Read that, but don't know how to do links on this kindle. Good article though, it's on newsnowEverton.
January 23: The Chinese province of Hubei, containing the bustling metropolis of Wuhan, is put into severe lockdown. Coronavirus has the city in its malignant grip. Reports of its deadly footprint are beginning to emerge.
A few days later, Denise Barrett-Baxendale is watching the BBC news in her seventh-floor office at Liverpool’s Royal Liver Building.
From her window, Everton’s chief executive can see a grand panorama taking in the River Mersey, and in the distance the Bramley-Moore dock. It’s a breathtaking view that would be enough to distract anyone in an absent moment, but her eyes are fixed on the TV.
She is asking herself a question: If the virus came to Liverpool, what would Everton do?
Fifty-six days later she found out, but by then her plans were long in the making.
After her soul-searching, Barrett-Baxendale sprang into action. She found Paul McNicholas, the club’s director of risk & governance, and asked for a new and hefty addition to their business continuity plan: pandemic.
The plan usually takes into account things such as major fire or Mersey floods swamping the Liver Building. This was very different. But her forward-thinking meant that when the day came, Everton were ready.
The club’s level of preparedness prevented staff becoming infected and led to the swift roll-out of the Blue Family campaign, which is now a lifeline for hundreds of people in the city.
“The news item about it and how it could spread to other parts of China mentioned that there was still travel from China to Hong Kong and Singapore. Denise began to think about how it could spread,” says a senior club source.
“She was fixed on this: if it spread to the UK and there was a lockdown, what would happen at Everton? Could we cope? Do we have the business capacity to be able to continue? It led to a lot of planning and activity. I’m not sure how many other organisations were doing it to that extent before March. From the overarching plans, there were smaller but important things too.
“We ended up having software installed on all our laptops in January so we could work from home if necessary.”
Covid-19 hit football around March 12. Three Leicester City first-team players self-isolated after showing symptoms of coronavirus. Watford reported similar issues.
The following day, Chelsea’s England winger Callum Hudson-Odoi tested positive. Then an Everton first-team player moved into self-isolation after reporting a high temperature.
Plan in place, Barrett-Baxendale ordered the club’s shut-down.
“We had people working at Finch Farm who could have been at the Liver Building the next day so we took no risks with cross-contamination,” the source told The Athletic.
“It was, and remains, a hugely difficult time but knowing that we were ready was very comforting. Denise’s leadership has been faultless.”
Barrett-Baxendale has been Everton CEO since 2018, after the departure of her predecessor Robert Elstone.
Having guided the club’s charity arm, Everton In the Community, from an operation based in a car-park to one of the UK’s biggest sporting charities, she was considered an exciting appointment. Before working in sport she was an educator, spending 16 years in the sector, but when the opportunity came to work for the club she adores, a career-change was a formality.
She once told The Athletic that one of her childhood hobbies was making Everton rosettes with her sisters, and worshipping prolific 1970s Goodison goalscoring hero Bob Latchford.
Barrett-Baxendale will represent the club today in the Premier League meeting to discuss, among other things, wage deferral. When she speaks, her peers at the top table listen.
“She is very well thought of among the Premier League chief executives,” a source from the top flight told The Athletic. “I think there’s a recognition she’s not in this for egotistical reasons.”
On the issue of football’s return, revenue is not the only thing at the forefront of her mind.
“The short and simple answer is: only when it is safe to do so,” she says when asked. “The key priority right now for each Premier League club is to help stop the spread of the virus and everyone is united on prioritising and protecting the health and wellbeing of our players, our fans and our community”
It is her sense of social responsibility that also sets Barrett-Baxendale apart. She was instrumental in signing Everton to the Covid-19 Business Pledge, a commitment by some of the biggest companies in the UK to help employees, customers and communities get through the crisis.
Everton are the only football club signed up to the pledge, launched by former cabinet minister Justine Greening, and Barrett-Baxendale was swiftly invited onto its steering group to provide guidance to co-signatures such as BP, Experian plc, National Grid and DLA Piper.
At Everton, she brought forward pay-day and ensured that all casual match-day and non match-day staff will still be paid throughout the lockdown.
It means stewards will still be paid until the end of the season regardless of whether football returns. If it does, they will also be paid again for working the extra nine games.
“As an organisation with a workforce of full, part-time and casual staff of nearly 1,000 people we have a duty of care to every single one of them,” she told the club’s website.
In an e-mail to club staff, seen by The Athletic, she praised the spirit and camaraderie across the organisation.
“We are faced with an unprecedented and extraordinary challenge. In the face of that, the leadership and drive I have seen across all levels of our organisation has been impressive and, quite often, amazing,” she wrote.
“Individually and collectively you have displayed a combination of kindness, pragmatism and, above all, genuine care for each other.
“And while this hasn’t been a surprise, it has been quite inspiring to see.
“Whatever challenges the next few weeks and months bring, to know that we are facing it with the Everton spirit behind us gives me, and I’m sure you all, great comfort.”
It is, after all, a spirit the club’s chief executive embodies.
