While mathematicians will tell you that two into one does go, anybody who has studied the psychology of football and football fans would probably tell you different.
At English Premier League football club Everton’s annual meeting, chairman Bill Kenwright, a theatre entrepreneur, held forth on a range of issues including proposals that the club should share a stadium with their near neighbours Liverpool
Everton are, in many respects, the surprise package of English football this season. Not long ago there were fears for the continued existence of the club as it faced a financial crisis which had translated to mediocre performance on the field and cumulated in the sale of their best player, wunderkind Wayne Rooney, to Manchester United for £28 million.
Now with a funding package in the wings and the club in third place in the Premiership, things are looking brighter for the ‘blue half of Merseyside.’
Yet if Everton are going to do anything more than ride the wave of revival until it peters out, they clearly have to do something about their Goodison Park stadium which is too old and too small to allow the club to generate the sort of income which will allow it top compete with the biggest clubs in England and Europe. And make no mistake, the Champions League is where Everton fans and the club’s board believe they should be.
Less than half a mile from Goodison Park you’ll find Anfield, the legendary home of Liverpool Football Club who – thanks to remarkable second half fight back against Olympiakos, and a thundering goal from Steven Gerard, the game’s most bankable commodity – will be taking part in the knockout stages of the Champions League in the New Year.
But Liverpool too know that if they are to be consistently successful in the long term, they need a bigger stadium.
Two neighbouring clubs with a common problem. Surely there’s only one solution?
Don’t you believe it.
For years both clubs doggedly pursued independent proposals for their own 60,000 capacity stadiums in different parts of the city. Fans don’t like the prospect of sharing a ground and, as they see it, loosing their identity.
But the cost of building and operating two state of the art stadiums and then finding ways of enabling them to generate money outside of match days, would be considered ludicrous in almost any other sector of business or commerce. Sharing is, or at least should be, a no-brainer.
And perhaps there is now light at the end of the tunnel. Meetings have taken place between the two clubs and the UK sports minister Richard Caborn to discuss the prospect of sharing but, as Bill Kenwright pointed out, any such arrangement would have to be on the basis of a strict 50:50 split.
He told the AGM that he would rather resign than have the club he loves become the junior partner in a ground-share with Liverpool. But that said, he fully understands the cost implications and the sound sense that sharing makes.
Liverpool and Everton enjoy – if that’s the right word – a fierce rivalry which has been known to split families. Yet it has become one of the more friendly rivalries in football, because while football loyalties are divided there’s a shared pride in the city of Liverpool and being a Scouser.
So while English soccer fans have traditionally been implacably opposed to ground-share deals, perhaps there is scope for Liverpool and Everton to not only secure their own financial futures but to break the mould and, if not open the floodgates, at least set a positive precedent.
Until now, English clubs have shared only in extremis – Crystal Palace has shared Selhurst Park with both Wimbledon and Charlton Athletic who were also tenants of West Ham before moving back to their roots at The Valley in Greenwich. And, of late, soccer clubs have been happy to share with rugby clubs.
Elsewhere inn Europe facility sharing is , if not commonplace, certainly not unusual. Part of the reason is historic in that clubs have used communally owned facilities which neither party can claim ownership of, fans clearly take a more pragmatic view.
In Germany, the massive Allianz Arena is nearing completion in Munich. It will stage games during the 2006 FIFA World Cup and house the city’s two Bundesliga teams, Bayern and 1860.
But in North London, while Arsenal’s new Emirates Stadium takes shape at Ashburton Grove, neighbours Tottenham are seeking solutions to their own stadium difficulties. White Hart Lane holds only 36,000 spectators, not enough to compete at the highest level.
Why don’t they share? Because the fans would rather die.
There’s something of a paradox here. The pure passion of the fans for their clubs which manifests itself in their almost inbred hostility to any suggestion of ground-sharing is also the power which fills seats week after week and makes football such a powerful commercial proposition.
It’s the paradox which underscores the fact that sport is business…but not as others know it.
* * * * * * * * *
Its good to learn that the F1’s British Grand Prix is back on the calendar for next year after months of rumbling disagreement, allegation and counter allegation which saw the plot of sport’s greatest soap opera at its cliff-hanging best.
As to all the fuss, its now rather like world War One. We know it happened , it was extremely unpleasant but no one can remember exactly why it started.
* * * * *
As governments around the world seek new ways of encouraging physical activity in an effort to combat the obesity epidemic affecting the populations of most economically developed nations, its disheartening to note that some authorities don't seem to have got the message.
Step forward Ashford Borough Council in Kent, UK, which has not only turned one of the three remaining squash courts at its Stour Centre leisure facility into an, er, IT Suite, but also introduced a parking charge which even hits parents dropping off and collecting kids from sports sessions.
IT suites are, of course, critically important but probably don't have to be located in sports facilities.
And while the charge for parking is modest, it simply sends out all of the wrong messages at a time when making every effort to eliminate barriers to sports participation is critical.
