Jump to content

Where should Everton move? That's easy - to Anfield


Delima

Recommended Posts

bluebiggrin.gif Everton moving into Anfield, good suggestion!  :D

 

Seriously though, what do you guys think abuot the Kirby plan? Should Everton move out from Liverpool? And why is Liverpool allowed to use the greenbelt to develope a new stadium while Everton not allowed? Personally I like the way Goodison Park and Anfield are located, just a street apart. Shame that both have to move.

 

In my opinion if Everton did move to King's Dock, the new stadium should look stunning. Again, shame that they couldn't secure the 30 millions pound needed. I like the way where St Jame's Park is located. And thankfully we don't face similar dillema.

 

The Guardian

Where should Everton move? That's easy - to Anfield

 

Everton should forget about moving to Kirkby when there's a perfectly good stadium on their doorstep - they'll just have to paint it blue.

Paul Wilson

December 16, 2006 11:45 PM

 

Everton fans are up in arms at the moment because the club have just announced their favoured site for a new stadium is in Kirkby, four miles away from Goodison and outside the city of Liverpool. Coming in a week when Liverpool revealed that a £450million takeover would mean work could soon start on a £200m stadium in Stanley Park - the bit of greenery that presently separates the two ancient rivals - this news did not go down well at all.

 

Among the many reasons for Evertonian indignation is the indisputable fact that they predate Liverpool and were in the city first, and that they applied for planning permission to move into Stanley Park some years ago, only to be turned down because of greenbelt rules.

 

More subjective grounds for resentment include the feeling that Liverpool are getting preferential treatment from the council, a worry that a move to the outskirts will eventually erode both the local fanbase and the sizeable following the club have on the Wirral and in north Wales, and an instinctive fear that surrendering the city to Liverpool may prove a costly and far-reaching mistake. If it is hard to imagine the city of Liverpool without Everton, it is impossible to think of Everton outside Liverpool.

 

Of course, the move may never happen. Everton could just be putting pressure on the city council in the same way Lancashire County Cricket Club negotiated more favourable terms with Trafford council earlier this year by repeatedly insisting they were about to relocate to Wigan. The Wigan council were up for it, and all the talk for a while was of state-of-the-art facilities, grant assistance and greenfield sites. Then, suddenly, Trafford came back to the table and an exclusivity deal was signed remarkably quickly.

 

That is simply the way things work, although in this case, with the King's Dock fiasco in the recent past and Bill Kenwright insisting that Everton have no option but to leave Goodison, the club appear to be running out of viable alternatives. Residents and councillors in Aintree and Melling joined forces to object to the idea of a Premiership football club disturbing their semi-rural tranquillity, a Speke site was rejected as unsuitable, and the city council are adamant there is no room for Everton anywhere within the centre.

 

There is one place that would be ideal, however - and if Everton look out of the window they can see it. It is a purpose-built football ground and a very good one, too. It staged games during Euro 96 and an England international as recently as this year, has excellent corporate facilities, a capacity of 45,000 that can be nudged up to 50,000 without much difficulty and will be vacant in three or four years. The only problem, of course, is that it is called Anfield, and for Evertonians that is a very big problem indeed.

 

To be strictly accurate, that is not the only problem. There are also a few minor issues surrounding the future of Anfield. One of the conditions by which Liverpool gained planning permission in Stanley Park involved a promise to restore the lost community space by turning the Anfield site into a public area. The plan at present is for an Anfield plaza, a pleasant walkway from the direction of the city up to the new ground, featuring a hotel, restaurants and bars, shops and landscaped open space amounting to a regeneration of one of the poorer parts of the city.

 

This sounds totally worthwhile, until you remember that even Sheikh Maktoum might not have enough money to turn Walton Breck Road into a tourist attraction. With all due respect to the 2008 City of Culture's good intentions, Anfield and its surrounding streets are not the most obvious shopping and leisure destination, no matter how much play is made of the stadium's fame as a sporting arena. Much better, if you want to remember the place, to keep the bulldozers out and the footballers in.

 

Any council objections could be swiftly overturned if there was a will to keep Anfield going. Goodison could be flattened to provide community space adjacent to Stanley Park, for example, and match-day inconvenience to residents would be minimised by having two stadiums even closer to each other than they are at present - although, entirely predictably, the most entrenched opposition to Everton playing at Anfield comes from the football clubs themselves.

 

Liverpool have not considered selling their ground to their neighbours because some of their supporters are unconvinced about the need to move out of Anfield in the first place. Letting Everton move in would a recipe for civil unrest, but the question is an academic one because Everton would never dream of playing at Anfield. This turns out to be true. 'We would much rather play in Kirkby than play at Anfield,' Everton spokesman Ian Ross said. 'In fact we would rather play in Beirut than play at Anfield.'

 

Yet Everton did play at Anfield once. If you have studied your history, you will know that not only did Liverpool fans nick that song from Celtic, but that they were formed suddenly in the year 1892, when Everton left Anfield, their home of eight years, in protest at a rent increase. The landlord, a Mr John Houlding, was left needing a team in a hurry, so he recruited 10 professionals from Scotland and registered them as Liverpool when he was barred from retaining the name Everton. The original Everton went off to play at Goodison Park, the new Liverpool stayed at Anfield and kept up their Scottish contacts to good effect.

 

All of which means it is silly for either party to let pride stand in the way now, although that is exactly what both parties intend to do. Everton, or 'the people's supermarket' as Liverpool fans have taken to calling them since the tie-in with Tesco at the Kirkby site, will continue hunting high and low for a suitable new home while ignoring the great big red one half a mile down the road.

 

Liverpool are planning to be in their new home for the 2009-10 season, by which time they will have no further use for a superbly appointed and genuinely historic stadium. Anyone with any sense can see that all that is required is a change of name and a few tins of blue paint, but sense has no place in this argument. This is football. Anfield must die. And for the next few seasons, as the Fast Show might have put it, we will mostly be playing in soulless out-of-town stadiums with enormous car parks.

 

Boycotting Kelvin on Christmas day won't be a problem

 

Kelvin MacKenzie continues to be the only man who would come second to Boris Johnson in a popularity contest in Liverpool.

 

When the Sun's former editor reignited the Hillsborough controversy last month by standing by all his old front pages, he possibly annoyed his old employers who have been patiently trying to rebuild bridges. He did not do any harm to his own reputation on Merseyside though, because that has been running at rock bottom for the past 16 years.

 

Dave Pearson, of Formby, has been in touch to point out that Radio Five Live have invited MacKenzie to host a broadcast on Christmas Day. 'Many football fans, including me, are outraged that a public-funded body such as the BBC should use its resources in this way,' Pearson says. 'I find it difficult to understand the reasoning given the controversy surrounding this person, and would request the BBC to reconsider.'

 

Radio Five Live is a sports station in most people's eyes, although MacKenzie will not be discussing football on Christmas Day but presenting News Review of the Year between 5pm and 7pm. That's two hours of news at tea-time on Christmas Day. On the radio. Relax, Mr Pearson. This sounds like a boycott the whole country can join in. Five Live might not even notice the difference.

 

Macca tells no yes-man, he always backs me

 

When he was England manager, Terry Venables complained that the FA went wobbly on him, meaning that a sudden lack of support where support was expected left him out on his own and unable to carry on.

 

Venables himself appeared to go wobbly on Steve McClaren last week, publicly wondering if he was cut out for the job as assistant to the England manager, but this could simply have been because he was miffed to learn McClaren does not read his News of the World column.

 

That was what McClaren said last month anyway, when reporters asked him whether he approved of Stewart Downing being made a scapegoat in print by his assistant, but it seems the two men in charge of England have got their heads together since so they can begin singing from the same hymn sheet. 'We speak most days and Terry tells me what's going to be in his column,' McClaren said. 'He always backs the England team and he always backs me. I don't take on yes-men.'

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest stormrider

Everton in anfield?

what about history, pride, culture?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh wait, I forgot for a second we're talking about Everton  :lol:

Link to post
Share on other sites

He seems to forgotten to ask himself why are Liverpool leaving Anfield in the first place?

 

Answer, because it isn't fit for 21st century premiership football. Why would Everton want to move into a ground that is out of date and doesn't meet the requirements of a major premiership team.

Link to post
Share on other sites

As if that would ever happen. I'd sooner take to my eyeballs with a screwdriver than see Everton play there.

 

Latest development is that the city council leader has basically called Kenwright a liar over his claims that we haven't been offered help from them. Personally, I think they're both snakes.

Link to post
Share on other sites

He seems to forgotten to ask himself why are Liverpool leaving Anfield in the first place?

 

Answer, because it isn't fit for 21st century premiership football. Why would Everton want to move into a ground that is out of date and doesn't meet the requirements of a major premiership team.

You haven't been to Goodison have you?
Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest Andrew Flintoff

Everton gave Anfield to Liverpool way back in history if I'm not mistaken...

 

EDIT: I'm not mistaken, but I didn't read the article fully :D

Link to post
Share on other sites

Guest king harry

Everton never gave anfield to liverpool, they were evicted as they couldnt afford to pay the rent. The reason they are moving to kirkby and not anywhere else, is because they are getting financial help from knowsley council, and 50 million from tescos. The reason liverpool have been granted permission to move 300 metres to stanley park, is because they have agreed to plough so many million into local regenertion in the anfield area. Most everton fans i know are against the move as at the moment they struggle to fill goodison, there crowds will no improve in the first season, as Manchester citys did, but then they will be playing in a stadium that will only be two thirds full.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The middle of the Mersey for all I care.

Still, I always used to be amused walking through Stanley Park after a game at Anfield and have Goodison not far off on the other side of the park. And vice versa of course after a visit to Goodison (is that nice chippy still there near the ground ?)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Why would Everton want to move to a bigger ground anyway, they don't even sell out at Goodison nowadays (6,000 under capacity for the visit of the Champions on Sunday)?

 

Because Goodison is a fucking shit hole with wooden seats and on the verge of falling down!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Why would Everton want to move to a bigger ground anyway, they don't even sell out at Goodison nowadays (6,000 under capacity for the visit of the Champions on Sunday)?

 

Because Goodison is a fucking shit hole with wooden seats and on the verge of falling down!

 

 

no, you've got it wrong

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

that is the whole of liverpool

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...