Posted by Blue Lou
November 1997
Nick Barmby was signed for a club record fee of £5.5million when the club was in £7million worth of debt.
Decenber 1996
Peter Johnson announced that he wanted to relocate Everton away from Goodison Park. He stated that he had looked into two options:
* Redevelopment of Goodison Park
* Relocate to Kirkby Golf Course
He stated that the Redevelopment of Goodison Park would not be worth it as the capacity would be no greater than 47,000 and that the feasibility report had failed.
January 1997
Andrei Kanchelskis sold for £8million to Fiorentina to help balance the books
Goodison for Ever-Ton campaign was created to challenge Peter Johnson’s belief that Goodison Park could not be redeveloped. An insider within the club had told the campaign that no feasibility report had been commissioned. Peter Johnson was challenged by the campaign to produce the report stating if he could and it came to the conclusion that Goodison Park could not be redeveloped then they would disband..
Later that month, Peter Johnson said he would not release the study. He did state that a poll would be carried out at the last home game of the season to see if Evertonians were in favour of moving to Kirkby.
He stated that literature accompanying the ballot would be swayed towards to the move and that the local media would be in favour of relocating the club to Kirkby and the local media turned against the Everton campaign group.
May 1997
An unsupervised and flawed ballot revealed that 82% of those that voted were in favour of relocating. The ballot did not state the preferred location. Four days after the result, Peter Johnson revealed there were potential sites at Burtonwood, Cronton and Speke. Many fans felt betrayed.
Between May 1997 and November 1998 there were major developments. The popular Joe Royle had been sacked, a “world-class” Mike Walker had been appointed as had Howard Kendall and Walter Smith during this time. Walter Smith was given £20million to spend on transfers. It was revealed during this time that the club were in debt to the tune of £29million.
During this time fundraising for the GFE campaign was ongoing and eventually they were able to commission the architects responsible for redeveloping Twickenham, Ward McHugh Associates.
The CEO at the time, Michael Dunford (now at Plymouth Argyle) had admitted that no feasibility report had been commissioned by the club. The club had wasted two years.
The Ward McHugh report produced two possible alternative ways of redeveloping Goodison, the first using the same footprint, the other was using some Stanley Park land with a 55,000 capacity.
During 1998
Liverpool Football Club were looking to relocate, they looked at sites in Kirkby and Speke. They also looked at redeveloping Anfield but they could not achieve a 60,000 capacity.
During 1999
Liverpool City Council approached Liverpool Football Club with regards to relocating their stadium to the King’s Dock, They rejected the option as they felt the capacity would not be large enough.
Early 2000
Everton were now keen on the idea of developing on Stanley Park, they informally approached Liverpool City Council to ask how feasible it would be. Liverpool City Council told the club that the park was protected under a Victorian covenant. The council leader Mike Storey had previously made a point that ‘Parks are forever’.
Weeks later, Liverpool Football Club’s CEO Rick Parry enquired about the possibility of building a completely new 70,000 capacity stadium on Stanley Park. Parry issued an ultimatum, either allow the build or Liverpool Football Club will leave the city.
Liverpool City Council were now under pressure, they could not be seen to allow Liverpool Football Club to build on Stanley Park mere weeks after telling Everton they could not. Their solution was to offer Everton the Kings Dock (they had never previously considered doing this).
Everton (now under Kenwright) were very interested in bringing Everton to the banks of the Royal Blue Mersey.
June 2000
Rick Parry announced that Liverpool Football Club had found a solution and it has been under their “noses all the time”. The council had performed a u-turn on their parks are safe for ever policy. Equally astonishingly is that Everton were not crying foul at the double standards in play. Bill Kenwright was urged by fans to make a formal complaint to Liverpool City Council, he was reluctant to do so.
October 2000
Everton lodged its Kings Dock in partnership with SFX.
November 2000
A fans’ ballot was taken, with many fans voting in favour of relocating to the Kings Dock. Goodison
During 2003
The Kings Dock project collapsed.
Bill Kenwright knew it was too late to cry foul about the double standards especially when Liverpool City Council had stated they would provide co-funding for the Kings Dock project and extended the deadline several times to allow Everton to find the money to secure the Kings Dock.
Trevor Birch resigned from his position as CEO after six weeks with rumours suggesting he could not work at the club with the two major shareholders at loggerheads.
August 2004
Director Paul Gregg had fell out with Kenwright over the £40M debt levels of the club, and offered to cover the cash needs of the club while re-finance was agreed, subject to Kenwright and his supporter Jon Wood resigning. Kenwright refused, Gregg claimed support from a former director Lord Grantchester (who later issued a statement saying he only supported dissolution of True Blue Holdings). Gregg's investment never materialised, and Kenwright survived when he presented his own plans for investment via the Fortress Sports Fund Ltd which was later revealed as "a means to an end" by a club representative suggesting that the Fortress Funds was simply a way for Kenwright to hold onto the club.
October 2006
Robert Earle purchases Gregg's 23% stake in Everton.
Tesco's Terry Leahy approached Bill Kenwright with the idea of a new stadium development, Bill agreed to the idea and asked Mr Leahy for more information.
One day Tesco turned up at EFC with site, costings etc. all worked out, all the architecture had been already made and all Everton had to do was agree to move.
Bill decided to cast a vote to the fans, they chose ERS to oversee the ballot question but the along with the ballot was a brochure which had no input from ERS pointing out all the 'benefits' of moving to Kirkby.
Momentum was gathering against the move as more and more facts were unravelled, the vote was actually brought forward so it had a better chance of being a yes to move outcome.
The night before the vote, Walton Hall Park was revealed as a possible site although LCC said two wrongs did not make a right and did not want to build on two parks in the space of a year.
The people at Bestway also said their site could be used for a stadium. The club dismissed it without ever looking at it or reading the HOK report on the site.
Fans rightly or wrongly voted for Kirkby (41% said no despite the club telling them it was effectively free). Had the vote took place at the original time, the outcome may have been different.
