Fans Comment
Colin Dempsey

Check the Bill
19 October 2005

Which Direction?

I think what dismays me more about the current situation is the split in the club's fanbase (and call it a majority or a minority either way ... there is a split!). I don't know where I stand on the matter. I cannot accept that this is all down to David Moyes. I cannot accept that his transfer dealings on the whole have been bad. I think this is a case of the club reaping what it has sown for the best part of maybe 10 years, some may say nearing 15 ... I will just let history settle that and put this down to the very recent past of Chairman Bill Kenwright.

David Moyes was brought into the club by a desperate man. Having gambled away a chance to nab millions with the NTL deal, having backed his then manager over Linderoth and Carsley to the tune of £5M (not to mention Ginola's wages) just weeks before he eventually decided to sack his loyal friend (Who says fans are fickle?) - he then decided to ask the man whose opinions on football had got us into the mess "who would be the best man for Everton Walter?" - a born leader is Bill.

So David Moyes was the man given the opportunity to firstly sort it out and keep us on the Sky gravy train. Then he was charged with awakening the sleeping giant with little to no tools available for him to work with.

There was however the PROMISE. Bill likes a promise. A promise can be kept - or not kept, but when making the promise the words still offer that warm feeling to one and all. For David Moyes, one of the games finest young managers who had turned down many decent opportunities and was on the brink of being offered a whole lot more, the promise was, I believe, two-fold.

Firstly, The Kings' Dock was high on the agenda. This had been presented to Everton fans and the wider public as the 'new beginning' for Everton. A chance for one of football's oldest clubs to join in the party that the rest of the Premiership and others outside it were having with new stadia and a new century of football fans.

Now I love Goodison. I love the tradition and I love the fact that it isn't like Pride Park, to name but one. I also have no belief in Liverpool City Council and their ability to find what is best for the people of Liverpool. I do, however, blame Bill Kenwright for pumping his whole damn future as Chariman on this project with no back-up plan to be heard of. I would have been happy to see Goodison transformed, new stands being built. In fact I would be happy if a date was set for it to happen - a proposal drawn for it to happen in 2015. I would like to see a plan. I think David Moyes was under a similar impression when he arrived. I think players arriving for talks, good players with other options that is, would like to see that happening too. I also believe that is what Wayne Rooney may have liked to have seen happening on the horizon.

Ah yes, Wayne Rooney; the subject that we dare not mention. Probably in most cases it really is too painful of an episode to mention. For me, this was promise number two. David Moyes had the chance to work with the best young player in the game - who would potentially become one of the greatest.

Now I know there a conspiracy theories around this deal that rival that of Princess Diana's death. People know people - people know Wayne Rooney. Ultimately he came and went with neither a chance to see him develop or a chance to receive an appropriate fee.

David Moyes may be a lot of things .. but stupid is not one of them. I cannot believe that he ever wanted to see the back of Wayne Rooney. Some say it is because he wanted the money for him, some say it is all down to a clash and that Rooney wanted to leave. In both cases I do not see these things solely triggering an undervalued move to Old Trafford.

Bill Kenwright's stewardship offered David Moyes no opportunity to build a team around Wayne Rooney. Moyes said it enough times .. I wanna build a team around Wayne ... have told the board ... to buy Alan Smith to partner him, to make him the highest paid player in the club's history. Fairly decent plans in my opinion in trying to keep a hold of your finest prospect. Make your own mind up as to how these plans were put into action!

Following the sale of Rooney, I thought that we had another chance. This would be the chance for small building blocks, to get the club financially solvent and attract more investment to add to the transfer kitty that the Rooney sale left behind. I didn't even dream that we would go and finish fourth and get a chance to speed the process by 5 years. This was achieved with the brilliance of our manager - simple. So the next step? Call in the outside investment that was being prepared to sign top quality players to back up such achievement. It would be in place during a wonderful summer - wouldn't it? WRONG. Just as Bill Kenwright had the good fortune to have Wayne Rooney born a blue and then sat back and relied on this man to take the club forward, he similarly sat back and couldn't believe his luck that Walter had actually picked him a winner.

The problem for Bill Kenwright was that he didn't realise that the bigger this whole thing got the more would be expected from him. If at Christmas we had tailed off and the predicted rise of Liverpool and maybe say Spurs or Newcastle had stepped up a gear, we may have scraped the last of the European places. Lucky to be there, fantastic to be there, don't care if we get knocked out first round cos we should thank our lucky stars .. just like you were, Bill Kenwright! Problem being we didn't scrape in ... we burst into Europe's elite competition.

I looked on and there was not a word in the defence. What statement has been made to conclude that Fortress Sports Fund had been... not forthcoming... and we have... well what??? Are we looking at other such groups? Are we united as a Board now and putting our public squabbling to one side? Are we looking at share issues? Are we now no longer needing to take such short-term, drastic and harmful measures cos we have taken all our manager's good work and kept this thing afloat by the skin of our teeth?

Instead, just plain silence. Oh except the Bill Kenwright cameos. Maybe I don't see enough TV but I cannot recall seeing Moores, Hill-Wood, Glazer or Abramovich on TV with touchline reporters claiming publically that their manager is a miracle man. Why not? I do however see Freddie Shepherd, oh, and used to see a lot of Peter Risdale. Just an observation.

Stuart Pearce said with great honesty this week - that he will ultimately get the sack some day, so not to have done it his way would just be plain wrong. I wish all those at Everton would see it that way. There is a comfort zone at Everton that is created from the top down.

David Moyes may not enjoy or want the 'comfort zone' but like it or not he is afforded it. He will never hit out at his vocally-supportive Chairman. That is not the kind of bloke he is. He is not politcal, calculating or interested in back-slapping ... but he won't put the boot in. He is a stand-up guy that others have taken advantage of.

I will not accept that David Moyes has been given this summer, or at any time during his Everton career, the tools to apply his trade properly. If you think he has then ask yourself why he didn't pay the extra for Kuyt or the Parker wages ... is that because he won't pay over the odds but Mourinho at Chelsea will cos he is stupid and Moyes is not? Or is it because most managers know that there is more where that came from and David Moyes is left with a budget that must see out not just this year, but the years to come?

About 18 months ago, I believed that we had the best young player in the world and a manager that was potentially not too far behind him. I sit here today and see that player achieving greatness somewhere else, getting booed by most Evertonians, and a manager who is becoming under increasing pressure to go down a smiliar route. This is not a strategy. There is no stategy. Next season will we all be sitting in a ground slipping further behind the times, with no Moyes or Rooney anywhere to be seen ... if we are .. then whose fault is that?!

Colin  Dempsey

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