The Mail Bag
Everton Going Nowhere
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KEIOC this week reported that the demise of the planned St John`s Shopping Centre on the grounds of over-provision of retail in Liverpool inevitably means that Everton`s latest search for enabling partners to help them construct a new stadium, a la Tesco and Destination Kirkby, is doomed.
The surfeit of such provision in the City was no doubt the reason why the club had to look beyond its boundaries to build a new stadium and it is abundantly clear that only with the help of an outside partner will Everton EVER be able to afford such a move.
As KEIOC reports, there is absolutely no appetite within the Club for the `phased` re-development of Goodison Park given all the reasons — primarily financial — for rejecting that `solution` in favour of Destination Kirkby three years ago.
So where does this leave us?
Going nowhere, I'm afraid. Most of us have long given up the hope that a sugar daddy will arrive to work alongside Bill Kenwright for the good of our club... indeed, the chances of a sugar daddy arriving at all are now almost dead in the water!
So Bill Kenwright will soldier on, providing as much money as comes available for Davey to continue his team building — and few of us will quibble with that policy.
But the dream of a home fit for the 21st century is, to my mind, as far off as it has ever been in the 20 years of my support — and it`s still fading!
So, for me, the ONLY solution is a municipal stadium on the Stanley Park site in which both the City's clubs are tenants/partners. But then, I'm a Sefton ratepayer, so it`s easy for me to suggest such a plan...
The reality, of course, is that that too will never happen. As I said, Everton are going nowhere!
Richard Dodd, Posted 21/05/2010 at 08:46:46
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One route might be to sell all our talent and waddle about near the foot of the table but that is hardly palatable either. In the meantime I'll be straining round that post in the Lower Bullens to see Arteta smack another one in from 30 yards! COYB
"KEIOC’s has made its position clear; firstly, despite a change in council no retail based enabling development will happen particularly at their favoured central location. Secondly, it’s now accepted that the type of stadium that this model would deliver is grossly inappropriate for a club with ambition, as even with near capacity crowds and non-existent events a mere £6m would be generated for the club. Finally, it is now apparent that this "at all costs" move from Goodison is for the benefit of another company. "
Given the club had no alternative plans whatsoever, the ability to create a new plan would only happen with a change from the top down; unless that happens, we won't be seeing any new thinking or proposals soon.
I struggling to find what's sad about the demise of this latest 'hair-brained scheme'... We should not be the planning enabler for some corporate fuck-fest... It'll end in tears.
Talk of hotels and shops in Walton just could never have worked and with the failing of the Kings Dock opportunity, the prospect of Kirkby appeared to be our best option. There were many of us Blues that, thinking with our heads and not our hearts, realised that the redevelopment of Goodison was not an option to move the club forward. Sadly any time we stuck our heads above the parapit, we were verbally and often abusivley shot down by KEIOC supporters.
Everton need to be bold and press the government to reconsider the option. I want to see first class football, played on a first class ground, with Everton winning everything. Sadly we will not now get that without investment and we will not get that without a new ground away from the terraced back drop of Walton.
In the end, it will not matter how many miracles Moyes can perform with the few bob he finds down the back of the couch, in the end he will go for the sake of his own ambition. People say (as above) that the board is going nowhere... but where can they go? There are no billionaires on Everton's board. The death of this club will be long and tortuous and has probably already begun. By death I do not necessarily mean we will cease to exist, but as the cashflow in football continues to shrink we will be left behind without a hope of returning to the great days.
Kirkby was never the perfect solution, but we were never in a position to expect perfection. It was the best and only option that we had to show any potential investor that we meant business.
Any investor who might one day show an interest in our club (which is doubtful in the current climate and which might not change for a generation if at all) could well be turned away by the knowledge that Kirkby may have stood a chance if the clubs own supporters had bitten the bullet and confirmed that they would get behind the club in whatever decision it made.
It was a much easier decision for the inquiry to make when a large portion of the negativity was emanating from the clubs own supporters. That is not an easy pill for a potential investor to swallow.
And all for the sake of four miles.
We can have new owners if the current shareholders put the club up for sale.
The current state of Walton and Anfield is no barrier to redevelopment, in fact quite the reverse. The football quarter idea has at its heart new stadiums, hotels and educational, sport, health and tourism facilities. I don't find the idea of far eastern tourists visiting Walton/Anfield to visit a FQ risible, it could be part of the city's tourism strategy.
The only barriers are the big business interests that have held both clubs back.
And I would have to say as the cashflow in football has begun to sink this has increased our chances of getting back up there and not made it harder.
Given that four miles and how inaccessible the planned stadium was and how it was never going to provide the income touted, how would that have made the club more attractive for a buyer with increased debt and a fundamentally flawed business plan in that the core job is to host football matches and fill it?
It's not the location, it's the business and it's failure to develop any strategy beyond short termism.
No soul, plastic, atmosphere-free holes.
I am now firmly with the spit and sawdust brigade. Re-develop Goodison but not too much. A three tier Park End will do it.
Let's be honest, we would have to be CL Champions for a few years before we got 60,000 with any regularity and they would be there for the catering (maybe not for long).
I hate the idea of a new ground now.
No, all for the sake of a projected £6m per year and the chance to look appealing to some overseas investor — and who knows where that could end up? I'd rather share with El Shite myself than that. How could anyone want something which was so divisive among supporters?
Richard, I can't agree with your gloomy prognosis for EFC. Let's just hang on a minute and see where we are after this whole world financial crisis has settled down a bit before we get saddled with an unmanageable debt.
Whether or not you are supportive of the present board it cannot be denied that they are, and will forever be, tainted as far as the ground issue is concerned. Having messed up badly on the Kings Dock, they cannot be trusted again to get it right. We need new owners to do this and it doesn't have to be the 'elusive billionaire'.
As mentioned above,the board should put the club up for sale before trying to sort out the ground issue.
Frankly, if we want change ("real change"), we need a new Board, and while that can be scary at this time of uncertainty, with Bill at the helm is the surest way for the club.
Yes, KD would have been an ideal solution — in hindsight — but not at the price of Everton becoming a laughing stock!
If the club refuse to examine a phased redevelopment with any seriousness then they are simply not doing their jobs.
Any new stadium could be deemed as "soulless"... But I'm not anti anything new. I was very anti-Kirkby because it was shit... Poorly planned, thought through and designed.
"... the Club never had the money to go there" — then why did Kenwright lie to us? What was the point of the artists's impressions and the retractable ptch? Like Bullseye Bowen... "let's show you what you could've won" — All bollocks.
What were Gregg's terms, then? Was the primary one `clear out your desk before you sling your hook, Bill'?
This should have put paid to the plonkers who claim he "has the club's best interests at heart".
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/everton-fc/everton-fc-news/2002/10/30/d-day-for-dock-deal-100252-12324596/
Just one example of many threads out on the web about Desperation Kirkby:
http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=165846.0;wap
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1 Posted 21/05/2010 at 14:49:03
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