STADIUM MANIA AND OTHER NEUROSES
By
Mickey Blue Eyes

“Don’t want to go to Kirkby
Don’t want to go to Speke
Don’t want go
From all I know
In Back Buchanan Street”
LOCAL SONG.

“Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.”
UNATTRIBUTED.

If there is one relatively trivial subject guaranteed to generate more ignorance than intelligence, more heat than light, it is when any long-established football club like Everton proposes to change its home stadium venue. The ultimate reasons for such behaviour are hidden in human evolution but the more obvious adverse symptoms are nostalgia, sentiment and the creation of myths. But since they are ignored at the expense of reality it is well to consider them all.

The thing about discussing a possible move to a new stadium in Kirkby is this: THE CLUB HAS NOT PROMISED ANYTHING EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY. There has been no statement of intent one way or the other. Only Robert Elstone, Keith Wyness’s deputy, inadvisedly told an Asian newspaper we would be moving. Even the local press has reported the saga as little more than speculation. Rightly, the club has said is it is considering several options, nothing more. Which is what you would expect any sensible business to say in the same position. Nothing is certain until a contract is signed and a deal confirmed. Until then, all is gossip and grist to the tedious treadmill of message forum fish wives.

Nostalgia, though comfortable, is worse than useless if not used to advantage. In its undiluted form it is nothing but a cultural narcotic. It blocks our best instincts to build a better future in the face of difficulties. If it were the only thing of concern there would be no progress of any kind because we would be on the road to oblivion. The only philosophical conclusion would be: “What is the point of continuing? We have achieved all we set out to do or can do.” Of course this is cultural and, ultimately, physical suicide. There is no account of any civilisation that progressed because it was merely nostalgic or stuck in the convenient, lazy rut of sentiment. Scientific records show a species either adapts and changes or it dies out, and it has been that way since life formed in a protozoan soup. That is the bottom line.

Satirically, one imagines a group of narrow-forehead neanderthals grunting limited memory to each other and then retreating to the comfort of their cave to leave the future to expansive homo sapiens. One can be reasonably sure the last neanderthal convinced him (or her) self the cave was the only safe place to be as evolution drowned it in genetic history. To think otherwise is to discount Charles Darwin’s scientific reality. Ignore that and one might as well go back to believing the absurdity, lies and superstitious propaganda of organised religion. Such is life, such is its dispassion. Whether we like it or not evolution consists of opportunism, chance and entropy. Species can tolerate the first two but a sense of reason would never willing choose the third.

However, nostalgia includes long-term, short-term and genetic memory and therefore cannot be dismissed too lightly. The question is what to do with it. In short, one uses one’s experience. Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. There is always the element of chance hovering in the background. NOTHING is certain in human affairs and anybody who claims such is doomed to disillusion. Which is why most people are properly leery when the latest pub or message forum fanatic with glittering eyes tells you There Is No Alternative. There are always alternatives to everything. One makes a choice, joins a sensible democratic argument, identifies the fanatics and the spivs and ignores them, and tries to make the final choice work. As we all know it was a fanatic, thuggish mentality which brought the game to its knees a generation ago and a two-bit Jerry McGuire mindset which threatens the game now. We can do without both.

Where Everton Football Club and a new stadium are concerned it would be as well to dispose immediately of myths. The first concerns club origins and the physical shape of Goodison Park itself.

After developing from St. Domingo’s Cricket Club in 1878 the embryo football club played on several other sites in or near Stanley Park, the first important one within sight of the home of its president John Houlding (who got the position in season 1882-83) before moving to a site in Anfield Road. Eventually the other members came to think of Houlding as more interested in profits than the wellbeing of the club and moved to a field in Goodison Road, Walton, taking the club with them and demonising Houlding into the bargain. This is the root of subsequent hostility between Everton and its nearest football neighbour. The first match at Goodison Park took place in 1892.

This provides an ironic perspective on one of the current arguments against moving three or four miles to Kirkby, “outside” Liverpool. In its new form, EVERTON FOOTBALL CLUB SIMPLY WASN’T IN LIVERPOOL. It had moved “outside” the city. Growth of the Victorian city only swallowed the ancient and separate parish of Walton in 1895 – seventeen years after the founding of the club and three years after it played its first game at Goodison. You can still see the stone pediment of the old Walton Town Hall preserved opposite Walton-on-the-Hill church at the nearby junction of Rice Lane and Queens Drive.

So if anyone is going to get stuffy about history they better ensure they KNOW it first. Both Walton – “Waletone” – and Kirkby – “Cherchebi,” Norse for “Churchtown” – were mentioned in the Domesday Book. The unimportant fishing village of Liverpool wasn’t. Even the village of Everton was well outside the original city centre until rich merchants made it a fashionable suburb in the mid nineteenth century. The reality is of course they were all interdependent, then became dependent on the city, and when the time came it was right for them to be part of it. This only changed during the great boundary alterations of the 60s and 70s, including the creation of new counties. But nobody I know, especially locals, (excluding council officers) has ever considered Kirkby not a de facto part of Liverpool. To think otherwise is to act out the kind of chauvinist self-delusion for which football fans are famous.

Goodison Park developed over the next two generations into one of the best stadiums in Britain. By the mid-late 1930s it was the first ground to have “double-decker” stands on all four sides, though most of the ground was for standing spectators. Internally the visual result was spectacular when the ground was filled, especially the massive Goodison Road side containing two thirds of the capacity. The main stand and the Bullens Road stands were distinguished by architectural cross-bracings favoured by the architect, Archibald Leitch, and came to be a feature of other grounds such as Roker Park, Fratton Park and Ibrox. These were never used on the Park End or Gwladys Street stands. Though the stadium was relatively very impressive on the inside there were only mass common brick walls to see from the outside – even the main club entrance was undistinguished – but the structure always towered as high as a cathedral over the surrounding residential area and became iconic because of it. Visual dominance was emphasised when four steel-section floodlight towers were built in 1957. At that stage the ground was arguably the best club stadium in Britain.

In 1963 the Bullens Road stand roof was extended to cover standing spectators but the adjoining Gwladys Street roof was not extended until the mid 80s. Up to that point the vast majority of standing spectators were at the mercy of the weather. When rain or wind blew up the only recourse was to huddle under limited cover, and one could only do this when crowds were small. If the crowd was huge one simply had to tolerate it. Large notices outside every football ground of the day warned, “No money returned because of the weather.” They weren’t kidding.

The first real break with the past came with the construction of a new main stand in Goodison Road at the end of the 60s, and replacement of the tall floodlight towers with better low level lights. This finally eliminated the spectacle of massed standing spectators except in the Street End and substituted a new two-tier stand faced externally with cheap, grey industrial cladding, commonly referred to in architectural studios as “wrinkly tin.” A few years later the cladding was extended to the exterior of the Gwladys Street and Bullens Road stands by simply tacking it onto the (by then) badly weathered and soot-covered brickwork. Subsequently, standing spectators were limited to three narrow strips in Goodison Road, the Park End, Bullens Road and the largest section in the popular Gwladys Street End. Eventually safety legislation also halved standing capacity under the wood Park End stand and terraces, the oldest in the ground. This was duly replaced with the construction of a cantilevered single tier stand in 1994. Over the years these measures at first reduced allowable ground capacity by 25,000 to a maximum of 50,000. Then later all-seating legislation reduced this even further to about 40,000, which is where we are at the time of writing.

For most of its life the relatively large open area of Goodison Park meant crowd sounds did not much reverberate from its structure unless the ground was full. At full capacity over 75,000 the experience was usually electric and unforgettable, though not always so. There were exceptions to this when the crowd, whatever its size, needed to keep warm or became collectively excited or outraged at events on the field. That is the way it was until everything changed in the 60s and provincial identity began to express itself in football and other areas of popular culture. Only then did we begin to see something more than local identification with a club or pride in a great local sports hero like Bill Dean, Tom Finney or Jackie Milburn. Unchecked, a growing minority turned it into the horror of organised thuggery, which for them became a spectacle and an end in itself. Gradually, spectator behaviour deteriorated into outright minority organised hooliganism.

By the mid 70s former spontaneous crowd responses had transformed too often into a sham hysteria alternatively encouraged and disparaged by a hypocritical media to suit their sales figures. Increasingly, sham hysteria was labeled “atmosphere”. Naturally by the 80s civilised fans deserted the game in droves. Their replacements became too often the sort of glassy-eyed, shaved head ex-thugs one now sees promoting a thoroughly worthless book on football gang crime. We all know where it went from there.

By 1990 it became necessary for central government to intervene in the provision of spectator facilities in football. Spectator conditions had decayed so much they caused tragedy and loss of life. Quite rightly legislation was introduced to force all-seater stadia. It was long overdue. But the measure also meant a drastic reduction in attendances at existing grounds. A successful club could only maintain its attendance figures if it expanded its ground or relocated and built on a larger site. Those who grasped the implications early were the first to benefit financially. Any club that failed to act in proportion, which was most of them, including Everton, inevitably fell behind when financial matters were compounded by the introduction of extreme right wing economics in the shape of the Premier League.

The unified corporate Football League form was abandoned despite the fact that mostly it had served the game well, albeit imperfectly, for a century. But it had failed disastrously to adapt in serious areas, to attenuate thuggery and sufficiently improve spectator facilities. It was gone in an evolutionary flash of rampant commercialism and financial anarchy once again encouraged by commercial media waiting to take advantage of the sport’s overwhelming popularity. It was a gift to the spivvery of media barrow boys like Rupert Murdoch and the corrupt neo-fascist Silvio Berlusconi.

These are the historic and contemporary factors which affect the modern game and provide the brief for any club wishing to provide a new stadium. To ignore them is to ignore reality. Whether we like the society we live in is virtually immaterial if we wish Everton Football Club to survive as a force in the game. Once again, mere nostalgia is as much use to us as it was to the nineteenth century club members who decided, rightly or wrongly, they wanted no part of John Houlding. Just as determined as he, they moved and they took their club with them despite the economic risks. (You can find a very faint echo of this in the remarkable formation of FC United in Manchester.) That they succeeded is a tribute to their determination. But it could so easily have failed if any of the vital components had not got traction, or they had just plain run out of luck, and doubtless the risk was mitigated by the relatively small scale of it. Many other clubs founded at the same time went out of existence as quickly as they were born.

It is necessary to consider a possible move to Kirkby in the light of all these factors.

Regular readers will know I took to calling Goodison Park by the affectionate nickname of “The Old Lady.” This is an accurate reflection of how I feel about the place. It holds a secure place in my memories and affection. Like you, I have shared many triumphant and other emotions at the old ground. Some of them can only be described as exalted. All of them were worthwhile in a sports context, though it is also necessary for me to make the point that I wouldn’t swap an entire lifetime of Everton Football Club for a lock of hair from my children. A sense of perspective is in order.

It is important too to note that the ground has changed almost continuously throughout its existence. But, sadly, changes during the last thirty years have been completed as piecemeal development and it shows. The most settled era was the generation from about 1935 to 1965 and even that had a missing period of five years through the Second World War. In the modern era two sides of the ground have been rebuilt and the other two sides have been altered. Archibald Leitch’s front-of-stand cross-bracing – the only genuine architectural feature, and a minor one at that – has long been obscured by advertisements or been replaced. Time, society and technology have rightly dictated a change in the built form and materials of stadia. Now there is little left of the original appearance either inside or outside and the capacity has been reduced by almost half from its historic maximum. Only the roofline has any consistency. Outside, the only cheery improvement has been the welcome addition of illuminated signage and some banners fixed to the cladding.

On match days the surrounding streets are covered in “food” and litter thrown into the gutters or next to overflowing street bins. In short, there is no irrefutable case for keeping the ground. It has outlived its usefulness. The longer we keep it, the longer we are likely to be delayed in a genuine revival of club fortunes. It cannot provide the necessary facilities to survive in the current lamentable spiv-eat-rat economic system. If we don’t adapt the likelihood is that eventually our luck will run out and we won’t even have a future, let alone sustained restoration to the forefront of the game. All the sentimental, nostalgic tears in the world won’t save us. They never do.

So we are faced with four alternatives. Either we:

· stay at the present site and rebuild the ground, or
· get more land around the present site and rebuild at ninety degrees, or
· move to a new stadium on a different site, or
· share a new ground with Liverpool.

In my opinion the first alternative is impractical, the second highly unlikely, the third only possible if a property deal is put together which gets the stadium built at relatively little cost to the club, and the fourth likely to generate insurmountable hostility from both sets of fans. Furthermore, the first two alternatives means the club would probably have to raise the entire construction costs since even an enlarged site could contain only a stadium and no other worthwhile revenue-generating developments. Which poses the question: where and how would the club raise a minimum of one hundred million pounds?

Where the first alternative is concerned it gets tiresome to repeat this: the present site boundaries mean it is virtually impossible to provide an acceptable symmetrical design solution. Yes, it is possible to design and build a stadium on the site as Tottenham did at White Hart Lane. But no, it is not possible to provide one of sufficient capacity and design quality, as Tottenham have found. Having made the wrong decision in the first place, they now seek to move. Instinctively I am not persuaded the present Goodison site yields more than a potential capacity of 45,000, possibly much less, though I am willing to be convinced otherwise. And if that opinion holds good then it is obviously not worthwhile proceeding. The narrow “neck” of the site between Goodison Road and Bullens Road presents too many limiting factors, and also it would be necessary to acquire the church which intrudes into the corner of the ground at Gwladys Street, a step resisted so far by the church. Any first year architectural student proposing that for a design thesis would rightly find himself in unending Socratic dispute with his tutor. No, modern stadia spatial design requirements (much more stringent than even a generation ago) have virtually eliminated this alternative. Squeezing an unsuitable building on to the site is the height of sentimental and financial folly.

To give you an idea of this, obtain an aerial photograph of Arsenal’s new stadium (capacity 60,000) and superimpose it AT THE SAME SCALE over an aerial photograph of Goodison Park (capacity 40,000). Do the same with redeveloped Old Trafford (capacity 75,000) and even lopsided St James Park (capacity 50,000). That will give you an idea of the practical design problems. Old Trafford could only work because of an additional landtake from disused industrial land. In my opinion St. James Park is a half-baked design failure. Beware a set of indeterminate coloured drawings and deceptive computer perspectives or anything proposed by a structural engineer untrained in spatial design. Beware any claims of capacity not backed up with verifiable geometric calculation. Such claims are usually either incompetent or bogus. Real architectural design requires a good deal more than wishful thinking, visual deception and one-dimensional consideration. You cannot force a pint into a half pint glass even while binge drinking.

The second alternative is much more promising design-wise but suffers from the same financial drawback as the first. In addition it probably requires the use of compulsory purchase orders to obtain some or all of the adjacent properties, all of which could lead to long delays if contested. Still, if all that could be sorted quickly it is possible to design a reasonable stadium on a larger site. But if the club cannot raise all the money independently – and there is no indication that it can – then it is a no-go. Furthermore, if the new building destroys the old one it also destroys the cloying simplicities of the nostalgia argument. What reason is left to stay in Walton if the old ground has gone? The use of seedy, disgusting pubs every fortnight, the kind of place normally you wouldn’t be caught dead in? To aid the useless sentimentality of, say, a maudlin expat who only gets to the match once or twice a year, if that? The only acceptable non-football argument (if properly composed) is that such a development would genuinely help a long overdue commercial regeneration of north Liverpool. But this is an unreliable and unprovable proposition, though it could turn out to be true by accident in the long run.

At the time of writing it is alternative three that provides relatively the best prospect. It is obviously much easier to design a modern stadium on a large, clear site. The location is unimportant as long as it is fit for purpose and does not over-compromise the club. Even this is entirely dependent on finding a trustworthy property developer who can put an acceptable deal together, a task easier said than done. Anyone who doubts this only has to see the tenth-rate, small-time, piggy-eyed greed of an Adelphi Hotel property auction of formerly artisan terrace houses, where the “developers” turn up clutching their copies of the Estates Gazette while giving off the odour of an Arfur Daley or a Gradgrind or a Bounderby. Multiply that by a thousand and one has a picture of the average larger-scale property developer. There are exceptions but they are as hard to find as an unfilled bin in Goodison Road during a home match. Perhaps one such exception has been found for the Kirkby proposal, perhaps not.

The fourth alternative is probably little short of outlandish though I have no problem with it and have thought it feasible for a long time, long before the inter-club relationship atomised in the mid 70s. Prior to that many fans on both sides thought it a good idea and it was even supported by that great football administrator, Peter Robinson. Sadly, it was vetoed by both clubs, mostly by Everton. It never even remotely got off the ground. The only way it could be revived now is if Liverpool finally admit defeat in their efforts to design and build at Stanley Park and a joint project is proposed on another site. No Evertonian I know would support a share of the existing Stanley Park project and they would be right, and for once for the right combination of rational and emotional reasons. The accurate perception would be it wasn’t our idea.

As everyone knows, a joint stadium has been proposed by government minister Richard Caborn though this time most opposition has come from Liverpool. How times change. Unless circumstances alter dramatically one doubts if Caborn can hack his way through a hundred years of jungle tribalism in which one tribe is every bit as primitive as the other. However, it is obvious to even the most financially illiterate that a combination of both clubs would be able to deliver the finances and a quality stadium of 60,000 capacity or more.

At the time of writing it appears the only realistic chance is for the site at Kirkby, three or four miles from Goodison Park. If so, it is a decisive moment in the club’s history. If the terms are right and the design acceptable then we should get on with it and get it built as soon as possible. If pushed, the site would not be my selection since I would prefer to stay within the actual city boundaries if possible, but I fully concede this is more knee jerk than anything else. As always, the key word is “possible.” But the problem is no other developer has come up with a believable alternative project in Liverpool on terms better than those outlined for the Kirkby scheme. Liverpool city council have been given the opportunity to organise a better proposal but have been unable to do so, which is scarcely surprising since they are neither property developers or rich enough or talented enough to force an initiative. In many respects they are at the mercy of the power of major banking interests, government development agencies and quangos. Sadly, if they cannot come up with a proposal at this stage of the city’s regeneration with so much land available they aren’t going to come up with one in the foreseeable future, not unless someone like the Duke of Westminster or the new American/German shareholders in Peel Ports take an interest. That is the level of financial power needed.

There is no point considering details of traffic flows and all the socioeconomic stuff. They were also available for the Kings Dock site and they proved nothing other than – surprise, surprise – it gets more intense for a few hours once a fortnight on match days when special measures are required, the sort of thing needed for any stadium, anywhere. Also, anybody who thinks traffic won’t disperse faster from a near-motorway location than an urban site, all things being equal, is living in cloud cuckoo land. Of course there would be problems, occasionally a bottleneck or two, none of them insurmountable and certainly none of them sufficient to bar the project. That will happen anyway, wherever the location, as proved after the recent away match at Old Trafford. If it doesn’t go ahead it will have virtually nothing to do with technical aspects; it will, as usual, have to do with funding.

Of the other arguments the one that ought to be given the shortest shrift of all is that of the location at Kirkby because of its so-called “image.” This amounts to nothing more than that English lower middle class obsession, petty snobbery. Since our city is supposed to pride itself on its proletarian sense of community one detects as much hypocrisy as irony in this sort of reaction, particularly from people living well outside the city. And since when has the distraught environment of broken pavements, back entries and steel shuttered shops in Walton been “better” than Kirkby? Since when have we considered Kirkby NOT a de facto part of the city? Rhetorically, why not draw the city boundaries at Queen’s Drive and have done with it? Why not exclude Huyton, parts of Speke, Bootle, Waterloo, Woolton, Crosby and Aintree, most of them being in Knowsley or Sefton? In the twenty-first century have we really failed to grow out of that sort of stunted, chauvinist nonsense?

Whilst we’re at it we might as well consider the ultimate in knockabout humour on the issue, the notion that what pinky fans say has any bearing at all on the matter. Since when has that mattered to Evertonians who can take care of themselves in verbal exchanges? Give the pinkies a few more trashings like the last one and it won’t matter whether we do it in Krakow, on Krypton or in Kirkby. And while we are doing this sort of vaudeville comedy it wouldn’t do any harm to translate it into Norwegian or Cornish and remind them their academy is in, er, Kirkby. As if it mattered. Then again, our new acadamy is out in Halewood – many more miles “outside” Liverpool – and nobody has complained about that, as if that mattered too.

Also, we might as well dispel the myth that the city council is biased against Everton Football Club. This is absolute claptrap and will remain so whichever political party is in power. It is not in the city’s financial interests to “lose” one of its football clubs or to gain the hostility of its fans at the ballot box. It is worth remembering the original initiative for the unmatchable Kings Dock project came from two departed members of the city hierarchy, not from anyone at Everton. What very limited political opposition there was to the Kings Dock project came from within the Labour Party from three councillors and one two-faced MP, not from the city council. Even then, had the financial package been properly assembled their opposition would have been brushed aside easily. One suspects in the case of the councillors their “opposition” was little more than half-hearted ward posturing because none of their arguments had much substance or demonstrated any real knowledge of the issues. Had they been in power it is a safe bet there would have been no such stance, not with a total local Labour vote less than our average gate. Nor did the council block any previous planning proposal for an Everton stadium in Stanley Park, because none was ever made to them. Whilst it may be true one or two tribalist councillors have behaved badly the full council realises very well that kind of thing has to be reined in quickly or they would have another public relations disaster on their hands.

As for the present Goodison Park………………well, let’s get real. The best one can say is that it looks quaint. Not only is it well past its sell-by date it is now an ugly, asymmetrical stadium and has been since the 70s. It always WAS ugly from the outside. The existing grey industrial cladding is bad enough but if it was stripped off to expose remains of the mass brickwork underneath you may be assured the sight would be a great deal worse. Viewed from inside, each of the stands is different, utterly out of visual sync, outdated with obstructed views, and parts of them a long-term danger. In fact the stadium has been subject to continuous change virtually for its entire history. All we have left are wonderful memories of great games, marvellous players and past achievements, but these should not blind us to what is needed now. In these circumstances it is collective memory that matters, not an outmoded structure in an unsuitable location. Ultimately it is human beings who make up a football club.

A stadium, like any other building, is a cultural statement of the good and bad of its day, nothing more. And it is expendable. Goodison Park once was a great stadium for which we have huge affection but it was never a great piece of architecture. To claim otherwise is to be foolish or misinformed or to be ignorant of the roots of the game and how it and its leading clubs developed their grounds, which originally were little more than open standing terraces with limited covered seating on one side of the pitch. What is true of Everton’s past is true of all the leading clubs. It is time to step into the new millenium and do it without frivolous quibble and without heed to those who want to do nothing more than stare tearfully at their navel.

It isn’t unusual to hear quarter-baked architectural criticism in this country and there’s no reason why football fans should be any different. Very often one hears talk of “soul-less” new stadia – particularly when the Riverside and Pride Park are mentioned. But does anyone who really KNOWS what they replaced have the slightest doubt that they are many, many times better than the dangerous slums that were Ayresome Park and the Baseball Ground? Does anyone with his head facing the right direction not believe the Walker Stadium is light years better than the aboriginal hut that was Filbert Street? Or that St. Mary’s makes The Dell look like an overcrowded favella? And there surely won’t be many who think Highbury was better than the new Emirates Stadium; anyone who thinks so could do worse than look at increased average attendances and better (though not perfect) conditions at all these new grounds and others.

One might as well ask the disadvantaged tenant of a new house to go back to living in a place condemned on rational health grounds. Time and understanding move on. We no longer feel it necessary to dance around a maypole or a totem, except out of curiosity for an irrelevant past ritual. We no longer build in wattle and daub. Generally, we believe enlightened education better than superstitious nonsense and myth. We do not believe in quack medicine or witch doctors. In short, we try to improve as best we can in any given set of circumstances.

Of course new stadia feel “soul-less” (incidentally, the first person to find and bring to me a “soul” will be given ten million pounds sterling. There’s no such thing. It is one of the laughable inventions of superstitious religion. Human feelings should not be confused with a “soul”) because they lack the safe familiarity of memory. Like a new house they have to be lived in, to be used. New stadia need new great games, new great players, and new memories. Once they have them, nobody is going to be in the least concerned about past primitive facilities. If it were otherwise one would still be watching football in an open field in Stanley Park.

None of this means we have any less fierce affection for Goodison Park. If and when the time comes to move one suspects there will be many an emotional moment, as there should be. But having made the decision, whatever it is, make it the affordable best, get on with it, and that right quickly. We have waited long enough. Every season we delay we fall further behind. (04/12/06)

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