We at Anfield4Ever expected the official statements of the club and the council to have clarified the principal reasons we were given by Rick Parry as to why even the most devoted pro-stay members of the LFC board decided incontrovertibly to support the motion for a ground move. As neither statement appears to have done this, we shall attempt to explain them briefly here since they are crucial for anybody wishing to judge fairly the decision taken by the LFC board. First, the governing criterion in all this.
It was held universally by all within Anfield that the current crowd capacity had to be increased. The optimum capacity figure arrived at for whatever reasons - and do not rule out here politically correct parity with the proposed King's Dock stadium capacity - was 55,000, an increase of some 10,000 on the current Anfield capacity.
Next the financial consideration. The new stadium - 55,000 expandable to 60,000 - is expected to cost around 60-70 million pounds. The expansion of the existing ground to around 54,600 was assessed at 50-55 million. This latter cost includes demolition, resident compensation and lost revenue from reduced attendances/disruption of around 15-20 million pounds. Thus for around 10-15 million pounds additional real cost - given that one or other of the options HAD to be selected - the LFC board was being tempted with the enticing prospect of a pristine and symmetrical new stadium compared with a makeshift expansion of the existing ground.
Second, in order to accommodate the additional requisite 10,000 seats and meet the current construction legislation criteria, the architectural/ engineering design solution meant the rebuilding of both the main stand and a single tier Anfield Road stand with the closure of Anfield Road. By all accounts the initial cursory drawings perusal quickly revealed even to the most ardent pro-stay lobby within the Board a revamped Anfield that looked both unsightly and unbefitting of our legendary home.
In Rick Parry's words, the expansion design proposals simply 'did not look right' and every board member was disappointed with the results, having expected beforehand to have been confronted by something altogether more attractive, special and fitting.
Forinstance, it appears the new Anfield Road stand would actually have had to have been larger than the Kop. This, alone, if not exactly as unpalatable to pro-stayers as a ground move did present them with a not insignificant problem of principle, especially in view of future generations attempting to grasp what the Kop was all about.
It seems that these were the overriding criteria which virtually dictated to those present that the only viable solution was a move. One prominent member of the board was extremely upset by the fact that despite his overwhelmingly strong emotional ties he no longer felt he had the rationale available - provided in a large part by the arguments we at A4E had presented in our submission - to dispute the general concensus for a move.
Given such considerations and supported by the prospect of an infinitely more disruptive and distracting [presumably to our football team]three year journey with the Anfield expansion solution, the board were unanimous in opting for the new stadium. It seems, too, that all the major managerial figures and staff within Anfield were strongly in favour of the move.
Thus, was the scenario illustrated to us by Rick Parry.
Naturally, we questioned everything we were told including the reliability of the design team and their feasibility solutions and budgets. To this end we have been invited by Rick Parry to see for ourselves the alternative solutions, on which the Board made their decision. At this time we shall presumably see precisely what made the expansion plans so 'impracticable'.
We would also add here that having spoken with Rick Parry for - appropriately enough - around 90 minutes, we are as satisfied as it is possible to be from a periphery position such as ours, that everything we argued within our submission for staying has been taken into consideration. This is especially so given that the discourse we have had and are about to have, has, by necessity, been at Rick Parry's and David Moore's discretion. In other words, they didn't HAVE to meet us or talk with us. The fact that they have acted in such a way has, at the very least, underpinned some of the underlying principles of what Liverpool Football Club is all about.
This brings us onto our own reaction to the news.
To clarify our own position, we would make it absolutely clear that we still absolutely oppose the idea of a move. In this, our stance has not shifted at all. We regard Anfield as our home and inseparable from Liverpool Football Club. One without the other means, by definition, that Liverpool Football Club would no longer be - could never be - the same entity with which we have grown up over the years. The Anfield aura, history and fabric is part of the club. It matters not that the actual structure has evolved over the years. That, quite simply, is what football grounds do and have always done for the past century or more. The fact is that LFC is Anfield and Anfield is LFC. It is the tenet we have always held and continue so to do.
That said, for a small voluntary group with extremely limited power and resources, we at A4E have done EVERYTHING we humanly could have done to halt the mounting demand to leave our home and our heritage for pastures new. We have lobbied and written in local fanzines and newspapers; we have appeared on local radio; we have written article after article for the LFC websites and debated the issue infinitely on the Forums.
During that time we received only limited support for our campaign. We started with three members on board and finished with those same three. Not a solitary additional fan apparently had similar strength of feeling to join in our fight for remaining at Anfield, though I am sure had Hanover been slightly nearer we'd have recruited at least one more.
Faced with such paltry support for saving arguably the most legendary - and certainly the greatest - football ground in the world, we were forced to switch our tactics and attempt a crusade from within. What followed was our formal submission in which we attempted to win our fight by sheer weight of argument. We reasoned that by targeting and convincing every member of Liverpool FC's heirarchy of the foolhardiness of deserting our Anfield home, the groundswell within the club for a move could be reversed. The submission was costly but we knew Anfield was worth our efforts and hard earned money.
It is now clear that, despite our submission being well received by the club particularly by David Moores, in the ultimate analysis we failed to sway what seems to have been a very strong inherent resolve within the club that a new stadium afforded the club the most desirable future, given that expansion was a necessity.
Not that we necessarily perceive such a resolve as a closed mind on the subject. On the contrary, the feasibility exercises that have been commissioned tell us otherwise. As do the realities they reveal. Nevertheless, when it came down to the crunch, it was the practical consideration that held sway over the emotional one. Not only, it seems, was the adequately expanded Anfield a far more difficult objective physically to achieve than we had envisaged but also, perhaps, our home itself was not considered quite so indispensible and vital to the future of our club by the powers-that-be as it was by ourselves. Possibly, even more crucially, it was not that much cheaper to extend than it was to construct a completely new stadium.
The current vogue in football, as indeed in modern life itself, is the dispensible; the throwaway; the new and shiny. That is not to infer necessarily that those who view life - or football clubs - from such a perspective are devoid of any values. It simply means they have, in principle, a different set of core values.
In the long run, no matter how much we - as with many long-time fans - would like it to be the case, we at A4E have no say in the running or the destiny of Liverpool Football Club. The criteria we hold as vital to the club's very being are not necessarily those shared by those who do run it. Those men have now made their choice as regards to the club's future. That choice may not accord with our own but it has been made with what the people concerned believe to be the best interests of Liverpool Football Club in mind.
If we at A4E cannot accept the route those people have decided the club is to follow, then we have but one option left open to us. Bringing about a change in the LFC Board's mindset is not that option. We have given that our best shot and failed. We see no mileage in continuing to make a din on the outside. If you cannot achieve it from at least the small foothold we managed to create within, then there would seem little chance of doing so by resurrecting from without all the old chestnuts of contention that have already failed to convince those in power.
Besides all of which, the club's and their experts' reasoning now has only one real flaw with which they have to contend. That, of course, is the emotional bond of staying loyal to our roots. And quite simply, no matter how important that is to the traditionally minded fan, it can never again be a sufficiently strong argument to convince even the most avid pro-stayer on the Board to stay
Of course, if anybody else wants to try and reverse the mindset which now prevails amongst the powers-that-be, then please feel free. It goes without saying you shall have our support. Mind you, it should also be borne in mind that you would first have to convince perhaps as much as 60% of our support that remaining at Anfield is the way forward for their club.