FAN ARTICLES

Everton FC ? Love and Despair,
Part 2: The Club's Organisation

For many years now, I have been exasperated by our club?s organisation. Much of this is related to the nature of our once great, but now worn-out ground. We have long needed a replacement and many individuals and groups can be blamed for the fact that this has not yet materialised. We are told that the lack of a modern ground has deterred potential buyers ? whether true or not, we do need to consider for the future what action should be taken.

My own view is that the King?s Dock site would have been ideal. I know I will be shouted down by many, but even Kirkby had much in its favour. I sympathise with those wishing to ?Keep Everton in Our City?, but I have worked in Kirkby and almost all who live there are scousers. Kirkby is sentimentally, if not officially, part of Liverpool.

We need a solution. Present and past members of the Board of Directors are not/ have not been financially equipped to build a new ground. Nor, it seems, have they had the negotiating skills to work adequately with those who could have put forward the required resources. We have also been let down by the City Council, and opposed ? for their own reasons ? by other councils such as Knowsley, as well as by Government.

I don?t believe our great club can best be served by rebuilding or refurbishing a landlocked Goodison Park. We are told that the club is looking at sites in the City ? apparently now supported by the Council ? and I will be happy to be persuaded if a suitable option can be found. My current view though is that the best solution, disliked by many (and I have my own misgivings), is to build a shared ground with Liverpool FC at Stanley Park. Planning permission has already been given for this, and the system has worked successfully elsewhere.

For many years, the San Siro stadium has been a great home to AC Milan and Internazionale. The development of the Allianz Arena at Munich has been visionary, with clever lighting making the ground home for Bayern, 1860 or the German national side as appropriate. The translucent ?skin? is lit red for Bayern, blue for 1860 and white for Germany. The issue is funding, and I will address this in Part 4.

We now live in the Midlands, moving for work reasons, and so have to brave the M6 with its frequent hold-ups for every home game. On Boxing Day, half-way to the Birmingham game at about 11:00 am, we heard on the radio that the match had been postponed as a result of frozen pipes. No hint of a problem had been given in advance, and it appears that David Moyes was not informed until about 10:30 am. This is totally unacceptable, but it is something I have come to view as typical.

The match-day experience of my wife and I involves arriving very early to ensure nearby parking, necessary now that I walk with the aid of a stick. We have an (expensive) cup of tea on arrival, but do not take advantage of the other items on offer by the catering service. The menu is extremely poor. I know people eat, for example, the jumbo hot dogs or sausage rolls, but I can?t imagine what constitutes the pink, spongy ?meat?.

I recognise that the space available for the woefully inadequate toilet facilities cannot match modern standards, but some refurbishment should surely be possible. Paper towels are hard to retrieve from dispensers which have been in place for many years. The apertures are rusty and, as they inevitably become wet, it is almost inevitable that they are touched, with the consequent transfer of bacteria.

With our cups of tea, we watch (standing) one of the TVs now available. Unfortunately, for the last few games the TV near our stairway (as I understand applies to others) has been out of action. Why should it take more than the time between two games to repair TVs?

After our tea, we go to our seats, usually watching the players warming up and working out who is in the team and who are the substitutes. As people arrive, we chat to our neighbours. Until the PA system comes on. This is so loud that it is very hard to hear what one?s neighbour is saying, and we often give up attempts at conversation. Particularly embarrassing is the shouted team news, ?And now let?s give it up for those mighty blues of Everton...?

When David Moyes was appointed, he genuinely described Everton as ?The People?s Club?. Fans appreciated this description, but unfortunately the club then hammered the expression to death as a marketing ploy. The large banner at the Park End could have been used for a limited period, but for many years it seems that the term has been used on virtually everything sold or issued.

We are told that we have an award-winning website; well it seems very rudimentary to me. Perhaps this reflects my own technical shortcomings, but I often find it difficult to call up information I require. Certainly the website is slow to report up-to-date news ? often available elsewhere. I first subscribed to Everton TV last year and this provides a very limited service. What I have found most annoying recently is the instant noise of an advertisement as soon as I log on to the website. I have to remember to switch off the sound, switching on again to hear interviews. A simple thing, but this is deterring me from making use of the facility.

Ordering tickets and season tickets can also be frustrating. A couple of years ago, I and others had problems re-ordering season tickets as the row of digits on the customer number included ?I? which turned out to be a capital letter rather than a digit. For the recent Chelsea cup tie, we were to be displaced, although no-one expected Chelsea to take up the extra tickets (and so it proved). Therefore, I had to purchase two tickets elsewhere in the ground. The Upper Bullens Stand was seemingly almost full, so I had to buy seats using the online diagram. I was not allowed to buy two seats at once, and so had to log in twice using the different customer numbers. Thus I had to hope that, between the two transactions, no-one else purchased the seat next to me which I wanted for my wife. Surely Everton can make their system more user-friendly!

It seems that most of the club?s spending is dedicated to players? wages and obviously this is a necessity, much though we may be unhappy in general terms about levels of pay beyond those of many top bankers. However, the club needs to find ways of funding improvements in the experiences of its supporters. We gather that most of the club?s income derives from TV contracts and ticket sales, smaller amounts coming from the sale of merchandise and, occasionally, players. We can tolerate (and sometimes welcome) the sale of certain players, if the funds realised are used to purchase new players.

While I accept that support for our club nationally is not at the level of the likes of Chelsea and Man Utd, I find, living in the Midlands, that I come across many Blues fans ? similar in number to those of several of the ?top? teams. Yet I do not see Everton tops and other merchandise in shops. Why are we not competing?

In global terms, we need to play to our strengths ? incidentally, this applies on the pitch, as well as in relation to marketing! In Tim Cahill, we have an Australian superstar. What about Tim Howard (and earlier, Landon Donovan) in the States? While he played for us, and especially at the time of the World Cup, did we use Steven Pienaar for marketing in South Africa? Marouane Fellaini in Belgium, Johnny Heitinga in Holland, Seamus Coleman in Ireland, Ayegbeni Yakubu, Victor Anichebe and Joseph Yobo in Nigeria ? I could go on. All of these could be used to encourage sponsorship.

I know we benefit from Chang Beer, le Coq Sportif and, recently, a Japanese mobile phone company, but more must be possible. Everton FC must find ways of raising more income.

« Part 1: If You Know Your History  |  Part 3: David Moyes and the Team »

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