Fans Comment
Steven Astley

An alternative view.....
30/11/04

I may be sticking my neck on the line here amongst fellow Blues, but... I'm getting fed up of hearing about this David France collection.

From your latest report, I quote:

�David will hate me for stating the obvious but the clock is ticking for Everton. This is a business decision � not a subject for debate amongst the fans. The club should have snapped his hand off 18 months ago and thanked him for spending 25 years doing the job that they should have been doing themselves � protecting the club�s heritage for the benefit of future generations of Evertonians!"

"Sadly, David returned empty-handed last week � except for substantial cash offers from two non-Everton investors. However the exercise was worthwhile: he can look every fellow Evertonian in the eye because he knows that the Club were given every chance to grasp this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.�

I mean, I understand that this is an absolutely remarkable collection of memorabilia but for Dr. France's wife to come out with statements like that - well I find VERY annoying.

"Sadly, David returned empty handed last week"

"David will hate me for stating the obvious but the clock is ticking for Everton."

It's almost as if we are being held to ransom by Mr & Mrs France. The guy, after all, has blue blood... why on earth should he be like this and demand such substantial money when he knows what financial predicaments we are in.

Once again I'd like to say�..from all that I have read and looked at, this is an absolutely unbelievable collection that really does warrant to be on show and cherished for generations to come� but at the moment should we not be directing all of our attentions on having a fantastic second part and end to this season and pushing on for Europe.

Can you imagine our plaudits should we finish in the top 6 come end of May with the thread-bare squad we have started with.

I�ve come to the conclusion that I�m no longer bothered whether we do or do not acquire the �David France Collection� � at the end of the day � it�s most likely worst case scenario is that it will end up in a museum somewhere where it still can be appreciated �..

Steven  Astley

Responses

It may look as though the Frances are holding Everton to ransom but the fact is that the club has had 18 months to complete the purchase of the Collection without pressure or competition from outside interests. Former CEO Michael Dunford swept it under the carpet and the club administration have collectively ignored (or at the very least shown utter apathy towards) the issue to the point where now that other bidders are being courted, they are panicking that the fans will never forgive them if they don't secure its future. And quite right, too.

What's the urgency? David France is an ill man. Yes, he probably could just give the club his collection for free but a) why should he when he has spent massive amounts of his personal money and energy assembling the collection (some of it thrown out by Everton FC itself) and b) he is looking to provide for his wife's financial future for when he passes away, be that sooner or later.

So, it may not seem all that important with the club riding high in third place but in 10 or 20 years' time, Season 2004/05 may seem like a distant, unimportant memory (and if it isn't, if it is it is looked back on as a crucial turning point in our history, wouldn't it be great if details of it were preserved along with memorabilia from the last 126 years?) It is vitally important that the Collection is kept together and made available for public viewing. You say " it�s most likely worst case scenario is that it will end up in a museum somewhere where it still can be appreciated," but that is not the most likely scenario or even the worst case. It will likely be bought by one buyer and then sold off piecemeal for significant profit to private collectors and never seen again.

Once again, it's worth pointing out that just over a quarter of Duncan Ferguson or Kevin Campbell's annual wages would pay for the Collection outright. That's not to say the players should pay for it, it's just an example of the amount of cash that gets wasted at Everton but when we really need it to secure something of invaluable importance, we have to scrabble behind the sofa cushions. Once this Collection is gone, it's gone, and we may not realise what we have lost until it's too late.
Lyndon Lloyd — ToffeeWeb

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I read with some interest of the background of the 'David France Collection'. Without intimate knowledge of the details of David's illness or the sums of money involved or the offers made by Everton Football Club it is difficult to formulate an opinion with confidence. However, to state as Steve Astley has done that this season's push for Europe is more important than the memorabilia of 126 years is misguided. Sure, we all want as much success as possible for the Blues this year, but keep things in perspective. Why has David Moyes just signed a long-term contract? Because we have history. Why can we look every fan of every club in the Premiership in the eye and stand tall? Because we have history. I agree with Lyndon wholeheartedly and hope that the powers that be at EFC do something about acquiring this once in a lifetime opportunity.
Mark Williams, Selby

I read with great interest the 'real toffee lady' article and the comments by Steven Astley and Lyndon Lloyd.

I appreciate that this is a great collection and it seems pretty clear to me that David France is not trying to make a fast buck out of the club. If you want to make money out of a collection like this you would break it up and sell it item by item to private collectors.

There is a friend of a friend I met over here who is one of the leading baseball bat valuers in the US. From what I hear he goes to banks, where a bat is taken out of a safety deposit box for him to examine and after he is done back in it goes. Now there is real money in sports memorabilia in the US, the ball that Barry Bonds hit out of the park for his 700th career home run was sold for around $800,000. So if you have a ball worth half a million quid, you want to put it somewhere safe. If the David France Collection is broken up it will almost certainly be mostly stored away where nobody will see it.

The problem Everton have is that if they do buy it, that will be far from the end of the costs, they have to find somewhere to put it on show, they need to provide the appropriate level of security (against theft, fire etc) and insure it. This will probably cost more than the purchase cost of the collection and is a recurring cost they would be committing to.

The answer could be to charge an admission fee, but who knows how many people would pay to go and see the collection and how much they would pay. We could put a 10 quid a year levy on season tickets, which might cover it, but is that fair to those who would rather see that money go to the manager for players.

Lyndon Lloyd, implies that our history is important for securing the likes of David Moyes at the club which is likely true to a certain extent (although a certain �27M striker didn't let history get in his way of leaving). Where I totally disagree with Lyndon is in that this collection is our history, it is part of it maybe. It may sound like a clich� but History is in the people and passed down from generation to generation, it is in the record books and more recent history is available on VHS and DVD in the megastore. Don't confuse a collection of artifacts with history, they are different.

After rambling on for a while, I would just like to say Keith Wyness is right to consult the fans, it is a difficult issue, not to mention and ongoing financial commitment so he needs to be sure the fans are all for it.

David Haimes, San Francisco

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