ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

The Mail Bag

Majority

When it comes to a decision of this nature which will have a big impact on the future of the club you have to look at pleasing the vast majority of fans. Every day on ToffeeWeb I read posts from people with a lot of very interesting and valid points raised both for and against the move and by the looks of things the vote really could go either way, but for me it all boils down to one thing...

...whatever the Board are planning should not cause such a mass divide in opinions, it has to be right for (nearly) everybody. The plans for Kirkby are controversial and if the majority of fans are that split that a vote is required to determine which is more favourable, then the Board really should have scrapped the idea months ago and concentrated on getting an alternative that will please at least 90% of the fans because it's us that keep the club going!
John Burquest, Allerton Posted 26/07/2007 at 00:43:19

back Return to the Mail Bag

Comments

Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer

Lyndon

John, the primary issue here is the decision to leave Goodison Park, to decide to move at all. I think we'd have had a ballot whether we were looking to move down the road to Walton Hall Park (wouldn't that be nice) or to Kirkby (wouldn't that be a nightma... oh, wait... ).

The fact that Kirkby is outside of Liverpool makes this an extremely contentious issue and that a split in opinion and some deep divides are inevitable.

Erik Dols
1 Posted 26/07/2007 at 07:34:55

Oh please, a 90% vote? Are you serious? Even Kings Dock didn’t get that much support, I think I read a figure of somewhere high in the 80’s.

sean
2 Posted 26/07/2007 at 08:35:12

we shudnt even be discusing the stadium issue. surely it seems clear that even if 70% of the fans voted agenst the Kirkby move Wyness wud still go ahed with it.
its nice to think we are the peoples club wen the reality is the exact opposite.

Tom Hughes
3 Posted 26/07/2007 at 09:07:46

90% might be pushing it a bit, but I think John is basically right. There has to be some level of concensus probably at least of the order 4:1 in favour of a move before we should even consider. Anything less and we will be in danger of alienating a significant proportion of our support which this club seriously cannot afford to do. We haven’t got masses of surplus supporters waiting for their seats to become available so why lose these people, and more importantly why should we want to? We have seen before that when you lose fans for whatever reason, it can be hard to get them back (early 80’s and 90’s?). We need to keep the Everton family close together, there has been some progress on the pitch, keep the club’s investment there, and soon Everton wont be the biggest club in the country that hasn’t attracted some Mr Moneybags (if you really believe we haven’t already). Also, if genuine alternatives were presented to the fans does anyone seriously think that Kirkby would get a second glance? So why are we being pushed there now? There is massive investment in Football clubs at the moment, LFC couldn’t afford there new place before they were taken over..... why not Everton? They’re dropping like flies all around us. In anycase why can’t Everton take on this project, certainly with respect to getting Goodison upto 48-50k? Even mighty Burnley have just announced a major redevelopment of their stadium. Not to mention practically every other Football club in the league who has undertaken such.

Erik Dols
4 Posted 26/07/2007 at 09:55:56

It depends on the question asked to be honest. If it is "would you follow Everton to Kirkby?" and only 51% said "yes", this would mean more or less you’re losing at least 16000 fans, which I think is unacceptable.

But the question probably will be something like "do you favour the move to a new shiny world-class stadium over staying at the ruins of goodison (etc etc)?" (TO BE SURE: THIS IS NOT MY OPINION JUST A PREDICTION), which is just a preference, it does not imply that people will stop going. And in that case, asking for 80% I think is too much, although I agree that a 51% on yes is always going to feel really uneasy.