Spurred on to Compare

....unfortunately I am talking about the Spurs board....

Reading this article I can only feel jealous. Say what you want about the way they change their managers more often than I change my pants, but you can't knock their vision and integrity of keeping to their roots as far as stadium development goes.

It appears that for years the Spurs board have been working hard behind the scenes, and have had a long-term plan for some time now, rather than looking for a short-term fix to a long-term problem. So many comparisons can be made between them and us right now, and in my view, Spurs have got it right, when Kenwright and Co have got it oh so wrong.

If only our board had half the guile of these guys.......

Sorry guys... I was trying to consolidate Lee Smith’s mailbag post and its associated comments into this one thread, but I messed up, and lost all the comments. Apologies.

I?m sure that fantastic, far-seeing board which has overseen Spurs? magnificent league record over the past 46 years have pencilled in how they?ll fill that spanking new 60k-seater stadium when they?re mired in the Championship. And Sky money?s gone ?ptoof!?

Before the shit starts flying on another ground move thread (and we haven’t had one for a while!), I thought it might be helpful to start off by seeing what we actually all can agree on.

I will of course stand corrected, but take it that ALL of us (from Tony to Doddy and all shades in between) agree that we would like to be doing exactly what Spurs are doing. Building a spanking new ground right in the community where we’ve been historically located for a decade. Anyone disagree?

I also (perhaps more riskily) take it that at least all informed Toffeewebbers agree that, at least as things currently stand, we simply cannot afford to do this. Spurs have already been buying up property for years because they can afford to do so. We haven’t because we can’t. They will be spending surely in excess of £200M to do what they are talking about. We don’t have that kind of money. It is not actually a matter of will, but a matter of money. Anyone disagree with this?

Well, I suspect the debate might now mainly evolve around who is most to blame for our current state of affairs, how different things might have been with different owners, and how different people evaluate the not very good options that currently (absent a rich new owner) we are faced with. Given that we don’t apparently have Tottenham’s rather good option.

But it might for once be helpful to start from the place that we all want basically the same thing, and all recognise that currently we can’t afford it.

Freud lives! For "decade" in my second para, read "century"!! (I know I thought it, but my fingers had other ideas obviously....)

The club needs to start from where we are and bring forward a realistic incremental plan for the development of Goodison Park, parallel to plans for developing the club as a business and developing the team.
Don?t say ?can?t do it? anymore than you say ?can?t win the next game?.

We should not be pinning our hopes on either one-off handouts or mythical sugardaddies.
The other realistic options are partnerships with an events organisation [like the Kings Dock proposal] and/or with another club [i.e. a Joint stadium]. The problem with Kirkby is it?s the worst of all worlds: undeliverable, lacking in long-term ambition and unsustainable.

From what I read on BBC website Spurs spent 5 years and £44million buying houses and commercial property, the majority being commercial properties. I wonder if Everton ever did buy any of the properties around GP?
There is also no comment on the Spurs story about what they will do whilst building the stadium, they will have to move out temporarily to allow the build, which will cost enough in rental and missed revenue?

As far as I can gather, I doubt Kenwright can even afford DK. I get the feeling he?s waiting for it to be passed by the government and then sell to a rich investor.

If this is the case why dosn?t the club put forward some plans for an inner city stadium which we can all be proud of, with LCC going on about how they don?t want everton to leave the city they can't refuse it. Then BK can sell up to his billlionare, we get a stadium to be proud of and all the investment needed that BK and DM have been harping on about.

I understand this is speculation but we keep hearing about how DK getting passed will open the floodgates to new investement, so why not a Liverpool site or even a redeveloped Goodison.

At this time of worlwide economic malaise, where clever ?finance? bods seem to have been too clever for their own (and everyone else!) good, a simple wisdom stands out to me... "If it is worth having it is worth waiting for".

Will our regular home match attendance really grow to a sustained substantially 50% plus (or even ANY significant %) increase upon moving to a new retail park stadium in Kirkby? Unless the Club are sure of this then it is surely better to just say no to Kirkby.

Kirkby is dead and buried so don't worry about it. BK knows this and so did Wyness. Once it was called in that was the beginning of the end for DK. What know? Who knows but at least we won't be building our very own Greybok will we?

Guy Hastings, Spurs have a waiting list of 22,000 fans for season tickets, I reckon that will go some way to filling their new stadium. Now, how many do we have on our waiting list to fill a new 55,000 seater stadium in Kirkby?

On a lighter note (and having now perused the Hair Bear Bunch on YouTube!) Is this Steve Round (or just a lookalike?), at the end he seems to be giving training on ball work....hopefully the sessions at Finch Farm have moved on from this!
Funny though!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU9bUfa_vF4

Not sure I agree with the post for various reasons some of them being:

1) If Spurs have been buying commercial property around their ground for the last 5 years then with the markets like they are they just lost a fortune of their balance sheet - commercial property having gone down the pan (so while Levy is pulling a PR stunt claiming clever planning he's probably wasted millions that could have gone on players)

2) Spurs can charge their season ticket holders twice what Everton charge theirs on account of being in London (and therefore have more to spend on stadium development and can borrow more to build a stadium as it will provide more income per seat), which matters because it means they can develop without having to rely on Tesco?s money and therefore can build where they want.

3) The Reebok may be soulless but Bolton are much better off in terms of league position now than before they built it.

4) Nothing will happen on the sale until the DK public enquiry has closed because it will affect the value of the club hugely.

5) Our chances of being bought out by a foreign investor have gone up plenty lately as the pound has plummeted against other currencies making us cheaper to buy... that's of course if anyone out there has any money to buy football clubs with...

£44 million just to buy up the surrounding properties brings the £70-odd million contribution needed for the Kirkby option into perspective - it is a very cheap affordable option for us.

25 thousand on a season ticket waiting list also brings into sharp focus the gulf in comparability of the fan base between the two clubs.

Why the difference? Poorer stadium? Smaller fanbase? Less affluent fanbase? Surely not success over the last 30 years?

Starting from where we are right now as Trevor Skempton suggests, we need a radically extended footprint. LCC say it will be ’sympathetic’ so in the event of the collapse of the Kirkby option hopefully that will emerge as a possibility. Unfortunately we still keep coming back to that bugbear of redevelopment - money.

Graham

I agree money is still the bugbear. However surely it was BK?s job to develop more than one potential strategy i.e. The Kirkby option and develop alternative streams of finance. Whats annoying me, is all these cock-up have happened on this guys watch and until recently he has been like ?teflon Bill? no shit sticks to him. He gets away with Blue murder because he offers us some platitudes about his undying love for the club. I would personally prefer a mute chairman who delivered on the business end of running a football club.

The truth is its a hobby for him and his true interests lay elsewhere. This would not be so terrible if he was not potless.

Time for that moronic chant "time to go, time to go, fuck off, trouble it was time for him to go long ago We all bought the misty eyed sentiment he pushed whilst other clubs were getting their act together off the pitch. I am afraid his competence is in question.

I wish you lot on here would lay off Bill Kenwright. Granted he is not the astute businessman we wish he was and it is better for the long-term future of the club if he hands over the reigns to a more business-savvy establishment, but for gods sake the guy has done his best by us for a number of years and he has said time and time again he wants to hand over the reigns to a suitable person or organisation as long as they have EFC's best interests at heart and the financial muscle to support it. Stop sticking the knife into a good guy....

Ed
I couldn't agree more.

Forget stadiums or building on what we?ve achieved so far because this board led by Kenwright is deceitful, incompetent and selfish.

And we won't see progress until they ALL go.

All this he?s one of us BS wears thin when you look through the masquerade.

Damien

I personally don’t know any KEIOC members so I would not presume to call them morons anymore than I would label those who voted for DK are morons. To try and validate your view of the vote of Aug 2007 as somehow representative of Evertonians opinions of DK is a little misleading. The club first of all sold us a very distorted view of what DK would bring us, even they now conceed this. Secondly the vote excluded many match going Blues who for whatever reason do not buy or have stopped buying a season ticket so again I dont think it is accurate picture. Finally over 10,000 voted no and 10,000 didnt vote at all.

Please don’t trumpet the democracy of EFC too loudly this is the club that attempted to prosecute some of its own supporters. It was a nod to democracy Damien I will grant you that giving us a vote, but in a democratic referendum both sides of the argument are normally allowed to put their case. Face the truth Damien it was a sham and the whole DK marketing strategy has been shown to be riddled with errors and accounting mechanisms that would make Bear Stearns and Northern Rock look effective.

Ed, in every democratic society the voting process excludes a proportion of its constituents ...... Everton?s board have listened to the views and have provided air time to its opposition, so dont try and label this whole process as corrupt. I am not defending some of the inadequacies of the DK business development proposals, but I am sick of the attacks on Bill Kenwight as the supposed Lucifer of the peace. Everton have for 7 years been looking for, nee asking for alternative options for a new stadium from in particular LCC following the debacle that was the Kings Dock and the options have been a joke (especially the Bestway Project). The whole thing has fallen on deaf ears to many Evertonians.

Brian - if Spurs go down you?ll be able to pave the Seven Sisters Road with discarded season ticket application forms.

"I wish you lt on here would lay off Bill Kenwright. Granted he is not the astute businessman we wish he was and it is better for the long-term future of the club if he hands over the reigns to a more business-savvy establishment"

Damien, Bill would like to thank you for your half-hearted support.

Like many BK supporters, you blame others for his piss-poor leadership. LCC worked with him on the Kings dock proposal and the only reason the club is not on the waterfront is because Bill did not live up to his half of the bargain. It's not up to LCC to solve the club's stadium problem, it is BK?s.

I hate to be pedantic Damien but it was you who claimed the vote was democratic. If Everton had total confidence in the scheme being popular why have a vote at all? It was a smokescreen to get their plans through and then claim that the majority of fans backed it. Look at the marketing that preceeded the vote, does any of it stand up to scrutiny now? Your confidence in BK is misplaced Damien. I don?t think BK is the devil, he is just not very good at his job. Consider our motto; I'm afraid his best has not been good enough.

Neither is your post Ed. There are a large number of us Evertonians who realise Bill Kenwright is not Bill Gates or Amil Ambani etc. But also believe he is not the antichrist and doesn't deserve the criticism you and your cronies give him. He is just an Evertonian who wants to do his best for us, even he realises he has made mistakes. So give it a rest and let's work together to help our club forward.

We are not cronies ? just concerned Evertonians who are fed up with well over a decade of half-truths and a legion of excuses.

I have followed the Blues for 36 years and I have been through much worse years than this e.g. , Johnson. Be positive, we have the chance of a new stadium, new Investors, we have a great manager, we have Maourane Fellaini, Tim Cahill etc. Things are looking promising.

Damien, if BK really did have Everton’s best interests at heart he would put a large for sale sign outside Goodison and ask for exactly what he paid for it. Surely someone who has any business acumen whatsoever and dare I say less money than Bill would be a better option for the long term future of the club.

One of the key differences between us and Spurs is this statement
George Meehan, leader of Haringey Council, added: "We have always regarded Spurs as one of Haringey?s prime assets. They bring major economic benefits to our borough and carry out some excellent community work through the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation."

Here we see the full backing of the local council of which we have had none or very little maybe this is because of the fiasco over Kings Dock I guess only LCC know that.

Damien, I suggest you read up on the Kings Dock fiasco.
Paul Gregg was prepared to put up the money but Billy Bullshit was not prepared to let go of his train set. There then followed the Fortress Sorts Fund debacle. Remember that? It was when Billy Bullshit constantly assured all and sundry that the money from the Fortress Sports Fund was imminent.
Watch this space!

Spurs, Man Utd, Chelsea, Aston Villa etc are run by sucessful businessmen with vision, brains and sound financial understanding of what is required to run a big football club and maximise to its full potential.

Sadly we are stuck with a clueless oaf who?s constant trump card is "What do I know? I?m a fan just like all of yous."

Pathetic!!! But worst of all Evertonians are allowing this to happen and let this fool get away with it all the time. Very sad.

Jay, in your relentless and single-minded focus on blaming everything that is wrong with Everton on Bill Kenwright, you don’t think that perhaps you are missing the bigger picture?

I actually agree with you that the club could have been better managed on the commercial side over the last few years. But, taking seriously the Spurs comparison which after all started this particular thread, do you think that Kenwright could have turned Everton into a club that could have spent the amount that Spurs has spent on players, could have spent £50M simply on buying up property in Haringey, and could have the financial resources to be seriously comtemplating spending £200M+ on a brand new stadium? If so, how would this have happened?

I think Everton’s problems in comparison to Spurs run a lot deeper than the failings of one man, and are a lot more complicated and harder to solve than could be achieved simply by replacing him with someone a bit more commercially savvy.

I have always had a soft spot for Spurs ? ever since the days of Arthur Rowe and his ?push and run? style of play. Sort of London School of Science, if you like!

In recent times, Everton and Spurs have very similar records ? both being members of the ?Premier League Super Seven? ? those clubs who have played in every season of the "Sky League's" existence (although Everton are the least successful of these seven!) viz:-

Everton P620 W211 D167 L242 F758 A808 Pts800
Spurs P620 W223 D165 L232 F839 A847 Pts834

In the "Every team that?s ever been in the Premier table", Spurs stand in 7th place whilst we are 9th. Interestingly, two clubs who have spent time out of the top tier are above us ? Newcastle,6th with 872points from 578 games and Blackburn, 8th with 805 from only 544 games.

Off the field there can be little doubt that Spurs have maintained a far superior infrastructure, aided no doubt by the financial know-how of ?owner? Joe Lewis and his asute (although not in football matters!) lieutenant Daniel Levy.

We all know where we stand on the move and we?ve all given our reasons more than once as to why we believe Everton should/shouldn?t be in Kirkby.

Consequently, I?m not repeating any of the stuff I was posting over the summer.

(And Neil Pearse describing those who disagree with his guesswork - fact: that?s what it is - as being ?ill-informed?, won?t lure me in today.)

What does (genuinely) fascinate me though, is that apparently there are people out there still prepared to believe and/or back... ANYTHING proposed by Kenwright.

It baffles and fascinates me there are people who will still say things like "Well according to Kenwright...." or "Bill Kenwright has said he won?t be...."

I have thought about this, considered it, for flip?s sake even pondered it. The most rational, logical conclusion I can come up with is this. There is a new drug called ?bleevmee-BL-U? (or something) that has been invented by a team of mad scientists working for Kenwright and this drug is being added to Chang before home games.

Daft?

Well we can only guess how and why stuff works the way it does at the People?s (ie: major shareholders') club, but here is something I KNOW about NON-Everton stuff. If you dealt with a builder (or a bank manager or a priest or a butler or...) and you had caught this person, banged-to-rights, (100%!) bullshitting you (on numerous occasions), you would VERY soon stop believing him/her when they made you promises regarding..... anyfuckingthing.

You would, very soon, have nothing to do with this person and when people asked you why, you would say (understanably) something like, "I fucked him off ? he was one spoofing twat."

Question ? why does OUR bullshitting bum get a ?pass??

Coz he?s a ?good blue??

For - fucks - sake!

I don?t doubt your figures, David, but I am amazed that Blackburn have garnered 5 more points from three seasons less than us in the top tier. That is some achievement ? or, perhaps, a reflexion of how poor we were until Moyes arrived!

Neil, in answer to your question, yes, Ii do feel that Everton could have matched Spurs for spending power etc over the last few years IF the right the people would have been allowed to come into the club and have a bigger say on how its run.

Unfortunately, the way Everton is structured, Kenwright has almost dictator status and until his stranglehold on the club is released we will always be at the bottom end of the scale for all aspects like transfers, commercial activities, profile etc.

He has been on the board since the early 90s and has been running the show since Gregg went so the buck stops with him Neil, end of story. Don?t make excuses for his smokescreens, ineptness and his inability to bring money into the club. It?s simply not good enough.

Kirkby is an absolute joke. No other big club would consider doing what we are proposing to do (leave its roots) and neither would their supporters!!

I believe the lease for Liverpool?s new ground expires in January 2009. If we are bought by a wealthy new owner, and we can prove we have funding, would LCC let us move into Stanley Park?

Neil the only thing that?s relentless is Kenwright?s penchant for telling lies particularly when he comes under the microscope.

He seems to relish in the "one of us" status afforded him but forgetting all the lies he has presided over taking EFC to record debts and consistent loss making operations with no marketing strategy and no business plan for the future.

It speaks volumes for the man that he?s had 4 chief execs and back-stabbed former friends and supporters of his.

As a business consultant you well know that the man at the top has to take the blame for the culture and ethos of his operations and in this case it is well warranted as the man tries to run the club as the "Bill Kenwright show" from his London office and while that may work for his theatre productions it does not work for EFC.

Matt Byrne

It depends when Spurs intend to start building their new stadium. If it?s after 2012 they will be able to use one of the purpose built Olympic stadiums that have already been suggested as a new ground for a number of London clubs. So, not only does the London area get a ludicrously expensive Wembley but it?s clubs get the chance of a cut price stadium. Bit like City did.....

The scary thing is, if you look at White Hart Lane AS IT IS NOW, it is ten times more modern than Goodison and they have kept on top of developments for years ? same goes for other clubs. The oldest stand at Spurs dates from 1984, the newest the late nineties ? the only reason they want a move is the Lane is too small.

Even Maine Road (though a hotch potch) was infastrucurally far, far more modern than Goodison. There are numerous examples of this, another being them across the Park. Anfield is actually a pretty damn modern stadium and they can?t wait to up sticks. What we have been playing at with ground development in the last 20 years I honestly don?t know.

This is a long shot, which will probably cause howls of anguish on this site, but which has already been floated by lifelong Blue Paul Wilson at The Observer: how about once the squatters move out, move back to Anfield with several pots of blue paint? That’s where we first won the Championship. We were there first.

Alternatively, if Abbott & Costello can’t come up with the scratch for Stanley Park, twist LCC’s collective elbow and drive for a communal stadium. I know, I know. But Liverpool isn’t London. Everton aren’t Spurs, and Liverpool, for that matter, aren’t Arsenal. It works for Milan, Ac and Internazionale.

Oh, I see Neil has dared to come back and back his kind old uncle Bill!! Neil, I?d be interested to know your thoughts on recent rumours regarding offers of up to £200 million for the blues from middle eastern investors, I remember you pouring scorn on my suggestion that if the club was sold for let's say £80 million then this would explain why he still holds on to his ownership because it represents one hell of killing on his and his "friends" original investment of £20 million. I presume you will say rumours are rumours and Bill just can't find anyone to buy the club.

I used to think I was a fairly open-minded individual just passionate about Everton. The Kirkby debacle changed that for all the wrong reasons.

Ed, I too looked with envy this week at the way Spurs have planned a move, the commitment shown to the community and supporters, and their foresight in staying close to their spiritual and physical home. It shows the commercial savvy and leadership we do not have.

Let's be a bit cruel for a second and dismiss sentimental views of Bill. When times are good and the team are successful he is happy to take the kudos that goes with that success. But the flip side, the commercial reality, is that as the commercial head of the club, the largest shareholder and the self acclaimed saviour, If it is deemed that the club has fallen short off the pitch it is his responsibility. If the club is under financed or makes poor financial judgements, it is his responsibility. If he makes poor appointments for CEO?s who stuff it up or who aren?t allowed to make good financial decisions, it's his responsibility.

So... point being that in a real commercial world, BK would be shown the door for incompetency, irrespective of how many people like him.

But that's in a real world. Everton FC have somehow become a theatrical agency and what we are subjected to from BK is not good commercial sense, its pantomine.

"On No it isn?t" ? goes up the cry...

Rich, my actual point (answered directly by Jay, even though I don’t agree with him) was that, whilst the club could certainly have been run better on the commercial side these last few years, our problems run a lot deeper than could be changed simply by getting rid of Bill. Not sure why you always choose to ignore / misrepresent what I actually say, but there it is.

Sorry Christine too, but what the Spurs comparison mostly shows is not a difference in vision, but the difference that having lots more money makes. Vision really isn’t as hard as you might imagine if you can idly splash out £50M on Bent and Pavlyuchenko and Prince-Boateng and Bale, and another £50M on properties around White Hart Lane (leaving £200M+ left to actually build a brand new ground).

And yes, Rich, I will believe that someone pays Kenwright and other shareholders way over the current market price for Everton when I see it. You should be happy anyway. In the current financial environment, if Kenwright has been ’holding on to make a killing’, he sure as hell got his timing a bit wrong.

As always, Neil, I'll bow to your superior knowledge of such things.

I was just looking at Spurs plans for their new stadium, which will happen to be, strangely enough, in the immediate vicintity of their current stadium. Strange that Spurs did not choose to do what Everton has chosen to do. If they had, they would be building their new stadium out in Harlow or Hatfield. But for some bizarre reason, they seem to think it makes more sense to stay closer to home. Crazy eh?

Wouldn't you think they would realize that building a new stadium close the old one makes no sense? Wouldn't you think they would see the brilliant opportunity offered by moving to a cement shopping center several miles away? Wouldn't you think they would have learned from the mistakes made by Newcastle, Manchester United, Arsenal and so many other clubs who foolishly believed there was some value to retaining a link to the neighborhood?

Ah me, what a difficult lesson it will be for them when they see how Everton prospers in the Tescodome in Nowheresville, Lancs. By then it will be too late for them, poor luvs. Thank God we have better business minds working on our behalf.

Let?s face the facts: The economic world has changed... No-one wants to buy Everton - fact and why would they? Would you?

Crowds are declining, Everton DO NOT and have never had the fan base to warrant a 50k capacity stadium... So (and I have said this before) build a second tier at the Park End; reprofile the Bullens and Gwladys St to single deckers to open up larger concourses; Sort out the main stand; re-roof.

I bet there will be 40k+ there. The capacity will cope with the fans. If there is a sudden surge in support - charge them!

If success should ever come, then either redevelop the old lady properly, or find a descent inner city site.

Rob....

In one in twelve of the seasons since the foundation of the Football League, Everton have had the highest average attendances. They are one of only five English clubs who have ever averaged more than 50,000 in home games across a season [the others being Man Utd, Spurs, Newcastle and Arsenal] ? they have done it twice while I?ve been a supporter.

We must not settle for anything but the best. We need to be ambitious AND hang on to our history.

Someone up top referred to what LFC have done to Anfield. As we all know, if we had built a new stand every 4 years or so on the back of the Sky money that has come into the game in the last decade and a half, we wouldn?t even think about moving - we would have a rebuilt Goodison. The reason we don?t is down to the financial mismanagement of the club. Yes, I know Kenwright hasn?t been Chairman all that time but he has been on the board throughout that period and as such takes full responsibility in my eyes.

If I had to name just one reason why I despise Kenwright (God knows I could list 20), it is because he always plays the pauper card with his "it?s not my fault I?m not a multi-millionaire" as if that is the reason plenty of us hate him; it?s not the reason. I don?t hate him for that, I hate him for the way in which his poor housekeeping has squandered the financial windfall of TV money since the early ?90s in such a way the only way he can now deliver a new stadium is to move us to Kirkby to play in a supermarket carpark.

Some interesting points made but a couple of things inspired me to comment: the first was the assertion made by a number of bloggers that moving to a new ground in the sticks results in a soulless atmosphere like the Reebok ? well, I can tell you that the Reebok last week had more soul than Goodison did on Saturday, and than the Emirates did a few weeks ago (Arsenal stayed close to home didn?t they?) and I was at all 3 games.

And it sometimes pisses me off that people are fixing all their energy on the bads ? Spurs are gonna be calling their new ground the Mansion stadium, or whichever corporate bids the most, and I reckon this site would crash with the number of posts if we sold out naming rights, which as I understand isn?t part of DK (correct me if I?m wrong!).

FFS half of you will be the missing 8000 from Saturday, sitting on here pissing and moaning instead of getting behind the lads and at least making a point for staying at our spiritual home ? Goodison?s been dead this season so perhaps it?s best to move on if it helps attract investment, or we could stay at our home like Leeds, Notts Forest, etc. and have a bunch of ?happy? blues filling Goodison in 2020 to play Yeovil (no disrespect to Yeovil!)

Several claim that if Everton had invested in their stadium every few years we wouldn’t be in the position of needing a new stadium right now and of course they are right up to a point.

Unfortunately the issue has always been where do you start throwing money at a stadium on a footprint that is too small and - flattening Goodison Road aside - will need to be moved.

Secondly if millions had been spent over the last 15 years, where would that leave the team? At what point over the last 15 years or more would you say we could have afforded to divert money from a team that desperately needed support throughout this time?

The club have constantly had to ’firefight’ to stay afloat in the top league - there simply was no option of spending the Sky riches on bricks and mortar when the team sank to the lower reaches of the league year on year.

But Graham, building new stands one by one with better facilities, more lounges, better catering facilities, bars, pubs, nightclub etc would have generated more money for the team. We earn a pittance from Goodison as it is now. I probably spend less than 20 quid there a season. Better facilities and I?d spend £20 a game and lots more would spend more as well. The reason we have had to firefight is precisely because we haven?t invested in the infrastructure. We have sold off virtually all our assets as well, just to stand still.

Matt and Ray - the Spurs plan is to build a stadium adjacent to WHL in the area of land they have been acquiring over the last x years. Their plan is to continue to play at WHL until the new stadium is complete, then move in. What they will do with the old site I do not know, though develop it into additional match day services is probably high on the agenda.

In all the spurs plan is remarkably better than Kirkby. Their spending and acumen is clearly higher than ours, despite similar match day attendance. We can argue to have a larger fan base, but no one could argue we have a smaller one. Why then can spurs afford to acquire so much land, given that they are dealing in london prices and we are dealing with, well, Walton. It comes down to business management. They have some - it aint the worlds best, but its sufficient to run a football club. We have a failed ex-coronation street actor who is a blue. Forgive me for wanting to see Blue’s on the terraces and business managers in the boardroom. Crickey if it was the other way around. Oh..

Graham
The whole thrust of my argument is that a club as big as Everton needs appropriate leadership and management and we haven?t had that. Kenwright has admitted himself that he lacks the requisite business skills as well as finance to do this. It is excuse after excuse over a very long period of time that has worn people?s patience. I really wanted to believe this seemingly passionate Evertonian was going to deliver the goods but he hasn?t. I remember him speaking after the Wimbledon game, about the Kings Dock, about Rooney not going, about Fortress Sports funding, watch this space etc etc . It is all a little like Peter and the Wolf most of us simply don?t believe him anymore and with damn good reason.

Well said Ed. Sadly, to paraphrase that famous saying someone famous once said, you can fool some of the Evertonians all of the time with a reference to Davey Hickson and the boy’s pen, shoehorned in to every sentence you utter about Everton FC. Some idiots are still falling for it, every time.

Will Kirkby make us a bigger club? Judging by this objective view from an impartial viewer (JD is a tractor boy), showing a comparison versus our peers (fellow "Top 8"), not bloody likely:

http://www.espnstar.com/opinion/columnists/column/item56239/

The Club has been run like this for decades. Back in the 80’s I wrote a letter to Jim Greenwood pointing out that the Old Park End ( which was partially bricked up, built in 1906 and only had a capacity of 6,000 was a disgrace and needed redeveloping.

It was 1986 and we had a superb team, admittedly unable to play in Europe, but nevertheless a top Club and this stand let the whole stadium down.

I got a reply saying that ’ such massive redevelopment’ was ’totally out of the question’ due to ’fears’ of putting the Club in financial trouble. I was basically told to piss off and dismissed as a dreamer who wanted to risk financial suicide.

3 years later Hillsborough happened and all Clubs began redeveloping their stadiums and many have been totally transformed. However all EFC did was produce a picture of a 2 tier new Park End in April1991. By then the team was poor, crowds were down, but Sky was on the horizon.

Late 1993 and it was announced the Park End was to be rebuilt. Not so much dreaming now as a blindingly obvious necessity.... funny how it all changed in just 7 years eh? Sadly, though, the 2 tier stand to match the and meet up with the Bullens road ( likely capacity around 10,000, was shelved for the Oldham-esque structure holding only 6,000 you see today. It cost the club £2m to build, but £1.2m came from a Football Trust grant. Only £800k to build a stand!!! Cheapjack.

And to this day, that’s pretty much all they have done since the early seventies apart from the seats which they HAD to do.

Small minded, conservative, visionless twats have run this Club for too long. They only didn’t sack Kendall in 1983 or Moyes in 2005 because they couldn’t afford it... and then got lucky.... before anybody pipes up with cries of ’ they haven’t rushed into anything and it’s just as well.’

I hope we get taken over by somebody with some vision, some real ambition and balls who builds an iconic stadium in the inner city close to Goodison and wants the team to win the Champions League. Tht might be an unrealistic dream, but can we really do any worse than the ’little men’ who have wasted the opportunity that is EFC for so long?

Why do all anti-DK people always wish to compare EFC to other clubs who have sound financial backing? Spurs' tickets prices are double EFC, executive tickets between 3 and 8 times more expensive than EFC. The club over the last 15 years has been run by billionaires who speculated with cash but for a return.

Spurs has the backing of the Jewish business community which is probably one of the most professional and profitable if not in the UK maybe the world. The business module and fan base is far superior to that of EFC, probably bigger than their neighbors Arsenal.

EFC has had to sell local land, training grounds just to buy the odd player to keep the fan base happy, it?s not a fair comparison at all. I have said it all along that BK biggest failing is he isn?t a billionaire, if we can all accept that then we move on to two options available to us;- 1) New owner comes in with a sack of money 2) We take the largest handout available to our financial position.

In my mind we have and are exploring both options, unless anybody can arrange to pop a rabbit out of the empty hat then accept EFC financially are bottom 6 Premiership or even Championship grade at best. I don?t like that fact either; the truth is a lot of fans seem unable to accept we are no longer a big club. COYB

No matter how much proof people see in this, there are always going to be people who say Bill has done wonderfully and the board has made the right choices, blah blah blah.

Everton FC have tried to take a fast way out of this and in doing so have lost silly amounts of money doing it which was obvious from the moment that they announced "there is no plan B".

How come every other team manages to find a local location (even teams in a place as built-up as London) and Everton simply cannot? Because Everton can?t be arsed, we won?t take risks and we take no for an answer. Not to mention that various people have probably been offered a nice little bonus for going along with Tesco.

Even Liverpool FC bought local property around Anfield, that?s why so many houses around there are boarded up.

I?m sick of Everton not taking chances and doing as they are told at all the wrong times, it just makes us look like no-marks.

Neil & Ed

I agree, business management is probably one of our weakest points and Kenwright is at the centre of that for the last 5 years, with conservative boards before that as long as I can remember. The club have fallen far behind our competitors albeit for reasons that were made year on year for what seemed like the right reasons ? Premier League survival being one of those.

I do think Kenwright has grasped a lot of that and many changes have taken place over the last 4 years with significant success on and off the field. However, we still remain far behind and need a new structure to generate more money, new businesses and not least of all offer far more to fans on matchday in the hope more will come who will spend more.

Building stand by stand is not as simple as it sounds ? the ground is at the edge of the land it occupies and to build a stadium with the space and facilities we want we need a footprint roughly twice the size we have now ? the pitch has to move sideways at the very least.

This is at the heart of why Spurs can generate more money on matchday ? they are able to charge far more than us because what they offer is far superior to what we offer. I have been lucky enough to be corporately entertained at both stadiums and, believe me, there is no comparison.

If LCC are trying so hard to keep us in the city, why not issue a Compulsory Purchase Order for the properties surrounding GP? They certainly didn?t hesitate when the red shite needed to develop Anfield! Sefton Council also didn?t hesitate to take my home and buisiness premises off me for peanuts when they wanted to for "regeneration"! Just a thought!

Graham,

The footprint of Goodison doesn?t need to be enlarged to anything like the extent you suggest, to achieve the ultimate stadium potential. A strip is needed behind the Bullens Road Stand and a wedge of land is needed taking in the businesses on Goodison Road and a small number of houses behind them towards Spellow Lane, all of which can be replaced within the development.

We should be careful not to exaggerate the requirements; they are very specific and we shouldn?t argue for any more Compulsory Purchases than is strictly necessary. No more and no less [Details will be provided to the Kirkby Inquiry]. Rebuilding Goodison in stages whilst retaining the basic structure of the two Leitch stands [and the Church] is perfectly practicable and affordable, and could give us one of the finest and most atmospheric club grounds in the World.

Neil Pearse, as a business consultant, you must know that in order to sort out the mess that is Everton?s overall business performance at the present time, the causal factors that have led to this wholly unsatisfactory situation have to be identified and addressed. I know that?s what I do in situations such as this as it is the only way to identify the appropriate (and realistic) structural, functional and process based countermeasures to take an organisation as troubled as EFC forward into a successful and sustainable future.

And, as the first step, rather than employing EFC?s current impoverished financial status as an excuse as you have in your response to Christine Foster (??but what the Spurs comparison mostly shows is not a difference in vision, but the difference that having lots more money makes.?), you, by definition, have to identify the reason why we don?t have the money. And the reason for this is simple. If, as a business consultant you use your business consulting network effectively, you will be able to gain validated marketplace insights which will lead you to quickly discover that Bill Kenwright?s willingness to ?sell? EFC comes with a number of restrictive conditions ? all of which are known within British investment circles and all of which focus on Mr Kenwright retaining a modicum of control over what has become known as ?his train set?. And no major investor is going to tempt fate by playing in that game.

So, in answer to the questions you posed to Jay Campbell (??do you think that Kenwright could have turned Everton into a club that could have spent the amount that Spurs has spent on players, could have spent £50M simply on buying up property in Haringey, and could have the financial resources to be seriously contemplating spending £200M+ on a brand new stadium? If so, how would this have happened??) the answer is simple and any business consultant worth his salt would know this.

Bill Kenwright knew his limitations when he took over this club from Peter Johnson and he should have been looking for someone else with far more business acumen and far more clout in National and International business and financial circles to take over the club from him.

Equally, you could have reframed your key question and asked Jay ?Could Bill Kenwright have turned Everton into a financially viable entity capable of attracting responsible investment and achieving success both as a commercial enterprise and as a football club?? and the answer would be the same.

The fact that he doggedly hung onto the club and repelled all comers and, along the way, alienated a number of his own inner circle of friends is the most damning piece of evidence against him. It is also the single reason that Everton is in trouble on pretty well all fronts and faces a long and exhausting battle to recover lost ground, if it ever can. I do however agree with you that there are no simple or easy fixes and that, even if Mr Kenwright does sell (instead of merely talking sale and investment as he has done ad nauseam for the past three years ? and somewhat mysteriously ? totally without success) the mess he has allowed to be created around EFC, largely by poor executive appointments, will present more challenges to the incoming owners. And this includes trying to re-establish Everton?s position as an attractive and marketable commercial and footballing enterprise.

So, rather than taking an emotive approach that blinds you to the reality, Neil, follow your own advice and adopt a constructive and detached business analysis approach and you will see the wood for the trees and, unfortunately for you, presenting as a seemingly strong supporter of Bill Kenwright, you will quickly establish the fact that, based on the available evidence (gained from available official documents, the marketplace and records, as distinct from rumour and innuendo or any deep-seated dislike of Mr Kenwright), that he is, in fact, culpable and therefore responsible for the problems that are bedeviling EFC at the moment. This is not an attack on his person, merely his serious corporate management shortcomings.

And he has the power to start the healing process by doing what he has been saying he will do and selling the Club. Many Evertonians who are fed up with Mr Kenwright?s empty words (?seeking investment 24/7?) and his equally empty actions (eg the fraudulent Fortress Funds affair) simply want him to do this one thing for the Everton he proclaims to love dearly, a claim I?ve no doubt is true.

Spot on Laurie Cooper!!! BK knew from the first day of being chairman he couldn't single-handedly take this club forward. Yes he did nothing to make this club more attractive to investors.

Alan Willo, What else do us "anti-DK" people have to compare DK against? If not the solutions being put together by other clubs (more wealthy or not).

Should our motto be "Tesco stadium is shit, but re-assuringly cheap!"?

Laurie Cooper, thank you for your response, which I apologise for only just seeing. You might be surprised about how much I agree with you.

Basically, I believe that if there is any really major thing that Kenwright should be faulted with, it is not selling the club to someone rich with the club’s interests at heart. I have argued with many on this site because, GIVEN THE MONEY THAT WE HAVE (please note the emphasis!), I think Kenwright has done a decent (no more) job, and also that Kirkby represents a good deal for the club (GIVEN THE MONEY THAT WE HAVE); and, anyway, we cannot afford anything else.

I argued at least two years ago that Kenwright needed to sell the club to someone with more money. Everton is structurally unable to generate Spurs like money without very major new investment (requiring at the least a new ground, whether on the current site or elsewhere).

You lay the blame squarely at Kenwright’s door for not selling the club, and appear to have evidence that he has in effect been blocking the sale. You may be right, I do not know. I would certainly be interested in the evidence! As I and others have also argued though, it is also curious that no one in all these years has publically come forward to put pressure on Kenwright to sell on appropriate terms. He could never have blocked that, and it would surely have forced his hand. I wonder what your explanation of this is.

Neil, in response to your curiousness about why ??no one in all these years has publicly come forward to put pressure on Kenwright to sell on appropriate terms,? my answer is that Paul Gregg and his syndicate, as well as the Grantchester family in a separate offer, stated publicly that they would be interested in taking over EFC and made initial moves to do so but would not encounter any deal that enabled Mr Kenwright to retain any control or any formal role within the club.

Further to this, I enquired as to the strategy behind these bids and was advised that in not having complied ? or reportedly not having shown any intention to comply ? with the buyers? fundamental requirement that he cede all control and depart the Club, both tentative offers were withdrawn. I obtained this information from credible investment brokers working in the major investments sector, including one who has since assisted one of the bidders with other major business investments across the UK.

In relation to the issue of why no other offers had been formally made by prospective buyers since that time, the response was that marketplace knowledge of Mr Kenwright?s continued reluctance to accede to the requirement to depart the club was well documented and had deterred further bids for a takeover of the club when other clubs seemed more open to reasonable offers. It had also made the club an unattractive target for any major investment outside of Mr Kenwright?s immediate network.

Adding to this ?unattractiveness? is the information that can be gleaned from the Club?s Annual Reports and the various operational reports that underpin this. In summary, our debt has soared and, apart from obtaining loans against future income, we have no other viable sources of funds supply apart from membership sales and match day takings. As for the strategy of borrowing against future income, as a short term strategy it is viable but as a long term strategy that is subject to repeated visitations by the business (as in Everton?s case for the past four years) it is a high risk and demonstrably unsustainable activity which does nothing to increase the commercial value of the club, let alone sustainably improve the cash flows situation.

As for Mr Kenwright?s capacity to block any takeover bid, he is the majority shareholder of the Club and can effectively block any bid he sees fit to. And if I were to hypothesise into the future, I would suggest that the only way he could be forced into selling, apart from overwhelming supporter dissatisfaction and seriously falling attendances and membership sales, would either be for his immediate creditors to call up his debts or for some opportunistic individual or organisation with the necessary funds to buy up his debts at a discounted rate and then call them in.

And, as the latter option tends to be the preferred modus operandi of serial company asset strippers (also known as ?corporate jackals?), I wouldn?t want this happen to us as we would be left with the shell of a once great club and little else.

I?m sure you will agree that if either of these strategies were employed to ?get rid? of Mr Kenwright, it would be a sad day for both the man and the club. All of which leaves me wondering why he doesn?t simply sell up and move on as he cannot continue to scrape up funds here and there and continue trading on anticipated future income for much longer.

Laurie, thanks very much indeed for the further information and thinking you have provided.

Let me start by fully agreeing with your final statement that, in respect to Kenwright, "he cannot continue to scrape up funds here and there and continue trading on anticipated future income for much longer". My view has always been that the club has been in a structurally unsustainable position without major new investment. And indeed the major factor behind my support for the Kirkby project has been the hope that it would unlock that investment.

I also believe that the only way of getting that level of investment was to get a new OWNER - i.e. somebody who will want to control the club themselves. It is obvious that nobody would pump large sums of money into a business they did not control.

If what you say is true then, at least until now, Kenwright has not been willing to countenance such a possibility. I unreservedly condemn him if he has been taking that position, which is not in the interests of the club. He is doing the club a service if he vets potential new owner as not being the kind of ’corporate jackals’ you refer to. But not at all if he is simply blocking all comers.

I still wonder why no one who really wanted to buy the club has ’gone public’ to put pressure on Kenwright to sell (accepting of course as you say that in the end he can block anything). However, I acknowledge that if previously he has made it very clear in investment circles that he was not willing to cede control, then that would certainly have deterred any but the most determined new owners.

In joining you in wondering "why he doesn’t simply sell up and move on", my speculation has always been that he saw Kirkby as the mechanism for him to do just that. I would be very interested if you had any intelligence on that matter. It seems to me that it is not a coincidence that, right when Kirkby was called in, Kenwright came out much more explicitly and unconditionally to say that he wanted to sell the club. It looked very much like some previous plan that he had was potentially no longer viable.

Neil, altough there is much speculation in the business sector regarding the motivation behind the proposed Kirkby move, I have no information that I would regard as validated and, therefore, reliable. The major focus of the speculation is that moving Everton out of the city of Liverpool and, presumably out of the shadow of LFC, will make the club a more viable option for prospective owners. If that?s the case, then in my view the club?s alliance with Tesco may well create a new set of ?control? limitations any new owner might have to contend with in moving the club forward. Hopefully, we?ll know the outcome by Xmas.

Neil, I ommitted to say in my previous post that, in my view, before we condemn Mr Kenwright for refusing to cede control, I do accept the widely held hypothesis that his behaviour in this instance may have been motivated by his desire to ensure that his beloved Everton was in good hands before he finally departed the scene. I may be misdirected in this belief, but I do believe he has EFC?s interests at heart ? even if if he demonstrates this in a somewhat obtuse manner.

Reading through this thread, I noticed Laurie mentioned Paul Gregg, who was portrayed as the devil incarnate by BK?s inner sanctum, and the "Fortress Sport Fund" designed, I believe, to rid the club of Paul & Anita Gregg. Am I wrong in thinking that if Gregg had gained control of Everton we would now be playing our home games at a magnificent stadium at the Kings Dock with all the financial benefits that would reap? If my supposition is correct then surely BK should be hung out to dry for this alone!

I know Gregg?s critics spouted that he never went to a game but how any games has Phil Green?s mate Booby Earl been to? He now owns Gregg?s shares, he?s been to more Spurs games than Everton! Is Earl with us to give Levy advice on how not to conduct ground move?

Laurie, thanks again for all the info. In the end it is difficult to tell whether Kenwright’s ’caveats’ (whatever precisely they are) have really prevented the sale of the club.

The most benign interpretation is that all he has been doing is making sure that the club goes to a ’good’ owner. Given the disasters that have occured at Newcastle and Man City (and arguably Liverpool as well), he can hardly be blamed for that.

However, if he is simply trying to keep control for himself, then in my mind he is obviously blocking a potential sale to a major new owner investor. There are certainly plausible suggestions that he has not created favourable conditions for someone trying to buy the club, at least until recently.

Of course, given the Keith Harris comments, there is also the question of whether Everton is an attractive investment to anyone anyway!

Neil,
Kenwright is the disaster. The reason why we are in this predicament is because of his prevarication about who constitutes a suitable buyer! You confer almost saintly status upon him. St Bill, the saviour and defender of all things Evertonian... yet he is the guy who is happy to move us out of the City to a retail park. I despair.

Paul Gregg was not right ?.. we have to be careful about foreign investment blah, blah. I suspect that if Mother Teresa had revealed she was a lifelong Blue with hidden billions and offered to buy him out, he would have questioned her ethics. If it had not been for Bill, we would have been at the Kings Dock. He is culpable and responsible for mis-management on a grand scale.

Ed - I say that Bill should go, and condemn him for blocking the sale of the club. True, unlike you I don’t think he is the devil - but is this sainthood??