Just to prove the point, I have gone down the Lancs, through walton and Fazak, like most of us will have to do. And honestogod i cant do it in less than 21 mins. But when you get inside the man's head, I think he must be talking about Everton playing every home game on a Sunday night. Because with 50,000 to 75,000 people, plus all the shoppers.... Hope you get my drift. They haven't got a fucking clue.

I live in Kirkby and work at Kirkdale. 5am in the morning with nout on the roads the best I have ever done is 11 mins.
The fellas an idiot.

Even if he was right and it did take 8 minutes, I think he’s trying to play it both ways. He tries to say that Kirkby isn’t far from goodison and that it won’t be such a big deal to move 8 mins away, but then again I thought there was some talk of a ’bigger catchment area’ for supporters which ties in with his ideas about us needing regular 55,000 attendances to support the finances. However if ’evertonian-swamped’ Kirkby is just 8 mins away what reason prevents them from travelling the short distance to goodison?
We have a very large numebr of ’walk-up’ fans who may not be inclined or able to drive/bus it to Kirkby.

yawn................this all very boring, were off to Kirby live with it.

What an intelligent comment stewart instead of sneering, come up with some answers to the points raised. Is that too challenging, I suppose I should agree with everything the board say, 8 minutes to Kirkby, Deal of the Century, Kings Dock is achieveable, Rooney wont be sold, Fortress funding will be here soon.
Live with it MANY evertonians wil continue to protest at the spin, lies that spill out of goodison.

Stewart you are quite correct, Everton "were off to Kirby" but we are not anymore.
Incidentally has anyone noticed the link between people desperate for us to move to Kirkby and those not able to spell it?

Ha Ha! Good point Tim. Have you also noticed that apart from spelling it wrongly ( which just proves they know naff all about the place ) some of them can’t pronounce Knowsley either. That buffoon Wyness always adds an extra ’L’ in the middle and calls it ’Knowlsley.’ This sort of ignorance is worrying to say the least. If they can’t even get basic facts right......

Cant believe someone can post a thread abour how many minutes it takes to get to Kirkby you realy are clutching at straws, you cant slag moyes off today or the Yak, hibbart etc so you split hairs about 5 mins come on get a grip. So the chairman and CEO get it, now this Earle fella is going to be public enemy no. 1 It beggars believe it realy does team flying on all fronts and all these pricks do is insult everyone involved in the club who happen to know a lot more about running a business than anyone who leaves these posts. I would say if you are so succesful at your business and know so much about running a club, come on down

Why come on this thread then Stewart. Hope you’ll be happy with your 15000 mates at Kirkby.

Paul Davis - you should be glad there are still fans of this club prepared to fight for what is right.
If we are blatantly lied to "Goodison to Kirkby is 8 minutes" then we should stand up to it.
If we are told we can have a completely finished 50k stadium in Kirkby for £110m but building the same at Goodison would cost £200m we have a right to question why.
If we meekly go along with it we’ll end up with a half empty sub-Reebok stadium on an inaccessible retail park in another town.

To Robert Earl it probably only felt like 8 minutes, id say anywhere been 10-20 minutes between Walton and Kirkby depending on the time of day. Either way it just reiterates the point yet again that our new ground will be only 4 miles away in a strong scouse area - that’s why most blues don’t have a problem with it.

The bottom line the original post holds no water and you know it Tim, you are spliting hairs and to ridacule a man because of comment sums you up. I have better things to do than read a stupid post that can be blown apart.

Paul,
How does it not hold any water.....? It cannot be done that fast, it’s a fact? You cannot blow it apart at all. However the main point is, why does the club feel the need to continually trim or exagerate every figure connected with Kirkby in order to enhance it, and do the reverse for all the options? This is just one of several examples..... does he mention the ridiculously low public transport serving Kirkby with hardly any districts with a direct bus/train service? Does 8 mins include parking miles away, and waiting for a bus, and then travelling by bus along only a few traffic lanes that serve Kirkby? Otherwise it is yet another irrelevance used as yet another sweetener. Did the Kings Dock need all these sweeteners?

Tom I have come to the opinion that people like you are more worried about the boozers and chippies on county road, you wouldn’t know a business plan if it jumped up and bit you on the nose. The old lady has got great parking and great transport links do me a favor stop living in the 1970s time to move out of an out dated dump unless you can put some money forward and refurbish goodison park and build a nice train station with 2000 parking spaces then again you lot seem to have all the answers, my arse.

Tony your response to Tom is pitiful, how would Goodison Park need a new train station? How would it need a 2000 space car park - even more so that Kirkby isn’t even offering ONE car parking space to the paying fans. If you are going to debate the posts at least have an argument beyond trivialisation and nonsense.

Tony Hall - you’re wasting your breath, some of them are well away with the woods, there are some blues who are more interested in the ’County Road Experience’ shit though it is, freeloading off the RS and wanting a sub-standard piecemeal stadium literally in their shadow, thankfully most blues seen past all that bull in the ballot and more tellingly are still not protesting against the move.

I am still trying to work out why a guy living in the States, a self-confessed childhood Spurs supporter, is now a member of the Board ? unless there is a nice little earner at the end.

Off to Kirkby..gerrinn!! Lovin’ it.

Roy, I’m still trying to work out which foreign tycoon with a grasp of Everton’s history will come along, buy our debt, refurbish the stadium and invest enough in the team to propel us into the Garden of Eden that is the Premiership top four and champions league glory, just because he’s always had a soft spot...

Roy, it’s called business. Unless he’s into charitable donations. (Maybe we should tap up that Bill Gates fella - he’s giving most of his money away!)

Gavin, which part of Goodison’s transport infrastructure do you think works well? Over the years, I’ve driven, got the bus, the train, even walked to the ground, and they’re all crap! (I’ve tried bringing my ’copter, but they won’t let me park it in Stanley Park!). The point is, getting to and from Goodison is bloody awful, no matter how you do it. The roads leading to Fazakerley, where I come from on a matchday, only clear up at the Black Bull, and even that’s an hour after the match has finished.

When everyone goes on about how bad the transport links to and from Kirkby are going to be, they conveniently forget that getting to and from Goodison is a nightmare. But it’s part of the investment in time and effort we make to go to see our team - so why wouldn’t that continue when we move?

Hang on lads,why can’t people question what Earl is saying?He says it takes 8mins,and people who know the area will know that to be a load of shite.So when he states something that is not true,why are fans slagged off for having a go at his statement?At the end of the day he never made the journey along with 50,000(so we are told)other fans.

I park off Westminster road and im back in chester 5.45 - 6.00 every saturday no problem. Gerrard I think you should say most people who got the vote and then use the words apparently.

Stewart, it aint gonna happen,deliveable, my arse.

Roy, the "little earner", as you call it, would be a potentially massive ? and I do mean massive ? profit on share investment. The guy paid out what? £9M ? that’s NINE MILLION POUNDS!!!! ? for the priviledge of owning some Everton shares. Of course he wants a place on the Board because what he’s looking for over the next few years is for the value of those shares to increase to the poiint where he can sell them to the next "investor" for a substantial profit. And I’m talking here about MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF POUNDS. [And remember, follow the money trail: NONE of this money ever goes to Everton FC!]

Now before you all start crowing again, I’m not making any moral judgement here. This is what share investments are all about. Only schmucks like me and 300+ others are dumb enough to pay half as much again per share what Robert Earl paid, for our little slice of Everton FC Co Ltd (an established business since 1878, by the way), with little hope of ever seeing a meaningful return.

For those who still don’t get it, I estmate that the Greggs made a profit of around £2M and at a modest APR of around 5%, while Peter Johnson (and the numbers might be off here but bear with me) paid around £8.5M for 85% of the club in 1994, sold 17% for a profit of around £1½M in 1996 while then went on and sold his remaining shares to Blue Bill at a tidy profit of around £9M!!! ? Oh, and "destroying" the club in the process...

Spurs fan be damned... There’s money in them there footy clubs!

Sounds like the stadium debate will roll on but is anyone aware that a new building regulation comming into force next year could force the closure of the Bullens Road stand, this together with the fire officer may also not issue a fire certificate and helath and safety not issuing a safety certificate. The stand basically will not meet the new criteria of the updated bye-laws so this time next year a qaurter of the ground could be empty unless the club invest a few bob to upgrade current fire strategy.

The doom-mongers come up with this one about Bullens Road fire safety year on year (for at least the last 7 or 8 it seems) and yet it never happens... Will it be any different this time around?

Tony,
I have no interest in the pubs or any other businesses in County Road or the entire North of Liverpool for that matter. I would be interested to know your view on the business plan for the Kirkby project if you have ever seen it, and amongst other gems, the master stroke of "practically nothing" going upto £50-80m after the vote.

You evidently know very little about transport too, but please tell me how any peripheral site with only a handfull of traffic lanes serving it, with everyone travelling in the same direction and only 1 tenth the public transport capacity of the current more central location where people disperse in all directions and are fed by numerous A-roads, can ever possibly be better to get to. (Goodison has one of the fastest dispersal rates in the premiership, not my figures, Merseyside police and the football research unit’s). This is a logistical and demographic nonsense..... Why do you think the park and ride schemes are practically all within the M57 boundary? Could it be that the few lanes that pierce this bottleneck are already at or near capacity, and it’s therefore impossible to have the required traffic flow at this heavily car dependent venue? Everton’s own transport consultants said as much recently

Bob Turner, says the roads going through Fazakerly near him are choked for ages after the game.... and that’s with just the few hundred Kirkby blues and a few out-of-towners going that way? Imagine the majority of 50,000 using those routes. Tony McCann, Simon Inglis edited the last guide to safety..... he has said any new one will not affect the Bullens, also all wooden material is non structural and can be replaced if this was an issue, which it is not. In anycase, the Guide is just that, it is not legislative, and is intended for guidance for the design of NEW stadia/stands.

Michael, I know where you?re coming from when you say Robert Earl is only ?in it for the money? ? of course he is, he?s a very astute businessman. But for him to enhance the share value to make a massive profit then Everton would have to greatly improve their turnover and net profit . This won?t be done without investment in the short term and long term wise management of the accounts ? something that has been lacking for decades at Everton.

In his few months at Everton, Robert Earl has guaranteed a £25m overdraft which has enabled us to buy the Yak . He has stated his ambitions for the blues to be a top 4 club, not just top 6, this sounds a bit better than aiming to finish 17th or above each season! He?s the first investor since John Moores to actually commit to the blues and do something tangible, ignoring Peter Johnson, (who was a little man with big ideas).

I live in Fazakerley and know you can?t do Goodison - Kirkby in 8 mins. I?m also a No voter, the thoughts of leaving Goodison horrify me, but I am prepared to let Robert Earl push us financially in the right direction. I think he?s the only current Board member capable of doing so, and I can?t see any others queueing up to invest in us ? can you?

I personally think the transport issue will be the undoing of the Kirkby deal... but in the meantime, while we have a manager who?s built a very good squad that's only a couple of players short of a great team, we need somebody in place who?s capable of raising the finance to fund the team expansion. Thats what I think, anyway .

Arthur, You reiterate a number of traditional views there but I think the roadmap is a little bit different. Securing the Tesco stadium could have a massive impact on the financial viability of the club, albeit at the same time increasing the debt. But at least the value of the club would increase by the appraised value of the new ground ? it is going to be ’ours’ isn’t it? Note that Everton have been using the same appraised value of Goodison (£13M) in the accounts since 1999 or thereabouts!

The crazy thing is, the value of the club, based on a share price of $1,500, is $52½M... whereas we now have over $66M in debt! The numbers don’t really add up for a number of reasons:

1) Player’s transfer fees are fully amortized over their contracts... so what about their residual transfer-out fees?

2) Home-grown talent has zero valuation.

To my mind, these factors are for more important than the commonly held (and false) conviction that there has been no "wise management of the accounts for decades"... who says? Certainly not the ones whos job it is to make that call!

Earl may be the catalyst to help us move forward but the idea that he is putting his own money into EFC is completely wrong, I feel sure about that. I wouldn’t say he was in it just for the money, but I feel sure it is a very major consideration!

Michael , I’m not an accountant so I can’t argue with the facts you have put forward but I’m basing my statement on the position held by the club pre - Heysel , where arguably we were the best team in Europe , to the standing of Everton now compared to Man utd , arsenal , Liverpool , and chelsea , all successful to some extent all deemed " big " enough for massive outside financial boosts , and all no where near as good as us in the mid 1980’s , they’ve gone forward , we’ve stagnated . If Robert Earl is going t be the catalyst and we do become the successful team we all want then I have no problem with him making a profit on his investment in exchange for his business acumen , which , if you google him , you’ll find he is a very oustanding entrepreneur and certainly no asset stripper which would be as disasterous as another Peter Johnson

Tom Hughes,

I didn’t say it was roads in Fazakerley that were choked for an hour after the game, that is merely my destination (en route to Runcorn, as it happens, but that’s another story). I clearly said it was the roads heading that way which were choked, and that they only clear up at the Black Bull.

Just in case you’re not fully au fait with the local geography from Goodison to Fazakerley, I am talking about County Road up to Walton Church, Rice Lane through to Walton Vale - all of which is crawling, bumper to bumper traffic for an hour after the match ends. I know how bad it is when I walk faster than the cars on the road!

Hardly consistent with a few hundred Kirkby blues and a few out of towners, is it??

My main point is, do we only go to Goodison because it is convenient, or do we go to see our team? So what if we have to walk a bit further, or get stuck in a queue for a bit longer, surely it’s worth it to see our team play?? Well, I guess only you can decide that for yourself, can’t you?

Leave Earle alone he?s correct, Goodison to Kirkby is only 8 minutes... in his helicopter!

Bob,
Thanks for the clarification. I am quite familiar with the local geography, my reference to a few hundred Kirkby fans that presumably use some of those routes was from the club’s own data that there are only a few hundred season ticket holders with Kirkby addresses (hardly making it a massive latent hotbed of support). The point being that if you find this congestion so poor now with only a small proportion of match attendance using this route (with currently half the attendance heading southwards for the city, south Liverpool and the Wirral), how will we find it when everyone is forced to go along these same limited number of roads to and from the stadium? How do you then factor in the increased car use because of the much reduced public transport for Kirkby (one tenth that of Walton) increasing it still further? It’s "bumper to bumper" now, where will the extra road space come from to accommodate everyone? On the convenience issue: There are a few thousand who travel to all the away games, but for every committed die hard who will go anywhere there are 10+ casual, few times a season supporters, and probably 10 times that many who profess to being blues but rarely go. These will all want additional convenience not less, and many who go regularly now will be deterred by the inevitable additional delays. What kind of business would normally move away from its core support, and/or make it more difficult to get to? Can we really afford to deter anyone? There aren’t endless waiting lists of new supporters to make-up for the potential drop. I travel from South Liverpool and park near Westminster Rd when I go by car (rarely) with friends from Widnes, we get away in no time.

Tom, tell you what, next time I’m walking past the cars queued on Country Road, Rice Lane, Walton Vale etc, I’ll count how many people are in them! Probably a bit more than the couple of hundred who live Kirkby, I’ll guess.

If, by your own admission, half the attendance head south, that leaves half the attendance heading north, along County Road.

Half of 36,000 is 18,000, quite a bit more than a couple of hundred Kirkby residents, and a few out of towners... which is why the current situation is dire, already. I really can’t see how it can get any worse.

I’m not sure on the exact figures, but I would guess that there are substantially more than 20,000 season ticket holders at Goodison - I could class these as committed. I would assume that they would be committed enough to walk a bit further, drive a bit slower, to go to see Everton, or would they? You’re not exactly filling me with confidence that you’ll be willing to go the extra (4) miles.

Bob,
I didn’t say they were only the people from Kirkby going along county road, but again you seem to have missed my point. We do have over 20,000 season ticket holders, but it will take a lot more than that to fill Kirkby. I only mentioned those going southwards, what about those heading east to the areas off the drive or up the East Lancs, those heading into Bootle, and up the coast towards Southport. The ones you talk about represent a small proportion of the total attendance, there are several main routes feeding Goodison, there are only a few roads leading to Kirkby from the main catchment, and the one you mentioned is already full with only a fraction of the numbers required should we all have to go to Kirkby. In otherwords it can only get worse, not better. That is why the US are currently experiencing the biggest stadium building boom since the start of the 20th century, and they are nearly all in downtown locations. They tried out of town in 50’s-80’s!! Personally, if in the UK (I am for 7-8 months of the year) I never miss a home game, I have only missed a few home games since Alan Ball was playing, hope that allays your fears about my attendance. I was only stating a simple commercial trend..... reduce the convenience, you reduce your footfall!

Tom

If we’re going to discuss the commercial aspects of this proposed move, then that would lead conveniently onto a discussion about how the ground is going to be paid for - which, having been discussed ad nauseam on here, I’ll briefly mention again - a brand new stadium at a substantially reduced cost.

Or if you’d rather remain on your footfall argument, then how about the fact that gate receipts and programme sales for the year ended 31st May 2006 were only £18m, but broadcasting revenue was £26m (the year before these figures were £17m and £30m). I haven’t seen the business plan for the Kirkby Project, but I would hazard a guess that it involves tapping more into the revenue from broadcasting. Today’s news that ESPN are looking to invest in the Premier League only increases the importance of accessing as much of these billions sloshing around as possible.

And maybe it’s selfish of me, but the only thing I am interested in is watching a successful Everton play, whether that be at Goodison (which is looking increasingly unlikely), Kirkby, the Loop, or anywhere else.

I’m not concerned about yours, or anyone else’s arguments, about how difficult it is to get to (I’m still not convinced that it’s going to be that much more difficult than Goodison, though you’ll argue otherwise). It’s not going to be easier for me, because I come from Runcorn, my parents live in Fazakerley, so I’ll be walking. Other people come from further afield than me, so it’ll be more difficult for them. Other people, who by all accounts have had it easier all this time, will have to travel further. It is for them to decide if Everton mean more to them than the extra distance - I can’t decide it for them. All I know is that it wouldn’t put me off.

If getting a new ground at a big discount means the club will have a better chance of competing with "The Big 4", and getting their hands on more money with which to compete, then I’m there. Because that’s the only thing I’m bothered about. Similarly, for the people who decide, for whatever reason, not to go, that is their choice - they are doing what suits them best. I don’t buy the "No to Kirkby" line that says the club is forcing them not to go - they have a choice! And by not going, it is they who are making the choice, not the club.

It might be hard for people to accept but there is so much more money out there than what they can get out of us actually going to the match. The club could double its gate revenue (presumably by doubling an average 35,000 attendance to 70,000!!) and still earn more from broadcasting by having a more successful season than the one we had in 2005-06, when we finished 11th, so wouldn’t be hard!

PS if you "get away in no time", I would challenge your assertion that you’re competing with "half the attendance", because, going the opposite direction, no-one gets away in no time (unless, of course, you’re in the habit of leaving a few minutes before the final whistle?)

Bob,
I’m really not sure what your point is. Reduced cost or not, £80m means all that needs to be done at Goodison can be done, or similarly our contribution for the Loop is in place, so why neither of these more central sites? But, you then make it sound like it doesn’t matter if we turn up or not, because the Telly money will sort it. Why bother building a new ground then? Stay where we are and save £80m spend it on the team, and/or just sell Telly season tickets, and put cardboard cut-outs on the seats. The TV rewards are applicable wherever, and even then no-one knows how long they will last.

As far as EFC demographics are concerned..... A third of Everton’s season tickets holders have a Wirral address, so I think we can take it for granted at least one third go towards the city-centre to cross the river. Then there’s the whole of central, Eastern and South Liverpool, probably more than two thirds of the city’s population...... so I think I was being conservative in my estimate. Not to mention the other northbound roads that currently lead fans away, but don’t head towards Longmoor Lane and Kirkby. But regardless, that wasn’t my initial point. You complained that the traffic along county road was bad upto the Black bull as a point to prove kirkby’s acceptability, I just demonstrated that it cannot be any better if this route is then occupied by significantly greater numbers which is what would happen if we all have to go to Kirkby along these singular routes, and certainly as we approach Longmoor and Valley Road.... the bottleneck will become most apparent. As far as me getting away, I never leave early, If you care to try parking on the Westminster Rd side I can give you several routes via Lambeth or Fountains Rd, or Smith Street Southward that will get you away up great Howard Street or Great homer and into or around town in minutes. Or why not try the train, my brother travels from Frodsham via Runcorn every match, and has been doing it for decades..... Try the same to Kirkby on the 4 trains per hr, I did for years when I worked in Kirkby, not great. As far as doubling average attendances to 70,000, that is not what we are being offered, and in anycase the club’s own transport consultants have expressed doubts about just 50,000 on the proposed site and 70,000 would never pass any planning. Incidentally Everton’s highest ever average is just 51,000 in the days of Goodison holding over 70k, in the days when LFC had always been rubbish, In the days when the city’s population was twice that of nowadays. I like your ambition, but you’re stretching it to the extreme to make an argument. You might not care about anyone else’s arguments (I see you like debate then) but hopefully the club should recognise that a club with the highest walk-up and one of the most localised supports in the premiership should try to ensure that wherever it goes it takes them with them, because they are the vast majority of their regular matchgoers, otherwise building extra capacity for non-existent customers is just a waste...... Yearning for the easy route along the expressway and M57 from Runcorn to the detriment of the vast majority, and just for you is selfish, you are correct. It is also foolhardy.

Tom,

I go via Fazamerkley, so no other routes are suitable for me - but thanks for your advice anyway.

Consequently, moving to Kirkby does not make it easier (being done just for me, apparently! Read my post again, where I confessed to being selfish was in wanting to watch a successful Everton team, WHEREVER THAT MAY BE - travelling to Goodison is easer for me than walking 5 miles, that’s for sure) for me - as I said in my previous post, I will be walking from Fazakerley, some 2.5 miles or so. If I can do it, so can others, surely?

As for the £80m cost, if indded that is what it will cost us, I assume you have a fully costed breakdown of how much the redevelopment of Goodison Park will be? I assume that this can be done without disrupting revenue whilst the redevelopment occurs? Alternatively, the Loop’s financial business case, demonstating that we can get the same deal? Thought not.

Plus, I didn’t say that Everton’s ambtition was to get average gates of 70k, I was trying to show that even doubling our current average attendance, which would be a phenomenal feat we’re never going to achieve, does not bring us the extra money that broadcasting revenue offers us.

I don’t know what you’d call an exchange of emails around this issue, but I’d call it debate.

Ultimately, though, you’re not going to change my mind, and I won’t change yours. I accept that. So please accept that, from my own SELFISH point of view, I want a successful Everton team, and I will walk 2.5 miles each way to see it. If you, and other, won’t, your decision. It is also your loss.

I wish I could spell Fazakerley properly....