Reclaiming the City

But sadly, in this day and age of stadium "Naming Rights" being sold for millions of pounds, unless a local philanthropist with ties to EFC, or Mr Moshri dictates it to be so, the stadium is more likely to be called the "Chang Arena" or something of that ilk.

But for the name of our waterfront glory factory? I was thinking of "Kopites are Gobshites".

It's got a certain ring to it methinks.

"There's been another home goal for Everton, let's go over to the Kopites are Gobshites".

Good article.

However, I see 1892 as EFC's first calamitous marketing blunder, and we've never stopped making them. The mutton chop whiskers have gone and the fashion has changed but the unparalleled incompetence has not.

Marketing men can pretty much sell anything they want if they put their mind to it and if they get the required financial rewards, therefore not having the name of the city we are from directly linked is not an issue. There is no single club that is representative of our Capital city that bears the name London and most of those clubs seem to manage just fine.

In short Everton FC don't have to reclaim anything from anyone, it is a city of Liverpool club, always has been and always will be.

we could nick name it "Scouse Ouse"

Now I just skip over him and hum insanely while the other gobshites David Maddox and Andy Dunn cram their pages full of LFC news.

Not bitter like.

Which brings me on to the main point, in the modern era history doesn't really count for much. Look at Chelsea and Man City, cumulatively less championship titles than Everton. However, due to their wealth, power and recent success they attract more column inches than Everton or most other Clubs currently outside of the top four. Mr Moshiri is in my opinion a game changer, the resuscitation that Everton as a comatose giant has required for the best part of 25 years. Leave history to the redshite, I don't really care to be honest as it's today and tomorrow that truly counts. A new chapter is beginning and hopefully Everton will be able to look forward with anticipation, a new story and new history written as we embark on an exciting journey.

Personally, if anyone assumes that I am a Liverpool FC supporter on hearing my accent, my first thought is that they probably don't know much about football. I am invariably proved correct after a few minutes chat. I would never assume anyone from Manchester was a United fan, or anyone from London was an Arsenal fan.

There is a fairly obvious reason why Liverpool are more famous than we are. For about 20 odd years from the early 70's until the 90's they won so many trophies, including a haul of European ones. Nothing to do with their name.

By all means, lament how we have allowed ourselves to be anonymous, but that has everything to do with how badly run we have been and nothing whatsoever with what we are called. Nomenclature has nothing whatsoever to do with it. What about Benfica, Feyenoord, Tottenham, Boca Juniors and Anderlecht? All world famous clubs named after districts of their respective cities.

Your final point, I do agree with. It is a chance to put ourselves on the map and reverse some of the damage we have inflicted on ourselves by our abject mediocrity in recent decades.

What's our name? Everton!

You're not wrong there Mike sadly, although I am not from the motherland (or fatherland in my case), I am from a rugby union city with no football league club where people adopt teams to follow, the usual suspects, Mancs or the Shite are the most commonly "supported" teams around here. The amount of times I have been asked why I follow Everton & my answer is always because my Dad was from Liverpool and I was born into it & I kid you not, I have often had the response, "why don't you support Liverpool then?" Grrrr!!! "Because my Dad was a lifelong Evertonian like many of my family in Liverpool."

Some people, honestly you would think down my way that there was no other premier league teams except the Mancs & the Shite.

Anyway enough of our horrible neighbours across the park, it's time to awaken the beast & write a new chapter in our history! COYB!

If, as Mike has suggested and many of us hope, we are to get a new stadium on the river that will really get up their nose. That would make this little blue duck very happy.

What's our name.

Perhaps the away end called be called the Red and White Shite end?

Many people in England don't realise the weight that Everton carries 4 Europeans. We see it (and it is) a huge club
8:51 PM - 7 Jun 2016

Someone might mistake us for Stockport County, or worse, Tranmere

I work all over the UK and my litmus test for any football fan I meet is whether they immediately ask if I'm red or blue, or they start waffling on about the other to curry some favour with me. Generally speaking, Glasgow, Belfast, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham Manchester fall in the first category, the rest fall into the second one.

The worst culprits are southern English Man Utd fans, who think a Scouser is someone who supports LFC!

Juventus are not named after Turin, whereas their far less illustrious neighbours Torino are.

For decades, in Germany Bayern Munich have been colloquially just known as "Bayern" and their rivals TSV 1860 referred to as "Munich", the latter phenomenon still practised as recently as 12-13 years ago when they were last in the top flight.

Then there is Aston Villa with a European Cup win and 7 league titles compared with Birmingham City's none of either trophy.

I think the argument that a club being named after its home city is an essential ingredient in either success or global profile is plainly wrong. The association between club and city will, rather, be made by the club's successes. For example, most fans the world over know that Arsenal and Chelsea are from London.

Besides all of that, if I cast my mind back to the 1980s before there was an internet as we know it now, I recall German media listing the English league table and describing certain clubs thus:

FC Liverpool
FC Everton Liverpool
FC Arsenal London
FC Chelsea London

...you get the idea.

But, if we really have to be globally identified more with the city of Liverpool, throwing references to the Mersey into the mix will trigger even more blank stares than the name Everton currently does. Few outside of the UK would have a clue what it even means. So... the only thing to do would be to add a suffix to the club's name, say in smaller print on the badge. Something like:

Everton (big letters) 1st Liverpool FC (small letters)

That would certainly resonate with German football fans, who understand that format as asserting the claim of being the named city's first club.

(I'm not advocating any of this, however, just throwing out there for consideration).

The only other acceptable alternative is to name it after a person who forms part of the clubs heritage. Whatever it's officially called, we should make a point of calling it what it actually is though.

Take that, redshite...

Think about the last time we played Liverpool at Wembley, Evertonians left from Lime St, while they had to leave from South Parkway. Good enough for me in loads of arguements that one!

Show Koeman, a video of the Bellow fight, and tell him to shut his eyes and imagine what it would be like, if he can get "our club", to start winning trophies again, for these supporters!

Put a big neon blue liver bird, protracting out into the Mersey, but only switch it on when we are due to play them!

Docklands Stadium or just Trafalgar Dock would be fine. I don't like 'arena' and you can't build a stadium and call it a 'park'.

I take the point in the original post though, a stadium right on the Mersey gives us a chance to link to a world recognised location. Mersey Stadium. Mersey Bank Stadium. Merseyside Stadium?

"Volkwagen Beatle Stadium"....

I wonder what they would think at the Admiralty?

The Merseyside Goodison Arena.

We will be on Liverpool's iconic waterfront, on the side of the Mersey, and still maintain our historic grounds name. Sounds good to me.

The boss was stumped, so he went to the canteen for a coffee. There was a student eating his lunch. Boss says to student 'Any ideas for a name for a client's mobile phone'. 'Blackberry' says the student, without even looking up. 'Why Blackberry?' says the Boss. 'Cos it's not fucking Apple!' replies the bored student.

So, NFA in 30-foot letters, and every time a tourist asks: 'Why NFA' we reply "Cos it's not fucking Anfield!"

And although we had to endure 15 years of unparalled Rs success in the 70s and early 80s, it then only took us a couple of years of success to see our attendances close to within a thousand or two of theirs.

No, for me the thing that ultimately pushed the RS onto a totally new level of support was the fluke in Istanbul. Not so much the outcome - as I say they'd won the European Cup before without pulling that much away from us in terms of support - but the Roy of the Rovers nature of it. Until that win their gates were frequently some way short of capacity.

Everton FC, pragmatic Scousers, and founder members of the football league. Do you not know that this club, have played more top flight games than any other club, in English football, and also had the very first number 9, in world football?

It's time to regain our pride, because as Steve says, we probably have one of the loyalist fan bases in English football. I heard that when Liverpool won the champions Lge in 2005, that they also had the lowest Lge gate on merseyside, during that same calendar year! Patrick?

I do agree with others though, we need to get the Mersey into the title somewhere.

I remember reading quite a few years ago that "there's nothing more Scouse on this planet than Everton FC".

That just about sums it up for me.

We "reclaim" the city when we win regularly and have a high media profile because of that.

Pick a nice, non stupid or non corporate, name for the stadium (or just call it New Goodison); something that we can all call it even after we've sold the naming rights.

And don't worry about a stadium name to piss the other lot off; if we're looking at our stadium name on that basis we're already proving that we're small time.

Keep the famous Tower as well of course. We are missing a trick. Hopefully Mr. Moshiri will address this. Stick a big Blue one on our new stadium. We must stop rolling over to have our bellies tickled.

The Howards Way Stadium.

Maybe the opening theme would be too sedate, but the end credit theme would be juuuust right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEqEQrSvGiM

One reason I think, was that at the beginning of match of the Day, our manager didn't like the idea of tv cameras at the club in case other teams picked up hints from watching us (not certain of the validity of this but it seemed to take ages for us to get on the telly)

After ou League Title win in 62-63 Liverpool were on the rise and we didn't keep ahead of them, as if we did we would often have challenged for european games (inter cities) except there was a 1 team per city rule.

Getting knocked out in the first round of the European Cup by the evental winners (best team in Europe) Inter Milan.

When Liverpool won the league in 65 - 66, they went all over Europe as "cheeky but nice scousers" singing the scouse songs to a much bigger TV audience, before eventually getting knocked out by Inter Milan.

So just when Liverpool was the music capital of the world, Liverpool rode on the back of that fame; and they also had a manager who had a great public relations persona, before public relations had been heard of.

Our Manager was a quite reticent man which was almost the negative image of Shankly. In the 70's their dynasty was on it's way while we went wandering out in the wilderness for 15 years or so.

In the mid eighties, we became just the best team in Europe, the Heysal happened. Down the back of beyond we went again. Apart from winning the cup in 1995 we slithered and dithered almost into the second division.

Since then we have been also rans, or nearly men, with false dawns aplenty.

We missed out on a truely world class stadium site and nearly ended up in a retail park in Kirkby. (thanks to the wonderful effort of all those involved in helping stop that misadventure. Well done indeed.)

Now we have Mr Moshiri and it looks like he means to make us into a club who will expect honours again. Some are holding their judgement and that's fair enough, but my tuppence worth is on Mr Moshiri wanting to have a new stadium and within the City , at that.

I cannot see Mr Koeman coming to EFC with certain rock solid guarantees in place about funding and targets. So if he come, we mean business.

I get a bit (a lot) pissed off about how they are making a walkway through Stanley Park, directly on the site where permission for a footballl staium (ours) could have been built!

Perhaps it's for the best if we can find a site in the centre of the city.

Trafalgar (Clarence) Dock looks like a massive site but there will be difficulties if it was agreed a stadium could be built on it.

It's about a mile from the nearest stations (Moorfields and Sandhills.) and the Dock Road (Waterloo Rd) would be a considerable bottlenck for buses/ cars as would Great Howard Street running parallel to it.

Facilities (Pubs, Caffs etc) are few and far between and shelter from weather, if you decide to walk, is non existent (Come back the Dockers Umbrella!)

Not saying it couldn't be done but it would need an awful lot fo work doing, to get 50,000 crowds to and from it. Great, if problems can be overcome.

But what would really reclaim the City for us is to buy out the Liverpool Echo Arena and build it on the Kings Dock, where it should have been in the first place.

As for a name, there's two ways of reclaiming the city
One is having a team to be Proud of
Two is having a stadium to be proud of, in a world famous site

As for the name of the Stadium, I'd have no problem whatsoever, called it after the name of our City,

The Liverpool Stadium,

New owner, new stadium... that would be something to help put us back up top.

We've only just got rid of him!

http://www.totalsportek.com/list/most-successful-clubs-in-english-football-history/

I don't rate the league cup at all, just for fun I made a list which simply adds league titles and FA cups, both in total and until 1992 (Premier League). Results are both shocking and as I expected. In total, Man utd rule with 32 titles, before the RS and Arsenal with 25 and 24. Villa, Everton, and Chelsea are the others above 10 with 14, 14 and 12 titles respectively.

If you look pre-Premier League, there are four clubs that were very close to each other: Arsenal on 15, Villa and Man Utd on 14 and Everton on 13. Chelsea is wiped away with just 2 titles remaining. The RS, I have to admit, lead the pack with 23 titles. Just for reference: Newcastle and Tottenham are not far behind the pack of four with both 10 titles.

Now this obviously holds no value at all, we are not entitled to anything based on this list. It just shows you how much we - and Tottenham, Newcastle, Villa and in number of English trophies that matter even Liverpool - missed the boat since the Premier League kicked off. Let's hope Moshiri is the man to bring silverware back to our club.

You might as well include the Charity Shield. At least that's played between to clubs that have been successful ....

My attempt was to try and show that through the sixties and during the mid eighties, we had a couple spells when we were around or at the top of English Football. True enough, after the mid eighties the epither "Sleeping Giant" was more and more the phrase applied to us. At times, I think rigor Mortis nearly set in!

So whether people view our history as spent in some kind of backwater, then that's their view but I would disagree.

Now, the discussion of reclaiming the City, is to show that there are two Reclaiming the City, it's

So now we have an opportunity

Just for fun here are a few things that have happened during and AFTER 6 of Villa's 7 titles.
The Siege of Mafeking , The Second Boer War, New Zealand is the first country to give women the vote, Tsar Nicholas II is crowned, USA declares war on Spain, The Wright Brothers first flight,Van Gogh dies,Labour Party formed,Marconi sends first radio message,Henry Ford designs first mass-produced cars,Norwegian Roald Amundsen reaches South Pole, Charlie Chaplin makes his first silent movies, Two World Wars,Russian Revolution, IRA formed, Mussolini siezes power, man walks on the moon.....I could go on, but the point is that "history", (especially Villa's) is mostly beyond the memory of just about any living soul, available from your library but probably not on film.OK, so is some of ours but occasionally it's best not to delve too far back.....

Banned.

The word London features prominently, which it never did before. This is to push the club in terms of branding & marketing.

Basically branding, marketing and dollar. We cannot stand still any longer. Clubs like West Ham, Newcastle (when in the Prem) & fucking Southampton are our peers ffs.

We have 25 years of catching up to do. Thank God the investment came otherwise we'd have been out of the division inside 20 years and still in the same ground.

That's why the mayor and LCC want to help us.

Theirs mentions London, but London holds a certain kudos over any other city, possibly in Europe, as far as Jonathan Foreigner is concerned. Beatles, girls walking out in rollers, Richard and Judy - doesn't really cut it.

(ducks for cover)

Whatever they call it, to me, in my head, it will be GoodisonPark the same as other grounds, to me, will be Highbury, Maine Road, Filbert Street, Roker Park etc, etc, etc.

The land is big enough for a Stadium alright, but all the routes around the Dock Road are leading to and from the Seaforth end of the town to the town centre

The regeneration would bring more traffic besides match traffic onto a system that is used quite heavily by massive lorries coming down Dunningsbridge Road, Bank Hall, Sandhills and Boundary Street to take and collect raw materials and other bulk goods.

So when you say the facilities would follow, then it depends what you mean. I'm not saying it is impossible, but it would be a massive, massive engineering and transport works.

PS, Your right Dave. It would be totally out of our hands.

So, coming form Moorfields station would present a long walk with no shelter. The same with Sandhills or down Burlington Street from Scottie Road.

Personally, I'm not so sure it would be a goer. I think Joe Anderson has seen an opportunity to raise the issue, but whether Peel Holdings see it that way, is another matter.

I'm not saying Anderson is going to win when people vote for a metro mayor, but he's now talking about getting the Mersey ferries upgraded aswell. Might be coincidence? again I hope it's not!

It'd need a lot of work on bus transport and car parking, but yep, it could go, with another statiuon by the big tobacco warehouse.

I read that bit about the Mersey Ferry he's building (turn his hand to anything, can Joe) Anyway, maybe it could be a Liner terminal as well.

Well, maybe it can work out! Well in Tony.

PS, Short sighted Gets, Ray!

West Ham now have the word London in their crest and are the first to do so - a very clever marketing ploy since they are now to occupy the Olympic stadium so yes, the London clubs do it. That's probably because they need to inform international football fans since they aren't as established as the others but goes to prove the point.

Marketing matters, especially globally. Every shirt we sell boosts our coffers. It's the reason I never travel without a collection of items adorning the badge. The more awareness, the greater the chance of recognition and recruitment.

On another point, I've been sick to death throughout my life of people asking me "But you're from Liverpool so how come you support Everton?"

Whatever way you shape it the dark side pulled off possibly the greatest marketing coup in football when they adopted the city's name. Annoyingly, they took us to court to take the name Everton when we moved and they were formed but lost the case. Would things have been different had they lost.......?

There are teams in Europe who are not known by their city's name, Ajax, Juventus and Benfica for starters, but they are brand names in their own right by virtue of having sustained success in European football. In a global market such as today's, why wouldn't you include somewhere the association with Liverpool, home of the Beatles? Potential Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, Thai, American supporters are surely going to be more attracted to a club with such an association?

The truth is that having Liverpool somewhere in our title is probably an anathema to some of our supporters because it is the name of our greatest rivals. I think that's petty minded though - it's the name of our city too!

Ultimately though, it's success that determines how successful a brand name becomes. But there is an awful lot you can do in the meantime to promote brand recognition.

Perhaps "Everton - original team in Liverpool" somewhere on the badge, promotional literature would help?

Sorry Ray (87), I think I may have misled. I wrote on a basis of a 'point of order' perspective. I muddied the waters and probably should've kept my own counsel as, ironically, I don't believe we should adopt the city name in our paraphernalia, especially the crest.

That would only be interpreted as the little club saying: "Erm, hello. Did you know we're still here?" I lament the fact they did one better than us from a Marketing perspective (at the time better fortune than management, let's face it) but it's our lot. I think the best thing we can do is focus on being the best we can be and follow the likes of Alax, Juventus & Benfica as you eluded.

I prefer Everton to be Everton because it gives us our own identity. Liverpool FC get tarred with the same brushes that rightly or wrongly tar the city of Liverpool and Liverpudlians in general.

By the way, even Benfica and Ajax have the city in their names - Sport Lisboa e Benfica and Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax respectively. It's only after European success that their brand became world famous in its own right and the city names became superfluous. Bayern may know be known simply as Bayern but we all know that they're from Munich - and besides Bayern is German for Bavaria - so again placement plays a role. As far as I'm aware, Juventus is the only top European team that doesn't have the city name incorporated. Torino don't seem to feature anywhere these days - so not much competition there!

"I don't think any of the London clubs were in London when they were named but all villages and towns."

Every London club bar Arsenal bears the name of an area of London. Unless I'm missing your point?

"What's our name.... EVERTON!!!"
"What's our name.... EVERTON!!!"
"What's our name.... EVERTON!!!"

Cue drum rolls!

What I mean is that London wasn't London as we know it now. The City was small and there were green spaces and roads between towns like Camden. When the clubs we know as being part of London now were named they didn't class themselves as part of London. Now Greater London is just one City and if they were named now perhaps there would be a big London association.

I think you may have a slightly romanticised view of Victorian London. Certainly places like Tottenham, West Ham, Woolwich, Millwall, Charlton were certainly traditional working class areas of London.

Let me help you with that - fucking wrongly!

(unless of course you think there might be some merit in the desperate, lazy, Carla fucking Lane/Kelvin McKenzie-style one-dimensional stereotypes that simply reinforce the bigotry of those looking for an easy target).

But I will say, abroad a few years ago, I got asked ( by some uneducated twat) something along the lines of " aren't you gutted that you say your from Liverpool, the same name as the football team as you support Everton?" , I tell the prick In no uncertain terms I was proud to be from Liverpool and that the shite had F.C at the end, don't get confused by the two and a history lesson followed, ( should of followed with a right hander in hindsight).

But this is how we're perceived. A nice new stadium and relative success would raise our profile.

Forgot where I was going with this, need to lay off the JD.....

As they said on Mad Men, if you have a 'u.s.p', use it.

Super Rugby teams seem to make a point of NOT telling you where they're from. Matches are listed as things like Cheetahs vs Sharks as if it were some bizarre zoo vs aquarium deathmatch video on YouTube. You're supposed to just know where they are from. This is a clear marketing decision on their part and I don't fully understand the rationale. I think they believe that having the city name in your team name limits your fans to only people from that city.

It did annoy me when Warwickshire became Birmingham in T20 cricket. I'm from Warwickshire but I'm not from Birmingham, and it seemed they'd made an effort to exclude me. They then won the tournament and I got over it.

Yeah, that sort of rolls of the tongue easily enough..

Peel Holdings, if they agree to a stadium in the dock site, would possibly/probably, want to be involved and have a say on it's name.

Personally, I wouldn't mind at all if it was called "The Liverpool Stadium." I don't see why we should shy away from having our City's name emblazoned in Blue lights at every home evening match. The name itself in massive Blue letters with a blue Liver Bird on each side. (Mind you, didn't they take out a patent on it? If so a couple of Prince Rupert tower would be fine.)

We have have shrunk away into the background, while LFC have made bucket loads of millions and fantastic publicity from using our City's name and unofficial crest and linking themselves with the Beatles etc.

They are not the only team who represent this City represent, yet this is how they've been perceived. They are just a football team who happen to play there games in Liverpool. As do we. As long as we cower away from using the name Liverpool and proudly use it

I think our name is full of classy history, and I hate even seeing in our badge. It ought to be on top of our badge and underneath our badge. There's a good badge on the Everton timeline showing it as a classy crest. On top "Everton Football Club (Knock the company; limited bit off though) the company bit though! and use "Established 1878"
Prince Ruperts tower as the badge and "Established 1878" And underneath, our motto.

Where we play is in Liverpool, what's our name Everton.

Mind you, it'll probably get called something like " The Peel Holdings, Coca Cola, Ball Park, or something

The most important thing for me is getting the stadium design right. Something like Westfalenstadion would be superb.

If actually naming the city on our badge is too much for some people to bear (but I do like Brian's suggestion at #102), why can't we leverage the fantastic legacy of the Beatles? Have something like "Hey Jude" blasting out of the speakers before the team run out to Z cars. Develop some sort of brand recognition based on the city's heritage!

We have to remember that investment comes from all over the world these days - in some cases from countries with populations who don't have deep-seated allegiance to any one football team. If only 1% of Beatles lovers all over the world associated with us, we'd have a hell of a lot more followers. Man City are trying to do doing something similar with Oasis and they're just pale imitations of the real deal. C'mon Everton Marketing Dept. , think outside the box! In fact, I'd even offer to buy out the existing Beatles Museum and re-locate it to our new stadium down by the waterfront!

I'm glad to hear about the Liver Bird as I think the idea of using it would show where we come from and, even better as you say, piss the other lot off.

The Beatles museum is a good point to make, as the other lot have linked it to a tour of their ground. Reinforcing the perception in tourists eyes, Liverpool the City, the Beatles and the other lot.

Our marketing department have a vast rich heritage to pick up and link us with and there is no reason why we should not be using it.

I think Eugene's idea is probably the best, plaster his message on all and sundry and up the ante when TV is around.

Anfield is too far away for that same treatment, so I could imagine some rather annoyed reds.

Mind you Ray, They were going to try and call themselves Everton Athletic...except for the bloody lawyers!

I just hope it is ahead of its time (as was GP) and the football on offer is as well.

Regarding links to the city, how about marketing it along the lines of the other iconic symbols of the city - the cathedrals? i.e. one of three cathedrals in the city.

I'm not religious but (thinking out of the box) isn't supporting Everton FC a bit like a church-going experience? We worship; it's a routine; we file in and out in a procession; they often have us on our knees; we are chosen - born, not manufactured; the seats are uncomfortable; it often requires great faith and the patience of a saint; the holy trinity is a common feature; it's a bit draughty; we often have to stifle yawns; voices can be at full throttle; we're often looking at the clock; there's an occasional tendency towards lip service and soundbites; the exclamation of "Oh Christ!" is not uncommon; the Everton match-winner hears songs of praise. Etc.

Personally, I'd like some blue (predominantly), white, yellow and amber stained glass incorporated into the stadium design somewhere to reinforce this effect.

(And red urinals / toilet bowls and toilet paper with all waste outlets pointed in the direction of Anfield.)

But I don't think that just football on the pitch and trophies in the cabinet is all that should be done (mind you, if that came along, I wouldn't be that disappointed!) either. We can and in my view should, use that fact that we are a Liverpool team to our financial benefit.

No, I think you've hit a decent point; but I'm not so sure about just leaving it to the success of our team either. There are many more people coming to Liverpool than just watch football and our club could sell a lot more EFC goods, if we became part of the City Tourist agenda.

The Stadium will be the venue for other sports than football and will be watched by millions of people watching those other sports on tv and bands etc; and visited by many other devotees of Bands and sports as well. It will be telling the world there is a fine stadium on the waterfront of this city and it would be a great advert for this city and for us.

I see no reason that we should not consider stadium tours either, being linked with other city tourist spots, eg the Beatles museum

So perhaps the balance, for me is don't be afraid of using the name of our City, but in an appropriate way. Don't be afraid of linking us to the City either, and use the vast amounts of cash that can be accumulated by having appropriate merchandise available in the City Centre and the Stadium.

So on the point of we don't need to be brashly giving the proverbial two fingers to LFC, I think that's fair enough. But anything that we do will be derided or whinged aboutby aour nearest and dearest, and I for one would just let them get on with it.

I do however, think we would be missing a massive opportunity if we just use the football that we play to improve the quite poorly known fact that we are a Liverpool team. and miss out on all that tourism, and other events besides football being staged at the stadium would bring. Our income from retail is pathetic well, it's not even that good! for a club with our history, and hopefully our future. At the moment though, Patrick, you can rest easy regarding our marketing team's ingenious use of owt

Mind you, We haven't got a Stadium on the drawing board yet ( But who knows!) and we haven't seen our new manager yet either!

Trafalgar Dock.. Sponsored by Admiralty, I like. Many a visiting team would lose the battle..

Strange that Z-Cars was set around Seaforth if my memory serves me right..

The Royal Liver Stadium...
Blue Waters...
Oh and btw... they should rename Anfield "The Stadium of Shite".

I am so tempted to make an Everton flag with the liver bird slap bang in the middle, with the wording "Everton FC The cities first team" surrounding it.

That LFC applied to the European Patent/Trade Mark Office in relation to a Europe-wide grant of rights in relation to the L.B. They were granted such rights on the grounds that SOME people regarded the Bird as more representative of the Football Club than the City.

In order to get the rights, they had to give several undertakings (solemn promises).

1. Not to oppose any application by Liverpool City Council for a UK grant of rights [but the city council has never made such an application]

2. Not to sue the City council for any use of the Liver Bird.

3. Not to sue the Liverpool Echo for its use of the Liver Bird.

4. Not to sue Liverpool Cricket Club for its use of the Liver Bird.

Although a European grant includes the UK, you can have simultaneous UK and European rights vested in different owners.

In its case to the European office, LFC apparently said that their purpose was to stop the use of the Liver Bird on fake Liverpool kits made or being sold in Europe.

I am told that they have taken infringement action in Europe, but not in the UK. They seem to have abided by their undertakings.

So, their purpose in securing rights, seems to have been purely commercial, rather than any dastardly plot to do us down.

Any use by Everton of a Liver Bird, would probably not lead to enforcement action ... but it may be as well to let sleeping dogs lie!

This explanation is the short potted version; it's actually fiendishly complicated!

It could maybe incorporate the city coat of arms, with the birds changed to blue.

Or maybe an 'ommage to the birds on the Liver Building, with them wearing a team shirt.

"Let's see who feels inferior when there's a blue glow on the City of Liverpool skyline from our ultra modern, multi purpose big fuck off arena."

That goes into my "ToffeeWeb Classic Quotes" Shortcuts folder.

Not sure we will get that name across the line but I know what you are trying to say.

To this day (and I hope the day I die) he still calls them Liverpoo...! It's the little things :)

There is genuine interest in Everton out there and wide acknowledgment we are the proverbial sleeping giant. I just don't think we've been good at tapping into this. It's bigger than reclaiming the City; our foothold in the City is as strong as it always has been as that is birth right stuff. If the Moshiri era is to be the brave new world many hope for, we need to focus outwards, not inwards.