FAN ARTICLES

David Prentice vs Evertonians

By David O'Keefe :  01/02/2011 :  Comments (35) :

What's happened to David Prentice? He used to be a respected journalist; I always enjoyed reading his match report in the Echo, and didn?t he criticise Bill Kenwright long before the majority of Evertonians?

I ask this because he has just committed to print an absolutely atrocious article. In Prentice's mind, we blues are wrong about Bill and he is right, but he doesn?t even have the decency to tell us why we are wrong and he is right. This one time critic of Kenwright is now a fully fledged Kenwright apologist:

There?s something brewing in the air at Goodison.
Message boards, letters pages and radio phone-ins will always attract the disaffected, the cynical and occasionally the downright lunatic.
But there?s a growing sense now that the rank and file are also becoming disillusioned at Goodison.

This is Prentice setting up the man of straw that he does not demolish, he goes straight for ad-hominem and makes no attempt to engage with the arguments of the disaffected, cynical and downright lunatics that criticise Bill Kenwright. Criticise Bill and you?re a lunatic, and because you?re a lunatic he doesn?t need to engage with your criticisms of Bill Kenwright.

Does anyone find this offensive?

I don?t recall him ever producing journalism of the quality of Colin Fitzpatrick, recently published on ToffeeWeb. It was a coherent, researched and detailed analysis of the Kenwright regime. Did he ever read it? He claims to have done so, is Colin one of the disaffected, cynical and downright lunatic. I?m I and many other blues that criticise him, disaffected, cynical and currently suffering from serious mental health problems?

I?m no doctor, but how can Prentice diagnose thousands of people as having a mental health problems? The answer is he can?t, but it?s a useful device to avoid giving a response to a point of view that you don?t want to take into consideration.

Attendances have settled around an unimpressive 34,000 this season, only the derby has seen a sell-out, the atmosphere against West Ham was flat even before Jonathan Spector scored ? while one fans group has already made public its intention to ?protest? tomorrow ? win, lose or draw.

That protest didn?t materialise, because nobody organised it, does he know the name of this fans group that was allegedly behind it? I don?t and neither does he, the fans group is not identified by him, no name is given, which is interesting.

They have been protesting with their feet and have been doing all season. The only point in his favour is that he acknowledges the level of discontent amongst the supporters as reflected by the reduced attendances

Their major gripe appears to be the lack of any significant transfer outlay since Marouane Fellaini arrived in 2008 (Bilyaletdinov, Heitinga and Distin were all funded by Lescott?s sale) and the lack of any means of transmitting concerns to the board since the AGM was guillotined.
Everton chairman Bill Kenwright is the man who appears to be copping the most flak. And I still find that stance unsettling.

Prentice is now moving onto what he believes with some justification is the supporters main gripe. He is right to highlight the supporters concerns over a lack of transfer funds, but he ignores all of the other major gripes that the lunatic Colin Fitzpatrick highlighted. This is the sin of omission, he neglects to mention Destination Kirkby and the 10,000 no voters and the now angry yes voters, perhaps the biggest factor behind the opposition to Kenwright's regime.

As for the lack of means of transmitting concerns to the board, the responsibility for that is Bill Kenwright's alone, but we must not blame him for the clubs current predicament because...

For me Kenwright is the best type of football club owner.
A fan.

He?s easily pleased.

So what, is that it can you not list any of the improvements that he has made with the past 12 years? Apparently not.

The best kind of football club owner is one that has overseen two ground move failures and has brought the club to its knees financially. The clubs only plan during these 12 years has been asset utilisation, anything that?s nailed down is mortgaged off to fund the team, but this means that the club has another debt repayment to make from its relatively small turnover. Eventually the club runs into some difficulties and has to utilise other assets, its promising young players to meet its debt burden.

This asset utilization and disposal plan that has been adopted by the board, it can?t be sustained forever can it?? ?No? came the reply. ?It?s inherently unsustainable, won?t the assets run out and the loan repayments overwhelm the clubs ability to provide sufficient funds to obtain better players?? ?We have a highly qualified finance team and a good relationship with the bank. That wouldn't be allowed to happen? replied Robert Elstone.

Everton's debts are larger than its turnover that is why there is no money for transfers or loans and why 3 players have been let go. The club has averaged a loss of 6-7million pounds a year under his regime yet he has not developed a business plan to bring the club the financial stability it desperately needs.

And if he occasionally seems reluctant to relinquish the reins of his club maybe that?s because he witnessed at close quarters the unholy mess created when another lifelong fan of a football club sold up across the park.

Typical apologist tactic, ignore the nightmarish reality in favour of a potentially nightmarish future.

But is Kenwright really so reluctant to sell?
Is he beating off billionaire bidders left, right and centre?
That certainly doesn?t appear to be the case. Yet some fans still talk about the Blues chairman refusing to part with the club as if he was a child refusing to hand over his prized train set.
Kenwright?s willingness to listen to offers for Everton has been widely advertised.
But there have been few, if any, realistic takers.

This is from the revised planning statement document 18 from the inquiry:

6.10 A further point that is of relevance to any debate on the options that might be available to the Club to fund a new stadium, is the willingness and abilities of the Club?s directors to sell some or all of their interests in the Club in order to attract an investor who or which might have the ability in financial terms to fund a new stadium in its entirety or at the very least fund the shortfall that exists in the context of this proposals. As is pointed out in greater detail in the financial statement (document 26), this is not an option as the current directors have no intention of selling any of their interests in the Club.

The club is not for sale, read the closing statement from the clubs counsel at the inquiry, they haven?t appointed anyone to find a buyer.

Everton?s status as the second club in a small city (The Toffees might have been the first chronologically, but five European Cups and 18 league titles tends to distract when outside investors look at Merseyside), with a sizeable debt and an ancient stadium tends to put off football club browsers.

The usual excuse from the apologists for his failure to find a buyer, strangely this is uttered on-line by the cynical, disaffected and downright lunatic, whom he finds himself in agreement. Also Man City found two buyers in a year or was it 18 months.

Yet some supporters still criticise Kenwright for refusing to sell to anonymous bidders, and for not being rich enough to personally fund a bid for a forward.

They also criticise him for stripping the shareholders of their rights, the financial mismanagement that has left the club with unsustainable debt and unable to compete with their premier league peers in the transfer market, and the two failed ground moves. Nobody criticises him for not being extremely wealthy, being poor is not a moral failing, telling lies on an industrial scale on the other hand.....

But if those criticisms are unwarranted, some forward momentum could be generated by appointing an agency to unearth a potential buyer.
That would at least show a firm desire to attract investment.
If you were keen on selling your house, you might plant a ?For Sale? sign in the front garden.
But you?d have a much better chance of selling if you hired a reputable estate agent.
Everton?s arrangement with Keith Harris always appeared to be a loose one.

The penny then appears to drop with him, the club may not be seriously looking for a buyer.

It?s a very strange article from the former Everton correspondent. He starts by attacking and misrepresenting the opinions and views of thousands of blues, rattles off a series of apologist talking points and then he admits the club may not be for sale. I don?t recall anyone at the echo calling Kopites disaffected, cynical and lunatic when they complained about the Texans, so why does Prentice take that line with thousands of blues with justifiable grievances against Kenwright's regime?

Prentice has been battered for this atrocity of an article, but my biggest charge is the following; that he knows what is going on at the club but is refusing to inform his readers. According to my source, he knows that there has been murder at the club this past month, so why doesn?t he write about that instead of attacking the supporters for justifiably criticising Kenwright's lame duck regime?

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