By royhendo, on July 14th, 2010
2007: New Owners, New Era, New Anfield
6th February 2007 - Hicks and Gillett buy the club. 60 days. Large swimming pools. Spades in the ground. No debt on the club – I mean, it’s totally different from what the Glazers are doing.
20th February 2007 – stadium plans were on display in the Vernon Sangster. It was still the Parrybowl at that stage. 12th March 2007 – parts of Stanley Park were fenced off, and bore holes made to test the ground. Progress, it seemed, was being made. Liverpool Echo – New Anfield
Continue reading The Warts And All Stadium Timeline – 2007
By royhendo, on July 14th, 2010
2006: Moores, Parry and Bowls
14th February 2006 – the stadium’s back on after a £10m grant gets rubber stamped.
13th July 2006 – Whoops! Moores and Parry are running out of time to get it started or they’ll miss out on that self-same grant. The grant, by the way, is European Union grant funding awarded via the NWDA. That’s the North West Development Agency, not the rap band. Although I could be wrong.
18th July 2006 – Parry says the stadium plans ‘won’t collapse’.
Continue reading The Warts And All Stadium Timeline – 2006
By royhendo, on July 14th, 2010
What’s the world’s most expensive drawing?*
No, it’s not a Rembrandt, or a Michelangelo, or a Raphael, or a Jackson Pollock. Ladies and Gentlemen, in this next few pages we’ll present the plans for Liverpool FC’s “New Anfield” stadium.
This particular doodle, by a reknowned collective of grand masters under the pen name “HKS”, has cost Liverpool Football Club a mindblowing £55.8m over the course of four years. Stop and read that again.
That’s £55.8m. For a set of blueprints for a stadium.*
Take a minute – it’s natural to experience brain freeze when that number first meets your brain.
Continue reading The Most Expensive Drawing In History
By No666, on July 13th, 2010
What exactly would David Moores have discovered had he googled ‘Tom Hicks’ back in 2007?
Former LFC owner David Moores has let it be known in a recent letter to The Times that he resents the accusation that a quick Google search would have uncovered a few outstanding bills and bankruptcies in Hicks and Gillett’s dusty cupboard and that he was remiss in handing custody of our club to the duo. He wrote, ‘The simple truth is we went way beyond Google in our check-ups.’
Rothschild – ‘one of the most respected names in global finance’ – vouched for both of them, Moores revealed: Rothschild being the firm that was representing… Hicks and Gillett.
But with a day’s subscription to an electronic newspaper cuttings’ library costing around £20 back then, what would he have uncovered had he and Rick Parry done some cursory research into their new buddies? Enough to have made them hit the pause button, we contend, as we whizz back to the scene in the fans’ time-travelling regret-mobile.
Continue reading Google is your friend
By No666, on July 13th, 2010
There is nothing that will harm the club more than leaving Hicks and Gillett in situ, with no pressure upon them to do anything but consider their own bank balances.
Why do so many Liverpool fans oppose Hicks and Gillett?
When they bought the club in 2007, they quickly offered reassurances. George Gillett promised to make the club bigger than Chelsea and Manchester United and stated: “We have purchased the club with no debt on the club so, in that regard, it is different to the Glazers.”
Meanwhile Hicks gave the game away about why he decided to join his friend in buying the club. “[Gillett] gave me a bunch of financial numbers which sounded attractive… I can totally understand what Glazer saw in Manchester United.”
Continue reading LFC – It’s not lookin’ good
By royhendo, on June 29th, 2010
When Hicks and Gillett bought LFC in February 2007, The Guardian ran with the headline: “Liverpool fans must watch their new owners like hawks”.
The newspaper detailed their answers to the questions put to them at their introductory press conference.
For example: how often would they be there? ‘Hicks was at pains to mention his large family… Anybody spot the figureheads?’ So how much money would be available for transfers? ‘They were not happy at being pressed on the matter. At all,’ the newspaper reported, before concluding, ‘It is the duty of every right-thinking Liverpool fan to keep a close eye on events – and cry foul long and loud if they don’t like what they see.’
Continue reading Lessons Unlearned? Liverpool’s Owners, the Past, and Promises
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