Fans Comment
Rick Tarleton

"The Biggest Blue in the World"
25 October 2005

Blue Bill: One of the most important men in football

A recent e.mail referred sarcastically to Mr Kenwright with the above epiphet, another recent article referred ironically to our Chairman as "reclusive".  There are obviously people out there who are questioning just what our Chairman does and more importantly what ought to be his role.

The Chairman of Everton FC is one of the most important men in football.  I don't say that because I have supported the Blues for over 50 years, or because I am biased beyond belief, though both the above are true.  I speak because historically Everton are one of the great clubs of English football.  They have won the League nine times; they are the only one of the original twelve — or of any of the other clubs come to that — who have been in the top division for over a hundred seasons.  Of the other top clubs, only Arsenal have a longer period of continuity in the top division.  Liverpool rival Everton with their history, Manchester United only became a big club post-1945 and Chelsea have no tradition.  There even used to be a comic song about "The Day When Chelsea Won The FA Cup".  Since the war, Sunderland and Villa have failed to build on their traditions, leaving Everton as the great constant in English football's top group.

We are the team that gave the sporting world the great dual internationals Makepeace and Sharp, the greatest pre-war administrator in Wilf Cuff, and the immortal players like Dean, TG Jones, Lawton, Young, and later Rooney.

It is as the heir of all this history that Bill Kenwright is now the Chairman of our beloved club.  Now we don't need a chairman who wears a blue scarf and manages to get interviewed whenever we do well; we don't need a Chairman like Romanov who wants to run the show.  What we do need is a Chairman who understands that being the chairman is not an ego trip, it is not a job a job to be given necessarily to a fairly rich fan, it is a job for a proven administrator.  The kind of job that Edwards did at Manchester United and that Hill-Wood does at Arsenal.  Kenwright's job is to run and market one of the great brands in world football.  Yes, our recent history is poor, but we are still in that top eschelon and we have the history to prove it.  We have a fanbase of proven support through good and bad times, we have, as this website proves, an extensive fanbase outside of Merseyside and even outside of the UK.

We have a club whose financial situation is a joke.  We are surviving because we sold the greatest player to have emerged since George Best; we have totally failed to attract the level of investment that this brand could and should attract.  Instead we have attracted Fortress Sports Fund fiasco, rumours of Russians and little else.  Mr Kenwright: that is your job.

You are the most important Blue in the world, but you are letting down all the 50,000 Biggest Blues in the world who need to see this great club back where it belongs, at the top.  If you can't do this, then acknowledge the fact, you've had a long time in charge and move over.  Had you been the Chairman of Marks and Spencers — and maybe Mr Green will give you that position — then you'd have been sacked a long time ago.  But you are not just the Chairman; you are one of the major shareholders and you're clinging to a position that you have proved yourself incapable of fulfilling.

For Everton: Nil Satis Nisi Optimum... we will not accept Nil Satis Nisi Mediocritas.

Rick Tarleton

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