My Goodison

Joe is right,we should fight to stay. I was there in 1970 when we stuffed Chelsea 5-2 and you could could buy the best hot pork pie you have ever tasted. Initiated my son in 1998(having lived down south for many years) and i couldnt believe they were charging a pound for a cup of tea ! Lets face it Football is dead, how can a player be paid 100,000 grand and not be able to kick with both feet! Z cars will always give me the shivers but I guarantee Evertonians will never see the passion and loyalty that Duncan showed again. The Golden goose is in intensive care. I do however applaud Moyes for not spending silly money this summer. Fight to save Goodison and football.

Anthony, How can you relate memories of Goodison and Everton to Duncan Ferguson. Of course the moment he floated in or bulleted headers against Liverpool or Man Utd pulled at the heart strings. But for god sake the man was at the most average and at the worst a bleeding liability on the purse strings of our club and every working blue. Now Alex Young Joe Royle, Peter Reid, Kevin Ratcliffe, Andy Gray, Neville Southall they were Evertonians who’s names will resonate around the hallowed arena long after it has gone. And Joe I empathise with your sentiments but, wake up and smell your coffee. liverpool City Council have finally sat up and panicked on of the biggest business attractions and investment opportunities in their City is slipping through their grasp. For 7/8 years they have done nothing to support an Everton ground move. We have been asking nee begging them for assistance in finding land for us to develop on.Even now they have finally said we have options for you but we are not going to give you them for nothing. We want you in our city that much!!! but you will still have to sort yourselves out. And we have sort some wonderful commercial partners for you. Do me a favour BESTWAY. What you can share a site on flipping wharehouse site. Warren Bradley call yourself a blue?. i hope your tenure with LCC is worth it, because you are doing nothing for Everton. I do not particularly prefer a move to Kirkby but I do beleive the Everton board have been seeking the best and only real option to move out club on. I go with a heavy heart but with confidence that they are looking at our best interest

Great piece Joe, brings back some special memories.

A great article and one that I can relate to. To Damien who heavily criticises Duncan Ferguson I would offer the thought that for a generation of younger fans the commitment and loyalty offered by Big Dunc was all many had to hold-on to when trophies and general successes were non existent.

Some great memories Joe and thanks for rekindling them, in full swing the magic of Goodison Park is incomparable. However the modern game requires an almost sanitized approach, the smell of Police horse shit, stale alehouses and grubby chippy’s replaced by a corporate silver service approach to the match day experience. To compete it would be foolhardy to remain where we are, trapped almost in a catatonic state of nostalgia. My season ticket this year is almost at the £600 mark, given the said dreadful facilities, warm chang beer, smelly toilets, awful catering, queues to take a piss and dodgy telly’s, would any other sector of the entertainment industry provide its customers with such a shoddy service. In the 80’s and before football was the working class game and it was affordable to the masses. Unfortunately the rogue elements of market forces that have eroded the core of the game including extorsionate entrance fee’s and player’s wages come into mind, however at the end of the day why should the fan (or in Wyness speak the customer) continue to endure sub standard facilities in this day and age.

Peter,
are you saying if we move to Kirkby then the police horses will wear nappies? Of course I realise refridgeration works better in Kirkby so everyone will be drinking cold Chang which gives your piss an aroma of daisy meadows. Also it goes without saying that when it comes to throwing pies over a counter, Kirkby staff can work 10 times faster than those in Walton. Im not sure if the tellys are any bigger in Knowsley though so you may have to bring your glasses just in case!

I don’t ask for much from my matchday experience... I enjoy the simple pleasures of the matchday...

Some relatively clean and operational bogs, some decent beer taps with decent cold beer and enough staff employed to meet matchday demand - the argument that a move to a new stadium is the only way to provide for these ’comforts’ is nonsense...

If the management team can’t invest a little cash into customer matchday infrastructure in the pre-season then what does that say about their likley management of this project?

Either they are holding back investing in minor improvements to the GP experience to make us all feel like the place is shite, or they are simply too incompetent even to run a fortnightly beer and food stall with adequate toilet maintenance correctly...

Either way - these are the people telling you the only way is Kirkby and we’d be mad to think otherwise...

Food for thought - but not at Goodison it seems...

Come on guys, have you not seen the first images of our new stadium. When I saw them I just thought WOW! It looks awesome and I will be just as proud to be part of that as I am now with Goodison. Let’s face it - emotions and sentiment aside - Goodison is gradually moving into a state of disrepair and it will become a safety issue within the next 10 years with massive repair bills and this will keep happening again and again until the need to move arises again !! This issue’s not going to go away so let’s make some new memories and create some history in our new home. Bring it on !!!

GP is genuinely unique. What price does anyone put on anything that is unique? Whatever it is it’s got to be more than what’s being offered at Kirkby.

There’s so many things to be said about GP, good and bad, but please let’s not churn out this ’can’t be redeveloped’ nonesense. Of course it can.

But anyway, the stench from the Boardroom over what’s happening is stomach churning. Right back to 18 months ago when it was announced that Leahy was to be an adviser to the Board. Seemed a useful and genuine addition at the time -- but clearly now he was drafted in on the back of what he was about to offer on behalf of Tesco. Then we get the exclusivity bit. The aim? To stifle discussion until the Tesco plan is far advanced and so the Board can then announce there is no Plan B. Then we are told the vote is meaningless. Take it or ......take it.

Truly appalling and in itself sufficient for any well informed electing body of people to say no.

You hit the nail on the head in the penultimate paragraph. We should fight for a ’Plan B’. If after all proposals are examined and Kirkby is genuinely the best solution then I would be more accepting if there wasn’t the sense that we were being bulldozed down a blind alley and forced to choose between leaving the City for a ’nice ground’ courtesy of Tesco or, as Keith Wyness would have us believe, oblivion and life in the amateur leagues. Surely if Kenwright and Wyness were acting purely in the interests of Everton and want to stay in the City, they should get LCC to back up their big words and afford them a period of exclusivity to examine the proposed sites that Warren Bradley believes are viable. Wyness has said that Goodison has 10 more years left and that a stadium could be completed in 3 years; giving LCC a similar period to put up or shut up has got to be in the best interests of Everton and the fans (but I worry that neither of these two come very high in the priority list).Being told that there isn’t an alternative is scare mongering and highly prejudicial to the vote. The Everton board have an obligation to provide the facts and their complete abuse of their position of influence and misinform is a disgrace. Kirkby may well be the best option, but giving us Hobson’s choice destroys the credibility that this project needs.

What I would like to know is why KW did not tell us about the "Loop" site off Scotland Road that Bestway have proposed? The first I heard about this site being good enough for a stadium and within the city was when I saw it on this site. KW GIVE US THE TRUTH.... KEEP EVERTON IN THE CITY AND VOTE "NO" TO KIRKBY

Joe, you are right to remind us about how special Goodison Park is. I also think you are right about how this board have behaved. This proposal to go to Kirkby, is the latest, and possibly the most damaging, in a list of moves by Mr Kenwright which some might call incompetent, others might call by another name. I refer to the aborted deal with NTL, to the terrible fiasco of the loss of the Kings Dock. My God, if we had to move from Goodison, what an absolutely world class ground we would have had. Then we had the Fortress Sports malarky, what was that all about? Does anyone remember a short time before the shareholders AGM and the emergence of our supposed saviours, Kenwright blaming Gregg for frighteneing off some American investors? This was four or five years ago and we still haven’t seen any investment (except for the appearance of Planet Hollywood, oh and of course, mustn’t forget Rocky. You may gather from this that I am extremely reluctant to trust Mr Kenwright with the future of our club. Yes, he’s an Evertonian and no doubt a splendid chap but everyone who cares for the club is just the same.
What I find alarming, is that we are being given (well some of us are!) about a fortnight to cast our vote on the future of EVERTON FOOTBALL CLUB!
The most momentous decision since we left Anfield and we are getting a totally loaded option. We lost the chance for the Albert Dock nearly seven years ago, in that time we could have developed with Liverpool City Council, alternatives for the future of EFC. This could well have included developing Goodison Park (please remember that a lot of businesses depend on EFC and, as far as I’m aware, no thought has been given to helping regenerate the area.)
So, we have a club, who decided not to get together with LCC but who entered a period of exclusivity with Knowsley and Tesco’s. This effectively prevented any other option being explored in any detail.
Granted, the club didn’t need to give us a vote, they could have just gone ahead with the Kirkby development. However, because the board rightly guessed it would be extremely controversial, we got a vote.
The vote we have, is on the lines of " Here you are fellow Evertonians, your board have got you the most tremendous stadium, sited in a prestigious development, where you can not only come and watch the mighty blues perform, you can also experience the ultimate in retail therapy both before and after the game. The one tiny drawback, and its not even a drawback really, because boundaries change and what’s in a name anyway; it’s just that we won’t be in Liverpool any more. (Mind you there are moves to get Kirkby included in a Liverpool City Region.) We haven’t looked at anything else and we won’t get anyone to invest in us because there are no Sugar Daddies out there, and, because we are real sharp operators, we will get a hundred and fifty million pound stadium for twenty million pounds and a tesco loyalty card."
God almighty, he even has the nerve to say he will go if we don’t vote for this. I may be a bit cynical but I can’t help but get the feeling we are being railroaded into this.
Unless Goodison Park is going to fall down within the next five seasons, I would hope that this club would look at all ways, (with LCC as well)to find the finance to get a future home for Everton. I would hope that the long ago mentioned fans share issue was put back on the Agenda. And seeing that just about every other club in the premiership is being courted by investors, is it beyond the acumen of our board to find backers who would be prepared to invest in a future that doesn’t take us out of our city?
Unfortunately, this proposal appears to have split us all, right down the middle. Those of us who want to stay in Liverpool and preferably in a redeveloped Goodison Park are not being parochial. We are not in any way criticising the people, or the town of Kirkby. We are not unwilling to travel further to see the blues. We do, however, see it as imperative that we stay in Liverpool.
If we move out then the future supporters in Liverpool are likely to follow the other lot. They will be the only team in Liverpool and the kids will, in the main, grow up to support them. We are recognised in having the highest percentage of local support in the Premiership. If we begin to lose that, unless we are extremely successful and make a name for ourselves in Europe, then we will see our attendances dwindling. Well, at least that’s how I see it. For all those Evertonians who don’t get a vote and would vote not to go to Kirkby, that’s how I am voting.

Underpants....the loop

Neville Southall a hero? How many transfer requests did he hand in during his career?

NO to kirkby. We should stay n redevelop Goodison Park. Bhyness n Kenwright r working at there own interest n not for the club . We should ask ourseleves that no investor has come n bought such a big club like Everton ...?

Funny how things pan out. I wrote a piece some time back about the special memories that GP held for me and if i remember correctly. Got replies stating that i was melancholic and should be happy we are moving.
On the Tesco scenario. I am a firm believer that when we do move, as i think it’s cut and dried and the bastards have sold us up the river. That a full takeover bid will be launched by Tesco and BK will snap their hands off.
We will then as i have stated before, become pawns for a multi-national.
Whatever anyone thinks, this is my honest belief. There is a lot more to this than meets the eye.

Ive been attending GP since January 1970. In all that time ive missed 9 games. I love the place. My Dads ashes are buried in a plastic tub just to the left of the penalty area, near the byline at the Streetend, courtesy of Mr Dougie Rose. GP should be redeveloped. For Christ sake we won the league while the Main stand was rebuilt in 1970. It opened in august 1971, and building techniques are a lot, lot quicker and efficient these days. Everything i know has been goodison park. I even live in the shadow of the place. Apart from the football side of it, if EFC move, it would be the final nail in the coffin for Walton as a community. All them businesses closing down, all kinds of people out of work. There would be a breakdown in society around Walton. Like it or not. Everton provides a focus for an awful lot of people in the area. Red and blue.

Is not anyone aware that the clubs greatest and most memorable games have actually occured outside of the ground, or in other words in others people stadia. Um lets see, Villa park 1985. luton wasnt it?. And lets not forget Rotterdam of the same year. Of course the Munich game was fun but it meant more to me winning the final. And there there is highbury 84. Heath in extra time thats the one. The list endless. I for one would not like to remember the Old lady for fighting to save our necks by the skins of our teeth even if 94 and 98 did teach us a lesson. I suppose everyone who is for the stay where we are campaign would with hindsight be having second thoughts in 15 or 20 years time if the way things are going we end up in the Championship or whatever the damn league is called in the future struggling beat an up and coming Scunthorpe or Hereford side.I impore anyone with an interest to acknowledge that the way things are going we cannot compete with, and are no longer one of the Big six. I terms of revenue, stature or Future title aspirations not neccessarily league performance or final finishing place. We need a new broom of epic proportions to sweep this club forward. In any event, Optimism is the most appropriate word when sometimes you have to bite your tongue.

OK lets stay a GP because everybody has got all sweet memories........well wake up ,,we cannot win the PL with sweet memories....we are now not even a average side and even below villa and sunderland who have just come up...be honest we are a below average side who cannot buy top players,cannot gat any investors and we will not get a new ground if we do not take this offer...................there are two types of football clubs .......pidgeons and statues.... and if we dont move we are a statue,ready to be shat on by all the tpo clubs with all there new players and investors.....especially the red sh@@e

Have all of the KEOIC fan base had their questions answered now? This is your option from the hearts of LCC and its warmly welcomed commercial partner Bestway. The Loop site all 3 square inces of it. yes if were lucky we might be able to build a 25000 seater stadium, with room for 17 cars in the car park and a Spar shop on the corner if space permits. Thanks Warren Bradley for taking our plight so seriously. Kirkby is looking more attractive all the time.

OK lets give the Kopites the satisfaction of being able to say there is only one club in this city, when without us there would be no L*verpool F.C. Joe is Right, the memories from the old lady ill treasure forever, and the next generation cant expect to take memories even close to the ones we have from a half empty 50,000 seater stadium ’outside’ the city boundries. Kenwright an Co think this is moving on wards and upwards... they need to think agian. Nil Satis Nisi Optimum

Anthony, I remember us stuffing Chelsea 6-1 when Bob Latchford scored the 2 goals he needed to get 30 for the season! That was late 70’s....

cheers
Hugh