In the Daily Mail, Graeme Sharp tells his side of the ‘headlockgate’ saga that saw him impose a self-exile of 2 years from Goodison Park after parts of the Everton fanbase turn against him as he failed to speak out against the decision of the last board to stay away from games for unspecified security reasons.
His role as an unpaid non-executive director and adviser to the board during the club’s descent to near ruination under Farhad Moshiri made him guilty by association, in the eyes of some fans. They felt he had aligned himself too closely with Bill Kenwright, chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale and Moshiri, the orchestrator of the club’s dysfunctionality.
Though Sharp doesn’t put it in such a way, he was cast into a classic contemporary football maelstrom, with social media an accelerant of suspicion and rumour. An alleged act of aggression against one Everton director which Sharp says he knew nothing about. Claims that Sharp had contributed to the tarnishing of protesters by complying with advice from Everton’s security team that board members should stay away from Goodison for their own safety.
‘Sharp out’ read one banner at the very end of the ground where his goal against Bayern Munich, nearly four decades earlier, had lifted the roof off the place.
‘Yes, it hurt,’ the 64-year-old says, sitting in the morning sunshine at the canalside Port and Anchor eaterie at Ellesmere Port, on the road to his North Wales home. ‘I’m past all that now but it hurt because I wanted to help the club. I thought I was contributing.
‘We were told by a security team not to come to games and if it had been up to me, I would have said, “I’m coming to the game”. They decided they couldn’t take the chance of us coming and something happening. I’m not saying it would have happened, but just say someone threw something at you?
‘It isn’t as easy as people say. They say, “He should have been there at the stadium”, and of course I wanted to be there. I’m being told I can’t, whether I like it or not. In this day and age, you’re never going to win. There’s so much written and things then go from there to there to there. That’s the hard thing.’
He respects the right of Everton fans to challenge those running the club, as they always have, most forcibly. He doesn’t know if Moshiri or Kenwright took a blind bit of notice of any opinions he offered.
Sharp had resolved never to return to Goodison. A letter to him from Everton’s new owners the Friedkin Group seems to have done most to get him back for the home match against Ipswich, at which he was warmly received two weeks ago. In a significant conversation, Moyes reminded Sharp how valued he was.