THE 2004 AGM

The demographic for various reasons has slowly started to change over the last few years.  There are a few younger faces, a few people who have made their dosh working in 'real' big business, and even, shock-horror, some people who turn up wearing jeans!  This is a good thing; although the odd new shareholder may not observe the expected glum formal protocols, they can often liven proceedings up with their cheeky off-the-cuff questions.  The mafia of the mediocre may tut their disapproval but, by god, these nights would be overbearingly dry otherwise...

Bill Kenwright kicked the evening off bang on time.  The first motion was to re-elect himself.  You could see he was narked with the 20 or 30 people who voted against him.  'I didn't think it was that bad!'  There then followed a unanimous vote in favour of appointing Keith Wyness to the board which seemed to irritate Bill's sense of injustice further.  There was also a statement confirming that Terry Leahy from Tesco would be getting involved with the club as a Board advisor (though would not be made a director).  I think everyone sees this as a good thing and hope it leads to the man getting sucked in further.

Bill then attempted to take the audience through the accounts.  By his own admission, he doesn't understand accounts well.  "I'm good at making money, not reading it," was how he described his own perception of his financial acumen.  There was nothing particularly of interest in anything he chose to focus on save a comical attempt to educate the audience into the complexities of accounting practice for dealing with amortization of player registrations.  This left all non-accountants in the audience scratching their heads and those of us who thought we understood amortization scratching our heads even harder!

There was a query about the £10.4M loan, but this was explained away as "money we draw in advance against the Sky money we know we are due next year."  The implicit question from everyone was 'who do we draw this money from'?  Sky themselves?  Or is it a bank loan secured against the Sky money?  And what is the cost of this loan?  We remain none the wiser but I doubt there is anything of concern in the point. 

Bill then introduced Keith Wyness.  This is the first time I have seen Keith in the flesh.  I'll be honest his physical stature and presence had not filled me with inspiration when he joined the top table.  Lesson to self not to judge a book by its cover though, as I thought the presentation he gave was A1.

It was about as damning an indictment of the previous governance of our Club as you could have come up with.  His style was to state what he found when he arrived — which was, he stated, the bleeding obvious — but great that he said it so directly in front of the Board who had overseen the creation of that mess.  He then talked through how he wished us to be benchmarked against other clubs; what he had in mind in order to shift us in the right direction; and the measurable targets he was setting himself to demonstrate progress.  He said all the right things in a straightforward, non-patronising manner.  I am certainly willing to give him a chance and my support in attempting to deliver those targets.

Someone asked about the David France Collection and his answer implied he was serious about acquiring it, but he was also very honest that he still hadn't quite got his head round what should happen the collection when we do have it.  He ruled out an Everton Museum.

I plucked up some courage and asked if he felt the Board were truly delegating the authority he needs to be a real Chief Executive rather than a de facto Club Secretary with a jumped-up title.  So far he felt they had.  Time, no doubt, will tell...  If they don't, he struck me as having enough integrity to do a Birch and hop it rather than be marginalised.

Then came the 'rabbit out the hat' for the evening and by far the most interesting bit.  Chris Samuelson, the mysterious international financier behind the Fortress Sport Fund, was introduced to the room.  I'm a great believer in credit where it is due.  He didn't have to come.  He didn't have to speak.  He didn't have to take questions.  He did all three — so respect for that at least.  However…..

The first impression was great; he seemed an amiable, easy talking guy, very relaxed with the mic in-front of the crowd.  He talked of how he had 'followed the club all his life' and had first got involved when he was approached to buy out True Blue Holdings' stake earlier in the year (a revelation that saw Gregg's eyes nearly pop out).  And he made a nice pitch that there was nothing sinister in what he was up to; he didn't want control, he just had some wealthy clients who thought Everton a good value proposition (read 'undervalued') and were willing to lock their money in for the long haul with no expectation of dividends.  Had he not have taken questions, he probably would have won the room.  But after Bill's denial that he had ever been offered True Blue's stake the floor was open to questions.  This provided two priceless moments.

The first was when he was pressed on the idea that someone just wanted to put £12.8 million into the Club, didn't want to make a profit, didn't want a dividend, and didn't want control.  Samuelson denied each skillfully, but was then blown sideways by his interrogator's final unexpected question: "Oh, and who scored the winning goal in the '66 FA Cup final?" 

Nervous laughter... he turned to Bill; Bill didn't give him the lifeline – he turned back and blustered "I was a student in Munich in '66."  You could sense some of the crowd wanting to move in for the kill while the Mafia of the Mediocre were horrified that we would be seen to be rude to a guest and were desperate to move on but one audible exchange in the room went:

"You're not an Evertonian!" 
"Does that matter?"
"It matters he's lying.  What else is he lying about?  Eh?"

The second highlight was when someone queried if Paul Gregg was party to the detail of the deal, whether he was supporting it, and whether it had been discussed at the Board.  Before every answer, Gregg chose his words carefully, but left us all in no doubt that he has not been party to the negotiations, the item has not been discussed at the Everton Board of Directors, and as far as Gregg is concerned it is not a done deal.  Kenwright and Gregg were sitting next to each other but avoided any chance of accidental eye contact for the rest of the evening...

Samuelson then denied that his business partner was a football agent, but backtracked a bit when asked if any individual investors were agents.  Bill moved this on before the questioner could probe further.

There were then a few statements around things like the ground share (an empty non-starter – we learned nothing new), and a very, very uncomfortable exchange between Ian Macdonald and Bill Kenwright.  Bill showed his colder side here; "this is not the time and place," but, when Ian persisted, Bill put the boot in hard.  The audience stared at the floor as you sensed two old friends very publicly reaching the end of the road with each other.

Finally, the upbeat part of the night.  Moyes the messiah was introduced.  If you've not heard him talk live before, it is something he actually does very well.  He talked frankly about how bad the summer felt; he was straight about how the Man City 5 Everton 1 result had haunted him, and he was upfront about being the kind of guy who looked first at himself before blaming others. 

And he talked of this season, and his message was one of thanks to the group of players who have got the Club were they are.  He sensibly was not going to talk about who he wanted to bring in, he didn't want to destabilise any of the current team, but he was clear he had definite plans for January.  To no surprise, he got a standing ovation.

And that was that.  Meeting closed after two hours.

I did manage to have a quick word with Chris Samuelson afterwards.  I pushed as far as I dare on 'but who are the investors' and I did get a definitive answer: "Very Private People".

So there you go...

Guy McEvoy