Bill Kenwright pulled the plug on Everton’s previous attempt to relocate to the Mersey waterfront because the club would not have owned their stadium at King’s Dock.
Everton are set to kick-off their final season at Goodison Park in August ahead of the first team moving to a new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock at the start of the 2025/26 campaign but their switch to a riverside location could have taken place two decades earlier if they’d been successful with plans to build a 55,000 capacity venue with a retractable roof and pitch on the site of what is now Liverpool Arena. For many years, Everton’s inability to come up with a £30million investment to secure a 50% stake in the £150million stadium portion of a £300million project was cited as the major stumbling block.
However, an interview given by Paul Gregg, a former business partner and friend of Kenwright, who he worked with on several major theatre projects before investing millions in True Blue Holdings Ltd when the late Everton chairman purchased Peter Johnson’s majority shareholding in the club, has provided a fresh interpretation of events.
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Speaking to talkSPORT, Gregg said: “The thing I regret the most is losing, no Evertonian wants to lose and we lost the stadium. I think the stadium is something that would have saved Everton and put them into the right position to compete and it would have been 20 years ago.”
Asked why the stadium did it not happen, the 82-year-old said: “Because Bill (Kenwright) said no. We spent two-and-a-half years with the Liverpool council and with the
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