Passion. Loyalty. Pride. The credit crunch. Ticket prices. Pragmatics. Which arguments are the most compelling in the ground-sharing debate? Kevin Garside and Jeremy Wilson go head to head with their respective arguments.
Kevin Garside - No to ground-sharing
Football, like all sports, is a form of escape, a fantasy, an adventure, a romance, an attachment. It conforms not to rational promptings but to emotional impulses. Yes, it is logical for Liverpool and Everton to ground-share. Yes, it makes fiscal sense. Why build two stadia to accommodate two teams housed either side of Stanley Park? It would be madness. Well yes, it would. For the fan, football is a form of madness. Necessarily so. It provides a subtext to our lives. It nourishes the parts work cannot reach. It allows us to drift legitimately for periods of time from the more prosaic conventions that govern us. From responsibility.
We do this in groups. It becomes a secondary identity. This is Dave. He's okay. He's a Liverpool fan. Hi Dave. Welcome to the club. You're in, one of us. Out of this simple commonality a relationship flows. Dave might eat insects, he might pierce his toes, he might do lots of things that would get him locked up, but we forgive him his eccentricities because he's a Liverpool fan; part of the family.
Dave and the boys convene once or twice a week at their ground. It's been their home for more than a hundred years. Their dads came before them, their granddads before them. They are bound by a set of shared beliefs that have evolved and made them what they are in football. This is Anfield.
Dave's cousin, John, is a blue. John's dad, Dave's uncle, went to Goodison Park as a kid to spite his old fella. John loves Everton like Dave loves the reds. John's bedroom wall is a shrine to Everton. He's even got a picture of Kendall, Ball and Harvey that his dad cut out of a Shoot magazine when he was 10.
Dave and John are not economists. They have no interest in balancing books. They are not clients of Anfield and Goodison Park. They are, in their imaginations, part owners of Liverpool and Everton. They turn up without fail in all weathers in their replica shirts bought at the club shops and stump up money they don't have to get their emotional fix.
Dave and John share blood but not teams. This part of their lives is experienced independently. They are mutually exclusive. This is the tradition in Merseyside, in England, in Britain; separate homes at the home of the game.
Jeremy Wilson - Yes to ground-sharing
Rick Parry, the Liverpool chief executive, struck a rather hopeful note earlier this week when he attempted to allay ever-growing fears about the viability of a new stadium. "It's a case of a delay while things settle down," he said.
A delay while things settle down? At a time when even the world's most eminent economists have little idea when confidence in the banking system will return, it was hardly a statement to reassure any Liverpool fan.
As for Everton, the club claims that it has funds for a new stadium, yet the council's objection to the retail element of their Kirkby project has ensured ongoing delays. Time, though, is hardly on the side of either football club.
On Saturday, Liverpool will host Fulham and can expect to earn around £1.4 million from the game, while a similar fixture for Everton would generate in the region of £800,000. Comparable matches at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium or Manchester United's Old Trafford would net the clubs around £3.5 million.
Over a season, it gives Arsenal and Manchester United an ongoing advantage in turnover in excess of £50 million over their Merseyside rivals.
And yet there is a simple solution. In Stanley Park, Liverpool have planning permission - but not the money - for a 60,000-seater ground that could potentially become a 75,000 capacity stadium. By contrast, Everton's difficulties surround the location for their ground. It is often said that a problem shared is a problem halved yet, in this case, an unlikely alliance would actually solve two problems.
A shared stadium would also provide a wider focal point for Liverpool that could represent the 'Wembley of the north' and attract other high profile events to Merseyside. A call to consider the idea from both council leader Warren Bradley and Steven Broomhead, the chief executive of the North West Regional Development Agency, also suggests that public bodies may look favourably on supporting a joint project that could serve to unite the community.
For all the understandable emotion about retaining each club's unique identity, it is a project that has been proven to work in other leading European football cities.
The San Siro is famously the base for both AC Milan and Inter, while the Olympic Stadium in Rome hosts Roma and Lazio. The Allianz Arena in Germany can even change colour from red to blue depending on whether Bayern Munich or TSV 1860 Munich are at home.
The lesson is clear. Football waits for nobody and, if Liverpool and Everton doggedly allow their hearts to rule their heads, they will continue to get left behind.
Kevin Garside - No to ground-sharing
Football, like all sports, is a form of escape, a fantasy, an adventure, a romance, an attachment. It conforms not to rational promptings but to emotional impulses. Yes, it is logical for Liverpool and Everton to ground-share. Yes, it makes fiscal sense. Why build two stadia to accommodate two teams housed either side of Stanley Park? It would be madness. Well yes, it would. For the fan, football is a form of madness. Necessarily so. It provides a subtext to our lives. It nourishes the parts work cannot reach. It allows us to drift legitimately for periods of time from the more prosaic conventions that govern us. From responsibility.
We do this in groups. It becomes a secondary identity. This is Dave. He's okay. He's a Liverpool fan. Hi Dave. Welcome to the club. You're in, one of us. Out of this simple commonality a relationship flows. Dave might eat insects, he might pierce his toes, he might do lots of things that would get him locked up, but we forgive him his eccentricities because he's a Liverpool fan; part of the family.
Dave and the boys convene once or twice a week at their ground. It's been their home for more than a hundred years. Their dads came before them, their granddads before them. They are bound by a set of shared beliefs that have evolved and made them what they are in football. This is Anfield.
Dave's cousin, John, is a blue. John's dad, Dave's uncle, went to Goodison Park as a kid to spite his old fella. John loves Everton like Dave loves the reds. John's bedroom wall is a shrine to Everton. He's even got a picture of Kendall, Ball and Harvey that his dad cut out of a Shoot magazine when he was 10.
Dave and John are not economists. They have no interest in balancing books. They are not clients of Anfield and Goodison Park. They are, in their imaginations, part owners of Liverpool and Everton. They turn up without fail in all weathers in their replica shirts bought at the club shops and stump up money they don't have to get their emotional fix.
Dave and John share blood but not teams. This part of their lives is experienced independently. They are mutually exclusive. This is the tradition in Merseyside, in England, in Britain; separate homes at the home of the game.
Jeremy Wilson - Yes to ground-sharing
Rick Parry, the Liverpool chief executive, struck a rather hopeful note earlier this week when he attempted to allay ever-growing fears about the viability of a new stadium. "It's a case of a delay while things settle down," he said.
A delay while things settle down? At a time when even the world's most eminent economists have little idea when confidence in the banking system will return, it was hardly a statement to reassure any Liverpool fan.
As for Everton, the club claims that it has funds for a new stadium, yet the council's objection to the retail element of their Kirkby project has ensured ongoing delays. Time, though, is hardly on the side of either football club.
On Saturday, Liverpool will host Fulham and can expect to earn around £1.4 million from the game, while a similar fixture for Everton would generate in the region of £800,000. Comparable matches at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium or Manchester United's Old Trafford would net the clubs around £3.5 million.
Over a season, it gives Arsenal and Manchester United an ongoing advantage in turnover in excess of £50 million over their Merseyside rivals.
And yet there is a simple solution. In Stanley Park, Liverpool have planning permission - but not the money - for a 60,000-seater ground that could potentially become a 75,000 capacity stadium. By contrast, Everton's difficulties surround the location for their ground. It is often said that a problem shared is a problem halved yet, in this case, an unlikely alliance would actually solve two problems.
A shared stadium would also provide a wider focal point for Liverpool that could represent the 'Wembley of the north' and attract other high profile events to Merseyside. A call to consider the idea from both council leader Warren Bradley and Steven Broomhead, the chief executive of the North West Regional Development Agency, also suggests that public bodies may look favourably on supporting a joint project that could serve to unite the community.
For all the understandable emotion about retaining each club's unique identity, it is a project that has been proven to work in other leading European football cities.
The San Siro is famously the base for both AC Milan and Inter, while the Olympic Stadium in Rome hosts Roma and Lazio. The Allianz Arena in Germany can even change colour from red to blue depending on whether Bayern Munich or TSV 1860 Munich are at home.
The lesson is clear. Football waits for nobody and, if Liverpool and Everton doggedly allow their hearts to rule their heads, they will continue to get left behind.
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