Unemployed Mike Parry insisted last night on the social media platform Twitter that Everton chairman Bill Kenwright was ‘the greatest ever Evertonian’.

In a number of ‘tweets’ the former talkSPORT host outlined his support for the theatre impresario.

‘Bill Kenwright has invited me to join him in the Director’s Box at Tottenham tomorrow. That’s a big “Yes”. He’s the greatest ever Evertonian.’

Parry then followed that initial tweet up with several others after an angry response from Evertonians.

‘I don’t care what the Everton supporters against Bill Kenwright say. You’re entitled to your view. But Bill saved our club. He’s a hero.’

Named in the leaked email scandal that rocked Everton in November 2011 as a ‘friendly journalist’ who should be briefed, Parry then asked: ‘Why don’t more Evertonians stick up for him (Kenwright)?’

It got better.

‘Whenever I ask: Would you like to be a fan of Leeds, Portsmouth, Nottingham Forest – I never get an answer: EFC never been relegated in my life. Everton have NEVER been relegted in my life. How proud and good is that? BK is brilliantly holding the fort until our billionaire arrives.’

Parry signed off for the night with a tale Bill Kenwright himself would have been proud of.

‘I don’t need to explain this but starting in 1979 Bill K and I both got the 10am train from Euston to Lime St every other Saturday. Fans.’

Our message to Mike Parry is a simple one: you can stick stories of the boys pen, stick mediocrity, stick “doing” a “Leeds” “Portsmouth” or any other small clubs…what’s our name??

‘No bigger Evertonian’

99% of Evertonians have positive thoughts about their club. That is, of course, if the Premier League’s annual survey is to be believed.

Having conducted our own survey, we have reached a different conclusion. The results of the SOS1878 Fan Survey, completed by just under 3,000 Evertonians, have been forwarded on to the club. We await their response with interest.

Last week saw Everton Chairman Bill Kenwright finally raise his head above the parapet for the first time since, well…this time last year…as the self proclaimed ‘greatest Evertonian’ decided to undertake an interview for the Sky Sports News channel alongside former Everton media man, Sky’s Alan Myers.

Whilst the cynical among you may suggest that there is a fairly obvious correlation between Bill making public appearances announcing contact with yet more mythical and soon to be vanished ‘interested parties’ and the Season Ticket renewal window, we at SOS instead chose to take Bill and his interview on face value, and as such we were naturally interested to hear mention of a ‘survey’ that apparently confirmed that “99% of Evertonians felt positive towards the club” and 84% thought Everton are a “well run club”.

Whilst we don’t for a moment presume that all Evertonians think exactly as we do – we know very well that they don’t – it has to be said that these figures came as a real shock to the system, and in all honesty painted a picture that, as long time match-going Evertonians, we simply couldn’t relate to.

A quick glance across the various internet based Everton messageboards and the ever-more-popular Twitter platform seemed to confirm that our feelings weren’t unique, with a significant number – and seemingly large majority of Evertonians – dismissing these ‘statistics’ as a nonsense.

Our first instinct was to question what this survey that had been referred to actually was, and then of course to ask how many people had taken part and who these people were.

The first two parts of that question were answered quickly, as we logged onto the official Everton FC homepage to find that the club had been quick to jump on the results of this survey as a marketing tool.  According to the results as published on the club’s official website last week, 1260 Evertonians had taken part in what is the “Annual Premier League Survey”, conducted by Populus.

1260 undoubtedly a fairly small sample, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why we were only able to locate two Evertonians among the thousands we interact with on Twitter who would own up to having completed this survey!!!

To that end, we decided that the feelings being expressed by the Blues we encounter around the various online communities demanded that we take our own poll. We don’t think that the results need any introduction, they speak for themselves.

Almost 3000 people took the time to answer our questions, and as you will see below…our results paint a VERY different picture than those collected from 1260 people by “Populus”.

We would be delighted if you would leave your comments and feelings at the end.

An astonishing 2,910 Evertonians completed the SOS1878 Fan Survey over just a few days of the bank holiday weekend. Below is a summary of the results.

Q. Do you believe that Bill Kenwright is actively trying to sell the club?

Yes (28%) No (72%)

Q. Do you believe the club’s asking price is prohibitive?

Yes (76%) No (24%)

Q. Do you trust the current board of directors to sell the club to the right people?

Yes (34%) No (66%)

Q. Do you feel the current board of directors have a plan to move the club forward?

Yes (13%) No (87%)

Q. Do you believe the current board of directors have lied to the fans throughout the past 14 years?

Yes (85%) No (15%)

Q. Are you a season ticket holder?

Yes (48%) No (52%)

Q. If you are a season ticket holder, do you plan on renewing for season 2013/14?

Yes (52%) No (25%) Undecided (23%)

Q. Do you trust the current board of directors to find a suitable replacement for David Moyes if the manager decides to leave this summer?

Yes (30%) No (70%)

Q. Do you worry about the long-term future of Everton Football Club?

Yes (90%) No (10%)

Q. Do you expect the ownership to change at Everton in the next three years?

Yes (24%) No (76%)

Q. Finally, in your opinion, what is the biggest failing of the current board of directors?

Kings Dock (49%) Lack of Investment (28%) Kirkby (13%) No Trophies (10%)

Survey Summary & Individual Comments:

A staggering 90% of Evertonians that took part in the SOS1878 fan survey worry about the long-term future of Everton Football Club.

The results of the SOS1878 fan survey, completed by just under 3,000 Blues, will not make pleasant reading for the club.

72% do not believe that Bill Kenwright, the man who insists there is no better salesman for the club, is actively looking to sell his shareholding in the club. One Evertonian who has been visiting Goodison Park for more than 45 years commented: ‘I can’t even listen to the Kenwright interview on Sky as it will be the same as all of the others we have heard during the past 14 years. He has become drunk on the ease of which he can PR and propaganda his way to preserving his position without any real pressure from Evertonians or the media.’

76% of those surveyed believe that the club’s asking price, revealed on Stan Collymore’s talkSPORT show to be £125m, is a prohibitive figure. Another Evertonian commented: ‘It’s a strange one. It clearly is too much when you consider debt and commercial value, however the price must be set fairly high to dissuade the asset strippers out there. Especially with the honey pot of mega Sky money, someone could in theory buy us cheap, pocket the bumper Sky money and let the club go to ruin. A higher price would prevent this. Difficult one.’

66% do not trust the current custodians of the club to sell to the right people, with one Blue commenting: ‘I genuinely fear that Kenwright will sell to a Venky’s or GFH Capital’. Furthermore, a staggering 87% do not believe that Bill Kenwright and his board of directors have a plan to move the fourth most successful club in English football forward. One Evertonian stressed his concerns about the club’s non-tv income: ‘With a model based on asset utilisation then common sense tells you this model has to have an end point. You can only have a finite number of assets. I am particularly concerned with the non TV and match day income where we seem to have been left significantly behind by many ‘smaller’ clubs’.

48% of the Evertonians surveyed were season ticket holders at the club. 52% of those will be renewing for next season. Alarmingly for the club, 25% stated they wouldn’t be renewing whilst 23% remain undecided. James Boulder, a former season ticket holder, commented:  ’I was a season ticket holder up until two years ago when the stagnation became too much, I then decided not to give any more money directly to the club. I still go away where possible and pay for my Sky bill so I am conscious that some money does end up back in the club.’

70% do not believe the club are capable of finding a suitable replacement for David Moyes should the long-serving Glaswegian decide against renewing his current contract. Perhaps representative of the apathy culture that Bill Kenwright has created, 76% do not expect the club’s ownership to change in the next three years. One comment read: ‘No, business as usual. Plucky little Everton and that miracle worker David Moyes’.

The Kings Dock fiasco was unsurprisingly considered the board’s biggest ‘failure’ by 49% of those who completed the survey. 28% pointed to the lack of investment in the club, while the attempted move to Kirkby and the lack of trophies raked in 13% and 10% respectively.

Intrigued by the results of yesterday’s Premier League annual survey, we here at SOS1878 have decided to conduct one of our own which we hope will be more representative of current Evertonian feeling.

Everton were quick to announce to the world that an ‘overwhelming 99 per cent of Evertonians said they felt positive towards the Club, exceeding the average across the top-flight and recording a marked increase on the score of 55 per cent last season.‘

Furthermore, a ‘massive 84 per cent of fans believe the club is well-run’.

We would encourage all Blues, whatever their stance, to complete our short ten question survey. The answers are multiple choice, but we would like you to expand on your answers where necessary in the boxes provided.

A summary of the findings will be published in the coming days.

SOS1878 Team

David Prentice yesterday produced an article complaining about vile online abuse in the Liverpool Echo.

Below is Prentice on the same topic over two years ago: ‘Message boards, letters pages and radio phone-ins will always attract the disaffected, the cynical and occasionally the downright lunatic’.

That was in January 2011 and largely unprovoked and it certainly got a response from myself and many other blues.

The complaint by Prentice that he has received vile online abuse is appalling and no-one can condone it.

I just have one big problem here and it is that he started it all off two years ago and to add another layer to his controversial article of two years ago an exchange on Twitter between Prenno and I led to a phone call the next day.

I say phone call, but it quickly degenerated into an argument…surprise, surprise.

Where is this leading…well this latest article has brought into focus a comment made during that conversation by Prentice that I did not pay too much attention to at the time. Prentice considered that his light on factual content journalism was a “balanced article” as it upset both sides pro and anti Kenwright.

This isn’t journalism; this is trolling on Trinity Mirror’s payroll. It leads to mouse clicks and makes money from outraged blues. He’s quite happy to upset blues with poorly constructed provocative articles that ignore the major issues at Everton football club, but if he upsets you, gets a reaction and a click, he gets paid and goes home happy thinking he has done his days work.

Now he complains about the reaction from blues after sanctioning an attack on Stan Collymore’s journalism anonymously. I’m not having it; a guilt trip from a man that’s quite willing to post inaccurate ahistorical articles with an intention to provoke angry reactions from Evertonians to ensure that he can meet his mortgage payments.

Treat it with the contempt it deserves….say nothing and click nothing.

Don’t feed the prolls.

David O’Keefe

Only at Everton could season ticket renewal forms land on doorsteps just forty-eight hours after one of the club’s most humiliating FA Cup exits of all time.

The timing, quite frankly, couldn’t have been worse.

We here at SOS1878 believe that the time has come for Evertonians to stand up and be counted. The time has come for Evertonians to be cruel to be kind, and to  ’let go, if you love the club’ by not renewing season tickets in 2013.

Bill Kenwright continues to sit tight, seeking an absolutely ludicrous £125m figure for a club that has no tangible assets and is almost £50m in the red. Why should Evertonians continue, year on year, to fund failure and contempt? Why should Evertonians foot the bill for the appalling mess that the current custodians have put this club in?

Instead of simply ripping the season ticket brochures to bits, we would urge Evertonians to send them back to the club with an accompanying letter explaining your reasons not for renewing.

For too long, Evertonians have been walked all over like old carpets. No amount of teary cannonball kid rhetoric should overlook the cold hard facts; Bill Kenwright has been a complete disaster for Everton Football Club. It’s about there being no hope for a lot of people, no light at the end of the tunnel. With this board of directors, we are on the road to nowhere.

The ONLY action that the most unsuccessful board of directors in Everton’s proud history will understand is voting with your feet. There is no plan, no vision and no communication from the incompetents running the club.

Cut off the funds and force their hand, it is the only way.

Everton legend Neville Southall insists Bill Kenwright is seeking too much money for his stake in the club

Kenwright, the most unsuccessful chairman in the club’s illustrious history, has failed in his attempts to find investment and sell the club desptie an exhaustive ’24/7, 365′ search.

Interacting with supporters on the popular social networking website Twitter, Southall was refreshingly honest in his appraisal of the situation facing the club.

On Kenwright’s inability to sell the club:

NS: He wants a profit and that’s trouble. He wants too much for it.

On what needs to change at EFC:

NS: We need investment to buy to get the squad to challenge for the league. Only thing we need is cash and attacking football.

On Everton’s style of play:

NS: School of defensive soccer at the moment.

On who should replace Moyes:

NS: Duncan Ferguson

On Fellaini’s reaction:

NS: Fine him and make him explain to the fans face to face.

On ex-players cosy relationship with the club:

NS: Brown nosers. They are not bothered, they have to work with the club so don’t make waves.

As football supporters, as Everton supporters, what you are about to read should both sadden and anger you. That a fellow blue has been treated in such a manner is nothing short of disgraceful and all those responsible should be ashamed of their involvement in what can only be described as nothing short of bullying and harassment.

Our civil liberties are enshrined in many documents; most people are familiar with The Human Rights Act and The European Convention on Human Rights, article ten of which details the right to free speech. This is a fundamental and inalienable right of every person in this country, it is a cornerstone of freedom and is a protected right which the state must not censor unnecessarily. Of course alongside these rights there must exist rules; laws designed to protect individuals and society in general. Some laws rightly govern and control the scope and extent of free speech; they protect people who are the subject of false allegations through legislation such as The Defamation Act 1996 and The Protection from Harassment Act 1997, a law which has the potential to provide protection against racial harassment, bullying and domestic abuse.

Sadly these vital pieces of legislation have been used to silence innocent people, to restrict their inalienable right to freedom of speech. The Guardian reported in 2009 that The Protection from Harassment Act in particular is being used a weapon for corporations against peaceful protesters to stifle legitimate protest. Opportunistic lawyers have used the act to apply for very broad injunctions to prevent any sort of protest against client companies. The supposed victim, always an individual as you cannot harass a company under the legislation, may ultimately seek an injunction, which if broken, by simply talking or protesting, is viewed as a criminal offence carrying up to five years imprisonment.

Most reasonable people will be abhorred that legislation designed to protect victims of injustice, of bullying, of racial harassment, of domestic abuse, is being used by businesses to silence their critics.

Everton FC make grand claims for their reputation as ‘The People’s Club’ yet by opening football’s first ‘Free School’ maybe the Toffees are undermining all their good work with the rightly praised Everton In The Community initiative.

Free schools are hyped by the Tories as specialised, self-financed centres of excellence that operate without the overbearing bureaucratic red tape of local authority control. They are autonomous and selective but not in any way elitist, oh no, because elitism is BAD. These schools are all about ‘spreading privilege’ in a Goveist-Cameronian Utopia where every kid has the opportunity to attend a 6k a term public school or at least get their mummy’s and daddy’s to open up their own schools where they can teach creationism as scientific fact, fairies and hobgoblin studies and football as a way out of drugs n’ crime.

Here’s what Dave has to say about the Everton Free School : “Groups of people, parents, teachers have come together to do something amazing, schools like Everton Free School, for teenagers, some of whom were excluded from traditional forms of education, have been using the power of sport to teach responsibility and self-reliance.”

Breaks yer heart dunnit? Those Old Etonian Overlords just wanna teach the poor kids all about responsibility and self-reliance, those hallowed virtues of the super rich, who of course exercise responsibility and self-reliance all the time. They’re responsible for corruption and cover ups, economic meltdown, austerity, war, torture and mass murder to protect their own financial interests.

They exercise self-reliance every time they put in a bogus expenses claim, a dodgy off-shore tax return, feather their own nests with national asset stripping, plunder the public purse to shore up their own vested interests and use the media, the military, the judiciary, the accountants and the police to hush it all up.

My daughter’s comprehensive school’s motto isn’t something in Latin or a profound statement upon the moulding of young minds into free thinking, inquisitive individuals but ‘We’re In The Business Of Learning.’ Those six sad words say everything about the approach to education by both Labour and Tory governments. Academic achievement is only good for one thing; making money.  Her school under Blair, Brown and Cameron was a so-called ‘Specialist Technical College’ for a few years but is now a ‘National Teaching School and STEM Centre Of Excellence’ whatever that means. At the foot of each letter is a collection of logos and awards :

• Healthy Schools
• Ssat Consultant School Accreditation
• Arts Council England
• IQM (Inclusion Quality Champion)
• Investors In People – Champion
• Investors In People – Gold
• Leadership Partner School
• Ofsted – Outstanding 2010-2011
• ICE
• International School Award 2011-2012

Like all secondary schools, especially those in socially deprived areas, they have to scrape for funding and so cut their academic cloth according to where the dough’s at. Like all schools it is obsessed with league tables, better results equals more pupils, more pupils equals more resources. School reports are generic, the pupil’s names obviously cut and pasted to templates containing bland subject text. They’re shit hot on absences because they have targets for that too, better attendance rates equals better Ofsted results, equals more students equals more resources, maybe a pay-rise for the head.

This was the Tory ‘payment by results’ spirit of competition that would set the private and the public sector free. Yet predictably all it resulted in was ever worse standards of care, in hospitals and care homes, the fiddling of figures in the police, health care, employment and education, deliberate dumbing down, outright cheating and fraud. Lies, damn lies and statistics. From A4e to Group 4, from examination boards to NHS Trusts, from BP to United Utilities, from supermarket cartels to gas price hikes, from west coast rail contracts to insurance company gangsters, from legal loan sharking to university fees; money makes the world go round and no-one is willing to take a stand. No Labour education minister or Prime Minister, y’know the people who are supposed to safeguard the interests of the vulnerable and the powerless, has lifted a finger to stop this sordid process. Indeed they have all benefitted financially from the very system they once pretended to oppose.

The Free School ethos is just another Tory lie. Michael Gove is subsidising these ideological weapons in his war against the education system. Millions pour into a handful of schools in order to prove that local authorities and ‘trendy lefty’ teachers and their unions are not fit to equip the young with the knowledge or at least the ‘skills’ that future employers demand. Gove and his toff pals really do want to return to a world where a tiny minority of wealthy students get all the breaks whilst the rest scrap for bursaries and scholarships as a way in to this elite. The grammar schools can offer the odd clever prole a minor position in the civil service and the mass of the unwashed, feral council estate youth can just learn how to lay bricks, repair engines and cook spuds.

That’s why schools are ‘in the business of learning’ and that’s why ‘The People’s Club’ are shitting on their local community by joining Gove’s divisive crusade and taking much needed resources away from other local authority funded schools in some of the poorest areas in western Europe.

Phil Thornton

Want the new Everton third kit without having to spend fifty sheets? SOS1878 are giving the new shirt away to one of our forum users.

The Nike design, previewed by new signing Kevin Mirallas yesterday, has proven popular with fans, who will soon be able to pre-order it online from Everton Direct.

To win the shirt from us, all you have to do is sign up for the SOS1878 forum and post a message in our Everton forum. Winners will be chosen at random and notified via private message asking which size shirt they would like.

The competition is also open for current members of the SOS1878 forum(s).