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Thoughts from the Editor

Rooney Rubbish
19 February 2005

I received this note from Gary Carter as part of the build-up to Rooneymania — the Return to Goodison:

Hi Michael,

Just a quick question or two for you.  You and your site continually suggest or imply, well no actually you state as fact that Wayne Rooney was forced out of Everton against his will by Bill Kenwright and the Board.  I would firstly ask why you have never backed this up with solid evidence (it may well be I have just missed the article although I do look at your site every day). 

Secondly, why, if this is true, has Wayne Rooney never said anything to back this, why has he never said this was the reason for him leaving, in fact why has he never said anything at all about the club he allegedly loves so much.  You may guess from these questions that I am slightly sceptical of your baseless conspiracy theories but I am however open minded and also not stupid enough to think that because we are 4th that everything is rosy; it's not and probably won't be until Bill Kenwright is ousted and a full-time Board dedicated to Everton starts running the club.

I also think that articles such as the one written by Paul Holmes have no place on an Everton Fans website.  There is not one shred of evidence to back up any of the accusations he has made; they are crude assumptions and his criticism of Moyes was unforgivable.  I know you will just use your get out clause of "We provide a balanced section of stories and the ones written by outside people in the forum may not represent our views" but surely you would not have allowed such pointless drivel to appear on your site if you didn't believe it. 

Again, I don't see through totally blue glasses.  There are undercurrents of some sort with the finances and Samuelson etc, but that entire article was written as if it were fact when it's not, or at least there was no evidence to back it up with.  If you can provide the evidence, I would be very keen to see it.  I used to really enjoy reading your site but it is now dominated by conspiracy theories that never have anything to back them up. 

Hope you don't find this e-mail offensive as its not intended to be.  I'm just a slightly frustrated Evertonian wanting to know one of two things: Did the Board actually force Wayne Rooney entirely against his will to join Man Utd?  Or has one of my previously favourite websites lowered itself to producing idle conspiracy theories with no basis in fact. 

Your site just comes across as being anti-Everton and bitter at the moment I'm afraid. — Gary Carter

The Rooney saga might one day be written up in some obscure and low-circulation biography.., then again it may not.  But would even that constitute the "proof" you are looking for?  I doubt it, to be honest, Gary.  I understand completely where you are coming from and appreciate the frustrations that have caused you to write in.  It is very hard to get to the bottom of this.  No one person likely has full knowledge of the full story.  Yet a number of sources have told us things, dropped hints, or made connections that, when put together, make a compelling interpretation of the limited "facts" we know about in this sad case. 

We could ignore it all.  Or we could do the work to put it together and come up with a plausible thread that underlies and fits with most of the "facts".  But you must understand and accept that there will never be any proof to speak of.  This is the kind of sordid soccer story no-one will admit to being involved in.

Just to illustrate the dilemma we have is steering the narrow path of truth and honesty, take this anonymous tip we received recently:

One of my vendor's in the UK is very well connected with Newcastle and had already informed me at the time that Wayne would be going to them.  He said that Everton had asked the Newcastle management to hold off on the agreed deal allowing Everton to wait until the last days of the transfer window so the fans wouldn't pressure Everton to use the funds for another player.  The money was instead to pay down some of the Club's loans.

Now what would You make of that?  Completely baseless.  Would not stand up for one nanosecond in a Court of Law...  Well of course.  But what does it say about Everton?  About Football?? About the twists and turns of the tawdry transfer market???

Michael Kenrick

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