Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Joe Anderson, the Mayor of Liverpool, pointing at an old painting entitled Modern Liverpool, 1907, that hangs inside his waterfront office
Joe Anderson, the Mayor of Liverpool, pointing at an old painting entitled Modern Liverpool, 1907, that hangs inside his waterfront office. Photograph: Handout
Joe Anderson, the Mayor of Liverpool, pointing at an old painting entitled Modern Liverpool, 1907, that hangs inside his waterfront office. Photograph: Handout

How supporting Everton made Liverpool mayor’s role in new ground a tricky one

This article is more than 6 years old
Joe Anderson has come under fire for giving financial backing to the club’s new stadium but as a man described as a ‘divisive figure’ explains in an exclusive book extract, the decision was made for right and proper reasons

On the wall of Joe Anderson’s resplendent waterfront office is a copy of an oil painting by Walter Richards entitled Modern Liverpool, 1907. Amid the dark industrial colours of Victorian squalor, you can see St Nicholas’s church and its green lawn where bodies were once buried in a plague pit. You can see the red bricks of the nearby Grade II listed Albion House where five years later the names of Titanic’s deceased were read out from a balcony. Nearly all the notable landmarks are there too: the Albert Dock back when it was a working dock rather than a tourist destination as it is now, Lime Street Station and the railway lines leading out towards the soot-covered roofs of Wavertree; the magnificent St George’s Hall and the overhead railway.

What isn’t there is either of the city’s two cathedrals, nor – most significantly – the Cunard Building, where Anderson’s office is currently located. Anderson is taking me around the image, pointing out the changes. “See, the two buildings next to an open plot of land where the Cunard is, are the Port of Liverpool and the Liver Building,” he tells me. “When they went up people objected to them because they were too high. Now, the three buildings are called the Three Graces”.

The Three Graces helped Liverpool earn its label as a maritime mercantile city and six locations across the city are now regarded as world heritage sites by Unesco.

“It shows you can create outstanding structures despite opposition and for future generations to appreciate them,” Anderson says. “That’s what I hope Everton do; the new stadium becoming a fine addition to our waterfront skyline. We can’t wrap this city up in aspic. If we do, we might as well turn off the lights.”

In the month before I speak to Anderson, the New Statesman had described him as a character who “inspires gratitude and loathing in equal measure” – not only a “passionate and unapologetic defender of Liverpool on the national stage”, but also a “divisive figure in the city”. Anderson had worked as a merchant seaman, a pub landlord, a union convenor and a social worker before becoming the leader of Liverpool city council when the Keep Everton in Our City campaign was in full swing. Elected mayor in 2012, his willingness to court private sector investment had fostered resentment and there were trust issues after a legal dispute where he took a school in neighbouring Sefton to an industrial tribunal after he was dismissed as a learning mentor.

Blood on letters and excreta sent through the door, Anderson has seen it all over the years. His children had urged him to leave Twitter where he was often attacked for his appearance – though he’s nowhere near as big or round as he’s made out to be when you meet him. The abuse directed at him, particularly from Liverpool supporters, returned when Everton’s move to Bramley-Moore was announced and it was revealed that Anderson – an outspoken Evertonian – had helped broker the deal between the club he supports and Peel Holdings, the owner of the land; especially when it emerged that Liverpool city council would act as guarantors for the financing of the new stadium. Anderson subsequently was accused of favouritism.

Bramley-Moore Dock, north of Liverpool city centre, the proposed site for Everton’s new stadium. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Anderson begins by reminding me that he and Labour were in opposition to the Liberal Democrats when, under Warren Bradley, the council supported Liverpool’s potential move from Anfield to Stanley Park in 2007. It would have been easy for him then to oppose a deal which would have meant the homes of Liverpool and Everton were separated by only a road but he backed it – amid fierce reaction from Evertonians – because he thought it was the right thing to do for the economic development of the city.

“I’ll say it as it is, that’s who I am and I don’t particularly care what people think about me,” he says, prodding his finger into the table that separates us. “People say the council have bent over backwards to help Everton because I’m an Evertonian but that simply isn’t true. When Liverpool made the decision to remain at Anfield and redevelop the main stand we supported it fully in the planning process, acquiring and buying properties in the area to give the club the space it needed to expand the main stand. Both Liverpool and Everton are crucial to the economy and the reputation of the city. Had Liverpool decided to move to the same location before Everton, we’d have backed it.

“I know Liverpool’s owners really well. They’ve got plenty of money and have supported Liverpool financially. Above everything, though you want stability and security around the club. Maybe fans would prefer a sugar daddy but when I think about Fenway and what they have brought to the club while trying to respect its history and acting responsibly, it means that Liverpool has a strong foundation if somebody else comes along and wants to take it over. That’s what we want for Everton: to have foundations that will secure the club’s future for the next 100 years.

“A lot of people knock Bill Kenwright for his tenure as chair. I’ve got nothing but admiration for the guy. He’s given the club his heart and soul over many years and has continued to do so even through a period where he’s not been in the best of health. His passion for the football club and his desire to find the right investor has been admirable. He might have had more lucrative-sounding offers to take Everton off his hands but I know he was very wary about the wrong person taking it on and the impact it can have – just look at what Hicks and Gillett did at Liverpool and how David Moores, the former owner, ended up feeling about that – writing an open letter in a newspaper begging them to leave.”

As guarantors, Liverpool city council will receive revenue of around £4m a year from Everton’s stadium move and Anderson says this is the key reason behind his support for the project. Under Conservative rule, Liverpool city council has had £540m of funding stripped from its budget. It explains why he believes in what he calls the ‘Invest to Earn’ strategy that has led to criticism from Labour’s far left because it involves agreements with private-sector companies that are often championed by the Tories.

“Invest to Earn gives a socialist city council the opportunity to earn money from the private sector and invest in projects that will benefit the many rather than the few,” Anderson insists. “Not only will Everton’s new stadium generate income, it will transform an area of the city, create new businesses and new jobs. Yet you’ll still get people criticising. ‘Why are you giving Everton and a multimillionaire a hand?’ I’m doing it because it benefits the person asking the question!’

Everton supporters make their way to Goodison Park, the club’s current home and where they have been based since 1892. Photograph: Handout

“I’m a socialist and proud but I get called a Red Tory. I believe in redistribution of wealth but you’ve got to create wealth first.”

During Anderson’s time in office, Liverpool’s city centre has become a more exciting and vibrant place. Here and in other prosperous areas of the city, the voting patterns from the EU referendum favoured Remain. It was recognised by its people that Liverpool had benefited from hundreds of millions of pounds in European funding when its own government did little to help it develop into the place it is today. Yet Remain’s victory on Merseyside was closer than predicted, with outer boroughs like Knowsley backing Brexit.

Everton’s stadium move from Walton will have implications for struggling zones like the County ward where there has long already been a feeling of detachment. It is fortunate that Everton have an excellent community department and the plan for Goodison Park is not to sell it to a developer for a profit but to leave the land to the guarantors – the council – as a legacy project, enabling the building of cheaper housing like on the Boot Estate in Norris Green, which had previously been boarded up. Meanwhile, Everton’s Free School on Spellow Lane will remain where it is and that means Everton certainly aren’t abandoning the area completely.

“People say we shouldn’t support free schools but this is a school that works with kids who didn’t want to go to school,” Anderson adds. “Now we’re educating them. Now we’re giving them hope. Now we’re able to manage them. Everton have done that, a club that also provides accommodation for people with mental-health problems. This is an organisation that is perceived just as a football club but it isn’t. It’s far more than that.”

Aged 59, Anderson’s association with Everton began 51 years before – after he started watching games from the boys’ pen. To fund his trips to Goodison Park, he sold lemonade in Norris Green. The mother of Joe Royle, the legendary Everton centre-forward, gave him a two-shilling tip and this was enough to pay for the No20 bus to County Road and enter the ground.

“I never thought I’d be able to have an active role in helping co-ordinate the future of the club I love,” he concludes, looking out through his office window where there are views across the Mersey – a passage of water that will welcome 63 cruise liners in 2017. “By 2021, we hope that figure will be double. By then, Bramley-Moore will be built and Liverpool will have a new skyline.”

On The Brink: A Journey Through English Football’s North West, by Simon Hughes, is published by deCoubertin

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed