COLUMNIST KEN BUCKLEY
EGMs and the future
Comments (20) : So who actually cares much except us Blues? Who cares that we only equalized our numbers in the window when the fact we broke our transfer record in pound notes for the fourth year running masked the obvious need to build adequately on what had been built?
I posted a 'We go with what we have got' piece that went down like a lead balloon (because I can't do irony on the web) but both EGM and our starting position at window opening time and our finishing position at window closing time go hand in hand. The EGM seems to suggest that, as things stand without the go-ahead for DK, then funds are limited for team building and a billionaire owner is the answer to everyones prayers; in order to get one of those, DK must go ahead. I have to say that, no matter my personal preference, a new or vastly updated ground is required and a billionaire owner is most preferable and may well be absolutely crucial in seeing this club forward in the future.
My question is what did the EGM achieve? What will future EGM's achieve if the only thing on the agenda is where we play our football?
I go to the game to see my team compete and hopefully triumph and if defeat it is to be, then I expect to go down both competing and fighting. Our success or otherwise in the transfer window colours my view on what chance we may have in terms of a season-long campaign. I know what we had last season and where we finished. I know what was needed to progress.
I know what money we had in from outgoing transfers and finishing position in the league whilst realising that a proportion must be used to service debts. This does not explain to me why we have not built on last season and indeed why we were only able to break our transfer record at the last second on one player to add to the four who are nothing more than bodies, maybes and what-ifs. That is not the progress I was looking for.
Yes, we need investment. Yes, we need a ground fit for modern purpose, but most of all we need a team that keeps momentum and our name in the forefront rather than what has transpired in this window.
As a fan, I am not hopeful that one very promising signing can overcome our threadbare position and without investment it will all be the same next term. As a fan, I am not hopeful that calling for EGMs to purely consider where we play can progress our progress as a team.
As a fan, I want what is best for the club, team and fans, and to my mind I don't see entrenched positions, hatred for Chairman or board or council taking us very far at all. I find it hard to believe that investment is not being sought. I find it hard to believe that moving to Kirkby is taken lightly even though I and many like me just don't want it to happen on a personal and historic basis.
My season is unfolded on what happens on the pitch wherever we play. The pleasure I get out of it is governed by results and how we are progressing as a team and how we are building for the future, ie, what we have in reserve in terms of cover, what are we bringing through the Academy to push signed players. All these things I can see with my own eyes from my seat.
What I can't see is how we are doing as a club. Why do we have a shambles most transfer windows when facts stare everyone in the face? Why must we leave the city to progress? Why do other clubs attract investment but not us? Why can we finish fifth in the league, compete in Europe and the Carling Cup and still have so much negativity from erstwhile investors?
As a fan, I will never know... but I would ask those in a position to call for EGMs to consider the broader questions rather than to seek such a narrow corridor as to where we play rather than what will it take to keep this great club in the forefront of football in this country?
It's easy for fans like me to say where we should play. It's easy for fans like me to say how we should build. It's easy for fans like me to demand that the board should give us what we want. The reallity though may be a million miles from how I see things. Therefore to those people who are in a position to call EGMs I say to them, try to construct an EGM that stands a chance of answering the very relevant questions that surround our club at the moment.
Don't be afraid to meet head on the unacceptable in some eyes but rather work toward some understanding just what is necessary to move us forward both with and without new owners/investment. This approach may not only throw up some unpalatable conclusions but in doing so may also re-unite the fan base going forward for I believe every true Blue, at heart, wants what is the best possible for our club.
We are a club of high pedigree that sits at the top table and we need to act with high pedigree and set aside all prejudices so that in the current state of football we continue to sit at the top table.
In conclusion, I have to say that we need to have trust in our present chairman and board to do all the right things to set us on the road to continue at that top table because quite simply they are the only ones that can. The EGM has shown us that major shareholders rule and I for one wish them god speed in delivering for the good of all.
Footy will soon be back -- see you there.
UP THE BLUES
Reader Comments
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He might rescue the princess, but will he take the old lady with him?
I?m sorry, but they lost all claims on a free hand to do what they want, no questions asked, a long, long time ago.
Property may be theft, but until the law is changed, that is where we live.
No, no...we’re all stakeholders now. That’s why we were all balloted....that’s why the club’s PR machine has underlined ’communication’ as important in the wake of the EGM. Well, playing them at their own game, the EGM was called (with perhaps more to be called in the near future) in an effort at better communication. But the club doesn’t seem to agree with that - as per the view expressed to a reporter this week that future EGMs would be sabotaged by calling them at inconvenient times and holding them at relatively inaccessible locations. I suspect Ken would approve.
Of course, all of the things you say have meanning, and people committed to the Everton tradition wish that things were different. Its just that it don’t add up to a hill of beans these days, as someone once said. What’s your stake worth? Roughly the same as mine I guess - sod all. No future owner of EFC will ever put a vote out to non-shareholders.
I wonder who will own the club next year? A sheikh or a maharaja perhaps? Kiss your stake goodbye, and learn to communicate in a quite different way.
Long may they continue to do so!
What few of us would welcome is another Johnson or the comedians in control of Newcastle and West Ham. In the meantime, I call for a little more tolerance and understanding ? EGMs do nothing but massage the egos of those who call them ? and will continue my support of the man at the helm.
Kenwright has been looking for 10 years now 24/7 for investment and Ellis was treated worse by the Villa fans than Kenwright, however what you get with Ellis is what you see not quite the same with Kenwright is it.
I see Kenwright as a similar version of Johnson only with charisma; he is after all friends with the man and never utered a word against him when he was chairman oh apart from heading the group against a move to Kirkby... erm Everton for Goodison I think they were called. I see Everton just as commical Behind the seens as Newcastle or West Ham if not more so, it's just not highlighted in the media as much
I'm afraid if you're supporting Kenwright then you're on dodgy ground if you're accusing other people of having large egos. Now Richard fire away with your Diamond Bill uligies.
Even if it took Doug Ellis 5 years to get Randy Lerner Bill has taken 8 years working 24/7 to get....................er NOBODY!!
MAnchester City used a top broker to SELL the club within a matter of days/weeks.
Who is Bill using...... The Liverpool Echo.
Perhaps the silences mentioned were more telling than all of the rhetoric ?
Foolishly I celebrated when Kirkby was called in but the tone of the EGM seems to suggest that, come hell or high water, the Board are going to persevere with this crazy notion.
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1 Posted 06/09/2008 at 15:41:48
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EGMs: The club made it crystal clear they would only discuss the issues on the docket... but then employed a full court press to brush away all concerns about Kirkby, reiterating how impossibly expensive it would be to redevelop Goodison, emphasising the huge investment chasm we are all staring helplessly into, while confirming they have no intention of looking at any other alternatives.
You ask for an EGM to be structured to ask what will it take to keep this great club in the forefront of football in this country? ... Yet the answer from the Club hierarchy to that question has been firmly and unequivocally stated already... DESTINATION KIRKBY, and the takeover it would have precipitated. Full stop.
The non-sequitur is your final paragraph, where you say we have to trust the Chairman and the Board to do all the right things... Well the whole idea behind EGMs is to question the wisdom of that trust. And as for uniting the fanbase, half want to ask the questions and the other half claim to know the answers to their satisfaction and want to whine about the lack of trust shown by those asking the questions, thus fomenting yet more division in the fan base.
The sad fact is that EGMs are a complete waste of time in terms of changing anything or getting any meaningful answers. We’ve had two now, while his website has been following the fortunes of the club since the start of the Internet era, and neither have made one iota of difference or provided anything other than a chance for a few to get things off their chest.
Change may eventually come but it is completely beyond the influence of the fans and the minor shareholders, who will nevertheless keep asking questions and demanding answers.