TIME: 10am lasting approximately 30mins (for those that feel that’s
important!)

PRESENT: Mark Staniford (Editor) Stephen Gerrard (Sub-Editor) and myself (chief tag along out of pure voyeurism/Website Editor), Paul Gregg and two of his advisors/facilitators.

Questioning basically fell into three area’s....

THE PAST:
Gregg adamant that he has tried desperately over the past 15-18months to get the changes he wants sorted out within the boardroom and away from the public eye. He claims to have been met with little response and the dragging of heels.

His main problem lies within the structure of the club as it stands at the moment and that not only is it blocking incoming investment, it is failing to provide any support or leadership for the rest of the staff at Goodison. He praised the work being done by the staff down at Goodison at the moment but says without a proper structure in place things are stagnating, staff are becoming increasingly frustrated but that they are capable of helping turn the club round with the right leadership and guidance.

On the subject of the Friday deadline for viewing proposals, Gregg says this was in place and Kenwright had agreed on it, only to deny it ever existed. Gregg says he would welcome any possible investment Kenwright can raise and is willing to sit and listen to other proposals providing they aren’t based on Everton borrowing money. He confirmed the current debt (All in) is approx £40million.

When asked why he isn’t using his own money to fund the investment he said that the problem does not just need money throwing at it, he claims this has happened for the past five or so years already and we are not moving forward as a club. He again spoke of the need to restructure the club and get the right people on board and into the right positions. He did say that if he was successful with his plan he would put in his own money as part of his investment, knowing that changes were going to be made and things put right
and back on track. Trevor Birch quit because of True Blue Holdings and its blocking of investment. Gregg says he spoke to Birch and offered him the Chief Executive job back should Gregg be successful in removing TBH but Birch is having/wanting none of it.

Past mistakes by the board were discussed, Gregg held his hands up with regards to reckless contracts given to players, particularly Kevin Campbell, Gregg indicated that at the time they had no idea about the arse dropping out of the transfer market but should have been a little more careful with length and value of contracts that are currently crippling the club. He also spoke about extra costs involved in signing players on top of the actual fee and he questioned whether in the past we would have signed certain players (no names mentioned) had they sat down and properly taken into account all the costs (wages, fees, bonuses etc).

Gregg claims to have wanted to sack Walter Smith several months earlier than he was and with hindsight Gregg is disappointed that they didn’t move earlier and do that. He says that at that time he was still with ClearChannel/SFX and he was already being advised back then to install Moyes as boss.

With regards to Duncan Ferguson’s return, it was a Kenwright thing, who claimed it would be like a messiah returning. With regards to the board getting involved with transfer targets, Gregg says if you have a manager in place then he should be allowed to get on with it and manage, he mentioned Francis Jeffers as being another costly mistake and one which lessons should be learnt, never go back was his basic comment.

Speaking about the Kings Dock you still sense that Gregg is bitterly disappointed about it (aren’t we all) he says a lot of work was undertaken
to make it work and it would have worked had Everton been able to find there share of the funding, we couldn’t and other avenue’s, such as a 125 year lease from the Council where dismissed out of hand as Kenwright would onl accept full ownership.

THE PRESENT:
Things cannot go on as they are, things have to change and they have to change quickly, Gregg is hoping that it will be resolved quickly and all
parties agreed that the longer this drags on the more shit the club is going to be in. He is hoping for a resolution by the end of the week, but should Kenwright dig his heels in and refuse to budge then we could have a problem.Gregg says he doesn’t want to get legal, as much as it’ll take more time and effort to get it all sorted out and again drag on and on.

Should Gregg be successful in his plans he says an initial £4/£5 million will be available to David Moyes for transfers, whilst this isn’t a great deal at least it is £4million more than we have at the moment, he also says that more money would be available in January whilst they continue to work on bringing in as much investment as possible. He talked about the Carrick bid and how (All in) it will cost us approx £2.5m a year, although with him being young, as with the majority of Moyes signings, he has a sell on value even in the current market.

Gregg believes Moyes is the right man for the job and agreed that what he has had to put up with so far during his tenure as manager has been shocking, he hopes to give as much backing to Moyes as he can in the future and promises that the manager will always be allowed to manage. Gregg was questioned about the work Kenwright does with transfers such as dealing with agents, other clubs etc.. and with his lack of football knowledge or accepted interest what would Gregg do in regard to this area.

He accepted that Kenwright does good work on this front but that they would look to have a team in place that can cover this area, a good chief exec for example should be in a position to negotiate contracts and with players and agents.

Onto the stadium issue, Gregg, like all of us realises that without increased revenue streams we will always struggle, we missed the boat with the Kings Dock but we still have options, he will not under any circumstances be a tenant of Liverpool FC’s but he would be willing to be a tenant of Liverpool City under a shared stadium scheme but at the moment Everton do not have the available cash to sit down and discuss it.

Rather worryingly he mentioned temporarily sharing someone else’s stadium whilst building up some funds without running costs, however he did say for every year we don’t build a stadium or move into a shared one the costs are rising by 10%.

On the transfer front, as well as Carrick, Gregg said they were hopeful that as the deadline approaches, clubs looking to move players on may reduce their asking prices or be more willing to enter into loan deals.

THE FUTURE:
Who knows, personally I don’t trust Gregg as far as I can throw him, its obvious he wants out and is doing everything he can to get people on his side. He says that should he be successful they will put a board in place that will work continuously for the benefit of the club, he believes with the right appointments in the right departments that the support and structure could be in place and allow us to start repairing the problems at the club.

I am highly critical of  Gregg and he has shifty eyes!! But what alternatives have been offered at the moment? … I know he is not the
saviour, he is not the answer but the major problem at the moment seems to be TBH, at least if Gregg gets his way this will be dissolved and then shareholders will have more of a say.

To be honest the sooner Everton is rid of Gregg and Kenwright from being in control the better but what other options are there? There are no queues around Goodison of rich men wanting to buy us out so what can we do?

I fear its shit or bust time and to quote Paul Gregg “We would all love Bill Kenwright to have £100million in the bank, because he would sit writing cheques all day to the benefit of Everton FC. However he doesn’t and you cant run a club on passion alone”

Lots of people believed meeting with Gregg was a PR stunt with a hidden agenda of using the fans groups as puppets. To be fair to Gregg he sat down with us, poured a cup of tea and told us to fire away with our questions and concerns. We all want honesty, transparency and communication from the club and so to not go would have been very silly indeed, it was a worthwhile meeting but we learnt very little that we didn’t know already.

Lets just hope for some sort of investment ASAP, wherever it comes from.

Ste Daley

5 August 2004