{"id":293469,"date":"2023-10-07T00:06:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T00:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tellmysport.com\/?p=293469"},"modified":"2023-10-07T00:06:23","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T00:06:23","slug":"down-by-bramley-moore-dock-theres-still-hope-everton-wont-sink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tellmysport.com\/soccer\/down-by-bramley-moore-dock-theres-still-hope-everton-wont-sink\/","title":{"rendered":"Down by Bramley Moore dock there's still hope Everton won't sink"},"content":{"rendered":"
Take a mile\u2019s walk up Liverpool\u2019s old Dock Road, leaving the Liver Building behind, and you get a vivid sense of how Everton will take a place in the historic fabric of the city, if they manage to make it to the stadium being built for them.<\/p>\n
Carved into the historic, listed dock wall, built by French prisoners of the Napoleonic Wars, are the names of the mighty old shipyards, Trafalgar, Victoria, Nelson, with the year, \u20181848\u2019, and there is the moving simplicity of the turquoise plaque marking the 150th anniversary of Ireland\u2019s Great Famine. \u2018Through these gates passed most of the 1,300,000 Irish migrants who fled the famine and \u201ctook the ship\u201d to Liverpool, in the years 1845-52.\u2019<\/p>\n
Other great clubs who moved to a purpose-built stadium trade soul for space but Everton\u2019s Bramley Moore Dock stadium, where glass panels were being delicately placed on the main entrance as contractors\u2019 wagons rolled through in the sunshine on Wednesday, is at the City of Liverpool\u2019s spiritual core and great seafaring past.<\/p>\n
Coffee places and a micro-brewery have already sprung up amid the redbrick warehouses on the Dock Road but if Everton make it, they will be the heartbeat of the most significant regeneration plan since the legendary rebirth of the Albert Dock, three miles south, in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n
All those hopes and aspirations are shrouded in uncertainty this weekend. The club are financially imperilled, surviving on external lines of credit despite selling their best players to bring in \u00a3120million this summer \u2013 and now living with the consequences of that on the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Everton are currently building their state-of-the-art new stadium at Bramley Moore dock<\/p>\n
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But, it’s uncertain if the club, who are facing financial uncertainty, will even make it there, amid an ongoing takeover by 777 Partners (pictured – 777 managing partner Josh Wander)\u00a0<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s been 132 days since the euphoria of a 1-0 win over Bournemouth at Goodison Park which kept the club up on the last day of last season – prompting vows of \u2018never again\u2019 after the club\u2019s Premier League future went to the wire for the second successive year. Everton, who entertain Bournemouth again on Saturday, have lost every game at the stadium since.<\/p>\n
Goodison used to give out the electricity that the team could plug into when all hope had gone. But there\u2019s an unmistakable weariness now, evident in the very fabric of the place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The waterproof seals on the images depicting the club\u2019s greatest moments, wrapped around the stadium exterior, are begin to decay. Images of the great wins over Bayern Munich and Rapid Vienna which brought the European Cup Winners Cup home in 1985, no longer have full protection from the elements.<\/p>\n
The agonies carry over inside the stadium, too. A friend of one of last season\u2019s squad witnessed the player lumping a ball long when he would always have expected him to bring it down and play. \u2018I was afraid of the reaction if I got it wrong,\u2019 the player told him when they discussed this. The negative energy is understandable in a fan base who last weekend witnessed a new nadir in the home defeat to Luton Town. Everton had 14 big chances against Fulham, Wolves and Luton combined. They scored one of them.<\/p>\n
Defeat to Bournemouth is unthinkable after losses to Fulham, Wolves, Arsenal before Luton, though Sean Dyche \u2013 hardly to blame for his forwards\u2019 litany of missed chances \u2013 was struggling for new ways to frame the significance this week. He was asked if this was a \u2018must-win\u2019 game. \u2018I’ve heard that so many times since I’ve been at this club,\u2019 he reflected. \u2018Every game is a must-win. We are trying to change a two-year-old story.\u2019<\/p>\n
At the city centre Denbigh Castle pub, one of Liverpool oldest such establishments, publican Fiona Hornsby reflected the general mood of deep uncertainty on Wednesday. \u2018So much is unknown and we\u2019re going through managers like water,\u2019 she said. \u2018We\u2019ll sell out that new stadium but where\u2019s the money to finish it?\u2019 An image on the pub wall, of Pele at Goodison Park in 1966, spoke to the club\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t help that the spectre of the prospective American company called \u2018777\u2019 looms over the club. The private equity investor is the only prospective buyer that has come close to the \u00a3500million price being demanded by seller Farhad Moshiri. But there is deep uncertainty about the motives and financial resources of 777 chief Josh Wander, who turned in in his trademark baseball cap for the Luton game \u2013 his feet already very much under the table.<\/p>\n
Nowhere in the Miami outfit\u2019s loud Merseyside PR drive has there been any sense of what 777 will bring, beyond a Tesco-fication which will see them flog financial products to Blues fans. The stories continue to rack up from other clubs 777 own. Reports from Brazil yesterday suggested 777 had paid only 35 per cent of a schedule payment instalment due for the Vasco de Gama club and that last year\u2019s takeover of the club, which may take back control.<\/p>\n
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Farhad Moshiri agreed a deal to sell Everton to the US investment firm for \u00a3500m last month<\/p>\n
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Times are tough, with Everton having not picked up a point at Goodison Park in 132 days\u00a0<\/p>\n
Small shareholders at Sevilla described how their investigations found that 777 were discreetly building up a shareholding in the club under an anonymous company name, Sevillistas Unidos. Those fans campaigned to get the American\u2019s representative removed from the management board.<\/p>\n
The Washington Post this week detailed in a 5,000-word investigation based on interviews and court documents, how 777\u2019s core \u2018structured settlement annuities\u2019 business had persuaded a vulnerable woman to sign over future monthly damages payments worth $800,000, in return for a $180,000 lump sum when she was desperate for cash.<\/p>\n
Though 777 have undertaken a series of meetings with concerned parties at Everton, no evidence has emerged of how this outfit might resurrect Everton and get the new stadium completed. Dave Kelly of Everton\u2019s fan advisory board, who had an introductory \u2018meet and greet\u2019 with 777 Group CEO Don Dransfield said: \u2018There was very much an element of dancing around the handbags as they weren\u2019t able to talk about Everton-related things.\u2019<\/p>\n
But though these are without doubt the club\u2019s darkest days, a view is strengthening that 777 must not be allowed to hold the club to ransom. Within months, if not weeks, the club will be at risk of heading into financial administration if a buyer is not found. That threat, which would mean Moshiri walking away with nothing, would force him to reduce his vast asking price for the club and deal with credible buyers.<\/p>\n
The cost of building the stadium is vast, with an estimated \u00a3300million to find, but that project could conceivably be something that central Government helps to fund, if it can be shown that it is critical to the city of Liverpool\u2019s regeneration. One Whitehall source notes that the spectacle of the Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport bailing out a Premier League club might jar with many, yet the regeneration argument could be compelling – and potentially worth an approach to the Department for Levelling Up.<\/p>\n
This could entail the Liverpool City Region local authority, which drives regeneration, buying and completing the stadium for the region, which would then become an asset for the city which Everton happened to play at. This is the model which saw Manchester City Council sort out a new home for Manchester City.<\/p>\n
Liverpool City Region Metro Mayor, Steve Rotheram, who leads that authority, says the stadium is critical to a fundamental part of the City of Liverpool\u2019s regeneration.<\/p>\n
\u2018This is a massive opportunity for that area to be properly regenerated and Everton and that stadium would be an anchor to that renaissance,\u2019 Rotheram tells Mail Sport. \u2018The uncertainty (over the club\u2019s ownership) is the problem. If we knew one way or the other, we could say, \u201cPerhaps we can step in here and see if we can find some solutions.\u201d At this moment in time the club are not asking us to do that.<\/p>\n
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Goodison Park is a famous old stadium but it is now showing several signs of decline<\/p>\n
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Sean Dyche is remaining optimistic despite the challenges he is facing on and off the pitch<\/p>\n
\u2018No government would just say, \u201cHere\u2019s \u00a3300million. Here you go and good luck.\u201d But there may be well be ways we could structure something with the assistance of a national government. We haven\u2019t had any of those discussions and neither would we, without the permission of Everton Football Club. It\u2019s a private company. If we had a car manufacturing company or engineering company and there were question marks over that, would we interfere before we were invited?<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s got all the raw ingredients to being a similar catalyst to the Albert Dock in the early 80s. That\u2019s the sort of thing that this could potentially become.\u2019<\/p>\n
Goodison is not a place for the faint-hearted at the moment. Merseyside Police stickers on windows of houses warn that it is a Burglary Hotspot – which somehow seems symbolic.<\/p>\n
A win on Saturday would not change much in the broader scheme of things, but it would be cherished. \u2018We have to turn performances into wins,\u2019 said Dyche, ever the optimist. \u2018It’s not to do with the fans. It’s a team thing.\u2019<\/p>\n
It’s All Kicking Off\u00a0is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football, launching with a preview show today and every week this season.<\/span><\/p>\n It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube , Apple Music and Spotify<\/span><\/p>\n Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n