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Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
Where did LFC, Newcastle, Sunderland, Man Utd play while they expanded their grounds? Where did City go when they recently added a tier above and behind one end?
You build the superstructure behind the existing stand, maintaining access and capacity throughout. Tried and tested numerous times.
Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
Yes, ifs buts and maybes.... the relevance is we have not finalised the financial deal yet. So you have no idea how big our loan is, what interest payments are going to be and for how long.
Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
Can you point me to all of these studies? Where are the drawings and images from stadium architects that showed what could be achieved, or the report that it was unfeasible? What companies undertook them?
There has never been a serious study of GP redevelopment by the club since John Moores commissioned an all seater stadium study in the early 80s. I have all the drawings.
At the time of Destination Kirkby, KSS did an after-thought study just in time for the ballot to pretend they'd considered it, (after already committing to Kirkby). This was proven by the fact that they mistakenly used my drawings. The basis for Kirkby was the club wanted a stadium for nothing.... paid for by someone else at.the behest of silent partners who wanted to ride rough shod over planning, to get an out of town retail centre. So they couldn't pursue GP where they would have to do the work and pay for it all. So they lied! Unfortunately, that lie was passed on to the new owners by the same CEO.
Ward McHugh, the designers of twickenham had already shown that GP was feasible several years before.
Goodison Could have been Rebuilt one stand at a time (maybe Should have been)...but it wasn't going to happen under Kenwright.
Kings Dock Could have been built...but that wasn't going to happen under Kenwright either.
Kirkby Shouldn't have been built and we dodged a bullet there and no mistake...no thanks to Kenwright.
Walton Hall Park = Pie in the sky.
The Loop...may have been possible under imaginative leadership...but that wasn't going to happen under Kenwright.
Enter Moshiri (and maybe his boss too for all we can know - or prove)
The pluses on his side are It's all about Liverpool Waters and the eventual sell on.
Our pluses are whatever the opposite of Collateral Damage is...a useful by-product, serendipitous / serendipity??
Well thats us - we needed and hopefully will get - a new ground...but that was never going to happen under etc, etc.
It's all about the Sell On.
Edit; and it it all turns to custard, if were lucky, Moshiri will cut his losses and sell us back (Plus all the debts - because, through accounting jiggery pokkery, those debts will suddenly cease to be allegedly Moshiri debts and become Everton F C debts...again allegedly) to somebody for a tenner.
And if we're really lucky it will be *Goodison tannoy voice*..."Commence Operation; Re-Develop The Bullens"
Kings Dock Could have been built...but that wasn't going to happen under Kenwright either.
Kirkby Shouldn't have been built and we dodged a bullet there and no mistake...no thanks to Kenwright.
Walton Hall Park = Pie in the sky.
The Loop...may have been possible under imaginative leadership...but that wasn't going to happen under Kenwright.
Enter Moshiri (and maybe his boss too for all we can know - or prove)
The pluses on his side are It's all about Liverpool Waters and the eventual sell on.
Our pluses are whatever the opposite of Collateral Damage is...a useful by-product, serendipitous / serendipity??
Well thats us - we needed and hopefully will get - a new ground...but that was never going to happen under etc, etc.
It's all about the Sell On.
Edit; and it it all turns to custard, if were lucky, Moshiri will cut his losses and sell us back (Plus all the debts - because, through accounting jiggery pokkery, those debts will suddenly cease to be allegedly Moshiri debts and become Everton F C debts...again allegedly) to somebody for a tenner.
And if we're really lucky it will be *Goodison tannoy voice*..."Commence Operation; Re-Develop The Bullens"
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love you brother xx
This was at a time the club were desperate to get an "effectively free" stadium at Kirkby.
Weird how the clubs appointed experts said it wasn't feasible. Had it been stated as feasible it would have made it far harder to convince loads of gullible fans that it was Kirkby or Die. The Greatest Living Evertonian was naturally devestated to be leaving but Hey Ho, needs must eh lads?
I'd wager a lot of you scoffing at the redeveloped Goodison were sucking milk and filling nappies at the time and are therefore a bit clueless as to what actually went on. Construction experts gave up thousands of hours to show what could have been achieved if we were not utterly skint and in the pocket of Phil Greene.
The GFE (Goodison for Everton) lads worked SO hard trying to show everyone how it could be done, but were generally shouted down by people who sided with Kenwright/Wyness and various bobbleheads in the media.
Tom will be able to describe it better, but the phased redevelopment started with the Park End and went Anti Clockwise. I seem to remember the increased capacity Park End meant a relatively small drop in capacity when Bullens was demolished.
I also seem to remember once Bullens was demolished the idea was to move the pitch about 20 yards East (towards to School) to get rid of the Goodison Road pinch towards the South of the Main Stand. Again, Tom will be able to confirm if remember it right.
I think the plans are still hosted over on Toffeeweb? I'll have a look and share a link if so.
Makes no difference now mind, we're going to BM and it's going to be wonderful. But so could a redeveloped Goodison with a bit of Imagination and cash.
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The binman chronicles
Player Valuation: £80m
He could but the owners don't want to have to keep funding everything indefinitely, the more outside money comes in, the more self sufficient we become and the owners funds can be used elsewhere.
No one outside the club is ever going to sponsor the ground that has been called Goodison Park for the last 130 years, as no one will call it anything else. If our owners stump up the first 10 years of the new stadium and we become successful in that time then there is a chance of a blue chip sponsor wanting to come in. Every shot of the famous waterfront you'll have the three graces one end and our stadium at the other. Spurs' ground is great but it doesn't sit in shot of Big Ben etc. That's the potential that just doesn't exist if we stay at Goodison.
Hardly any stadium built by piecemeal has a grand overarching design. It will at least look badly uneven for how long it takes to build all four sides and unless you flatten more houses from the outside there is no angle to appreciate it from ground level if somehow it did.
As much as I love Goodison (and I think anyone who can remember when it was still one of the best grounds in the country would also feel the pain) redevelopment would just keep us treading water and in the process likely lose what makes Goodison special by modernising it. We would be spending a lot of money with little return, had we started down that path in the mid nineties it would make complete sense but we didn't and there are better alternatives now.
Apologies, even my my memory was playing tricks on me. GFE came later, it was KEIOC (Keep Everton in our City) around the time of Kirkby.
Anyway, as promised:
@Tom Hughes name on both of those, so those wishing to argue with little knowledge or expertise themselves may want to check themselves, it's not guesswork. Both links are extensive summaries of the substantial work put in.
Original page I took the above links from here:
Goodison Park Redevelopment | ToffeeWeb
Agree with that, commercially for sponsors it probably wouldn't work. It definitely would from a matchday revenue side.
The designs in the links I shared show it was a cohesive design.
What our neighbours do is piecemeal. They can carry on and do all 4 sides until it's 100k for all I care. it will look rubbish.
The binman chronicles
Player Valuation: £80m
Without naming rights it unfortunately doesn't make financial sense as the extreme cost even for an extra 20k seats won't give you sufficient payback. We are not Arsenal or Spurs paying London prices for those seats to cover the loan, therefore we would be taking away from the footballing side or if we have a good season break even. BMD hardly makes financial sense bar from the price of Everton Corp. afterwards, however if the naming rights cover the loan then least what we get from the extra 14k including better hospitality will go back into our pockets to spend on the team.
I remember reading Tom's work when they first entered the public domain and there is a lot to be commended. I was a fan at the time as if we didn't have a pot to pee in it was the ONLY way forward, start by adding a second tier on the park end and see where we go. But the timescales are optimistic (for a club with no money) and simply modern stadiums do not allow you to be sat behind posts which means the backs of the lower GS/BR under the overhangs would have to be closed, as too a massive chunk of the main stand. Or they get rebuilt completely. The phased redevelopment costs look now fanciful in the extreme, so he was talking about 50-70 million to get to a similar amount as BMD, by the time we got ourselves together financially it would have been 2013 ish to even start the PE development, taking capacity to 47k perhaps but then to remove/limit the restricted views we would be back down to 30 something and inflation meant we spent closer to 50m just to do that.
The external design is of one that only a mother would love, we might like it has it keeps some of Goodison but just like them lot love their stadium, we know it is a mishmash. After they complete all four sides in similar vein it might look semi reasonable, but it will have taken 30 odd years and a lot of money to get to that point. Certainly I think we all agree that BMD is a far better looking stadium than Anfield and that's what you get with a blank sheet of paper.
Don't get me wrong, I prefer BMD as a site and a design.
What infuriates me now as it did then is the club and people with no clue saying it was impossible, and a cow shed next to an out of town supermarket was our route back to the top of the game.
Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
This wouldn't be an ordinary naming rights arrangement though, would it? He has demonstrated that he'll name freshair to get money into the club. Whether or not we call it GP or USM GP is immaterial to him.... the idea is to be able to inject cash when necessary to boost our coffers. The cheaper redevelopment option would allow him to inject more into the team instead of paying off a loan..... but all that is dependent on if he will even do that in the first place in which case, we would be left with the bill. A club that has barely ever made any profit in years.
As regards redevelopment being piecemeal..... that needn't be the case.... it is about having a vision of an end product and working towards it. It also has the advantage of allowing the club to assess demand as each section is completed and not waste on over capacity or insufficent corporate. Some of the most famous stadia in the world have been redeveloped repeatedly. Some are a collection of individual stands or assymetric horseshoes or unified bowls. The Bernabeu, Nou Camp, San Siro and Dortmunds Westfalon stadium (now called Signal iduna Park, also disproving your naming point) are all iconic redeveloped stadia. They didn't always look as they do now and that could easily be the case at GP. Real Madrid are completing that transformation now...... it's costing a fortune, but that is cheaper than building the same capacity and quality from scratch elsewhere. Barcelona are planning similar for the same reason.
So, yes by all means be excited about BMD, but that shouldn't require the hardsell of mistruths about GP to support it..... if it does, then perhaps BMD isn't the solution we thought it was. It's categorically wrong to say that GP cannot be redeveloped or that it would necessarily be piecemeal, even for a fraction of BMDs outlay..... Especially before we know exactly what that cost is, how it is going to be financed, and what it will mean for those bottom lines of team funding going forward. Which still represents a lot of unknowns, and the most expensive "ifs and buts" by far......... Of course, that's all before we even get close to discussing the imponderable value of history and tradition, at the site of the world's first purpose built football stadium. Some things you can't buy and some things you don't miss till they're gone!!!
Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
The GFE lads commisioned Ward McHugh (of Twickers fame) to show what could be done at the site.... with little or no incursion on the surroundings, for two different sized options if I remember rightly. It was done at the time of Johnson's attempt to shift us out to Kirkby (the first time). Ironically, Kenwright secretly donated towards it to help oust PJ and boost his chances to gain power..... so he's known ever since that GP can be redeveloped, but lied repeatedly only a few yrs later.
I had already chosen redevelopment of Goodison for the final year project of my degree before that.... so by the time Destination Kirkby reared its ugly head a few years later, I decided to show that their were numerous options by drawing up one of those "I'd prepared earlier". A few years later, I reproduced another summary of potential options ranging from minimum change up to multiple new stands/tiers etc. I didn't really look at hundreds of millions of pounds worth of redevelopment, because that was before Moshiri or Usmanov..... but for £200-300m, practically anything would be achieveable.... and this would be at least equivalent spec to BMD if not bigger and dare I say better.
If USM is going to pay for everything and we'll be in real terms debt free going forward, then fair enough. Similarly if it can be shown that the finances represent manageable debt plus money for team building. We don't know any of this yet, plus we have a transport plan that has been written on the back of a fag packet.... Alternatively, if it's simply an exercise in packaging the club for sale (with the debt), then we might yet rue the day we left the Brick and the Old Lady for the shiny lights of the widest angle photo opportunity with the Liver buildings.... does that lens even exist?
Nor is their shed currently as tightly constricted on three of the four sides as Goodison due to roads, multiple houses, businesses and a school.
It's 9.5m from the outer wall of the Bullens to the edge of No 6. on the corner of Bullens Road and Muriel Street. The Street End is a spacious 13-14m.
How Liverpool have got to this position, with their treatment of locals, is reprehensible and something that's been quite often lambasted on here, and rightly so.
That shower have amassed the land behind and to the side making it almost a private road. Where's Lothair Road? Kemlyn Road? Half of Alroy has gone.
This has allowed them to build/rebuild two of their stands and it'll mean the same for the Anfield Road because, to put it simply, they have the space to do so.
While rebuilding Goodison may have been possible, I suspect all the above amongst may other elements would have made it impractical.