:29

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I have not given up totally but I have had to prepare myself for the worst and accept that we are moving out of town. Once we all do this, we can concentrate our energy in trying to make Kirkby work. The players' and supporters' priority will be to turn Valley Road into a place were opposing players and managers are as intimadated in the way that they are currently at Goodison. That means stands as close to the pitch as Uefa will allow, as steep a canter as is possible taking safety into account, and as many of the stands as possible uninterupted by executive boxes which we all know deduct from the atmosphere. Double-decker stands will not happen as the cost will be way beyond our range. The outside is less important to the team and fans however I guess the west stand (Valley Rd Side) needs to have something that sells the club to the few people who will get to see it from day to day. Sadly as it is in Kirkby that is not many people (this is not knocking Kirkby its just not the Kings Dock).
Tom Hughes
164   Posted 11/06/2008 at 23:24:30

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Paul,
HOK aren’t in cloud cuckoo land they’ve put bigger stadia on smaller spots than the Loop. They are the world famous stadium designers not KW or Tesco, or dare I say Barr.

The excuse of blaming LCC is also way off target. When did they turn us down for anything? This myth has been repeatedly peddled on various threads and has no grounds whatsoever. Where are the planning applications, even the informal enquiries? Everything is recorded in the archives and open to EVERYONE. LCC gifted us Kings Dock. We didn’t find it, we sure as hell lost it though! Where is your condemnation there. Where is your querying of all the evaporated promises from the vote: Stadium for nothing, Most accessible stadium, NO PLAN B because we can’t afford anything...... yet now its costing £78m and rising? The transport plan has been revised 3 times since the vote and it’s down to park and walk now!

Some people have lost track of the issues here and are more interested in justifying the unjustifiable and re-affirming their YES-voter status.

Does any of the process to date look remotely like a Football Club attempting to identify and progress the BEST option for this club by identifying all options and remaining open to any possibilities and evaluating each to find the BEST solution? Too many key elements and indeed whole stages are missing for this to ever resemble normal design/decision-making practice. Tesco provided a solution that gives them what they want which is understandable, and we have been trying to fit our problems/aspirations into that pigeon hole ever since..... to the blatant exemption of everything else!!! That can almost never provide the best solution for us!!
Markus Steinbauer
165   Posted 12/06/2008 at 11:26:14

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The first thing I read about the plans in German media:

http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/intligen/startseite/artikel/379559/

Like how they point out how much more expansive it is compared to Liverpools plans. So we would get a so-so stadium much more expensive than Liverpools top stadium?
Steve Taylor
166   Posted 12/06/2008 at 12:11:41

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Tom - I’ve seen the HOK plans & personally I’m not a fan of the Loop location, but the stadium design looks great - but nowhere have I seen any proposed costings for this development - what are the ball park numbers for the land & the stadium build?
Philip Bunting
167   Posted 12/06/2008 at 12:23:09

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See LCC have have supported us once again, sorry i mean shafted us once again. Wake up smell the Coffee, LCC hate the fact Everton are trying to progress, what happened our inquirey into using Stanley Park...LCC stopped it. Liverpool Fc apply and guess what it got granted, then they approved a larger scale plan....all without obstructions etc etc. Now LCC have stopped us building houses on Bellefield going against all recommendations that building on it will not effect the surrounding area.....LCC are nothin short of a disgrace and should be called into account themselves by the Government for the wat they run the City.
Tom Hughes
168   Posted 12/06/2008 at 13:33:03

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Phil,
Remind me...... when did LCC last refuse planning permission to Everton FC? When did they shaft EFC over Kings Dock? Where is EFC’s application to expand GP’s footprint? Exactly what was that enquiry regarding Stanley park, other than rerouting a road at one corner of it (not building a stadium on it)? It was reported that the Bellefield proposal would be rejected last year, so why the surprise? Did you know that the heads of both main political parties in the council aswell the head of city planning are all Everton season ticket holders? Where is your venom regarding the Kings Dock Fiasco, or the multiple lies to support Kirkby that have all long since evaporated......? LCC aren’t forcing EFC out of Liverpool, Tesco and KW are driving this, and what are we going to get for their efforts: Roughly the cost of just ONE new stand, as we will be paying for the rest, and all the transport nightmares you can think of, out of sight, out of mind and out of the city! But LCC said yes to LFC, so it must be right!
Tom Hughes
169   Posted 12/06/2008 at 13:46:57

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Steve,
Bestway, had only done preliminary plans but received no encouragement whatsoever from EFC. Bestway’s Malcolm Carter’s response to his treatment by the club on this matter was on TW a while ago I think, and is very enlightening (It should be noted that they have been involved in some major developments all over the country). He basically couldn’t believe what he was being confronted with, especially after providing a supporting report by HOK and backing from LCC planning Dept etc. EFC where totally unreceptive. I believe their initial estimate of club contribution was of the order of £60-65m according to Jon Egan their spokesman. A broad plan was being formulated for release of enabling schemes all around that location, with several sites and uses identified. There are wide open and substantial council owned packages either side of Scotland Rd and Great Homer Street stretching upto Everton Park, across to Islington and upto Project Jennifer in the North. Given the level and scope of development projects already neighbouring these sites in the city centre, I believe it was felt that the value of the enabling potential could be realised more readily than for any out of town development which was always going to be one dimensional. There is no real demand for skyscrapers, hotels, penthouse apartments etc in Kirkby. There are quite a few going up in the city centre though with even more planned. The downtown stadium model has been used in several US cities to act as a development catalyst to underused edge of downtown locations. These have mainly been a roaring success and have prompted the biggest stadium building boom over there in over a century. The City planners saw this as a great opportunity to bridge the gaps between the city centre and project jennifer, and to solve some of the problems associated with this site. Several birds with one stone! We would get a centrally located stadium in a world famous and reborn city, with unrivaled public transport provision!


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