A Culture of Failure

Let's not forget that they, too, were forced to abandon a proposed stadium development on Stanley Park in favour of doing up their existing ground. So it's not just Everton.

Furthermore, "culture of failure" is harsh and a little too broad-sweeping in my opinion because our own stadium projects have collapsed for very different reasons: the King's Dock became unmanageable as our share of the costs mushroomed, and DK was a non-starter because we simply couldn't afford it, even with the supposed Tesco subsidy.

WHP might go the same way for the same reason: it's a massive undertaking for the club (one which by Bill's own admission in 2011 was perilously close to being "killed" by the banks) to manage on its own given our commercial under-performance, and apparent inability to attract wealthy partners, backers and/or owners.

What is clear to me now is that a contingency plan to redevelop Goodison should have been advanced in the background. It's late but not too late to get that moving.

At the time of the announcement about Walton Hall Park, both Kenwright and Elstone made it clear their commitment was no more than to explore an opportunity and that there was much work required to make the development a reality. From the Council's point of view, they had done no more than tick a box by finding a site, thus fulfilling a commitment made after the Kirkby scheme was rejected and in response to the 'Keep Everton in Our City' campaign.

There was therefore no plan as such to build a new stadium. No third party has come forward with any money to fund a project and, as we all know, neither the council nor the club have the funds available. In the meantime the local residents have registered their protests, so it is no surprise that the opportunity has been filed in the 'too difficult' box.

Failures on and off the pitch, we used to have a ground to be proud of, and a team that won at least one major honour for every decade of their existence.

'USED TO BE'S DON'T COUNT ANYMORE!!

The problem all along in my opinion is that all in all The Everton fanbase in the main couldn't be fuckin' well arsed. So sadly, The Reds would've chased these blood-sucking invisible, hand-in-the-till secretive loan sharks out of town and back on their perches.

And Kenwright would've been some distant local clown that right now would've been looked back on with breathtaking incredibility... sort of like those stories where a chancer / wannabe with no qualifications poses as a surgeon in a hospital.

To those who say "be careful what you wish for'? ... Piss off.

Trevor Lynes (1) you say - 'I am less interested in the business side of the club than I am by the playing side. I know nothing of the board's mismanagement of the club as I am not privy to the facts'

Well I would guess that every Evertonian is less interested in the business side, unfortunately when it comes to buying/selling players and the continued lack of trophies and/or a new ground, we are all (by default) forced to take an interest in the business side.

As for not being 'privy to the facts', well maybe we don't know all the facts, but I suggest every Evertonian who can see past Gordon Clegg's Boys Pen tripe can see all the evidence/facts that matter (in fact the OP mentions many of them).

You would think they had just built a copy of the Nou Camp for Christ's sake.

Meanwhile across the park.

"Do us a fucking favour, mate, sit down will yer, I can't see fuck all and that post is doing me head in. Who scored, mate?"

No big money signings so far and, to be honest, none likely to appear. Our better players constantly linked to other clubs, and most fans wondering how many will leave. The new ground that we keep getting promised looks further away than ever.

Any announcements or initiatives are there to act as a smokescreen for the gullible. The Walton Hall Park project is only an idea, a proposal which could be delivered IF the club found new owners, or the mythical greater-spotted 'investor' Bill wants to wine & dine. If the club decided to be honest from the outset, and admit it was never deliverable under the current regime, but plans were in place should we be sold, then we would have shrugged our shoulders, but acknowledged they had at least thought about the future.

Did they even hint this was the actual truth? Did they fuck. They packaged up this latest load of hot air as an actual possible new stadium. They promoted it on the club website as "The Opprtunity."

It will end up as another PR shambles, when a little honesty from the men in charge could have easily avoided the undoubted deserved criticism which will land at Kenwright's desk. The lies about looking for new owners, not being able to improve commercially, building a new stadium or not being able to redevelop Goodison Park are what annoys a lot of the fanbase. The club's foundations are built on a bed of lies and half-truths. From Green to Earl, and the reasons why Kirkby was so attractive. IT problems were holding up the Park End development. Yeah, right. It's incredible really, how they get away with it is a miracle in itself.

They take us all for fools, and anyone with any sense wouldn't believe another word they say. You can always tell when an Everton representative is lying -- their lips are moving.

I'm sorry but it is a culture of failure. Failure to deliver is all this board have done at Everton! The debt has grown, we are always skint, we've sold off the training ground, they've made a mess of 3 ground moves, they've failed to find investment or a buyer! Have they done anything good?!

They've lied to the fan base about Goodison being impossible to redevelop, or going to lose its fire certificate. If not 'culture of failure', maybe 'deriliction of duty' would be more appropriate!

Whatever it was, it is seriously, seriously mistaken if it thinks that the majority of fans are simply tolerant of watching as the club dies a long slow and agonising death. As the article offers no suggestions as to how the situation may be improved then I assume that the author is also guilty; otherwise, what does he propose to do to put himself above the hoi polloi?

I believe that the reality now is that the vast majority of fans appreciate the the extremely difficult position that the club is in and are supportive of the significant efforts that the board is making to turn it round. We all want exactly the same thing but we have a minority who think that it happens by magic and I see them more as the problem not the solution. It won't happen by magic, there is no silver bullet, only hard work by the club and this needs support, not constant moaning.

In contrast, Kenwright has subjected us to 16 years of decline from which we will never recover in most of our lifetimes. Almost every other club has a new or updated stadium, while Goodison Park crumbles around us. Our own CEO has described it as the worst ground in the Premier League. This season we are seeing previously smaller clubs attracting players before us and outspending us.

Kenwright and his incompetence are the worst thing to have happened to Everton in my lifetime.

As Eugene says, we DO need to be reminded of the constant failings of the custodians of our club. Can you demonstrate to me where is there any evidence of our fans organising themselves into a valid opposition group to what is going on?

By the way, if you wish to check with the Blue Union, I recently made a modest contribution to aid their financial plight as I see them currently as the only legitimate fans body who aim to raise awareness of the plight of the club; what do you plan?

Also, as a supporter of over 40 years, many as a season ticket holder, I can only wish that a group of ambitious, business savvy custodians take control of my beloved club, before any further damage is self-inflicted by the charlatans who run it now.

As a fan, that's all I can hope for.

No vision, no ambition, no plan, almost no business sense whatsoever, and judging by the Blue Union's interview with Kenwright a few years ago, we have a chairman that hardly knows what's going on at the club he supposedly runs.

As for the playing side of it, as the song says, 'Roberto had a dream', but nothing more than that. Behind his endless positivity and inane ramblings, I don't see a plan or anything resembling an organised team.

When he first came in, it was 'I'll get you Champions League' and he had high ambitions. Now I think he realises nearly 3 years into the job that top 4 is a mile off unless you spend big. Now it seems he's just content with 'European football'. 6th essentially.

So yes, I think failure and small time mentality does waft around this football club. Caution has prevailed for the last 20 years. It's always 'careful what you wish for, we don't want to be like Leeds' and all that nonsense.

I tell you something, unless we get rid of this board, we could turn out like Leeds. All it takes is a poor season to end up in relegation and that's it. I'm not saying we will get relegated any time soon but the way it's going with this board at the helm and the way others around us are getting stronger and growing, I think the top half will soon be unachievable, never mind the top 4, unless things change, because we are stagnating.

We were In dire straits with an ancient team and very few if any class players. Duncan had been sold because Johnson was unwilling to continue to underwrite the club's debt any longer and things were looking very bleak.

Bill and his board have stabilised the club. The club debt is reducing which is why mega-bucks are not available for players but we still have the best squad for many years... probably since HK left for Bilbao.

Things are not perfect by any means. We have to sort out the stadium issue one way or another; we will not break back into the Top 6 on a regular basis otherwise with RS, Spurs and West Ham all getting new or bigger stadiums but progress has to be steady, it cannot happen overnight.

When Bill took over, he said that he could not finance the club long term; that's not his fault -- neither could I -- but the debt has been managed whilst every penny borrowed has gone towards team building.

Very few billionaire takeovers work -- Man City obviously has and Chelsea but Aston Villa has been decimated by Lerner, Man Utd carries way too much debt but the Glazers seem willing to play ball there, Portsmouth was a disaster, Wolves, Birmingham, Leeds -- there a load of clubs who thought they were on the way back with wealthy investors and look where they are now. Liverpool so nearly went bust with Hicks and the other clown -- it really is a minefield with so many people looking at the money Sky is giving to the clubs and it is so dangerous to sell out to an unknown who could just be after the Sky money, asset strip the club, and move on leaving the club in ruins.

We can all hark back to KD, Kirkby and Walton but as a club we are still alive, the debt is reducing, we have a few very valuable players and some good youngsters coming through. Life ain't perfect but we have people who care -- and they really do -- if you speak to them you would see that.

The only people to have had a good time during the last couple of decades are the players and, more latterly, the CEO.

The club was always in the black under Moores and also Johnson. In fact, Johnson left 㿀M in the kitty when Kenwright took over. It took Kenwright two years to turn EFC into a loss-making operation. Loss-making has continued until the increase in TV money, even though all assets have been sold and we now rent both Finch Farm and Goodison.

The debt last year went up, not down.

Secondly, how the hell can anyone mention the likes of Portsmouth, Leeds or Wolves with Everton when comparing clubs? Lerner has invested 𧷤m into Villa, imagine what we could have done with that sort of cash injection?

But, by far the most laughable comparison by Dave, above, is that Liverpool and Manchester Utd have been exposed to massive debt by their new owners. Liverpool & Manchester Utd make more from their commercial deals than our entire turnover. We may as well be in League Two financially, when compared to these clubs.

Pointing out someone else's failure is not a defence of your own shortcomings.

It's probably an Intern or a protege of his but I read somewhere that Mr Elstone now has a very good financial package, so he must be doing a good job as far as his employers are concerned.

Only a Man City type buyout can save us. Chilling stuff indeed.

The highlight of this pre-season will be seeing Rooney and Dunc come on as 85th minute joint subs in our last game. The score will undoubtedly be something like 0-2 Villarreal at the time but it'll get a big cheer no doubt.

Well I'm no Willie Pep but...there aren't many Sandy Saddlers on TW.

"... but progress has to be steady - it cannot happen overnight"

Yes but I think 15 years of stagnation is not steady progress.

Even with the Sky money now, we will be no nearer to the Olympian Heights. It might just help us from drowning in the River Styx though.

Lyndon, could you expand on the "mushrooming costs" that you have mentioned? I understood that the amount of investment by EFC was 㿊 million and that money was "ringfenced."

That was our chance to grow and we missed it. I think Steve’s article was very apt and whether the fans of Everton are not arsed, a bit apathetic, only interested about the doings on the pitch, doesn’t alter the fact that there is a litany of failure running right through the present incumbent’s tenure of the Chairmanship.

Two top class Chief Executives did a runner, one only staying a matter of weeks and most, if not all of our assets gone, we will tootle along like the good ship Lollypop but we will be lucky to see our team regularly reach the top six, no matter who’s in charge.

Moyes (I am not arguing about relative qualities of manager here, just pointing out what he said) compared our situation as bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Sooner or later, if we cannot afford a new stadium, and in my view that is an unlikely occurence indeed, Goodison Park will need to be re developed, as this will be the only option. Otherwise the place will start falling apart.

In the meantime though, we will fall further and further behind. If we want to encourage more young kids to support Everton, then we need success to do so and to do that we need investment in all aspects of the club, not just the team

If Johnson left 㿀M behind in surplus funds then I am happy to be corrected – my recollection was that Duncan had to be sold because he wouldn't guarantee the overdraft any longer?

I am no happier with our stagnation than most but I don't believe the board has taken out money personally and without true wealth on the board there is no magic wand.

Commercial revenues such as those generated by RS and MU have to be established via success which we haven't of course had for a very long time. Our stagnation started in the eighties when we had the best team and stood still as far as commercial development and ground improvement was concerned and instead wasted a fortune on substandard players. Heysel played its part but, even so, a lot more could have been done off the back of two league titles and a European trophy in 3 seasons.

Not only has he failed us, he's also lied to us. If only for that 'ring-fenced' money!!!

Enough of the negatives.... WE'RE EVERTON, AREN'T WE? We have spent £2.26 million, every year since the millennium.

Kevin (#24), if people just concentrated on Everton, I'm sure we could find a way out of this almighty mess. Unfortunately not enough people seem bothered; otherwise, Bill's trainset would have crashed fucking years ago.

Ferguson was sold because Johnson's food company, Park foods, was in serious trouble. The shares had collapsed. He had lost his fortune. He sold Ferguson, then EFC FOR £25M to use the money to save his company. By cashing in on Ferguson, he was taking out money he had previously put into the club.

Man Utd 75.
Arsenal 60.
Newcastle 50.
Man City 45.
Liverpool 44.
Sunderland 43.
Chelsea 41.
Everton 38.
Spurs 36.
West Ham 34.
Aston Villa 34.
Leicester 32.
Southampton 30.
Stoke 27.
WBA 25.

Newcastle and Sunderland have grounds that can hold more if they were successful we have not.
Man Utd are out on their own, while Arsenal are easily second best.

If, by a minor miracle, we could win something and have a team that are serious challengers for league honours I could see us having crowds of 50,000. Maybe the Goodison site could be redeveloped to hold 50,000?

Problem is, I can't see either occurrence happening unless a new super rich owner can be found.

To my great disappointment, he says Everton are recognised as having a small-minded approach, with little or no vision for the future of the club in the modern business world. His quote was " they are more interested in putting up the price of programmes, pies and pints than growing the club".

In effect, they will screw us supporters first rather than look for genuine investment and move the club forward. Clearly I have to be careful with how much I say, in case he and his contacts are identified, but it would also be fair to say that conflict exits on the direction the club is going at a variety of levels within the club.

It appears it's not a culture of failure that exists but rather a culture of laissez faire with the top man quite happy to trundle along oblivious to the harm it is doing... Nero fiddling!!! Others want change but are being stopped and, if they push too hard, are removed.

There have been 47 clubs in the PL since it's inception in 1992. Everton are one of only 7 clubs, (with Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur) that have remained in it since then. That in itself is a success considering the other 6 have spent far more than us. The mighty Man City went down 2 divisions before the money bag owners arrived and started throwing cash at them.

The fact is that times change. Back in the days of the maximum wage, the likes of Blackpool, Burnley, and Bolton were considered to be top clubs, winning leagues and cups, with big name players such as Mathews and Lofthouse playing for them. Then came Jimmy Hill. So those clubs fell away because they couldn't compete with the wages the big city clubs could offer on the back of the bigger crowds they could get.

Now the '60s and '80s were our time. The wealth gap wasn't the abyss it is today. Generally speaking the bigger clubs such as Everton had a reasonable chance of actually winning the Football League, the FA Cup, and we did. Clubs lived within their means. Players were bought from profits the clubs made or by selling someone else. You could build a decent side for a relatively small outlay. Salaries were kept within a proper level.

Then came the Premier League, Bosman, and the oligarchs and billionaires. The rest is history. Clubs such as Chelsea, Man City, and Man Utd live on borrowed money and regular infusions of cash from their billionaire owners. Clubs who do not have billionaire owners simply cannot compete. Wages have become an obscenity, especially in these austere times for the rest of us. Because of Bosman, contracts are not worth the paper they are written on, and it's every player for themselves, as the recent Sterling and maybe Stones episodes have shown us.

Since the start of the Premier League only 5 clubs have won it: Man Utd - 13, Chelsea - 4, Arsenal - 3, Man City - 2, and bringing up the rear on the back of the late Jack Walker's cash, the now relegated Blackburn who were rich for 15 minutes with their solitary win.

The fact is, unless we can get a billionaire of our own to throw cash at us, our chances of ever winning anything again, or holding on to any quality players we may get, are very slim.

So, for the time being, all we can do is try to run the club sensibly. Don't go nuts spending money we don't have, like the late lamented Leeds Utd did, and stay in the Premier League until our fairy cashmother comes along and grants all our wishes.

With our debt and ancient ground, it is unlikely anyone will buy us, as there are much better options.

Do you guys seriously believe that there is a line of billionaires panting at the bit to buy Everton and all that's stopping them is Kenwright not naming a price?

The owner doesn't have to name his price. People don't become billionaires by not knowing the value of things. It would not be difficult for any prospective buyer to figure out how much Everton is worth.

Nobody wants to buy Everton. The cost of bringing the ground up to spec or building another one is prohibitive. Then there is the cost of buying and paying the type of players we would need to be a serious contender again.

Harder to know with West Ham though, they'll certainly have the capacity (at 54,000) to leap-frog us and no doubt it'll be chocker for their first couple of games, but I believe their move has the potential to really hit the skids.

For most of my life, West Ham have been a fairly light-weight footballing outfit, but the combination of the design of The Boleyn and it's intimidating right-on-top-of-you support, made sure trips there had a scary factor for visiting sides (never mind supporters).

That will go when they go - by moving to the Olympic stadium, they'll be making life a little easier for their opponents.

David 'pimp' Gold confidently predicts they'll sell it out every game and if they do, that will be some achievement - adding 20,000 supporters per game (about £15m a season more through the gate).

I can't see it myself - I personally know three life-long West Ham season-holders (early 50s) who won't be renewing once they move and I'll be curious to see how many others feel that way.

The fact is, the current majority shareholders haven't put a penny into Everton FC and they have also declared they have no intention of ever investing in their own business.

My question is, why does this issue have to be black & white? A billionaire or nothing? It's a childish argument to be quite honest.

A board with a plan to improve us in every feasible way would be a start. After 16 years, I think it's clear that the majority shareholders have demonstrated they can keep us in the Premier League - by taking out exorbitant loans, long-term mortgages, selling any assets, and making money off player sales.

Not exactly the dream business plan we all hoped for, was it? 10 years with Kitbag, 11 years with Chang (soon to be 13) surely demonstrates the MO of a board who are happy to stagnate.

I see. So we should have a "sensible" business plan to move the club forward? Like Villa, Leeds, Newcastle, Spurs, etc etc. What's their plan? What have they been doing for the last 16 years to turn themselves into Premier League Champion contenders? Oh wait. Nothing. They are no nearer to actually winning anything than we are and haven't been since the PL started.

You can have all the business plans and schemes you like but it is impossible to compete with clubs who spend money like water and rack up vast losses that are conveniently covered by their mega rich owners.

Have you any idea what these clubs have spent? If we have the spending power of Spurs, or Villa, I've no doubt we have spent many happy years in the Champions League. We certainly would not have to have sold players to satisfy the banks.

One other question, Frank. Are the clubs you mention borrowing at 10% interest rates from off-shore financial entities?

If you don't plant the seeds, you can't expect a prize-winning garden.

For 16 years, Bill has looked out of the window and dreamt of having a magnificent stadium but we still wait with baited breath for any movement on that front as the once magnificent old lady ages before our very eyes.

Finch Farm isn't ours, Goodison Park has multiple mortgages against it to the point that we couldn't even erect a tribute area to Dixie Dean, never mind Everton Place. As for Kings Dock I'll stop now because my blood pressure is rising rapidly and I'm not even 40 yet.

The money will never be there to enable it, stop buying into Kenwright's deluded fantasy world he uses to keep the fans off his back while he kicks the stadium issue can down the road again once every few years.

Looking back, the vision of the club has always been short term, the Park End was built for ٟ.3M with European funding; how much more would it have cost (including getting the foundations right to support it) to put another tier on top, even adding another 6,000 on the second tier and expanding the lower tier would have given us a bigger stadium than Liverpool years ago, thus more income which could have helped the club to grow commercially?

How much would it have cost to put a steep single tier stand like the Kop behind the Park End, the Kop being a rat infested edifice that it is, on the Park End, or a steep stand like Dortmund's Kop? Be brave, think big, the long term benefits would pay it off quickly.

With no new stadium, let's rebuild Goodison stand by stand in incremental steps, Tom Hughes proved it could be done on the current footprint and his work is published in great detail on this site. Now I'll raise all your blood pressures with the following solution...

If the Sky money is only balancing the books, would anyone consider selling 4 big name players (Lescott, Fellaini, Stones, Rooney etc) over a 5-10 year period (that's 4 players over that 5-10 year period by the way) for 㿊m+ each, to fund the redevelopment of the 4 stands? Once these are completed, the stadium issue is put to bed. How bad or good is that idea given our financial circumstances and Kenwright's reluctance to sell?

Realistically it needs a Moyes-like manager to find hidden gems, polish them and make them the desired 㿊m+ players to do this, but we've already proved we can do this once every 2-3 years. Credit to Moyes there, it's his players that he found, developed and sold for vast profits.

Whether it all can be done for a total of around 𧴰m but at least Kenwright keeps his hands in his pockets, so we win and he wins, despite the fact I despise him for his stewardship, but being realistic, it's making the best of a really bad situation and it moves us forwards, which will be a novelty for our board.

Those who defend Kenwright over the club's finances during his 16 years as Chairman, for me, they live in a Walter Mitty style world. Back in the real world he has been a disaster for us.

What do you think guys? Would that be something we could all accept knowing the short term pain would be a long term solution for the club given it's dire position right now?

In the meantime I do know that clubs richer than us have been relegated in the last 16 years:

Newcastle: 55,000-seater stadium and all went down,
Sunderland, 48,000-seater stadium, down;
Leeds, 45,000-seater stadium, down,
Man City, 48,000-seater stadium, went down.

Whatever financial plans these and other comparable clubs had obviously didn't work for them.

At the risk of repeating myself. The only business plan that actually brings success in the PL is get a billionaire owner and spending money like it's going out of style. Anything else is just treading water hoping you don't sink.

Are we going to be sitting in a dilapidated stadium 20 years down the line, and saying "Ah well, we'll never manage to catch up to Crystal Palace or West Ham now."

The likes of Southampton and Swansea will be in a far better position than us soon; TV money has evened out the playing field for the also-rans. These are clubs who went bust not so long ago.

Doing nothing because other clubs have richer owners is not an option. We may as well throw in the towel right now.

Let me just say this, by the time the Chang & Kitbag deals come to an end, we will have one of the worst commercial incomes in this division. We will also be playing in the oldest, most run down stadium in the Premier League. That's the trajectory of the club -- totally downward.

And where do the super Rich live?

Down south.

I don't see how Swansea or Southampton will be any better placed than us. If Stones was playing for them, they would be under the same pressure to sell him as we are. Southampton have already sold their best players and will no doubt do so again. Swansea's best forward went to Man City. Aston Villa have lost Benteke and Delph (for a measly ٦ million btw) with less than 2 weeks to the start of the new season.

Some of the "also-rans" are doing a little better than us and some are doing worse but they are still "also-rans", regardless of the state of their grounds.

The only reason I can logically think that Bill has not stated his price is because, as he has stated in the public inquiry, Everton is not for sale. Or he's very embarrassed at the amount he wants for the club because this would expose the fact that he doesn't want what's best for Everton but he is, in fact, more interested in making a huge profit for his shares.

Did you think that they would be better placed than us at the start of last season (not to mention Stoke and Palace!!!)

All activities that are outsourced and bring no income into the Club.

That's what I said. Nobody wants to buy us. We're not for sale either.

Once this new Sky deal kicks in, even surviving, i.e. 17th guarantees us (and everyone else) an extra 㿊m+ per season for Sky, foreign TV rights and final position alone, a top ten finish would bring in nearly an extra 㾶m compared to recent years. So there’s the extra money needed for the 2-3 players per season (discounting other player sales and savings in wages from those sales).

But we’d have to remain in the "buy low sell high" strategy until the stadium is totally redeveloped. Find a few more gems like Lescott, Stones or Coleman, develop them, then sell one of them at a high price to get extra funds to cover the redevelopment costs for a stand at a time? Buy them young, thus also reducing the average age of the squad too.

Could we not do this to get at least 2-3 stands done and start making progress in this area first, get the foundations right, maybe even buy back our training facilities and own all of our assets again? You can’t keep selling the family silver; once it runs out, what else do you sell? At some point you have to start getting these assets back again. Apart from the players, what else has Kenwright left to sell?

At least this way, it sorts the Goodison issue without costing 𧷤m-𧺬m for a brand new stadium with the same capacity.

None of those clubs were in the Europa League; we were. We haven't got a squad that can cope with two demanding competitions.

@Richard.

As for being naive, I think it's you who's being naive. If someone like Abramovich wanted to know how much Everton was worth, I'm sure he's got plenty of people who can find out for him.

As for Kenwright waiting to make some huge profit from his shares. If that was ever his plan, I'm sure we are way past it now. Our shares are worth what they are worth and nobody will pay over the odds to acquire them.

Well what does tactics have to do with the finances, or lack thereof, of Everton FC? That's the manager's problem.

What makes you think anything will change with the next new deal?? The rest of your post I agree with but the board have shown that they have no intention of considering redeveloping GP.

Your premise was that Southampton and Swansea will finish below us because they have sold their best players, I disproved that by pointing out that both finished above us despite selling their best players. How? Because of tactics.

Now you're talking, in fact not many of either of them around more the pity.

To answer your first point, just check the average gates over the last 10 years, with last season showing a remarkable figure of over 38,000 and that indicates that a majority of games were sell-outs. So the club has definitely had the support.

Regarding your second point. It will not matter how good a club is or how successful, there will all ways be people consistently moaning. (It's just some people's human nature.)

Don't forget, those shares keep going up in value with every new increased TV deal, so why would we be past it if he's holding on for a bigger profit? I'm sorry, Frank; you're expressing childlike naivety not to even consider this as his motive.

Our shares are valued around ٟ,200 each, valuing the Club at around 㿖M so considering the rumoured asking price of 𧵎M then you are correct. So we will never be sold.