July 18 2007

Selhurst Park

Speeding towards the start of another season, Jamesey reflects on grounds and votes.

As we older folk constantly repeat, it's amazing how time seems to accelerate as the candles on ones birthday cake proliferate.

No sooner has one season ended, another one is imminent and I, for one, am looking foward eagerly to July 31, my first live football since April and a friendly against Anderlecht, a team from my favourite country after Greece, Belgium.

Incidentally anyone who subscribes to the old cliché that Belgium is boring needs to get his or her backside over to Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent or Bruges pronto. Hundreds of superb beers, chocolate to die for, exquisite medieval city centres and villages, and the national dish, moules et frites, is always a delight to savour. Belgium boring? You definitely must be joking.

Anyhow, we start the season for the first time in nearly a decade - when Uncle Ron "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break" Noades found a real patsy by the name of Goldberg - as owners of our stadium.

Near the beginning of last season, as we are all no doubt aware, chairman Simon Jordan acquired the freehold although it later transpired he had taken a mortgage to do so.

But most of us buy our flats or houses with a mortgage and we regard ourselves as owners so does it really matter?

It could be that Simon plans to sell off the ground for housing development and build a new stadium, a subject that has prompted much discussion among HOL members over the years.

So it was interesting to hear the news that Everton are to ballot their supporters over a move from Goodison Park, their home for 115 years, to a new ground nearby.

Run by the Electoral Reform Society, the vote will involve more than 33,000 of the club's supporters although what constitutes a "supporter" is unclear to this writer.

Being a season holder naturally makes one a clear-cut supporter but there are plenty of passionate supporters who, for all sorts of reasons, only get to a few games every season.

Presumably the Society will take all this into account when it decides who gets a vote.

Much as I admire Simon Jordan in many ways, I could never see him giving Eagles fans a vote on the future in any circumstances.

If the impossible happened and we were ever granted a ballot, my own vote, from a supporter encumbered by decades of nostalgia and memories, would be to stay...

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