A bitter north wind whipped through the old Liverpool docks, a mile as the crow flies from Goodison Park, and the sky was slate grey, just like the mood around the club who have been docked ten points and now await whatever storms may follow.
But the scene behind the vast granite wall where Everton’s new stadium is being built was one of utter incongruity, given the state of crisis the club find themselves in.
There were 1,100 people on site on Wednesday at the club’s new Bramley Moore Dock Stadium – where tasks completed this week have included the lowering into place of the concrete blocks which will form the players’ tunnel, the application of finishing touches to the vast glazed frontage and the erection of the huge lighting columns which will illuminate the fan park in the lee of that main entrance.
The gradient of the stands, some of which are already fitted with blue seats, is as steep as is legally permissible, with steel and glass structures at the top of each to project back the noise. The architect, Dan Meis, promised from day one a far steeper gradient, or ‘rake’, than the Emirates or West Ham’s London Stadium. It looks like he’s been as good as his word.
MailSport’s tour on Wednesday took us to one of the spots, on the second floor, where supporters will catch sight of the pitch before taking their seats. The breath-taking view of the steep-sided stands – with a flag poking out of the mud at the point where the centre circle will be painted – suggested that the spirit of the old Goodison Park cauldron will be alive and well.
Mail Sport were given a tour of Everton’s new Bramley Moore Dock Stadium on Wednesday
The ground – which will house 53,000 supporters – has the steepest legally-permitted stands
The £550m stadium will become the sixth largest in the Premier League and it is hoped that work will be completed a year from now ahead of three test events in early months of 2025
The setting, on the banks of the Mersey, also marks the place out from all other new stadiums of the Premier League era. From the Western Terrace, a vantage point to watch the team buses, fans will look out across the River Mersey. From the panoramic bar area in the Southern Stand concourse, there will be views across Nelson Dock, back to the Liver Building. A night game at the stadium, illuminated by light, really will be something else.
But while the industry continued, flat out, to ensure completion a year from now – ahead of at least three test events in the early months of 2025 and Everton’s arrival for the following season – there was no disguising the deep uncertainty beyond that lay beyond the Victorian turrets of the granite wall.
The ten-point deduction was quite clearly something Everton did not see coming. Some insiders within the club hierarchy have this week remarked on their colleagues looking so visibly low. For two years, the new stadium, visible from Everton’s seventh floor offices at the Liver Building as it rose from a derelict dock, had seemed to offer a vision of hope.
The mood in the blue half of city this week suggests that collective indignation over the proportionality of the punishment may help power the club from the position, second bottom of the Premier League, to which they’ve been sunk.
The resolve certainly salved the gloom at the Winslow Hotel on Goodison Road, where supporters are encouraged inside by the painting of Dixie Dean, match ball in hand, on the pub’s sign. It was there that around 70 people gathered, on Wednesday night, for a meeting of various fan groups. They are planning a campaign which will include the distribution of up to 38,000 pink cards emblazoned with the Premier League logo and the word ‘corrupt’, before Sunday’s match against Manchester United.
‘Welcome aboard, everybody, to the biggest fight I believe Everton Football Club will have had in its 145-year history,’ said Dave Kelly, chair of the Everton fans’ forum, as he got the meeting under way.
‘The Premier League have taken the wrong club on – in the wrong city,’ insisted Kelly, telling the meeting that Sky Sports had assured him they will not turn down the volume on any abusive language – including planned anti-Premier League chants – on Sunday. He said: ‘They won’t be turning the audio down [or] editing it like we have got a pre-season friendly going on at Goodison. I think they’re probably as keen as we are that Goodison is a bear pit.’
To Kelly and others, it is vital now that fans’ voices are heard in the club’s appeal. Kelly, a veteran of the fans’ fight against the unpopular and ultimately abortive ground move to Kirkby, is urging Everton to allow them to make a submission.
Tasks completed this week included the lowering into place of the concrete blocks which will form the players’ tunnel, finishing touches to the frontage and the erection of lighting columns
There were 1,100 people on site where Mail Sport visited the ground on Wednesday
This will be where some fans walk out to see the pitch and go to their seats when Everton make the move to Bramley Moore Dock from Goodison Park
‘Why weren’t fans allowed to make a contribution [originally]?’ he said, after the meeting. ‘We’ve been shouting from the rooftops for years that the club hasn’t been run correctly. We’ve now asked the club that when their appeal goes, they put in an application for the fans to make their own submission – and if required, to attend an appeal hearing in person.’
The Winslow is a pub where one of Everton’s 1939 league champions, Norman Greenhalgh, was once landlord. That 1939 team, including Joe Mercer and Tommy Lawton, was stopped in its prime by the outbreak of war, just as had happened in 1914. When probably the club’s greatest team secured qualification for the European Cup in 1985, the Heysel Disaster brought a five-year ban from continental competition. And now, as a stadium to grace the Premier League takes shape, this. ‘Evertonians and their hard-luck stories!’ winces one fan.
There is certainly realism in fans’ arguments. These people are not blind to the way the club has been mismanaged. ‘We broke a rule. We know we have,’ said Katie Carter, a driving force behind the 1878s group which has already raised £40,000 to pay for eight protest banners, which will be prominent on Sunday. ‘We are not going to stand here and play the victim but the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.’
The setting on the banks of the Mersey marks the place out from other new stadiums of the Premier League era
A night game at the stadium, illuminated by light, will provide some stunning views
The spirit of the Goodison Park cauldron looks like it will be truly alive at their new home
Some supporters found themselves under attack for protesting against Bill Kenwright and Farhad Moshiri, as catastrophic spending and mismanagement drove the club into a second successive relegation fight and a losing battle with the league sustainability rules. But it was the same fans at the Winslow on Wednesday – demonstrating that those maligned last year had the club’s interests at heart.
The question, of course, is whether their protests can influence what happens next. There is certainly realism in fans’ arguments. These people are not blind to the way the club has been mismanaged. ‘We broke a rule. We know we have,’ said Katie Carter, a driving force behind the 1878s group which has already raised £40,000 to pay for eight protest banners which will be prominent on Sunday. ‘We are not going to stand here and play the victim but the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.’
Everton are unlikely to ask the Premier League for a full acquittal. Rather, their appeal seems likely to focus on the league’s unwillingness to account for several mitigating factors – including the need to make interest payments on loans taken out to build that new stadium.
The club’s proportionality case may be helped by the fact that the Premier League sustainability rules do not even detail any formula to be applied if a club is in breach. There is no precedent. Everton are the first to be docked point in this way.
But even if the ten-point deduction were to be reduced to three, it would not prevent last season’s three relegated Premier League sides, Leicester City, Leeds United and Southampton, mounting legal cases against Everton. (A three-point deduction would not have relegated them in the 2021/22 season.)
As of last night, Everton had received no indication of any club’s plans to sue. But even if none is forthcoming, there are also the grave risks attached to American investment firm 777 buying the club from Moshiri, having already loaned Everton money. The investigative new outlet Josimar reported this week that one of several clubs under 777’s ownership – Genoa – is at risk of bankruptcy, with creditors owner £160million.
The Toffees have recently been hit with a ten-point deduction for breaching financial rules
Fans vow to fight the Premier League following their points docking with protests set to take place before Sunday’s match with Manchester United at Goodison Park
The commercial potential of the stadium at Bramley Moore Dock suggests that Everton do not need to be bailed out by an outfit such as this. That a credible buyer with pedigree must surely be out there, ready to buy Everton, a club literally building for the future. As of yet, there has been none.
But if the 777 deal does not go ahead, he club risk falling into financial administration, with a further nine-point deduction. The genuine risk of that happening is part of the reason why the fight to have the ten-point deduction reduced, or replaced with a fine, is so important now.
Three of the four phases of the new stadium’s hospitality packages are already sold out. The number of hospitality ‘covers’ sold will increase from 1,500 to 5,000. The fan park area will become a general events space. The first of many expected new local hotels is being built to accommodate the numbers. So much lies just over the horizon, virtually within reach. And that, for Everton, has been the profoundest agony of all, this week.