Keeping Everton in Our City

Simon Inglis is a world renowned expert on Stadium Architecture History and Design. He has decades of experience and has written many well known publications on the subject, with the history and development of Goodison Park featuring strongly in several of his books. He is also editor for the current edition of the "Green Guide" (Guide to safety at sports grounds). When asked today to give his opinion regarding Everton FC's proposed move to Kirkby, despite an extremely busy workload he felt strongly enough to give this response:

"By leaving the city of Liverpool, the directors of Everton FC will forever
break the duopoly that has characterised professional football in Liverpool
since 1892.
This will not only permanently alter the character of Everton, but also of
the city as a whole.
The proximity of Goodison and Anfield is a defining part of the city's
heritage, and a symbol of how allegiances to both clubs are rooted in
cultural factors rather than geographical ones.
If I were an Everton fan, before signing up to the Kirkby proposals I would
want to see clearly defined evidence that Goodison Park is no longer viable,
and that all possible alternative sites within the city have been studied.
If such evidence is not made publicly available then no supporter can hope
to make a properly informed judgement.
Many clubs that have relocated in recent years, such as Bolton, Derby,
Southampton and Sunderland, have not suffered from an acute loss of local
identity, simply because they have no immediate neighbours.
The case of Manchester City cannot be compared with Everton because City's
new stadium was publicly funded. Similarly, Arsenal's new stadium is within
the same London borough, and involved a move of less than one mile.
It is my belief that by relocating to Kirkby, the character and constituency
of Everton would undoubtedly be forever changed.
Everton fans must decide whether that is an eventuality that they embrace,
or one they dread.
Put it like this, if a similar proposal were put forward for my club, Aston
Villa, I would be extremely worried."
(Simon Inglis 23/07/2007)

Anyone who has ever read his work will know that he chooses his words carefully. The written word and stadia are his bread and butter. With this in mind I hope the full gravity of all his comments and particularly his final sentence is felt by all discerning Evertonians. He has no axe to grind and no ulterior motives..... just a completely independent opinion based on vast experience in this subject area.

Excellent piece - I wonder if the impartial local newspapers would pick up on it? cof

Defines well the attitude of those dispassionate accountants who determine Tesco/Kirkby to be the 'deal of the century'... they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Thanks for posting that up Tom - Simon echoes the worries and sentiments of many fans I would think there, wonder if they Echo or Post will be so quick to print Simon's comments though as part of their "balanced" coverage of the issue?

have stickied this now so it remains at the top of the board

Has this been emailed to any of our independant papers???

it has been emailed to the Echo, though I think everyone should feel free to send it in and create a demand for it to be printed somewhere

Noted *runs off to copy and paste!*

The link to send your story to the Echo

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/views/send-a-story/

and the Post


http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/send-a-story/

Lovely. Just emailed them now. Currently turning blue holding my breath waiting for a response

Blueheart,

Did you ever get a reply from the Echo/Post on this excellent, powerful article?

Which was, incidentally, written by an independent authority on football grounds/culture/people and who has nothing to gain financially or otherwise in giving his assessment.

It's good to see someone outside of the debate with expert knowledge on UK grounds providing a spin free opinion for a change.

D

I emailed them twice with it and up to now - no reply!!!!!!

Thanks for the response Blueheart. You can tell you don't work for the Echo.

I'm gonna push them on it. I'll let you know if I get one.

Breaths should not be held

What a pity we can't rely on our local paper to at least show a bit more impartiality on this issue and not use so many positive superlatives when talking about moving whilst blowing quite cold (almost negatively) when presenting our side about remaining at GP/anywhere in the city????

I wonder if they would have been so uninterested if both clubs had decided to move outside of Liverpool at the same time to similar distances?

(One for the lawyers below)

The answer to that (and the deafening silence from certain individuals in whom great faith and trust have been placed by their constituents over the years) speaks volumes for the alleged forces at work allegedly manipulating this alleged stitch up of a club and its community.

Allegedly.

Page 19 of tonight's Echo!! Pleasantly surprised!!

In the ubiquitous words of Oscar Wilde.........."Get in there!!!"

More of the same please Vicar.

I am amazed, disapointed, disgusted and downhearted that the EFC hierarchy have not given the slightest indication that they are willing to listen or consider an alternative to the Kirkby stadium offer. There are truely viable options which are 'realiseable' and the Loop is the one that sets my heart racing.
I do not doubt for one moment that BK is and Evertonian and has EFC best interest at heart, however I am not so sure of where the remainder of EFC officials stand on this monumental issue. Long after they have departed Everton, we, the fans will live with their decision and will have to explain to future Evertonians how things came about and who was to blame or responsible.
I do not doubt for one moment that we have to improve our ground in terms of capcity, facilities, accesibility and attraction but it does not mean that we have to move out of the city to do this and we should not sell our souls to Tesco in the process.
When we get an independent point of view like this I would hope that the board of my beloved club at least listen to the points of view and show some evidence that they have given an open and objective consideration to the alternatives being proposed.
My message to the board of EFC is do not underestimate the passion of the Everton fans on this issue. Everton football club is our lifetimes commitment, not just a passing business.If you get this wrong it will haunt you for the rest of your lives.

What is this fascination with the echo? Of course they want to curry favour with the club, what local paper can exist without it's titbits of gossip? However do you really expect the chief sports writer (married to William Ralph Dean's grandaughter if I am not mistaken) to be seriously unconcerned enough about the clubs future to chase a few extra sales? We have no choice, the council don't care about us or the residents of Walton (just look around the forgotten streets around GP). Let's see if Knowsley can help our inept club to build a stadium, cos we can't do it on our own and LCC are not interested. Too late Mr Bradley.

I'd say the Bestway proposals refute this argument, and in anycase, the LCC is not obliged to help us, we should be helping themselves, and should have identified all the options and not left it to ordinary Evertonians to do their work for them...... as far as it being too late: Why? What's going to hapen? Will Goodison Fall down? NO!

It's never too late to avert a potential disaster, and according to the expert at the top of the thread, that's what this could be!!

Manchester United Football Club is an English football club, based at the Old Trafford stadium in Trafford, (not Manchester) and is arguably the biggest football club in the world.

it's also one that has redeveloped, stayed in it's historic home for decades close to community and has bene much better run enabling it to cash in massively on the Sky era as well as the fact iti was well known abroad for many years.

They are not being led 4 miles to a town centre up the road on the back of figures conjured out of thin air (10 million extra anyone?), spin and a very average two tier stadium that will be situated on a retail park.

Ask yourself this - how many big clubs would entertain the thought of being situated on a retail park for a start or have looked at it? Arsenal didn't, our neighbours haven't, Man United wouldn't, Chelsea aren't Spurs aren't, Newcastle aren't, Villa aren't - see a trend here?

Think small time, where is that going to lead? Out of sight and out of mind

In terms of history and honours Everton are a big club. In terms of number fans Everton are NOT a big club. If you go take a look at the stats on any of the free fantasy footy leagues you'll see Everton come in with approx 25 thousands fans registered whereas all the clubs you mention above are 80-130 thousand registered.

I can't see the problem with retail parks. Whenever I go to one on whatever day of the week and whatever time be it 10am or 8pm, the places are absolutely choca with people. You mention "out of sight out of mind", I'd say that's probably something we suffer from being located amongst a run down Victorian housing estate.

Actually Herefordblue when was the last time you visited Kirkby? I get the impression you seem to think it's some kind barren land in the middle of nowhere. In actual fact you'll find that the population of Kirkby is pretty much the same as Walton and is just as accessible as Goodison is for people who live in the south areas of the city such as Speke, Gartson etc.

you'll see how accessible it is if we end up there along with Saturday shoppers all trying to use the same roads to get to/in/out of that retail park

care to explain how we'd be out of sight out of mind if we stayed/redeveloped or moved to a site in the city? Not like Goodison's located 40 foot underground now is it?

Point with retyail parks is they are no place for a football ground - I've said elsewhere it's not a case of Evertonian snobbery I don't think club's like Bolton, Reading, Coventry should be on them either - they can hardly be considered any sort of spiritual home or have any links to the history or heritage of the club, going to them is as much of a soulless, sanitised matchday experience as you can get.

and frankly I can't believe you measured our support by numbers of fans on a fantasy football league - hardly a scientific survery is it? (BTW the club are reckoned to have about 500,000 fans)

If 3 organisations are spending the best part of £300 million and at least 2 years planning on a new major public development, surely the issue of traffic and parking will be quite high up on the agenda.


I live 5 mins away from Goodison, other than on match days there’s not a sole to be seen near the place. If a business is located in place which has high volume of people passing by on a daily basis, it’s likely it’ll do more business. Have you ever heard the phrases ‘passing trade’ and ‘marketing strategies’? It’d be great if we could be located in a prosperous city centre with thousands of people coming by everyday but as we know there’s nowhere suitable.



It’s very small minded to say clubs like Bolton, Reading etc don’t belong on retail parks when quite clearly the evidence states that they have gone from being absolutely shite to finishing in the top half of the most competitive league in the world.



Frankly if you know anything about science you’ll know that any claim is made on the basis of proven test or a range of sources of information. The fantasy footy site is used by supporters of football clubs. This was my source of information for comparing the number of fans we have against other clubs. Yes we do probably have 500,000 thousand fans. The fantasy footy site is just a snap shot of how we compare with other clubs. So it’s likely that the other clubs have 97.5% times as many fans as they have registered on a fantasy footy site.

so you'd think - except that there isn't much you can do trafifc wise there and Wyness had already stated there will be 1000 spaces which will not be anywhere near enough, nevermind the nonsense of a park and ride at Aintree - if I was a retilaer on that site the last thing I'd want is parking spaces given up to fans who turn up roughly once every two weeks to watch a game, think that one through and think who the retail park wil lsuit most of all - not us.



I know perfectly well about marketing strategies thank you very much, one would be that it is stupid to move away from your core support and a communtiy that you have strong links with. By the look of your "logic" more people will just turn up because we're on a retail park, obviously they will have never heard of Everton before then (or Man Untd, or City, or Liverpool or Blackburn or Wigan or any other club in the north West and we'll be doing such a roaring trade we'll wonder how ever managed before) - as for being located in the city centre well we had a shop there and we closed in a year later, speaks volumes that those in charge couldn't make a go of a city centre shop (which would have a lot more of your passing trade, may I point out than Kirkby will do)



I clearly said I didn't think ANY clubs should be on retail parks, quite clearly too - and as for your "evidence" league table places are not a result of being based on a retail park you clod, there due to the efforts of the team on the pitch and how they're managed - retail parks are not and never have been a good place for any (note that word: ANY) clubs, they're there for larg retail stores and carbon copy shoppnig centres - have you looked at what teams in America are doing now and the trends there? Why do you think teams like Liverpool and Arsenal are not on a retail park? Interesting you said nothing about Coventry, and you also failed to note that Bolton never spent big apart from the last 12 months and Reading are far from being established as a Premiership "top half" team yet, even if they were it wouldn't be due to them being on a retail park. Have you ever been to Bolton or Reading by the way and tried to get to and from the grounds?



so, in effect, it was a crap point ot bring up then wasn't it? "Look at how many people on this fantasy league support Everton everyone" - it's a nonsense point and a nonsense attempt at backing it up there, something that sums up your entire post really.

Herford take your blinkers off. Try and digest the posts instead of just scanning them and responding with a load of convoluted trash.

Clearly you don’t know anything about science. I get the impression you saw the word ‘fantasy’, got your knickers in a twist and start jabbing frantically at your keyboard. Like this website the fantasy league I referred to is a free public service. There’s a million football fans registered on it, which is enough sample data to make quite a concrete assumption. Think of it like a political opinion poll which gives you a feel of what is actually taking place.

Parking - lets trust the people who earn their living from deigning schemes like these, rather than just saying "it won't be enough....if I was a retailer etc etc"

it is stupid to move away from your core support - 4 miles to Kirkby? Do you actually know anything about Kirkby other than technically it's not within the City boundries? Kirkby is Scouse as f*#k!, ask that fella who plays centre half for us.


I can't be bothered responding to your other comments, it's late, and frankly..... nah I'll leave it.

I would respond but frankly...... nah I'll leave it too

hopefully the irony of you accusing someone of "digesting the post" and posting "convoluted trash" won't be lost on you though, or your "scientific samples"

And may I also remind you of a forum rule

"HOWEVER, we will not allow this to become a place of personal abuse or egos. Abusive posts will be removed"

make your point clear and concisely without resorting to abuse next time if you please