Fans Comment
Steve Guy

Biffa and Bill, the new Edward and Mrs. Simpson
4 February 2006

We all have responsibilities in life. For those of us able to earn a crust, our responsibilities extend from doing what we are paid for in a diligent manner, through to respect for those we work with and have accountability to.

Translate this as a concept into Everton as a entity. Does anyone have any confidence that on any level the Club is conducting itself responsibly?

Biffa Wyness’s claim that we are amongst the world’s richest clubs is laughable on a number of levels. The most obvious and direct is the actual financial results of the business, where a £100k profit is lauded but where millions in long-term debt is side stepped. These figures where hyped up, as resulting from a responsible attitude to governance of the Club, when in fact they where buoyed by unexpected TV revenue and the sale of our prize asset.

I would argue that the Club are anything but responsible in their fiscal strategy and that this inevitably spills over into every other aspect of Everton and its relationship with its supporters.

No amount of short-term financial massage can serve as a reliable indicator of economic health or be seen as the basis for a strategy for long-term stability — and the evidence of this is all around you at Goodison.

We have known for many years (and it has even been acknowledged by Bill and Biffa) that our stadium is well past its ‘sell-by date’; but all we have by way of progress is the King’s Dock fiasco and the subsequent broken promises about what would happen next (you may even recall that we were promised a statement after Christmas 2005 on the Club’s plans for a new stadium... lucky I didn’t hold my breath on that one).

A knackered stadium impacts on the experience of attending a match. Catering is abysmal. The toilet facilities are third world. The acoustics are poor. Visibility is an issue for many fans, not just those who buy the officially ‘restricted’ views. Getting out of the ground at full-time is a crush (I often wonder whether the orderly shuffle forward I experience in exiting from the Upper Bullens would be quite so orderly if there was an emergency, and what the potential consequences of that would be). The perfunctory way in which match day stewards go about their duties exacerbates the latter point, but they do little to add value to most supporters’ Goodison experience by ignoring the Club’s own rules on loutish behaviour and tolerating idiots in the crowd who are abusive.

Other contributors have written about the poor administration at the club and how this spills over into the ticketing fiascos which so frequently blight key fixtures. I have written elsewhere about the hopeless PR emanating from the Club and the impact I believe this has on our fortunes.

But hey, it’s OK, because our Youth Academy is befitting one of the world’s richest club’s isn’t it? Yeah right. How long has the move to new facilities been under discussion? ‘Years’ is the answer and no end is in sight. How many budding youngsters and their Dad’s have turned up, taken one look at what was on offer, and gone elsewhere — snapped up by other clubs who have taken the plunge and invested in their future at this most basic level?

This then brings me on to the area that motivated me to write.

As we now know (and had suspected for most of January), we have had to be satisfied with the return of Alan Stubbs as the sole contribution to freshening up and bolstering a beleaguered squad. I still think that getting rid of Krøldrup and Bent was right, but I also felt that this made it all the more critical to the immediate future, that Moyes was handed the money to buy the pacey striker even he now says we need. If we look at the transfers / loans that have gone through, I can think of the names of at least half a dozen players who would have improved our current squad. For me, Moyes’ comments on it being difficult to get the ‘right’ players holds no water at all. He didn’t look as if he believed it either. The inactivity was solely down to the fact that Bill and Biffa decided that the purse has been shut until the summer and as a consequence we are now even less well-equipped than we were in December.

Bizarrely, given our appalling start to the season and due in no small part to the lack of real quality in the Premiership, a continuation of the results and form since Christmas could see Everton in with an outside chance of a Uefa Cup spot. However, the management at the club have effectively written our chances off through their inaction during January and made it even more difficult (if that were possible) for us to believe they have any real aspiration for Everton to be a Top-Six side again.

Everton talk the talk but rarely walk it. Rich club? It’s a joke. The current custodians of the institution that is Everton Football Club have evidenced over both the long and the short term, that they have abdicated their responsibilities, whether it be through inertia or incompetence; both to the Club itself and, as importantly, its supporters. Until they realise this too and step down, I cannot see real progress on any or all of the above areas. So sad.
Steve Guy


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