Simon, “I’ve had a little input into the Football Quarter in Liverpool; do you know anything about it” Bill, “Yeah, a little.” Simon, “That’s at kind of an advanced stage at the moment; the guys from KEIOC are sitting down with a major construction company and the council over the next couple of weeks to draw up a prospectus…” Bill, “Fantastic” Simon, “Are there any plans for anything to happen?” Bill, “There are six sites we’re looking at; three of which we’re really keen on, Edge Lane, Speke and another one” Simon, “Stonebridge Cross?” Bill, “Yeah, the one on the East Lancs, yes that one…I would really love Edge Lane.…when I first came on the board about twenty years ago, some guys came to us with plans to regenerate Goodison, really forward thinking guys, they’d thought of everything, it was fantastic…we got told no, the fans won’t be into that stuff…the happiest hour was when I got a phone call just outside Hull and I was told Kirkby was going to get passed; just after I had another and I was told, officially, that Kirkby had failed…”
Simon, “I’ve been told that for the football quarter the council could throw in substantial amounts of land in and around Stanley Park” Bill, “In fairness to the council, even the guy before …I’d phone him every other day and I’d say please please give me something in Liverpool; he phones me up two years ago, I’ve got the answer…I’ve read it up, I’ve sorted it out, every Evertonian pays £10k for their seat for the next 10 years. What can you say when someone says that to you…”
Mark, “How on earth can we fund a new stadium?” Bill, “But you can, you can, if you’ve got the infrastructure, you can fund it; it’s much much easier to fund a new stadium than what we’ve got” Simon, “We couldn’t fund Kings Dock though Bill” Bill, “That was different, I’ll tell you what happened at the Kings Dock. All along, the council, the Merseyside Development Corporation, all along, they were saying we could do it this week; we could do it this week. Finally we came to the last meeting and they said we can’t do it, you need to find another £40m, and we went away and the only way to raise the money was to sell the whole caboodle. Kings Dock was really seriously world class. I’m not quite sure whether Merseyside Development were serious”
Bill, “This thing, this Football Quarter…is it two stadiums or one?” Simon, “Two, its two stadiums…the idea is that both Everton and Liverpool stay in…”Bill, “And where is it exactly?” Simon, “The boundaries haven’t been set, but they’re around the square of the park if you think about it, it’s inclusive of the Walton and Anfield area and there was talk of it including Walton Hall Park; that’s the home of Liverpool FA.” Bill acknowledges Walton Hall Park as being spoken about as a possible new stadium. Bill “Have they done a lot of work on the financing side of it, or is it still a dream?” Simon, “It’s a lot further along than a dream, but the financing part is the next stage, interesting investors” Bill, “Could you do a shared stadium” Mark, “If it meant Everton was successful?” Bill, “I’m led to believe John Henry is willing to discuss it, I don’t know; the last lot weren’t interested…to be fair neither where we”
Bill, “Go on; ask me more….are you aware of some of the good things Everton do?” Mark, “I wanted to ask about Finch Farm; we lease it for £1.1m a year, how long do we lease that for?” Simon, “Fifty years.” Bill, “We don’t know that.” Mark, “It appears to me that, in the short term, the lease might be better, but long term it’s going to cost the club a hell of a lot more money; would you agree with that?” Bill,” Of course, but look, you have no money, you need to get the cash in, so, does it matter?” Mark, “Long term I think it does, yeah.” Bill, “So what do you do, you go without a training facility?” Barry, “Is there an option to buy it Bill?” Bill, “There’s always an option to buy any long term facility, but you have to pay a penalty haven’t you? There’s an option to pay your mortgage back; everything you do is like a mortgage, unless you’re Liverpool and you have fifty million in readies for Torres…..unless you’re Liverpool you don’t get it up front, you get it over three years”
Simon, “Just going back to the finances, this conversation has gone all over the place…..you were saying before that you can account for where the money has gone…” Bill, “I didn’t say that, what I said was the accounts are there” Simon, “Yeah, I know and to be honest I don’t think that anyone is taking a salary out or anything, but one of the things that people are scratching their heads about is this rise in other operating costs, it’s gone from…” Mark, “It’s gone to £24m so there’s twenty odd million there that Evertonians don’t know about… what’s that’s going on; that’s why we’ve come here, we’ve asked Robert to fill us in…” Bill, “When you say other operating costs what do you mean?” Simon, “That’s what it says in the accounts, other operating costs” Mark, “That’s why there’s so much confusion, they’ve steadily risen….” Bill, “I’m sure… whatever accounts you get they go through the most stringent structure imaginable; It’s just a heading, what’s the heading again?” Mark & Simon, “Other operating Costs” Bill, “And how much is it?” Mark, “£24m” Simon, “And that has steadily risen over the…” Bill, “Hold on hold on; then you haven’t got the £53m for the players? Hold on, fifty three plus twenty four, well that leaves you four or five for the other………are these other operating costs David? I don’t know, I have no idea”
Mark “Well, surely as Chairman you should be aware what these other operating costs are?” Bill, “No, absolutely not, and why should I? I can’t break down the accounts for you…” Mark, “This is why some Evertonians are saying money is going missing” Bill, “Guys, listen, there’s the door if you think that…seriously, seriously…hold on, hold on just listen, you have accounts that have to go through every fecking government structure under the sun, so let’s not talk about money missing.” Simon, “In all fairness, Mark didn’t say money is going missing; he’s just saying some Evertonians…” Bill, “No, I’m not having a go at Mark, I’m just saying, listen guys, this is crazy”
Bill, “Are you shareholders? Why aren’t you shareholders? Don’t you want to know about the accounts?” Simon, “The accounts are fed back to the fans anyway” Bill, “Okay, but don’t you want to know about the accounts or do you just want to question the accounts?” Simon, “I want to know what that is, yes”
Barry, “I just want to know what’s the future for Everton Football Club, that’s my fear…as Mark said before, I want to know what we’re going to do…” Bill, “Well, are you pleased with what we’ve done so far? Barry, “Yeah, David Moyes has come in and had a five year plan, he’s just finished his second five year plan, some of the players are 28, 29, 30; what’s his next five year plan? What’s Everton’s five year plan? We can’t spend money now as we haven’t got any, we understand that, but how are we going to spend money in the future?”
Bill “So what was your five year plan guys? What was your five year plan in 1999, 2000? What was the plan then?” Mark, “We need to reduce the age Bill.” Bill, “No it was to avoid relegation. Then reduce the age. I still think that’s a good one. So what’s the next step? Sell. Sell! Sell! Get someone in there, if you know anyone, you’ve got my number……sell. In the meantime, you’ve got a Chairman who keeps the spirit of our Football Club like no other who’s sitting and talking to you like no other who’s…….”
Simon, “What about our mate?” Bill, “Who?” Simon, “Philip Green; would he not be interested in it?” Bill, “No.” Mark, “What’s his involvement Bill?” Bill, “Philip Green? He’s just the best advisor you can have in the history of the world” Mark, “You’re saying there’s no money involved then Bill?” Bill, “He’s not interested. He would say to me, [mockney accent] “Bill, Bill, Bill, if I put facking money into Everton Football Club you think Liverpool fans would buy from Topshop?” He’s not interested; he’s a total genius when it comes to money, he’s like Mozart is to music…he’s great with the bank, he’s just…well… he’s just an advisor; but he’s great at that. Now if I said, “Philip I don’t want your advice” he’d be thrilled…he’s kept me going through terrible times, he’s like that with his mates….anyway, go on…”
Simon, “I was just going to say, just to clarify, how involved is he because going by what Mr Wyness said, he’s the one that fired Mr Wyness; he’s the one that sent him packing.” Bill, “Guys, so you’re now advocating you believe Keith Wyness? Are you saying you believe Keith Wyness?” Simon, “Well…what’s your side of the story?” Bill, “No no, I’m asking the question, first.” Simon, “Well, his silence paid for” Bill, “The easy answer son, are you saying you’re going to believe…”Simon, “Yeah ok then yes, I do…I do believe Philip Green has got more involvement with Everton” Bill, “Okay so let me tell you what happened with Keith Wyness. On a Tuesday, Keith and me and all the guys meet down there for lunch, and we’re planning the cup campaign or whatever it was…Saturday morning he phones me and says “Chairman…I’m gonna go”, I say go where, and he says “I’m gonna go because something’s happened”….it’s a bit like you phoning me, I’m laughing, and I said listen, phone me later, so he phones me later, he’s in the Liverpool party, he says he going to buy Real Mallorca… I said you’ve got a great job, don’t do it. I can’t tell you what he said, but it’s to do with his love for what he thought, anyway, he left to go to Real Mallorca. Keith had had enough because he got the things on the walls ‘Death Keith Wyness’…. he was a very strong man but broken by what happened, and I’m not going to go into any more. Was he bought? Well, he was given severance pay” Simon, “But he’s not allowed to talk about it?” Bill, “What gets me is you listen to people who walk out of your football club… why would you do it Simon? Why would you bring it up? It’s potty, the next one you’ll be talking about is, who’s the lad we had for five minutes?” Barry, “Trevor Birch.”
Bill then tells a story of Trevor Birch’s first day, about him looking at Anfield; Bill explained that he could always see Anfield as it was in his heart as he was a red. The cameras were there at Goodison, he said we can’t do anything until we get a new ground, Bill told him he couldn’t say that on day one and that he later started talking about selling Rooney and that after Trevor left he sent him a note saying it was the biggest mistake of his life.
Simon, “Can I just say though Bill, it all comes down to communication, it gets to a stage when people hear rumours and rumours and rumours and it all adds up…” Bill, “But Simon, haven’t you always had that? How many of these rumours, what percentage, would you say are true? I’d say none.”
