The route to peace in the middle east

It's painful to think what so many people have been going through in Israel and Gaza since the Hamas attack on Israeli kibbutzim just over a month ago. Opinions seem dangerously polarised not just in the region but also here in Britain.

But apparently that's not entirely the case. I was encouraged to read in the Sunday Times that many Brits have sympathy with both sides. Among those with sympathy for the Israelis, 84% also sympathised with the Palestinians. Even among the most vehement pro-Israel supporters 77% had some sympathy for the Palestinians, with 45% showing them a "great deal" of sympathy. Those that felt most strongly about one side were not necessarily more likely to feel ill of the other.

I've was trying to hold that thought in mind when I watched the news coverage of the pro-Palestinian protests in London on Saturday 11 November. I'm far from alone in thinking that the timing of that protest was deeply disrespectful of our national Armistice Day also known as Remembrance Day. The fact that the protest was not planned for Remembrance Sunday wasn't, to me, a valid reason for finding it acceptable. There are plenty of other days in the year available to protest. The whole sorry spectacle was made more tense by the hullabaloo in the build up to Saturday. I console myself with the thought that it was relatively small numbers of trouble makers, on either side of the argument, while the majority looked on with distaste.

Certainly the people who go out on the streets to protest seem to overwhelmingly favour the Palestinians. In contrast, Hadley Freeman reports that posters of kidnapped Israelis are routinely torn down in London and replaced with pro-Palestinian graffiti. Social media has shown a woman tearing them down because she "didn't believe" Hamas had kidnapped the missing Israelis. Perhaps this is not surprising when a senior Hamas leader has refused to acknowledge that his group even killed any civilians in Israel, saying only "conscripts" were targeted. This notwithstanding ample evidence from the Israelis and various fact check and authoritative news organisations supporting the evidence that 260 people attending a concert in southern Israel were killed on 7 October despite a video widely shared on social media claiming that to be false.

In the immediate wake of the 7 October Hamas attack we didn't see Israeli flags widely flown unlike those of Ukraine flags flown, it seemed, everywhere following the Russian invasion. The F.A. bottled it and didn't light up the Wembley arch in Israeli colours for the England friendly match on 17 October, having illuminated it in the colours of Ukraine, France and Turkey in recent times. Instead the players wore black armbands and there was a minute's silence for "all the victims of the conflict in Israel and Palestine", a Corbynite form of weasel words in the circumstances, I felt.

It's very sad, but look at the context, Freeman noted some say, arguing that sounded pretty indistinguishable from something she calls "justification". Parodying that argument she said, "the babies probably deserved it... their mere existience in Israel means they asked for it."

Freeman also contrasted the small number of non-Jews at a vigil for Israel shortly after October 7 with the diverse crowds at pro-Palestinian rallies. "Well, now we know who would have helped us, and who would have pushed us onto the trains" a friend texted her.

Freeman is a liberal Jew, a two state solution supporter who accepts that Israel and, in particular, the present Israeli givernment has done terrible things to the Palestinians. But worse than what Hamas has done? She felt, even by 15 October, that what was happening in Gaza was a tragedy. But Jews need a homeland and cannot live alongside people set on destroying them. She thought this was understood. But it's clearly not - she says that many who march for a free Palestine believe that Israel should not exist at all and sadly I fear she is right.

I don't doubt that many of the protesters on 11 November are well intentioned. But many are not. Dominic Lawson noted that a female protester in Birmingham held a placard reading "Now do you understand why the trees and rocks have to speak?" Lawson noted that the police must have thought it had a horticultural meaning, when it is actually a call to kill Jews for being Jews*.

A gamut of seemingly random special interest groups turn up at these protests. Freeman reported seeing signs reading "Queers for Palestine" and "Feminists for Gaza" and commented: "wait till you hear how Hamas treats gay people and women there, guys".  In contrast, I note Israel isn't just the only democracy in the region, it's one that tolerates sexual and gender diversity more than most countries, as evidenced by the number of LGBT artists who have represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest: a remarkable 7 gays, lesbians and a trans woman (twice) between 1998 and 2022.

There seems a complete lack of nuance or any understanding of the intractability of the issues. Freeman noted that if the activists wanted to make a point they could print posters of Palestinian casualties of the conflict and stick them up next to those of the Israeli hostages. But no, they deny the murders and kidnapping happened in a kind of holocaust denial syndrome.

Nevertheless, I thought those arguing for a "proportionate" response from Israel to the Hamas attacks had a strong point, even after I read a Times Journalist whose rejoinder was "just exactly what is a proportionate response to genocide"? I guess from our perspective the need for a proportionate response is as much to avoid the risk of escalation from a local to a regional conflict, with all that implies. In other words, it's sometimes motivated by our own self interest as much as anything else.

Other than following the events of the years since the six day Arab-Israeli war in 1967 brought the issues to my attention as a teenager, I hadn't read much about the history of the conflict until recently. What little I have read may well be inaccurate and partial so I don't claim to have any great understanding of the issues.

I'll bookend my very limited understanding of the background with two points. Firstly, Jews and Palestinians have lived in the area now known as Israel and Palestine since, essentially, the beginning of time. Jews have lived there continuously for around 4,000 years. It's one of the three oldest religions in the world (the others being Hinduism and Zoroastrianism). Around 3,000 years ago the Jews established a monarchy in the land that now includes Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and parts of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. The map below is King Saul's unified kingdom of the 12 Jewish tribes:

In the following millennia the Babylonians conquered Israel, the Persians conquered the Babylonians, the Greeks conquered the Persians and then the Romans occupied Israel in the first century BC. In the meantime the Muslim religion had been established by Mohammed in Mecca in modern day Saudi Arabia. While I doubt that everything was always harmonious between the various ethnic and religious groups in the region it seems that there were long periods when, under the control of a distant empire, peace was maintained. But things started to get difficult for the Jews under the Romans and, following the first Jewish-Roman war in 66 - 73 BC in which a state of Israel was briefly declared, the Romans destroyed the main Jewish strongholds (and temples) with what Wikipedia calls "profound demographic, theological, political and economic consequences". In particular many surviving Jews were expelled or displaced.

Thus began the presence of the Jews in many surrounding and some far away states and, perhaps, some of the root causes of antisemitism and the compex history of the last century or so that we can't seem to escape from.

Secondly, the trigger for the current crisis seems to have been the rapprochment that was growing between Saudi Arabia and Israel. It seems clear that the timing of the 7 October Hamas attack was intended to thwart that thaw and prevent it blooming into a more normal relationship, such as Israel has with Egypt. And it seems to have achieved that, at least for the time being. It may not need saying when Hamas has killed and kidnapped so many Israelis but these are not people with any interest in peace and the attack was surely intended to tilt the region back to conflict. In doing so Hamas has effectively put the residents of Gaza on the front line, at least those who don't live in terrorist tunnels contructed with aid money and materials intended for other purposes.

Of course Israel, with its history of being under permanent threat, has a long track record of using force to neutralise its opponents. When many of those opponents have wanted to remove Israel and Jews from the face of the earth that is understandable but it makes long term peace difficult. Under hardline prime minister Netanyahu Israel has often been been hard to like. But is it, as some allege, an "apartheid state"? 

I'm uncomfortable about the treatment of Palestinians in Israeli controlled areas but apartheid seems to me an inappropriate comparison. I assumed the tretment of Palestinians in the West Bank would be far better than it would be for Jews in, say, Iran, though having checked I stand corrected on that. There are some 12,000 to 15,000 Jews still living in Iran (or at least there were as recently as 2018). They do suffer some discrimination but are generally allowed to get on with their lives (and worship) despite living in a country whose former president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, repeatedly denied the holocaust  happened. Surprisingly it's the largest Jewish population in the middle east outside of Israel. Why so?

The vast majority of the 1 million Jews who lived in Arab states in 1945 became refugees almost immediately after the creation of Israel but there were still over 100,000 in Iran until the 1979 revolution displaced the dynastic Shah with an autocratic Islamic state and so in 1967 they didn't need to move. The number of Jewish refugees in 1967 was similar to the number of Palestinians (700,000) who were displaced or expelled in the Nakba (catastrophe) on the creation of the state of Israel. One might say the displaced Jews had a homeland to go to, though they also travelled destitute. The majority had to learn a new language and get used to living in a very different culture. They were assimilated. In contrast the children and grandchildren of the displaced Palestinians, who generally moved short distances and remained in a linguistically, ethnically and culturally similar society, are still deemed to be refugees, a concept I find a little difficult after 75 years, though this perhaps shows how little progress the international community has made in solving the issues**.

The state of Israel, as originally drawn on the map and before the occupation of the West Bank and Golan Heights, seems almost impossible to defend militarily (see map below). One can understand the security concerns of Israelis in reverting to the pre 1967 borders. Personally I struggle to see how the two-state solution that is the policy of the UK government (and USA and EU) could actually work unless the prospective Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank was peaceful and the two states could live in harmony. I wonder if it is merely paid lip service and if so I can understand why that irritates Palestinian supporters.

Frustratingly, it might have worked at one time: it was proposed by the UN in 1947 and accepted by the Israelis but rejected by the Arab states. Israel declared independence and was immediately attacked by several of the neighbouring Arab states, with the Nakba and all the subsequent events unfolding miserably over the last 7 plus decades.

Of course, just because there were Jewish states in Israel in the very distant past didn't mean one had to be one created there in 1947. There are plenty of other ethnic and religious groups who don't have a homeland, the Kurds and the Uyghurs for example***. Nevertheless that was the decision of the international community in the shattered world that existed at the end of world war II. One might argue it was to assauge guilt at the Holocaust, though pogroms against Jews predated the Nazis and there had been many proponents of a Jewish state in Palestine for decades beforehand. Or one might argue that it was evidently necessary - Freeman's family literally had nowhere to go after WWII (they came from Poland where, even after the fall of the Nazis, there were still pogroms and Jew-hatred).

Some people know who to blame for it all. At a Labour party conference Pro-Palestinian fringe meeting last month one activist blamed it all on Britain. Naturally I'm not having that. One could read up on the history of the establishment of Israel in 1948 for several days. Indeed the Wikipedia entry History of Israel would take a good couple of hours to read and attempt to digest. Britain ended up with responsibility for the area after WW2. Despite the UN resolution in 1947 to implement the two state solution (with Jerusalem under an independent trusteeship) the Security Council and Britain didn't hurry to implement it. Britain continued to detain Jews attempting to enter Palestine (as was). According to the Wikipedia account Britain was wary of upsetting Anglo-Arab relations. Just like the FA recently, sitting on the fence.

Under terrorist/insurgent/freedom fighter (delete as applicable) attacks from both sides Britain pulled out in May 1948, Israel declared iself a state and its Arab neighbours attacked it.

One could blame the Brits for cutting and running I suppose, but they clearly weren't welcome as peace keepers. Who would want the job now? While all this was happening Britain was extracting itself from India, responsible for part of Germany, dismantling its empire and attempting to rebuild its own shattered and debt ridden economy in the wake of the war.

So what is the route to peace? Obviously one wouldn't start from here. I listened to part of a BBC Question Time episode recently. It came from Belfast and the various Northern Irish speakers urged the need for dialogue. I accept now that it was necessary for there to be dialogue involving Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness, though I struggled with it at the time having been in Warrington with one of my sons only 20 minutes before the provisional IRA bomb exploded in 1993. I always admired the way Tim Parry, the father of one of the victims, emphasised the need to leave hate behind and "turning something bad into something good". I admired him for it because I knew I could not have done the same. But of course he was right.

What they didn't address was the fact that you can't have dialogue with people who implacably want to see your whole race extinguished. While Hamas has control of Gaza I don't see how dialogue is possible. A Hamas spokesperson told Lebanese TV "We will repeat the October 7 attack again and again until Israel is annihilated. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, but we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs".  Egyptian journalist Ibrahim Eissa, noting that Hamas has controlled Gaza for 16 years, has built an underground city for its weapons and ammunition but no bomb shelters for civilians. "Why? Because life is cheap to them" he said. 

There are Palestinians who want peace of course - probably a majority of them. The Sunday Times told the moving story of Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian  doctor who has lost many family members including three of his daughters. He, like Tim Parry, says hate is not the answer. So a way has to be found to empower Palestininans who want peace to rid themselves of Hamas. Easier said than done, of course.

We now face a situation where new generations of terrorists are likely to be created, though there might be some opportunity for dialogue when the current fighting ends.

Could a two state solution work? I doubt it, personally, as I've said above. Could power sharing work as in Northern Ireland? Well it might eventually but we know from Northern Ireland that isn't plain sailing (It's not actually operating at the moment and hasn't since February 2022. It was also suspended for nearly 3 years between 2017 and 2020). But Northern Ireland shows there can be hope, if enough people want peace.

I'm not a fan of Benjamin Netanyahu. However a quote of his sums up the problem: if Arabs laid down their arms there would be peace, if Israel laid down its arms there would be no Israel. 

The route to peace starts through enough people on all sides wanting it. It can't happen while Hamas still holds the unfortunate Palestinians in its malevolent grip.

* It's a reference to the original charter of Hamas which quotes from the Hadith, a collection of sayings of the prophet Muhammad, as follows: "...the day of judgement will not come until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then the Jews will hide behind trees and rocks, and the trees and rocks will cry out 'O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me; come and kill him' ". A pretty clear bit of hate speech then.

** The problem of course is that the Palestinians are effectively stateless. There were also large migrations of Hindus and Muslims when India and Pakistan were created in 1947, with horrendous examples of what we now call ethnic cleaning. We don't refer to the descendants of those migrants as refugess though they, like the Israelis, had a "homeland" to go to even if it hadn't been their home. The Palestininans don't. The Arab states neighbouring Israel have not wanted to bring in Palestinians as it would reduce the pressure for a Palestinian homeland.

*** The examples of the Kurds and Uyghurs show that ethnic and religious minorities can get a really bad deal. Unless, of course, they live in a benign, pluralistic and broadly tolerant state, like the UK or the USA. Nobody expends any energy or concern over Amish, Mormons, Scientologists or the Wee Frees not having a "homeland". The problem seems to arise where a minority group is distinct from the majority both ethnically and religiously. 

Other sources:

Britons despair of violence instead of taking sides. Sunday Times 5 November 2023

We Jews really thought we were among friends. Hadley Freeman, Sunday Times 15 October 2023. This newspaper column was as sad and sobering as any newspaper column I've ever read.

We're not even allowed posters of loved ones. Hadley Freeman, Sunday Times 5 November 2023

Eichmann was genocidal. Hamas is too. Israel, no Dominic Lawson Sunday Times 5 November 2023

Hamas leader refuses to acknowledge killing of civilians in Israel. BBC 7 November 2023

What we know about three widespread Israel- Hamas war claims. Factcheck.org, posted 13 October, updated 24 October 2023

History of Israel. Wikipedia

Did Jews take Israel away from Palestinians? https://jfedsrq.org/did-jews-take-israel-from-palestinians/ 8 December 2020 This source includes many maps showing the evolution of boundaries in the region.

Fact sheet: Jewish refugees from Arab countries. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-refugees-from-arab-countries?utm_content=cmp-true

Iran's Jewish community is the largest in mideast outside Israel. https://eu.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/world/inside-iran/2018/08/29/iran-jewish-population-islamic-state/886790002/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_participants_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest

Stateless Palestinians - forced migration review. Abbas Shiblak, FMR26 Refugee Studies Centre (part of Oxford Department of International Development),  https://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/en/palestine/shiblak.pdf

Victim's father marks 30 years since IRA bombing BBC 20 March 2023

An Israeli shell killed three of my girls. But hate will only prolong the horror. Izzeldin Abuelaish, Sunday Times 5 November 2023

Farewell to a Gentleman

 

We lost a true Evertonian last week. One who, unfortunately for him in a way, though I'm sure he wouldn't have had it any differently, was wealthy enough to put together a consortium to buy the club he's supported all his life when it looked rudderless. And to bring it stability and relative success, albeit not trophies. But one who was not mega wealthy and realised he didn't have the wherewithal to compete with Roman Abramovich let alone the sovereign wealth funds who would follow as owners of Premier League clubs. One who looked tirelessly for a suitable, wealthier owner to take the club forward. He was thwarted in that aim for many years by the millstone of the need to fund a new stadium. Why else would Sheik Mansour have bought Manchester City?

After all, when the Abu Dhabi Doos bought into City in 2008 they had just finished 9th in the premier league having finished 14th the previous year. Everton had finished 5th and 6th in those two years. But City were no longer at Maine Road having been gifted a stadium.

Kenwright eventually found his wealthy buyer, the enthusiastic (for quite a while) Farhad Moshiri who was prepared to make the new stadium happen and spend a lot of money on the team. It's hardly Kenwright's fault that the managers Moshiri put in place - a lot of them! - wasted that money, though an unfortunately large proportion of Everton fans - or at least the noisy ones on social media - seem to think it was his fault.  

It's also not his fault that Moshiri's backer of last resort, the super wealthy Alisher Usmanov, became persona non grata because Putin invaded Ukraine, so Moshiri's appetite to keep funding a project in trouble ran out.

I hope those fans who turned on Kenwright have read the many fond recollections of him from former and current players and managers who knew him as a polite, enthusiastic and supportive chairman who didn't interfere but always encouraged and was concerned for the well being of all the club's employees. And who championed the largest and best community programme of any club in the Premier League (and quite possibly the world).

I met Bill once. Well actually I didn't but he spoke to me. One of my most loyal readers of this blog believes I can recall every detail of every match I've ever been to, which of course I can't. Far from it, especially the more recent ones! But I remember the day Bill spoke to me very clearly and it tells you a lot about the man.

It was on the 28th of December 1997. And no I didn't remember that, I had to look it up. The reason I remember is that it turned out to be the day that Duncan Ferguson scored the first ever hat trick of headers in the Premier League and me and my older son were there. Though we missed the first goal.

At that time we lived in Oxfordshire and so, having seen around half the home matches in some seasons earlier in the 90s, we only got to see the odd game. For this one we would have been staying with family for Christmas and/or New Year. We hadn't realised that access to the ground had become all ticket (yes, you really could just rock up and pay cash at the turnstiles until the season before). 

So when we arrived we found we had to join a large queue at the box office in Goodison Road to buy tickets, by which time the game had started. The game had been going a while when we got to the front of the queue. Having got our tickets we walked briskly along Goodison Road and, just as we were coming to the end of the Main Stand, there was an enormous roar as Ferguson scored his first. At which point we ran around to the Gwladys Street turnstiles (why? we weren't going to catch a replay!). The suddenness of that colossal din - if you're in the ground you realise it's about to happen, so it took us by surprise - is why I remember the day so clearly. The game ended 3-2 and I remember nothing more about it. 

Except what happened while we were standing in the queue, at a point where it snaked along the pavement close to the main entrance, with it's uniformed commissionaire. (Do they still have that? Perhaps I'll look when I go to today's match). I was, as usual, in full flow bending my then teenage sons's ear about something and nothing - probably something about his boys' team that I coached - when a quiet voice to our side gently said "excuse me, can I pass through, please?"

I stood aside and a white haired chap, who had been waiting patiently, said "thank you" and walked past making his way towards the main entrance. I turned back to my son and was about to resume my exposition on whatever, when I glanced at the chap's back and said to my son "that's Bill Kenwright. What a nice, polite man". (If the roles had been reveresed I'd have probably walked up without slowing down much, said "excuse me, mate" and pushed through).

At that point Bill was on the board of directors and a minor shareholder. By that time Kenwright was also a very successful theatre producer and director (I'm sure we'd all been to see the fabulous Blood Brothers as a family by then). Even when Kenwright's consortium acquired the club in 1999 there was infighting, in particular with Paul Gregg, another theatre impressario, which thwarted plans to build a stadium at King's Dock right in the centre of the Liverpool waterfront. The project failed in 2003 because the club could not come up with £30m to secure the site. Gregg subsequently sold his shares to an American businessman and it was another year before Kenwright became the club's major shareholder (some sources say Philip Green bunged him the money for it). He became chairman in July 2004.

By 2005 he was looking for investment into the club and always made clear he would stand aside if a suitable buyer could be found. It took more than a decade before Moshiri turned up. Many fans subscribe to the view that Kenwright thwarted attempts to buy the cub off him; he always insisted the money had never actually been there (as Moshiri may now be finding out).

As you can tell I was a Kenwright admirer. I'm disappointed the club has got into difficulties again in recent years and, as Chairman, he obviously has some responsibility. But until Moshiri came along the club was well and cautiously run. One statistic tells it all really - the number of managers they appointed. From the day Kenwright's consortium became the majority shareholder in 1999 to the day he sold to Moshiri in 2016 Everton had 3 managers: Walter Smith was already in place, Kenwright switched him for David Moyes and then, when Moyes left, he appointed Roberto Martinez. So Kenwright appointed 2 managers in 16 years. Moshiri has appointed 7 in 9 years, excluding interim appointments. Kenwright may have been chairman through that time but we know that it was Moshiri interviewing candidate managers, sometimes on Usmanov's yacht apparently. 

There was a fitting tribute for Kenwright before the kick off of the cup tie with Burnley on 1 November and I believe that showed the silent majority of Evertonians share my view of him. The photo above comes from the cover of the tribute edition of the programme for that match.

One other photo shows the touch of the theatre impressario. It's from the tribute at Goodison in September 2012 for the Hillsborough victims a few days after publication of the independent panel's report which confirmed that there had been a cover up shifting the blame from the police to the victims*

The two mascots (for a game between Everton and Newcastle United) took the field to a song carefully chosen by Bill: the Hollies "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother". The symbolism was perfect: Liverpool FC is effectively Everton FC's younger brother. There had been speculation that Everton would play the Liverpool anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone". But Bill was much cleverer than that. A year later he got a standing ovation at the annual Hillsborough memorial service at Anfield, saying "you picked on the wrong city - and you picked on the wrong mums".

A class act was Bill. Farewell and thanks for the journey.

* I would say the FA was also significantly to blame, giving the fateful semi-final to Hillsborough. The ground did not have a valid safety certificate at the time and there had been problems at another semi-final in the recent past. And they gave the team with the larger number of supporters the smaller end of the ground. It was all inviting trouble. I have no idea why the FA has got off so lightly in retrospectives of the disaster

Sources include

Wikipedia (of course) 

Bill Kenwright was so generous, Hillsborough campaigner says. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-67217127 25 October 2023

Up or down for for the Grand Old Team from here?

Everton fans have had enough to worry about for several years now but things could be about to get much worse. The Premier League charged Everton under its Financial Foul Play regulations* in March but until May the more imminent threat was relegation on the field. A relief filled victory in the must-win last home game of the season, 1-0 against Bournemouth at the end of May, saved them for the time being. 

I was at that game. Henry Winter, the Times Chief Football writer, doesn't normally cover Everton but  was clearly sent to Goodison for the purpose of a story (either way). He wrote a lovely, rather respectful and well crafted match report** which started by quoting the Everton fans' Grand Old Team song:

"If you know your history, you know Everton will fight and how hard they fought here at Goodison Park.... to preserve their club’s run in the elite division that dates back to 1954".

It was an interesting atmosphere that day in and around Goodison. The streets were packed and in full party mode before the match:

The folk on the bus shelter were leading the singing and only two of the four lanes on County Road (aka the A59) were available to traffic. There was a serious risk of getting spattered with blue paint from flares in the streets. The photo below was taken while I enjoyed my pre-match bevvy. 

 

I'm sure there were far more people than could fit in the modern day, restricted capacity, Goodison. I expect a lot had turned up just for the party. The mood seemed remarkably confident. A confidence I didn't entirely share but they were right, as a rather makeshift team with midfielders Garner and O'Neill filling in as wing backs gave a competent performance to the extent that, even though it was only 1-0, the announcement of 10 minutes added time didn't cause many nerves. Indeed, that ten minutes of football must have been among the most composed the team played all season.

The thinness of Everton's squad was stark when I got back to my seat towards the end of half time and saw four Everton subs doing a desultory warm up. "Are they all of our subs?" I asked the lady sitting next to me. "There's a couple of keepers as well" she said. Injuries had depleted the squad a bit but not even being able to fill the bench with youngsters was revealing.

Despite securing survival, just as a season earlier I was rather gloomy about the club's forward prospects. I'd said then that I couldn't see why things would change. Clubs that have struggled usually struggle again the following year, which came to pass. Though by May 2023 my concern was excaerbated by the pending FFP charge. 

The season started with Everton's squad still looking thin and main striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin still crocked.  I went to the first match of the season, at home against Fulham. The performance was good but not the result. The 1-0 defeat was a much better showing than the equivalent fixture played only last April, a game I also went to, where Everton were comprehensively undone by a Willian masterclass. A friend who came with me to this season's game said Everton should have been 3 up before Fulham scored. Without DCL or, at that time, another credible striker, Neil Maupay tried his heart out, nearly scored in the first few minutes, but lost heart when their keeper made a great save at point blank range and the crowd lost what little faith and patience they had left for him. 

However, Everton did at least play enterprising football in that game and that pattern continued with the team making but not taking chances. Roll forward a few weeks and the squad had been strengthened by the addition of Jack Harrison, who Leeds fans warn can be inconsistent and a promising deputy for DCL - Portuguese striker Beto, who I call Nobby, as his full name is Norberto Bercique Gomes Betuncal. In his time on the pitch so far Nobby has looked big, strong and fast but very raw for £25m. He has scored, albeit in his debut in the Haribo Cup against Doncaster, who at the time were propping up League Two. When he battled for the ball in the corner then crossed from the by line for 83 year old Ashley Young*** to score the last goal in the 3-0 Haribo cup win over Burnley the crowd were delighted for him and chorussed "Ole, ole, ole, ole; Beto, Beto" which he acknowledged with a gesture of appreciation. He at least gives us an option if DCL is out or just needs a breather.

Even better DCL, after an unfortunate broken cheekbone set him back, is looking fit (touch wood), strong and is scoring goals. Despite a hamstring tweak and the cheek injury he has appeared in 7 of Everton's 10 premier league matches this season, scoring in 3 of the last 5.

But just as impressive to me is the fact that he seems to have worked on his game while he has been doing his injury rehab. In particular he's improved his ability to pull the ball down on the run and turn from Pickford's long passes, a move which will trouble most centre backs who he can beat for speed. He's done this a few times this season and the one against Bournemouth close to where I was sitting was breathtaking. Had his shot gone in it the clips would have been replayed time after time. But his simpler adjustment of the ball and turning onto it for his goal at West Ham, was impressive too. The great thing when your striker has these skills is you don't have to play him in, you just have to give him the ball near the box, whatever way he's facing. He is looking the complete centre forward again, just as he was when he became Harry Kane's deputy for England three seasons ago. (All of his 11 England appearances and 4 goals came between October 2020 and July 2021). And he's still only 26.

The only thing that remains a puzzle about Calvert-Lewin (besides his dodgy fashion sense) is the fact the Everton fans don't have a song for him even though he's been there since 2016 and now has 50 Premier league goals for the club. I have heard a song purporting to be about him on youtube but I've not heard it sung at the ground. I guess it's because his name is awkward to fit to song. It was much the same for Richarlison, though the fans did eventually have a song for him.

Talking of whom, I had begun to convince myself in the summer that even without Richarlison, if Everton got Calvert-Lewin fit and the squad performed to its potential they should easily be better than at least three other premier league clubs. I was concerned when the early season results weren't matching the performances but since then there's been an improvement, with a good 3-0 win at home against Bournemouth and wins away at Brentford, West Ham and Villa.  I went to the Bournemouth game in early October and the only worrying sign was that Everton should really have scored six, so they still aren't taking enough of their chances. But Bournemouth were poor that day and the home defeat against Luton showed Everton still have a prima donna tendency to be complacent against what they consider to be inferior opposition, a state of mind that can quickly flip to panic when they realise that isn't the case on the day. 

Nevertheless, at the moment I would say the squad is good enough to get comfortably to mid-table, if they can continue picking up points over the next few weeks of relatively difficult fixtures.  The team's run of good results (5 wins in 7) has coincided with young James Garner at last being trusted in centre midfield by Sean Dyche. Garner is looking an outstanding footballer with the precious gifts of being able to win and keep possession. Arguably he is only being outshone at the moment by his England Under 21 colleague, centre back Jarrad Branthwaite who is proving a much more reliable partner for Big Ears (James Tarkowksi) than Noddy (Michael Keane). Everton have been so much better with these two players in the team.

But that confident outlook is before the threat of a points deduction. Unconfirmed reports**** have  speculated that the club could face a 12 point deduction if found guilty of breaching the Premier League's financial fair play rules. At five points clear after 10 games one could extrapolate to 38 matches and say Everton could be 19 points clear by the end of the season, so why worry? But that scenario doesn't really stand up. Everton's early season fixtures were comparatively easy and the teams at the bottom may be poor but they could easily start accruing points at more than their current meagre rate. A 12 point deduction would surely test Everton to the limit. A recent "supercomputer prediction" for the end of season table had Everton and Fulham on 40 points ahead of Burnley on 30 and Sheffield United and Luton nowhere. A 10 point gap, not 12.

If it comes to that. Everton have maintained their innocence throughout but we don't know much about the single charge they face: the Premier League hasn't published any details. We know there is one charge of breaching the limit of £105 million for losses over a three year period which, prima facie, they did, losing £372 million in the three seasons up to 2021-2 before allowing for the impact of covid and spend which appears in the accounts but falls outside fair play calculations, such as on infrastructure and the academy.  We also know Everton claimed much larger covid impacts than other clubs, even ones with much larger stadia: more than £90m, though even that doesn't look enough to keep them compliant. Nevertheless, it stretched credulity and I had assumed the inquiry would be focussing on that. But reports have suggested it is actually related to the tax treatment of loans for the new stadium. As all infrastructure spend, including the new stadium project, is outside the fair play envelope, that struck me as odd. But wait a moment - what if Everton had claimed a tax credit on the stadium loans and tried to benefit from that within the fair play numbers? But how can you claim a tax credit when you've lost a packet and aren't paying any tax? A cursory examination of the club's annual accounts shows that it paid no corporation tax in 2020, 2021 or 2022 and there was a £30k tax credit in 2019. So WTAF?

I've known many experts in finance glaze over at the mention of tax, it's a specialist subject. And who really understands their tax return these days? On the other hand you can get sent to jail for getting your tax wrong. Everton may have to hope that they are treated like Ken Dodd rather than Al Capone*****.

I think it will be difficult for Everton to show they have complied, even though they say they went through the numbers with the Premier League in real time and the Premier League assured Burnley and Leeds less than 18 months ago that Everton were clean. But why would a 12 point deduction be applied for something that could be considered a technicality? The Premier League has never applied a deduction of more than 9 points, which was for Portsmouth going into administration, but the standard penalty in the EFL since 2019 for going into administration has been 12 points. However administration wipes a huge financial sheet clean and so you'd think that would be reserved for the most severe penalty.

From here one could imagine a future in which Everton's current progress on the pitch leads to a comfortable mid table position through this season and going into next. At some point in 2024 or early 2025 the new stadium should be complete and a glowing future could beckon. The club could become an attractive acquisition for one of the sovereign wealth funds yet to buy into the Premier League, which seems to be the only way to join in the party at the top.

On the other hand one could imagine a 12 point deduction leading to relegation and a financial meltdown - I believe some of the large stadium related loans are repayable immediately if the club is relegated. A firesale of players wouldn't be enough to prevent administration. Funds would not be available to complete the stadium, which would sit there on the banks of the Mersey like a gigantic white elephant. A bit like Valencia's part built stadium - started in 2007 on hold since 2009, might be finished in 2025. A phoenix Everton 2024 Limited might easily spin down the leagues to League One, like Derby County, or worse.

My brother thinks the latter secnario is unduly pessimistic. The stadium should be 90% complete by the end of the season and he argues that it will make business sense for someone to complete it. Liverpool City council will want it finished as it kick starts regenration of the only part of Liverpool still pretty much untouched since the end of WWII. Once finished it should be an attractive venue for large events in the north west and has already been selected to host games in the 2028 Euros. On this line of thinking the private equity business 777 partners who want to acquire Everton must have worked through such scenarios and decided the siuation could be managed. My brother's question is not will the stadium be finished but rather who will own it? That doesn't make me feel much better - situations where the club's owner rather than the club owns the stadium have often been unhappy (e.g. Coventry City, Derby County). But at least there would still be a club.

I'll end with the view from my front row seat in Upper Gwladys Street for the Burnley game. For once no obstructed view and even a helpful ledge to use as a shelf for my half time cuppa, making it possible to open my Mars bar wrapper without scalding myself for a change. Nil satis nisi optimum indeed.

* a deliberate mis-wording. I know it's really Financial Fair Play but it's not actually about fairness, is it? The regulations are designed to keep the current elite where they are and all the other clubs in their place

** Henry Winter's match report, Abdelaye Doucoure stunner keeps hosts up, appeared in the Times on 29 May 2023 (online 28 May 2023)

*** Young is, of course 38. He looked every day of it slowly getting up in the first half against Burnley after getting clattered but to be fair to him he made a lot of yards to bundle in his goal in stoppage time, getting between several defenders to arrive at the front post with immaculate timing. His was a rather dispiriting signing when it was made but he's a good professional

**** Premier League calls for Everton to be hit with 12-point deduction - report. The Guardian 25 Oct 2023

***** Ken Dodd was found not guilty of tax fraud by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court in 1989. Part of his defence was that he didn't realise he owed the Inland Revenue money as he lived on the coast. His defence counsel was the famous QC George Carman and the prosecuting counsel was Brian Leveson, later known in connection  with phone hacking and press regulation.  See Did Ken Dodd get away with the crime of the century? Mail Online 9 Nov 2019

Other relevant reading:

Everton FFP hearing: Premier League flopped in front of independent commission claims Simon Jordan. Sky Sports 27 Oct 2023

Everton's financial situation is uncertain - what does this mean for the new stadium? theathletic.com, 3 Nov 2023