Everton stadium back to square one

[ronk]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/nov/26/everton-liverpool

The Kirkby move has been blocked by the government, seems dead in the water.

Looks like they're belatedly going to see about getting a ground share arrangement with Liverpool. Idiots. They're really missed the boat, the support was there but it's too late to block Liverpool -- they might have their own problems -- and it's going to look awful hard to hammer out a deal.

If they'd been earlier they could have included a shared stadium as part of the World Cup 2018 bid and built something really special.

FFS they're just down the road from each other and can't play at the same time anyway. As I neutral, I'm fuming at such idiocy and foolishness. As a Blue, I'm a bit smug right now.

[nickson71]

It made me chuckle on the local news last night when they had a bit on the Everton stadium not getting past planning then lead on to the fact that the city of Liverpool handed in there worldcup 2018 bid to the FA .... even though both have got big problem actually build the new ground that they need

[Fish111]

Ground share won't work in a city like Liverpool just as it wouldn't work i Manchester, Birmingham or for some London clubs. The view of football grounds over here are that they are part of the clubs identity and are modern day cathedrals where we go to support 'our' club at 'our' ground. The thought of sharing a ground with your local rivals would be too much to bear.

[ronk]

It made me chuckle on the local news last night when they had a bit on the Everton stadium not getting past planning then lead on to the fact that the city of Liverpool handed in there worldcup 2018 bid to the FA .... even though both have got big problem actually build the new ground that they need

If England get the World Cup, Liverpool will suddenly find doors open to new lines of credit. It'll be like the scene in Die Hard where the FBI cut the power.

[mr_nool]

A bit off topic, but the Dubai economy is suffering badly at the moment [urlnp=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/david-prosser-dubai-slides-further-into-financial-crisis-1827597.html]LINK[/urlnp]. Makes the scenario of a sheik taking Liverpool over more unlikely. OK, it's "only" Dubai, but the recent events are certain to have quite a big impact in the Middle East.

[Crossie]

haha @ Everton - goin down too.

[craigmcfc]

Jo will save them

[ronk]

Ground share won't work in a city like Liverpool just as it wouldn't work i Manchester, Birmingham or for some London clubs. The view of football grounds over here are that they are part of the clubs identity and are modern day cathedrals where we go to support 'our' club at 'our' ground. The thought of sharing a ground with your local rivals would be too much to bear.

I understand that but what's different about Liverpool city is that two clubs with roughly similar size matchday support, roughly similar sized stadia, located adjacent to each other are thinking about building two new stadia of roughly the same size again at the exact same time. And they're both completely bankrupting themselves in the process.

They honestly could build an Emirates quality stadium at 60k for so much less than 2 50k stadia that it's not funny. With a bit of planning they could go down the Millennium Stadium route and have a closing roof in the city centre itself (or some public transport hub that would create this super matchday atmosphere and pay off the stadium super-fast. It'd be fantastic for businesses in the area to double their number of matchdays.

There are all sorts of reasons it's hard to do elsewhere, but it could actually work in Liverpool.

[lets all have a disco]

I wonder if they did share ground what colour the seats would be? Purple maybe? What about the Mighty Kop would Everton fans be happy about going to sit in a replica of the current one but at their ground? what about names of stands? what about the interior? what about advertising? hmmmmmm,personally i think both clubs would have to bend over backwards to accomodate.

IT WONT HAPPEN.

[nickson71]

The interesting thing would be if it did happen (which is highly unlikely to say the least) how soon would we see other clubs following the same path

[Im_Spartacus]

Ground share won't work in a city like Liverpool just as it wouldn't work i Manchester, Birmingham or for some London clubs. The view of football grounds over here are that they are part of the clubs identity and are modern day cathedrals where we go to support 'our' club at 'our' ground. The thought of sharing a ground with your local rivals would be too much to bear.

I disagree with that on a number of levels.

As I think Ronk has already pointed out, they are two clubs with similar matchday crowds, for whom a 60k stadium would be just right. Very different to other cities in terms of the size of the clubs, where one would dominate the other in a big way.

Manchester where they could probably fill 100k, but we will probably always struggle with 50k
Birmingham similar, clubs are very different sizes

When you have two clubs who have massive histories, struggling financially, who both need a ground about the same size, it would be criminal for both clubs to blow 100m each on a new ground when they could save the initial fee and the ongoing costs and spend the money on chasing success.

Cant see the problem myself. If we were up shit street with money, I would be all in for sharing a ground with united if it benefited us. I wouldnt be up for it if I thought they would benefit more though - and I suppose that is the problem Liverpool fans have with this.