Time for Kenwright to do the Twist



"How much?  Are you takin' the piss?"



Using card game analogies in football are common; who will blink first, calling your bluff, Ace in the pack, the list could go on and on.

 But watching Everton and listening to some of their supporters these days is almost akin to watching the most unimaginative Pontoon player, the one who sticks on 16 every hand he’s dealt. We’ll come back to this later.

 Listen to any set of Toffees, or visit any forum and you will come across the Kenwright debate. The debate which has split the Everton fanbase in two.

 In the blue corner, there are those who suggest Kenwright is not looking to sell, despite his protestations to the contrary, and that he has been searching 24/7 for the past eight or whatever years for investment, enabling him to remain as a chairman, or some sort of figurehead .

 In the other blue corner, are those who claim Uncle Bill the boyhood blue has done a wonderful job overseeing a period of stability which sees the club with its best manager and squad since Howard Kendall’s first managerial stint and that they do not want him to sell amid fears of a situation similar to that at Portsmouth - or even Liverpool - being incurred.

 There is ground for both arguments and respect should be given to all fans, who want nothing but the best for Everton FC.

 But, in the current financial footballing climate, even the most blinkered supporter would acknowledge that Everton are very unlikely to make serious inroads to the top four without a major injection of cash. As the ongoing search for investment continues to draw more blanks than Jermaine Beckford, maybe the impresario should have been looking for a buyer.

 How do we know he hasn’t, I hear you ask? We don’t but, as just about every club in the top flight has been bought - some two or three times over - since David Moyes’ appointment, it seems harder and harder to fathom as to why one of the top five most successful English clubs in the best league in the world has not received one genuine approach during that time – and if we have, why it was never successful or even picked up by the press?

 Only interested buying parties, Bill Kenwright and the powers within Goodison can honestly answer those questions but as Mr Kenwright said the subject ‘bored him’ when asked by a concerned shareholder during an AGM, don’t expect to be hearing any revelations from that diection any time soon.

 In the meantime, it is left with the fans ruminating as to what is the best way foward. To sell or not to sell. Those in Kenwright’s pro corner are the aforementioned Pontoon player, remember him? He’s the player nursing 16 but always refusing to twist in the hopes the Banker will go bust first. It is a tactic that will deliver some short term victories but will, essentially, see the Banker win out.

 Transfer the analogy to Everton and what we have is a good manager and a good squad who will pick up a decent win against Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool along the way but will never win the big pot because they refuse to twist – the twist in question here is the chairman handing over the reigns to someone with a bit of financial clout.

 If we continue to stick on 16, so to speak, we will eventually slip away because those with the finances to blow us out of the water will continue to nab our transfer targets, like Spurs did with Kyle Naughton, nab our players, like Man City did with Joleon Lescott and nab our place in upper echelons of the Premier League, like has happened last season with Spurs, Man City and Villa all finishing above us and looking more than capable of repeating the feat this season. Only Liverpool’s hilarious demise is offering us a crumb of comfort.

 So, in football’s high stakes game of Pontoon, Bill has to twist, hope he can find the next Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour and sell sooner rather than later. The alternative is to limp along as we are and eventually return to a club that sells its best players to those with the money to compete and, sadly, become the relegation-haunted club of the ‘90s again.


Speaking of the ‘90s, if Everton fail to win the FA Cup this year, it will be the 16th consecutive season without a major trophy finding its way to Goodison Park. Now there is a 16 we would all be happy to stick on.


Grab68