By Peter Fearon
September 4 2002

This hard-hitting article by Peter Fearon reflects fears held by plenty of Blues that we are being led down the wrong road by those in control of the King's Dock project....

I have never been a big fan of the King's Dock project, or Paul Gregg. Call me crazy, but I have always suspected that a stadium built by so many different committees had to have a very good chance of being to football what St. John's needle was to restaurants.

Add to that pitches that slide into the car park and roofs that close like chrysanthemums and - well, it's one thing to draw it. It's another to build it - on time, on budget and so that it works. But I was willing to keep an open mind.

Now, not surprisingly, boardroom infighting over the King's Dock threatens to tear both the stadium and Everton apart.

If it is true that there is a power struggle inside the Everton boardroom, with Paul Gregg on one side and Bill Kenwright on the other Evertonians would be foolish to assume the better of the two options is necessarily the richer of the two men.

Yet Tony Wooly on Toffeeweb threw his support behind Gregg, saying,"If the price of progress on Kings Dock is a boardroom putsch by Paul Gregg then so be it." Tony has been a vocal critic of Everton's business mismanagement in the past and rightly so. His description of Dunford, Kenwright and Carter as the "Three Disgraces" may be spot on.

But I wouldn't trust Paul Gregg as far as I could throw his wallet.

First, I don't believe he has any interest whatever in Everton other than the business opportunity that the King's Dock project brings him. And that's bad news. The last time control was handed to someone who was not an Evertonian there was a disaster.

Second, I don't trust anyone who can turn his back on his children as Paul Gregg has done, according to press reports from 1999. If Gregg can turn his back on his own flesh and blood, children from his first marriage, does anyone believe he will think even twice about selling out Everton and the fans if it becomes expedient to do so?

Third, a man who figures out that he can avoid paying National Insurance by paying himself in gold bars, as Gregg reportedly did, has only two interests at heart. One is himself. The other is the gold bars.

We need good management in the boardroom just as we need good management in the dressing room and dugout. But good management is more than knowing how to make more money and how to avoid paying dues to society at large. It's about leadership, innovation, dedication and creativity.

What we are witnessing here is a crisis over priorities.

I believe Gregg sees Everton as a gigantic opportunity to own a new venue which happens, incidentally, to have a football club attached to it. Kenwright sees Everton as a beloved football club that arguably needs a new stadium. Bt you can bet that even if everything goes to plan at King's Dock - or the Carcraft Arena or Dial-a-Phone Stadium or whatever it will be eventually called - the last entity to profit will be Everton FC.

Me, I have always believed that there has been an unseemly haste to teardown Goodison Park and turn it into an Asda, as if it was just another combination of bricks and mortar. I always dreamed that Goodison would expand beyond the homes and streets that confine it, rather than the other way around.

But the priority should be to build a team, not a stadium with seats that will remain empty if we can't play to a higher standard. I would rather see Everton invest 30 million in two players who know where the goals are than in a stadium that, in the end, we won't even own.

To rephrase Tony Wooly: if sacrificing King's Dock is the price of keeping the likes of Paul Gregg away from Everton, then so be it.

This is the opinion of Peter Fearon, do you share his reservations, or are you are rare breed who wholeheartedly trusts those upstairs at Goodison? If you fancy contributing your opinions email us at DixiesSixty@hotmail.com.