Fans Comment
Jon Kitching

The Choice
28 April 2006

With regard to Steve Guy's and Steve Owen's articles, it would seem that there is going to be a difficult decision Everton are going to have to make in the near future. I don't think we can move from Goodison and still maintain our traditions as a club in quite the same way as we do now. We'll no longer be a grand old team to support. We'll be a grand team to support with a forward-looking business plan. There's nothing wrong with that (in some people's eyes); that's just the way top-flight football is nowadays but I think that people need to realise that's the choice.

Are Everton a club that is going to be challenging for the title in the next 5 years? No. Can we challenge for a European place in the next 5 years? Hopefully. Are the clubs who are going to be challenging us better placed than us to sustain that challenge? Probably. Tottenham, Bolton, Newcastle and Middlesbrough all have superior income to us thanks to financially supportive Boards (Tottenham, Middlesbrough and Newcastle) or are well-run with a solid management structure and non-football income streams (Bolton — as outline in Steve Guy’s article).

It would seem unlikely at this point in time that Blue Bill is going to reach into his deep pockets to fund stadium (or even team) building. So if we’re going to move to a new stadium (wherever that may be) we’re going to be saddled with the kind of debt we’ve been desperately trying to shift for the last 10 years.

If we stay where we are, will we be able to challenge for that European place? Based on the last two seasons, it would seem so. We’ll have to wait and see if Moyes can stabilise the club and stop us yo-yoing up and down the league but this season may indicate that much-needed stability is on the way. If so then is ‘fighting for a European place’ good enough for Everton?

It’s going to have to be. Unless something Abramovich-shaped happens to us in the next few years, we’re going to do well to hang on to the coat-tails of the rich kids at the top of the class. It’s not really Nil Satis Nisi Optimum is it? I think we’ve got to be a bit more rational with that motto though, we’re not going to be able to sign the best payers in the world anymore (although there’s no reason why we can’t produce them if we can sort the Academy out). Where I think the strengths of Everton lie compared to those folk at the top of the class, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United, is in the very same thing that many people think is holding us back.

What you can’t put a price on and what never features in the forecasts of how much more money Everton could generate with a new stadium is that special atmosphere that can be produced at Goodison. If you ask any Man City fans what they think of their new stadium at Eastlands they’ll tell you it’s "better" than Maine Road — you can get a drink at half-time and you don't have to sit behind a pillar for 90 mins, but there's no atmosphere or sense of "this is our home". They felt there was a sense of dirty pride in going to City at Maine Road, it was shit but they loved it. Like the fat girl you met in Spain, it was dirty and satisfying but not something you'd necessarily rush to introduce your parents to.

Isn't one of the great things about Goodison the sense of claustrophobia, that sense of danger that tonight (or this afternoon for the Saturday afternoon at 15:00 purists) something special is going to happen? I know Goodison is never going to appeal to people who want to park their Range Rover outside the ground, stroll into the restaurant for a top-class meal, have a few bottles of Cristal and maybe watch a bit of football if they can fit it in, but is that what we're aspiring to?

Maybe it is but given the choice between having 38,000 blues roaring the team on at packed Goodison making you feel that this is where you belong, where you never want to leave, intimidating the opposition... or watching us playing in a rent-a-stadium like the Reebok, City of Manchester or the Riverside, then that isn't a choice at all... is it?

We deserve better than that, we’re Blue, for us Nil Satis Nisi Optimum.

Jon Kitching


Responses:

©2006 ToffeeWeb

"Fans Comment" articles are submitted by outside contributors to ToffeeWeb. The views contained therein may not correspond with those of the site owners. Editorial policy