Just thought I'd share an extract from a typically excellent piece from Rushian.
Take a look at the date on the bottom of the page.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the last week we thought we’d poll the members of Red and White Kop to gauge the general feeling on sharing with our Blue cousins. We believe we have a high % of match goers visiting the site so the results should be fairly representative of the whole. The results were as follows:
Would you consider a ground share with Everton at a new stadium (total votes: 429)?
Yes if the costs were split 50:50 14.45 % (62)
Yes, if Liverpool were the major financial partner 4.20 % (18)
Yes, if Everton were the major financial partner 0.47 % (2)
No, we should build our own new stadium 43.82 % (188)
No, we should redevelop Anfield 33.33 % (143)
No, there's no need to move or expand 3.73 % (16)
The poll shows 81% against a ground share with a further 4% only agreeing if LFC were to effectively act as landlord to Everton. I think that’s pretty indicative of the general mood.
LFC’s original plans predict spending 80m on a stadium and paying back 125m over 25 years at 5m a year – this mortgage easily covered by an increase in revenue of 10-12m per annum. The need just isn’t there to save 25-30m (one summer’s spending) for the sake of the future integrity of the football club and stadium.
If economics are the major reason for sharing then why not go the whole nine yards and merge the two teams? Surely it makes economic sense to have one team in a city of 440,000 with no competition for the fanbase. Merseyside FC, with fans sat on purple seats, wearing purple Wanker Hats watching a team playing in purple kits and managed by Graham bloody Norton in a purple suit.
Whenever a ground share is mooted the proponents always refer to the examples of the Italian team that cohabit, principally Juventus and Torino, Lazio and Roma and the two Milanese giants. Conveniently the fact that in the first two examples the clubs concerned are desperate to break away from their current arrangements is quickly discarded. Juventus can’t wait to leave the Stadio delle Alpi and Lazio have plans to build their own stadium leaving Roma at the Stadio Olympico. “What about the two Milan clubs?” I hear you cry.
Their fans are very happy to have in the San Siro one of the World’s great stadia but I defy anyone to find a group of tifosi who’ll say they’re happy sharing. They’re not. If it was upto Milan fans they’d evict Inter tomorrow and vice versa, and they’ve been sharing since the 1920s (not 1990 as erroneously claimed by the Daily Post). One other thing links the above facilities – they were fully paid for by the local council and the teams went in as equal partners. Not even the most rabid Blue (apart from David Prentice) would suggest that Liverpool and Everton are in any sense financial equals in 2003.
No longer would the stadium be ours. Every other week you seat would be sat on by an Evertonian or an away fan. It wouldn’t be OUR tribal home where we invited both opposition teams and fans to challenge us. Instead it’d become a shared community facility. All well and good if you believe football is just another piece of popcorn entertainment but an anathema to those of us who continue to believe it is far more important than that.
Any semblance of a Kop would also cease to exist – the ground would have to be a symmetrical tub as each club would be “designated” a stand behind one goal as their home end. And there’s no chance that one would be allowed to be bigger than the other. The original plan for Stanley Park of a towering slope of humanity coursing with Red passion at one end replicating the old Kop would be replaced by just another set of seats mirroring the opposite end of the stadium. The original idea of a “new Kop” that assuaged many fans into believing in the move across Anfield Road would be cast away as unworkable. The names of Anfield and the Kop would become mere entries in the index of a history book.
And at the shared stadium itself what would else would we have? For every Shankly statue there’d have to be one of Harry Catterick. If Dixie Dean was relocated we’d demand one of Billy Liddell. The Paisley Gateway would be counterbalanced by a Howard Kendall Boulevard. If we moved our Great Eastern flagpole would they want St. Domingo’s transferred brick by brick?
More importantly what would happen to the Hillsborough memorial? Hillsborough defines Liverpool Football Club more than any collection of shiny cups or great players. A separation of the stadium and memorial is unthinkable.
We don’t want it, we don’t need it, and it’s wrong for Liverpool Football Club on every level. We won’t as fans be bounced into it. A ground share isn’t and never will be the answer.
To all those concerned listen hard, we don’t want YOUR ground share.
© RAWK 2003
http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=17806.msg252514#msg252514