Goodbye to Goodison

It seems assured that Everton will definitely be leaving Goodison Park within the next few years, most probably to Kirkby. The club have been in talks with Tesco and Knowsley Council for some time and having received a positive mandate from supporters to go ahead with the move, the ‘deal of the century’ as described by chief executive Keith Wyness can now go ahead. That the club even contemplated consulting supporters is positive and proves that the ‘People’s Club’ moniker wasn’t just some glib statement thrown out by David Moyes to antagonise Liverpool and endear himself to Evertonians. But it also suggests that the club must have known that despite the vocal demonstations by the ‘anti’ camp there was a considerable (60%) element of the fanbase that was in favour of the move. They must have had doubts though judging by the Joseph Goebbels level of propaganda that the official website pushed out, roping in the likes of Mikel Arteta and Tim Cahill to push the club’s agenda.

It’s hard to exist competitively in a money-driven game when the most succesful team in England is just down the road, but Everton have done well in recent years to establish themselves as the ‘anti-Liverpool’ to new fans. Everton has come to stand for history and tradition, where these qualities have been slightly eroded by the amount of corporate suits, day-tripping fans and foreign investors at Anfield and the much derided new breed of ‘Sky fans’ who chant ‘EASY’ and wear jester hats are not commonly seen moseying up County Road on a Saturday afternoon. Central to this ‘marketing’ (reluctant as I am to use such a phrase as I don’t believe Everton did it conciously) is the rickety old stadium designed by Archibald Leitch. It may be crumbling and the views from the Gwladys and Bullens Stand have been unfavourably likened to that from a letterbox, but it is much loved by Evertonians. Every supporter says the same about their own fans, but there is a unique atmosphere at Goodison. If you can time your walk into the ground just right, and get into your seat just as the opening drumbeats of Z-Cars begin and the team’s arrival on to the pitch is met with a roar, you will know exactly what I mean. And now it’s all over as Everton get ready to pack up and move to Knowsley.

Talking to fans in the aftermath of the decision, the most common reason for their dismay at the vote was that it ‘just wouldn’t be the same’. People will still go to the match but will the strange pull that Goodison holds that manages to bring in 40,000 people every other week to watch mediocre players translate to Knowsley? If the atmosphere has gone and the ‘matchday experience’ is little more than a retail park with more corporate hospitality, then what is the point? Rather than a bright new dawn for the club, more and more it looks like the beginning of the end.

Sadly, there is a feeling that Kirkby was really the last choice for everyone. After the botched job on the Kings Dock and the shameful decision by the City Council to stop a move to Stanley Park only to give planning permission to Liverpool a few years later, moving outside the city boundaries was way down the list of chosen sites, just behind Beiruit, Basra and Birkenhead. The posturings of the City Council leader Warren ’season ticket’ Bradley were too little too late, pushing the unsuitable and but entirely romantic Scotland Road site when the fat lady had already cleared her throat. The council have evidently shit themselves as they realise that after years of indifference towards the club they are now going to lose a major employer and a massive cultural attraction to the city. The Cherryfield Drive site may only be four miles away from L4, but it may as well be across the Red Sea for what that matters, because it comes down to the colour of the bins. The sterile plans for the ground are of no significance at all, because Everton fans don’t want to see the club move out of the precious boundary that seperates ‘wools’ and ’scousers’. Again, it comes back to the rivals across the park and not wanting to leave the city with only one club especially considering Everton were there first and Liverpool are the ‘bastard offspring’. That a site in Speke was viewed as prefereable to Kirkby despite being even further away from the traditional north Liverpool home highlights how important the boundary is. As I’m not qualified to enter the debate of ‘what makes a Scouser?’ I’ll not even try, but for many Kirkby just isn’t Liverpool no matter how close it may be.

The debates will rage on and on and it must not be forgotten that for many citizens in Kirkby the feeling of antipathy towards a football stadium is mutual. However, the wheels are now in motion and barring a monumental breakdown (which isn’t past the club) it seems like the move is on. Evertonians have been divided enough in recent months and it’s now time to get behind the team.

Fernandes theories

There’s a scene in the Oliver Stone film JFK where the team assembled by the district attorney Jim Garrison sit around a table discussing the various players in the possible assassination of Kennedy which finishes with the quote “we’re through the looking glass here people”. Evertonians have their own visions of conspiracies at the minute as the signing of Manuel Fernandes, long promised to be in the bag as the F.A. go over the deal, fell through at the last minute as the player made the switch to La Liga side Valencia. After some clandestine meetings in dark car-parks with men named after sexual practices, there’s reports coming in that the Fernandes signing was to deflect from the Kirkby vote and the lack of investment. According to some, Bill Kenwright and Keith Wyness knew all along that the deal wouldn’t go through and it was all ’smoke and mirrors’. Even Yakubu is meant to be going somewhere else now.

Every conspiracy theorist knows that central to any good story is the motive. Why exactly would Everton say they have agreed a fee and the player has agreed terms and passed a medical if the deal would be scuppered anyway? Why would he be visibly presented as a guest of the club on Saturday if he was going to be off in 24 hours anyway? Everton have simply been gazumped at the last minute by a club who have taken advantage of the dithering by the F.A. keen to avoid another Tevez scandal. Fernandes, who is owned by a third party, was shifted on by a cash-hungry Benfica and the agents who advise him. Perhaps this is a better move for the player, but his eagerness to sign for Everton and the club’s insistence that a deal was imminent suggest no wrong-doing on the club’s front.

The outrage towards the club is nothing new in recent times but Everton have really got themselves off the hook here. While showing glimpses of his ability in his loan spell last year, Fernandes isn’t the player needed to make Everton and especially not at the inflated price that was mentioned. Even in his celebrated performance against Arsenal his tendency to drift in and out of the game was noticeable. Even the clip on YouTube that shows him making a mug out of the Arsenal midfield only came about after he lost the ball stupidly in possession, which is the first rule in how to not play against a talented attacking team. Questions also have to be asked about his commitment after he allowed his head to be turned after giving the club his word that he would be signing.

The botched signing does not look good for a club who are already struggling with public relations, but if it results in money for Everton to invest in players who will not be so troublesome it may still work out well. Hopefully David Moyes will use the remaining days of the transfer window to re-enforce the midfield that looks increasingly reliant on the artistry of Mikel Arteta and bring in some genuine class.

Mr. North West

Anthony H Wilson was often described as Mr. Manchester and the city will be much poorer after his recent death. Across the M62 in Liverpool, where Manchester’s achievements are usually taken in the worst possible grace, there is an ever strong appreciation society that acknowledges what Wilson did for music in the city. From Derek Hatton to Pete Wylie, the man who wore a Bruges rosette on Granada Reports the day Liverpool were to play them in a European Cup Final has had no shortage of admirers on Merseyside to queue up and pay tribute. Manchester’s regeneration from a grey urban wasteland to a progressive, dynamic European city was the result of several different factors including the IRA bombing of the city centre in 1996 but most significant was Antony H Wilson.

Without the Hacienda, the Factory scene or ‘Madchester’, the city would have died after the bombs. There would have been no Harvey Nics, no city loft apartments, no trams and no Canal Street. The city’s most vocal cheerleader encouraged Mancunians to appreciate what they had and what they were capable of. Manchester, the city of industrialisation and railways, has always been progressive but never more so than when Wilson was at the forefront, albeit unofficially. If the city had to elect a mayor you get the impression that he would have been perfect for it.

Peter Hooton of the Farm perhaps said it best: “If Liverpool had Tony Wilson, the bar wouldn’t be falling off the Capital of Culture like it is at the moment.”Wilson loved Liverpool and saw it as instrinsic to the success of the north west as a region (Wilson was a fervent regionalist and lobbied for a devolved government for the north west). He put forward plans for an ill-fated Museum of Pop on the Waterfront because as he saw it, the city was the birth of pop culture and Manchester just held the torch for the late eighties and early nineties. Liverpool does not have a figure that dares it’s citizens to dream and to put it back on the map. It’s bungling city council and Culture Company lurch from one disaster to the next and there is a genuine feeling of apprehension as the city approaches the landmark 2008 celebrations and the growth of Manchester must be observed as a role model for the city. If only Liverpool had someone like Wilson, the self-appointed ‘biggest twat in Manchester’ to preside over. Liverpool too is poorer off for the death of Antony H Wilson.

All Apologies

We’re three games into the new Premiership season and I’m already sick of hearing about it. Such is the media-driven environment that the game finds itself in, there is nothing that will not be discussed on the 24 hour television channels or analysed in the colour supplements. Martin Jol to be sacked already. Manchester United in crisis. Manchester City to challenge for the league. The latest crisis to fill the column inches has been the fall-out from the ‘league decider’ at Anfield between Liverpool and Chelsea where the referee, amongst other failings, ‘cracked’, ‘lost it’ and ‘robbed’ Liverpool of victory against their London opponents. Since Rob Styles awarded the dodgiest penalty you’ve ever seen to Chelsea he has been hung out to dry by the media, forcing Keith Hackett of the Professional Game Match Officials Board to demote him and force an apology to Liverpool Football Club.

The hypocrisy of Steven Gerrard talking about ‘robbing’ when he was quite happy to benefit last Saturday for the winner against Aston Villa notwithstanding, this sets an interesting precedent. Perhaps Mr Hackett is taking inspiration from Michael Howard, sending the beleaguered Boris Johnson up north to apologise to the baying Scousers. Whatever his intentions, can we now expect referees now to publicly humiliate themselves because they missed a throw in or didn’t book a player when maybe the foul warranted it? When will this stop?

Where every game is supposedly a relegation six-pointer, a championship decider or a match that could decide European places, the pressure on referees has never been bigger and just as international footballer Carlos Tevez somehow managed to miss an own goal against City in the last minute on Sunday, referees are subject to human failings as well. The clamour for video technology is welcome but will take years for everyone to agree and implement it. In the mean-time perhaps referees should be allowed to do their job without the intense media scrutiny that follows.

It should be noted that the linesman who failed to see David Healy’s equaliser in the last minute had actually crossed the line has also been ‘demoted’ from high profile games but as of yet has not been court marshaled by the press. Perhaps it’s only ‘big’ clubs who are worthy of apologies.