Tom Hughes
Player Valuation: £10m
A lot of folklore has sprung up about our former stadium moves.
You have to look at it in context - Kings Dock, was a great facility, but the model was flawed in my opinion we only would have owned part of the development a shared the revenue.
At the time, we were on our backsides and DK would have improved the clubs ability to compete - i said at the time if it didnt go ahead it would consign Everton to a decade or more of at best threading water and at worst regression and that has come to pass. Thats not to say as we sit here today it wasnt the correct decision given we will be walking into a dockside new ground. But there has been a fair bit of blood letting and pain to get to this point.
I feel much of the above gets lost by the folklore around both projects over the years and complex multi faceted issues have become very binary and simplified.
To bring it back to your point - Kirkby was defo an issue, if the project had been in the City less people would have been arsed, the group were called keep Everton in our City after all.
Also remember the whole thing was a cluster........think the enquiry cost the club 10 mill in fees when we didn't have it. Back then that would get you a Baines and a Jags. How much was Arteta sold for again!
Apologies, I missed your post.
There isn't that much "folklore" to be honest. Most of it is pretty much all well documented. Certainly regarding the Destination Kirkby debacle.
Kings Dock was the real deal of the century.... and wouldve been secured for just £30m (possibly rising to £60m), offered in a reverse Mortgage deal by one of our directors, and even also offered by the city council, such was their eagerness to complete this facility. A tiny outlay for a 55k HOK/Populous designed stadium, not massively dissimilar to the Ajax arena, with closing roof and moving pitch for fully flexible usage. The club would've received all of its matchday income and the company that would've held the rites for the entertainment side, would've been owned by the same Everton director, with the prospect of that, plus full ownership being taken inhouse in the future. The site benefited from a city-centre location with all major transport hubs and amenities within easy walking distance. The ballot even came with an alternative redevelopment option presented by the GFE campaign group. A scheme developed by Ward McHugh Architects (Designers of Twickenham). Ironically, originally part-funded by Kenwright when he was trying to stifle Peter Johnson's plans only a few years earlier. The power struggle and selfish decisions that ensued were the real act of criminal negligence and missed opportunity.... that left us in the wilderness for the following decades. Especially when you now consider the costs of BMD, the loss of almost 20yrs of revenue increase, the decades of underachievement and the pain of these last few years that could've killed us off completely.
Destination Kirkby was a completely different animal on every level. It was soon christened "Desperation" Kirkby for very good reason. It was a far more basic Barr Construction design and build project. It was presented as an entirely Hobson's-choice decision (for obvious reasons), with no redevelopment option offered and entirely contrived threats of Goodison imminently failing its safety certificate. It was heralded as a stadium for "practically nothing" at the most "accessible site" in the country. The truth was that the enabling-funding derived from the whole retail element was miniscule, amounting to just £12m of the £100m+ construction costs. With the club still picking up practically all of the costs. The "most accessible stadium" claims completely collapsed after the stadium transport plan went through multiple failed revisions, because the transport modellers could not achieve anything close to the planned dispersal times. "Park and ride" turned into park and walk and then quickly descended to "park and hike" in the next revision, as the mythical numbers of additional buses and facilities vanished after the merest scrutiny. Knowsley council subsequently had to put in the now infamous capacity-capping clauses in the small print to cover their arses, which could've seen the operating capacity limited to 40k or less.... the club knew all about this before the ballot and failed to disclose it.
Put it this way, even after the inquiry, the club were still able to apply retrospectively for the stadium development following the collapse the retail led scheme. They would've only been paying a further £12m above their original costs..... However, after the transport plans were literally laughed out of the Public Inquiry.....support had dwindled to nothing and the whole concept had become a humiliating hot potato..... that was unceremoniously dropped.
On your final point.... as I said previously, if Gillmoss or Speke had been the proposed site, the campaign would've simply had a different name. It was the obvious lies, corrupt decision process driven by third parties and the logistical and identity/perception issues of any peripheral site that were the driving forces. KEIOC only had a few short weeks to present their argument, and were given no opportunity to present them in the ballot literature. Despite all of this and Terry Leahy Tesco white horses, they were only just pipped in the vote, and within a few weeks/months, as those lies were fully exposed, that support shifted dramatically. Destination Kirkby was only ever an opportunity for Kenwright and his nefarious cronnies. It certainly wasn't one for Everton FC and Evertonians.
