ToffeeWeb - Season 2007-08

The Mail Bag

Everton the afterthought?

I had a friend come up from Essex to visit a couple of weeks ago and took her round the usual Liverpool tourist areas. One thing I noticed was that, in the souvenir shops filled with the usual Beatles mugs etc, whilst a large section of said shops was devoted to LFC merchandise, there was embarrassingly little of the shop for EFC merchandise. Even the souvenir Liverpool City mugs could quite easily be mistaken for LFC merchandise as they more than often were coulored red! There seemed to be a big push to promoting LFC in these places.

Walking back into town afterwards, I passed the official shops in the square there, LFC's emblazoned with large club badges and pictures of players on the shop front; EFC's badge on the other habd seemed just an afterthought at either end of a JJB sign and small in comparison to LFC's.

Thing is I know this city has always had it's bias towards LFC, but I dont think it really hit me until then exactly what we're up against.
Neil Todfd, Liverpool Posted 10/07/2007 at 11:51:46

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

Michael Kenrick

And the solution? Cut and run. We can't hope to compete in their shadow... let's move out of the City and go to world-famous Kirkby, where we won't have to look at them any more. That's the current club plan...

nmerrill
1 Posted 11/07/2007 at 06:32:10

I have to admit, the situation of
fans wanting to buy anything Everton in the town centre is a disgrace, I had 3 nephews up from Portsmouth all Blues, who visited the JJb store, there comment, was "they had better chances getting things Everton down in Pompey" as you say Michael, "Out of sight out of mind"

Colin
2 Posted 11/07/2007 at 06:42:36

Come down to London. There’s still all the Liverpool stuff but no Everton stuff. I used to enjoy asking why there was non there and was told it was just the top clubs. On pointing out that Everton were 3rd, they just looked a bit sheepish.
The larger stores down here have "top four" and Spurs. If you support West Ham, Fulham, etc. you are off to the club shop. It’s the nature of the game. Shops sell what people buy. I doubt they care much which team it is (which is rather sad for a shop based in Liverpool) The fact is, Liverpool FC are an international brand and Everton are not.

Shaun Brennan
3 Posted 11/07/2007 at 08:41:32

at least the people will know our name....

Dominic pitt
4 Posted 11/07/2007 at 08:41:33

You need to win silverware regularly to get anywhere near their [dare i say it]popularity.Shite as they are and they are The Shite they have still managed to get honours recently.The worst thing we did was leave that place and give them the chance to exist.

Mike Kennedy
5 Posted 11/07/2007 at 08:52:17

The same is true of John Lennon airport. The Reds have their stuff at the front of the souvenir shop whilst Everton’s stuff is at the back. we have to realise that they are a worldwide brand and the tourists want their stuff. But leaving the city will only make things worse, forgive me Kirkby but I don’t think they get many tourists

Chris Lawlor
6 Posted 11/07/2007 at 09:38:11

My missus was doing a marketing survey on this very issue about 3 weeks ago. We took a recce around Liverpool city centre, and she discovered the very same on her survey. As regards branding, product placement etc there is a very definite bias towards the RS in every way. That said, Her over riding observation that day was the amount of people in the streets wearing the Royal blue of Everton. It is quite apparant that Moyes’s initial observations of liverpool’s streets were spot on.

Brian Waring
7 Posted 11/07/2007 at 09:41:15

I now live in Wokingham,and went into Reading to look for some Everton gear for my little lad.Looking round I couldn.t find fuck all.So,I went to one of the assistants and asked"where do you keep your Everton gear"?He ushered me over to a rack,and pulled out 2 old tops both xxL.That was it,2 fucking huge shirts.When I told him that they were our official merchandisers he couldn,t believe it.I asked if they would be getting any gear in,and he said as far as he was concerned there was no plans to get any.Also,I’m not having all this shite about JJB sorting it out.FFS thay have been our ’partners’for ages now and have had plenty of time to get it sorted.Why aren’t the club giving them a kick up the arse?

barry bargg
8 Posted 11/07/2007 at 09:52:19

Its obvious that the non sports shops in town sell most of their stuff to tourists who are only going to be interested in liverpool FC. Its not bias but business that they give LFC preferential placement and to be honest I couldn’t care less. The only thing I care about is Everton and Evertonians and when people say we are giving the city to Liverpool by moving to Kirby I smile and think how embarrasing it will be for Liverpool when they are the ONLY team in the city but WE are STILL the BEST supported team in the city and perversly STILL the Peoples club.

Stefan Tosev
9 Posted 11/07/2007 at 09:56:30

Chris, the question is how long will this continue. It seems to me that every time EFC makes move in the wrong direction. There are two types of companies - successful and unsuccessful ones and Everton are clearly not from the first type.

As for merchandising you just need to log on EFC-megastore half of the sizes are not available, from the other 50% - 50% arent in stock ?!? I wrote them an email asking when they will have some of the goods - the answer - "We dont know keep checking" Needles to say 2 months after that I keep checking...

Rupert Sullivan
10 Posted 11/07/2007 at 10:26:01

Just to follow up on Brian’s point about JJB - three years ago I had this problem in Bristol and even phoned the club to complain that their ’partner’ was not stocking the gear. nothing changed until the following season. If EFC want to raise their profile then they need to learn how to manage suppliers... it isn’t rocket science FFS...

Tim McEwan
11 Posted 11/07/2007 at 11:07:32

Maybe when we jump into bed with Tesco they can help raise our profile. They seem to be pretty good at the whole marketing/advertising thing.

Every little helps!!!

Jez
12 Posted 11/07/2007 at 11:33:49

It’s so sad that football has come to this - talking about ’brands’ and ’marketing’ I live in Essex and when I moved down here I tried to buy an EFC card for a relative back home and asked the lass in the card shop where the football merch was. She ushered me upstairs to the ManU and RedShite shrines and that was IT! no Spurs, Arse, Chelsea, or even West Ham. Football’s moved on to a marketing man’s dream. Cheered me up hearing Jamie Carragher acting like a ’proper’ scouser threatening a radio DJ live on air.... that particular DJ is a proper tosser though.....

Andy Callan
13 Posted 11/07/2007 at 12:35:52

It is and always has been a complete and utter shambles. Remember the ’95 ticket debacle; lining up around the streets in our thousands from about 10pm the pervious night. Fuckin’ disgrace. I don;t go the Toffeeshop anymore coz they never have anythin’ in. Pathetic.

patty blue
14 Posted 11/07/2007 at 12:31:34

It would seem that we are better off here in Carmarthen despite most of the kids in the local schools supporting Man U, the Shite, Chelsea and Arsenal - our JJB Store carries Everton strip, as well as theirs, and I have also seen Everton goods on sale in Swansea and Cardiff. Perhaps its because we favour signing Welsh players or have done so in the past?

As for the number of Everton shirts compared to Liverpool ones being worn in the City of Liverpool - it seems the Blues have the edge on this and so why should it be us that moves out of the City - after all it would appear that WE ARE the People’s Club and therefore should remain.

Marc
15 Posted 11/07/2007 at 12:59:37

Unfortunately this is the case in most cities, Barcelona and Madrid are great examples, I myself am guilty of going to Barcelona and going on the Nou Camp tour and never once did I think to go and see Espanyols ground or purchase anything to do with the club. Everywhere you went it was the Blue and Red of Barca. The same can be said in Madrid where Real overshadow Athletico. The only two cities I can think of where two teams share the limelight equally are Glasgow and Milan. The RS have made themselves a global brand and therefore tourists want to buy the crap they sell!

Ray Robinson
16 Posted 11/07/2007 at 23:11:17

On the subject of shirts, maybe it’s my bias, but I see as many people around Warrington (where I live) and Chester (where I work) wearing blue as red - so we’ve still got potential.

However, the street traders in Chester tend to be 80% LFC and 20% EFC. Laughed my socks off the other day when a huge gust of wind blew most of the LFC merchandise halfway down the wet, windswept street whereas the EFC stuff remained doggedly in place!

Poor bloke managing the stall saw all his profits blowing away or getting soiled. Was there a message in there somewhere?

Steve Lyth
17 Posted 12/07/2007 at 09:45:28

We are and always have been a poorly run club on the commercial side.
I dont see things getting any better until the present management are fucked off and we are bought out by someone with a business brain.