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      Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth

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      HUYTON RED
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      Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      May 06, 2013 11:54:53 pm
      Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth

      Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline

      In the blighted streets around Liverpool's Anfield stadium, residents are packing up and leaving their family homes, so the football club can have them demolished and expand their Main Stand. In the six months since the club scrapped their decade-long plan to build a new stadium on Stanley Park, and reverted to expanding Anfield instead, Liverpool city council has been seeking to buy these neighbours' homes, backed by the legal threat of compulsory purchase.

      People's farewells are bitter, filled with anger and heartbreak at the area's dreadful decline and at the club for deepening the blight by buying up houses since the mid-1990s then leaving them empty. A few residents are refusing to move, holding out against the council, which begins negotiations with low offers. These homeowners believe they should be paid enough not only to buy a new house but to compensate for the years of dereliction, stagnation and decline, and crime, fires, vandalism, even murders which have despoiled the area. Their resentment is compounded by the fact that they are being forced to move so that Liverpool, and their relatively new US owner, Fenway Sports Group, can make more money.

      On Lothair Road, which backs on to the Anfield Main Stand, one man who lived next door to a house Liverpool own and have left empty, shuttered – "tinned up" as the locals call it – shook his head. "I'm not moving out," he told the Guardian, "I've been driven out."

      Residents' bitterness derives from when the club started buying houses in Lothair Road, without saying they were doing so or making their intentions clear. The club used an agency to approach some residents, while some houses were bought by third parties then sold on quickly to the club. That left residents with the belief, which has endured ever since, that Liverpool were buying up houses by stealth, to keep prices low.

      The club have never publicly explained in detail what they did, and declined to answer the Guardian's questions about their historic behaviour and current plans. Neighbours, many of whom have lived in Anfield for decades, remembering a vibrant, flourishing area, believe Liverpool bought and left houses empty to deliberately blight the area, intending it would prompt people to leave and drive house prices down.

      Howard Macpherson, now 52, was the first to sell his house on Lothair Road to the club, in 1996. He had lived there, at No 39, a four-bedroom end terrace, for 10 years. Macpherson says it was a fine home, which he had spent money refurbishing, but after Liverpool bought it they always left it empty – now for 17 years.

      "Anfield was a good area, all the houses occupied, nothing like it is today," says Macpherson, who runs a garage, Aintree Motors. "The area started to decline in the early 1990s with the city's economic problems. But Liverpool football club accelerated the decline, by leaving good houses empty and boarded up. It wasn't a natural decline; it was engineered."

      The involvement in the process of a notorious solicitor, Kevin Dooley, acting for the club, did not encourage confidence. Dooley, who acted for several Liverpool players and the convicted drug baron Curtis Warren as well as the club before he died in 2004, was struck off by the Law Society in 2002 after it found him guilty of being involved in fraudulent purported bank schemes.

      Liverpool were motivated to buy neighbouring houses by a fear of losing pre-eminence in English football after their mighty playing success and financial dominance of the 1970s and 80s. The club felt bruised by having been delayed in building the new Centenary Stand because of two elderly sisters, Joan and Nora Mason, who refused to leave their house at No 26 Kemlyn Road, until November 1990. Manchester United entered the super-commercialised Premier League era by floating on the stock market in 1991, raising £6.7m to seat the Stretford End, and with Old Trafford's ceaseless, lucrative expansion and Sir Alex Ferguson's team-building, Liverpool fell behind United's money-making capacity.

      The club turned their attention to expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, although they did not announce this intention or discuss it openly with residents. The Main Stand backs tightly on to the terraced row of odd numbers on Lothair Road. Liverpool began buying houses in 1996, mostly leaving them empty. Land Registry records reveal that between January 1996 and March 2000, Liverpool bought 10 houses on Lothair Road.

      Most were on the odd side, closest to the Main Stand: Nos 1, 3, 7, 9, 15, 33, 35 and Macpherson's No 39. In March 1999 Liverpool made their first purchase across the road, on the even side, No 16. That row is not needed for a bigger Main Stand itself, but the residents, and those in the row behind on Alroy Road, would have their right to light blocked by it, a major obstacle to planning permission. In March 2000 Liverpool bought No 10 Lothair Road. That house, like most Liverpool bought, was never again occupied, has been empty for 13 years and is "tinned up".

      Liverpool also bought houses on Anfield Road: grander Victorian piles with front gardens, backing on to Stanley Park; almost the whole row opposite the stand, Shankly gates and Hillsborough memorial: 51, 53, 55, 61, 63, 69 and 71. These houses were also left mostly empty and allowed to fall into disrepair.

      With houses empty and demand for them falling in a city struggling to recover from its 1980s economic decimation, the Anfield area collapsed into dramatic decline. Alongside Liverpool football club, family homes and private landlords, the main other property owner was Your Housing, a large group of housing associations, then called Arena. It also began to leave properties "tinned up" – 265 were empty in the wider Anfield area by 2011. Residents complain that as the area was blighted, problem tenants moved in, bringing crime and antisocial behaviour.

      Liverpool's secret plan to get houses knocked down and expand the stadium, which the residents had suspected from the beginning, was exposed by a local free newspaper in September 1999. The club, with the council and Arena, had produced Anfield Plus, a plan to demolish both rows of houses on Lothair Road, the one on Alroy Road backing on to Lothair, and those on Anfield Road, for two enlarged stands. In the wider area, 1,800 properties were designated for demolition. A food, drink and retail area was planned on a cleared corner across from the Kop and Centenary Stand. New social housing, shops, a supermarket and community centre were also envisaged.

      Shock at such a plan being conceived without discussion with residents produced an outcry. The council did not support the plan with compulsory purchase threats but instead embarked on a consultation process. Rick Parry, Liverpool's then chief executive, acknowledged the club were seeking a bigger Anfield to compete financially with Manchester United, but said nevertheless: "I believe we can also work much better with the community, be a good neighbour."

      In the intense, often fraught discussions with residents, some progress was slowly made. New homes were built or renovated, including the Skerries Road terrace, behind Kemlyn Road, which Liverpool had previously bought up and left blighted. Two health centres have been built and the new Four Oaks primary school and North Liverpool Academy. Yet Lothair Road, Alroy and Anfield Road, on which the club had set their sights, were left to rot.

      While the Premier League, its club owners, players, managers and agents were growing rich on pay-TV millions, right around one of its most revered clubs there was squalor and horror. The many empty houses were vandalised, robbed, stripped, set on fire. People living next door to Liverpool's tinned-up houses told the club they feared waking up in the night to find them ablaze. Still, the club did not put tenants in them. Some people began to move out, their houses' value having tumbled, but many good people stayed, determined not to be forced out.

      Liverpool's switch to a plan for a wholly new stadium on Stanley Park came partly out of the post-Anfield Plus community consultation. In one meeting, Parry looked at a map and was struck by how hemmed in by houses the ground would still be, even if expanded. Yet even as the plans developed over years, many residents did not believe Liverpool would ever build a new stadium. Partly this was because even after all the outcry over Anfield Plus, Liverpool still bought houses on Lothair Road, including No10.

      In October 1999, 33 Lothair Road, owned by Liverpool and unoccupied, was set on fire, filling the house of the elderly couple who lived next door with smoke and soot. Residents say that three people were killed, set alight, in a horrific incident, in a house further along Lothair Road. A woman reported to be renting on Lothair Road who worked as a prostitute was murdered, in 2001.

      A Lothair Road resident, who did not want to be named because he is in negotiations with the council to finally leave, recalled his elderly father going out to fill a coal bucket from the old-fashioned scuttle under the front steps. Two tenants who had moved in across the road threw a brick at his father's head. The resident went across the road, banged on both doors, and roared at them to come out, which they did not.

      "These are some of the drastic things we've had to do," he said, talking on his doorstep. "I brought three children up here. If Liverpool had been honest from the beginning, said they wanted our houses to expand their ground, we're realistic, we know they're a huge football club, most of us support them, deals could have been done. Instead they were underhand, blighted the area and we've had to live like this for years."

      The sorry saga of how the new stadium plans turned to dust was played out in public, while residents suffered stagnation and wreckage. The club had continued to buy houses on Anfield Road: No 65 in 2001, 47, 49 and 67 in 2007. Parry and the then majority shareholder, David Moores, believed they needed rich owners to stand behind the borrowing required for a new stadium, which could have been built in the early 2000s for perhaps £140m. It took years before finally in 2007 they sold the club for £179m to the Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Moores personally made £89m.

      Hicks famously promised "a spade in the ground" and work to begin on the new stadium in 60 days, but he and Gillett had borrowed the money to buy the club and were planning to borrow for the stadium too, then could not. Under pressure from Royal Bank of Scotland, in October 2010 Hicks and Gillett were forced by court order to sell the club, John Henry's FSG paying the £200m price of the RBS debt.

      FSG, which renovated the Boston Red Sox stadium, Fenway Park, rather than build a new one, suggested from the beginning it might scrap the new stadium plan as too expensive. In October, Liverpool's managing director, Ian Ayre, confirmed that, describing the intention to go back to expanding Anfield as "a great leap forward".

      FSG's current plan envisages expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, with both sides of Lothair Road, and one side of Alroy Road, demolished. A hotel is proposed behind the enlarged Main Stand on the footprint of Lothair Road's even side and Alroy, because a commercial property does not have the same right to light as homes. A development, probably bars and restaurants, with training promised for young people, is proposed opposite the corner of the Kop and Centenary Stand. With Liverpool having purchased a whole row on Anfield Road, they have already knocked those houses down, so there is no obstacle to enlarging that stand.

      This FSG plan, then, is strikingly similar to Anfield Plus, which was worked up in 1999, then put on hold for 13 years in favour of the new stadium proposal.

      Ruth Little, of the Anfield and Breckfield community council, says: "After people suffered so much, from the football club and Your Housing leaving properties empty and blighting the area, when they went back to the original plan I did wonder what the last 12 years of consultation have been for.

      "A lot of good work has been done, though, much of it by local people volunteering. At least we have some certainty now, and we have to make sure that the people who are left are treated with respect."

      Reports on that are mixed. While many homeowners have sold their houses over the years for little, the council's final offers now are more generous. Some residents have settled for around £80,000, more than the houses would have fetched on the market in such blighted conditions, and the council is also providing interest-free loans. This enables those who own their own homes to buy another similar house without taking on a new mortgage.

      However, several people accuse the council, which is negotiating via agents, of starting with low offers, forcing people in difficult circumstances to negotiate hard or be seriously disadvantaged.

      Bill Higham, who owns 25 Alroy Road, says he was offered £55,000, which he refused outright, for a house he has had to refurbish twice after it was seriously vandalised.

      "I find it disgraceful," he says. "After the way the area has been run down, I'm being forced out and they want the properties for a song. They could pay everybody up, properly, for less than one Liverpool player's wage."

      Bill McGarry, vice-chair of the Anfield Rockfield Triangle residents' association, a qualified town planner, has helped some residents negotiate with the council. Patrick Duggan, chair of Artra, is an ardent critic of the club, whom he vehemently accuses of running the area down. Duggan runs Epstein House, a refurbished hotel in the old Anfield Road family home of the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein. Duggan bought it for £450,000, partly, he says, because Liverpool were building a new stadium which would regenerate the area. He has been shocked instead to find the area's degradation, then felt betrayed when FSG scrapped the new stadium plan.

      "I have always been a Liverpool fan," says Duggan, who has mounted a campaign targeting Ayre. "They play 'You'll Never Walk Alone' but they have left their neighbours to walk alone for years."

      Paddy McKay, 58, a builder who has lived for 37 years on Walton Breck Road, is refusing to accept the council's offer. He and his wife Carol brought up three daughters there; he has paid his mortgage off in full and argues that, if he is forced to move, he should be paid enough to buy a similar house somewhere decent and compensation for the years of blight. Even now, antisocial behaviour is continuing on those streets, including house fires.

      "Liverpool FC have said they want to be good neighbours? They're the world's worst neighbours; they couldn't care less," McKay says. "After all the damage they have done to the area, they should do the decent thing by the residents."

      James McKenna, chair of the Spirit of Shankly supporters' union, says the fans have sympathy for the club's neighbours. "The stadium expansion is all about the club making more money, and fans will have to pay more for tickets," McKenna says. "To do that, Liverpool have played a part in derelict houses, streets boarded up. It's a blot on LFC's record."

      A council spokesman declined to discuss details of the house-buying process. "Since last autumn we have been developing a robust set of plans for the area which are absolutely on track," he said. "This will include working with the local community on a blueprint for the wider regeneration of Anfield."

      Brian Cronin, chief executive of Your Housing, defended his organisation's property stewardship in the area and said the group has invested more than £23m in refurbishments or new homes around Anfield since 2009. Your Housing has 22 properties on Lothair, Alroy and Sybil Roads behind the Main Stand, of which 12 "are long-term vacant". Cronin said: "We are currently working very closely with Liverpool city council and other partners in Anfield to establish the best long-term future for these properties as part of the wider regeneration of the area."

      Liverpool declined to comment but last month Ayre updated the Liverpool Daily Post, saying: "To extend Anfield, we need to acquire a bunch of privately owned property around the stadium. We're making really good progress with that. We said some months back it would take several months to improve that property acquisition situation. We're definitely on target so far."

      Once the properties are bought, Ayre said, the club will apply for planning permission. After that, the third challenge is to "build the thing".

      He told the Guardian in October that an expanded Anfield with a 60,000 capacity will not allow cheaper tickets; its aim is to make more money. Liverpool have employed PricewaterhouseCoopers to survey fans, and corporate customers, to help plan price brackets for the new facilities.

      Some fans wonder if FSG, which is quite remote as owner, with Henry hardly in Liverpool and progress slow and costly, may sell the club, particularly once planning permission has been secured. FSG and Henry have not said that is a possibility. The stated plan is to expand the ground and enable Liverpool to compete again by making more money, so attracting better players by offering them huge wages on a par with the other top clubs.

      Liverpool's remaining neighbours, suffering some of Britain's worst living conditions, are grappling with hardball offers, to have their houses knocked down and make way for it all. In the Premier League of the 21st century, this is Anfield.


      http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2013/may/06/anfield-liverpool-david-conn?CMP=twt_gu
      what-a-hit-son
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      • t: @MrPrice1979 i: @klmprice101518
      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #1: May 07, 2013 12:40:22 am
      Ta for putting proper article up Huyt.

      Wasn't too aware of what was actually going on meself though.

      Son Of A Gun
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #2: May 07, 2013 12:54:32 am
      Anfield: the victims, the anger and Liverpool's shameful truth

      Policy of buying up houses around the stadium and leaving them empty has driven the local area into dreadful decline

      In the blighted streets around Liverpool's Anfield stadium, residents are packing up and leaving their family homes, so the football club can have them demolished and expand their Main Stand. In the six months since the club scrapped their decade-long plan to build a new stadium on Stanley Park, and reverted to expanding Anfield instead, Liverpool city council has been seeking to buy these neighbours' homes, backed by the legal threat of compulsory purchase.

      People's farewells are bitter, filled with anger and heartbreak at the area's dreadful decline and at the club for deepening the blight by buying up houses since the mid-1990s then leaving them empty. A few residents are refusing to move, holding out against the council, which begins negotiations with low offers. These homeowners believe they should be paid enough not only to buy a new house but to compensate for the years of dereliction, stagnation and decline, and crime, fires, vandalism, even murders which have despoiled the area. Their resentment is compounded by the fact that they are being forced to move so that Liverpool, and their relatively new US owner, Fenway Sports Group, can make more money.

      On Lothair Road, which backs on to the Anfield Main Stand, one man who lived next door to a house Liverpool own and have left empty, shuttered – "tinned up" as the locals call it – shook his head. "I'm not moving out," he told the Guardian, "I've been driven out."

      Residents' bitterness derives from when the club started buying houses in Lothair Road, without saying they were doing so or making their intentions clear. The club used an agency to approach some residents, while some houses were bought by third parties then sold on quickly to the club. That left residents with the belief, which has endured ever since, that Liverpool were buying up houses by stealth, to keep prices low.

      The club have never publicly explained in detail what they did, and declined to answer the Guardian's questions about their historic behaviour and current plans. Neighbours, many of whom have lived in Anfield for decades, remembering a vibrant, flourishing area, believe Liverpool bought and left houses empty to deliberately blight the area, intending it would prompt people to leave and drive house prices down.

      Howard Macpherson, now 52, was the first to sell his house on Lothair Road to the club, in 1996. He had lived there, at No 39, a four-bedroom end terrace, for 10 years. Macpherson says it was a fine home, which he had spent money refurbishing, but after Liverpool bought it they always left it empty – now for 17 years.

      "Anfield was a good area, all the houses occupied, nothing like it is today," says Macpherson, who runs a garage, Aintree Motors. "The area started to decline in the early 1990s with the city's economic problems. But Liverpool football club accelerated the decline, by leaving good houses empty and boarded up. It wasn't a natural decline; it was engineered."

      The involvement in the process of a notorious solicitor, Kevin Dooley, acting for the club, did not encourage confidence. Dooley, who acted for several Liverpool players and the convicted drug baron Curtis Warren as well as the club before he died in 2004, was struck off by the Law Society in 2002 after it found him guilty of being involved in fraudulent purported bank schemes.

      Liverpool were motivated to buy neighbouring houses by a fear of losing pre-eminence in English football after their mighty playing success and financial dominance of the 1970s and 80s. The club felt bruised by having been delayed in building the new Centenary Stand because of two elderly sisters, Joan and Nora Mason, who refused to leave their house at No 26 Kemlyn Road, until November 1990. Manchester United entered the super-commercialised Premier League era by floating on the stock market in 1991, raising £6.7m to seat the Stretford End, and with Old Trafford's ceaseless, lucrative expansion and Sir Alex Ferguson's team-building, Liverpool fell behind United's money-making capacity.

      The club turned their attention to expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, although they did not announce this intention or discuss it openly with residents. The Main Stand backs tightly on to the terraced row of odd numbers on Lothair Road. Liverpool began buying houses in 1996, mostly leaving them empty. Land Registry records reveal that between January 1996 and March 2000, Liverpool bought 10 houses on Lothair Road.

      Most were on the odd side, closest to the Main Stand: Nos 1, 3, 7, 9, 15, 33, 35 and Macpherson's No 39. In March 1999 Liverpool made their first purchase across the road, on the even side, No 16. That row is not needed for a bigger Main Stand itself, but the residents, and those in the row behind on Alroy Road, would have their right to light blocked by it, a major obstacle to planning permission. In March 2000 Liverpool bought No 10 Lothair Road. That house, like most Liverpool bought, was never again occupied, has been empty for 13 years and is "tinned up".

      Liverpool also bought houses on Anfield Road: grander Victorian piles with front gardens, backing on to Stanley Park; almost the whole row opposite the stand, Shankly gates and Hillsborough memorial: 51, 53, 55, 61, 63, 69 and 71. These houses were also left mostly empty and allowed to fall into disrepair.

      With houses empty and demand for them falling in a city struggling to recover from its 1980s economic decimation, the Anfield area collapsed into dramatic decline. Alongside Liverpool football club, family homes and private landlords, the main other property owner was Your Housing, a large group of housing associations, then called Arena. It also began to leave properties "tinned up" – 265 were empty in the wider Anfield area by 2011. Residents complain that as the area was blighted, problem tenants moved in, bringing crime and antisocial behaviour.

      Liverpool's secret plan to get houses knocked down and expand the stadium, which the residents had suspected from the beginning, was exposed by a local free newspaper in September 1999. The club, with the council and Arena, had produced Anfield Plus, a plan to demolish both rows of houses on Lothair Road, the one on Alroy Road backing on to Lothair, and those on Anfield Road, for two enlarged stands. In the wider area, 1,800 properties were designated for demolition. A food, drink and retail area was planned on a cleared corner across from the Kop and Centenary Stand. New social housing, shops, a supermarket and community centre were also envisaged.

      Shock at such a plan being conceived without discussion with residents produced an outcry. The council did not support the plan with compulsory purchase threats but instead embarked on a consultation process. Rick Parry, Liverpool's then chief executive, acknowledged the club were seeking a bigger Anfield to compete financially with Manchester United, but said nevertheless: "I believe we can also work much better with the community, be a good neighbour."

      In the intense, often fraught discussions with residents, some progress was slowly made. New homes were built or renovated, including the Skerries Road terrace, behind Kemlyn Road, which Liverpool had previously bought up and left blighted. Two health centres have been built and the new Four Oaks primary school and North Liverpool Academy. Yet Lothair Road, Alroy and Anfield Road, on which the club had set their sights, were left to rot.

      While the Premier League, its club owners, players, managers and agents were growing rich on pay-TV millions, right around one of its most revered clubs there was squalor and horror. The many empty houses were vandalised, robbed, stripped, set on fire. People living next door to Liverpool's tinned-up houses told the club they feared waking up in the night to find them ablaze. Still, the club did not put tenants in them. Some people began to move out, their houses' value having tumbled, but many good people stayed, determined not to be forced out.

      Liverpool's switch to a plan for a wholly new stadium on Stanley Park came partly out of the post-Anfield Plus community consultation. In one meeting, Parry looked at a map and was struck by how hemmed in by houses the ground would still be, even if expanded. Yet even as the plans developed over years, many residents did not believe Liverpool would ever build a new stadium. Partly this was because even after all the outcry over Anfield Plus, Liverpool still bought houses on Lothair Road, including No10.

      In October 1999, 33 Lothair Road, owned by Liverpool and unoccupied, was set on fire, filling the house of the elderly couple who lived next door with smoke and soot. Residents say that three people were killed, set alight, in a horrific incident, in a house further along Lothair Road. A woman reported to be renting on Lothair Road who worked as a prostitute was murdered, in 2001.

      A Lothair Road resident, who did not want to be named because he is in negotiations with the council to finally leave, recalled his elderly father going out to fill a coal bucket from the old-fashioned scuttle under the front steps. Two tenants who had moved in across the road threw a brick at his father's head. The resident went across the road, banged on both doors, and roared at them to come out, which they did not.

      "These are some of the drastic things we've had to do," he said, talking on his doorstep. "I brought three children up here. If Liverpool had been honest from the beginning, said they wanted our houses to expand their ground, we're realistic, we know they're a huge football club, most of us support them, deals could have been done. Instead they were underhand, blighted the area and we've had to live like this for years."

      The sorry saga of how the new stadium plans turned to dust was played out in public, while residents suffered stagnation and wreckage. The club had continued to buy houses on Anfield Road: No 65 in 2001, 47, 49 and 67 in 2007. Parry and the then majority shareholder, David Moores, believed they needed rich owners to stand behind the borrowing required for a new stadium, which could have been built in the early 2000s for perhaps £140m. It took years before finally in 2007 they sold the club for £179m to the Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Moores personally made £89m.

      Hicks famously promised "a spade in the ground" and work to begin on the new stadium in 60 days, but he and Gillett had borrowed the money to buy the club and were planning to borrow for the stadium too, then could not. Under pressure from Royal Bank of Scotland, in October 2010 Hicks and Gillett were forced by court order to sell the club, John Henry's FSG paying the £200m price of the RBS debt.

      FSG, which renovated the Boston Red Sox stadium, Fenway Park, rather than build a new one, suggested from the beginning it might scrap the new stadium plan as too expensive. In October, Liverpool's managing director, Ian Ayre, confirmed that, describing the intention to go back to expanding Anfield as "a great leap forward".

      FSG's current plan envisages expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, with both sides of Lothair Road, and one side of Alroy Road, demolished. A hotel is proposed behind the enlarged Main Stand on the footprint of Lothair Road's even side and Alroy, because a commercial property does not have the same right to light as homes. A development, probably bars and restaurants, with training promised for young people, is proposed opposite the corner of the Kop and Centenary Stand. With Liverpool having purchased a whole row on Anfield Road, they have already knocked those houses down, so there is no obstacle to enlarging that stand.

      This FSG plan, then, is strikingly similar to Anfield Plus, which was worked up in 1999, then put on hold for 13 years in favour of the new stadium proposal.

      Ruth Little, of the Anfield and Breckfield community council, says: "After people suffered so much, from the football club and Your Housing leaving properties empty and blighting the area, when they went back to the original plan I did wonder what the last 12 years of consultation have been for.

      "A lot of good work has been done, though, much of it by local people volunteering. At least we have some certainty now, and we have to make sure that the people who are left are treated with respect."

      Reports on that are mixed. While many homeowners have sold their houses over the years for little, the council's final offers now are more generous. Some residents have settled for around £80,000, more than the houses would have fetched on the market in such blighted conditions, and the council is also providing interest-free loans. This enables those who own their own homes to buy another similar house without taking on a new mortgage.

      However, several people accuse the council, which is negotiating via agents, of starting with low offers, forcing people in difficult circumstances to negotiate hard or be seriously disadvantaged.

      Bill Higham, who owns 25 Alroy Road, says he was offered £55,000, which he refused outright, for a house he has had to refurbish twice after it was seriously vandalised.

      "I find it disgraceful," he says. "After the way the area has been run down, I'm being forced out and they want the properties for a song. They could pay everybody up, properly, for less than one Liverpool player's wage."

      Bill McGarry, vice-chair of the Anfield Rockfield Triangle residents' association, a qualified town planner, has helped some residents negotiate with the council. Patrick Duggan, chair of Artra, is an ardent critic of the club, whom he vehemently accuses of running the area down. Duggan runs Epstein House, a refurbished hotel in the old Anfield Road family home of the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein. Duggan bought it for £450,000, partly, he says, because Liverpool were building a new stadium which would regenerate the area. He has been shocked instead to find the area's degradation, then felt betrayed when FSG scrapped the new stadium plan.

      "I have always been a Liverpool fan," says Duggan, who has mounted a campaign targeting Ayre. "They play 'You'll Never Walk Alone' but they have left their neighbours to walk alone for years."

      Paddy McKay, 58, a builder who has lived for 37 years on Walton Breck Road, is refusing to accept the council's offer. He and his wife Carol brought up three daughters there; he has paid his mortgage off in full and argues that, if he is forced to move, he should be paid enough to buy a similar house somewhere decent and compensation for the years of blight. Even now, antisocial behaviour is continuing on those streets, including house fires.

      "Liverpool FC have said they want to be good neighbours? They're the world's worst neighbours; they couldn't care less," McKay says. "After all the damage they have done to the area, they should do the decent thing by the residents."

      James McKenna, chair of the Spirit of Shankly supporters' union, says the fans have sympathy for the club's neighbours. "The stadium expansion is all about the club making more money, and fans will have to pay more for tickets," McKenna says. "To do that, Liverpool have played a part in derelict houses, streets boarded up. It's a blot on LFC's record."

      A council spokesman declined to discuss details of the house-buying process. "Since last autumn we have been developing a robust set of plans for the area which are absolutely on track," he said. "This will include working with the local community on a blueprint for the wider regeneration of Anfield."

      Brian Cronin, chief executive of Your Housing, defended his organisation's property stewardship in the area and said the group has invested more than £23m in refurbishments or new homes around Anfield since 2009. Your Housing has 22 properties on Lothair, Alroy and Sybil Roads behind the Main Stand, of which 12 "are long-term vacant". Cronin said: "We are currently working very closely with Liverpool city council and other partners in Anfield to establish the best long-term future for these properties as part of the wider regeneration of the area."

      Liverpool declined to comment but last month Ayre updated the Liverpool Daily Post, saying: "To extend Anfield, we need to acquire a bunch of privately owned property around the stadium. We're making really good progress with that. We said some months back it would take several months to improve that property acquisition situation. We're definitely on target so far."

      Once the properties are bought, Ayre said, the club will apply for planning permission. After that, the third challenge is to "build the thing".

      He told the Guardian in October that an expanded Anfield with a 60,000 capacity will not allow cheaper tickets; its aim is to make more money. Liverpool have employed PricewaterhouseCoopers to survey fans, and corporate customers, to help plan price brackets for the new facilities.

      Some fans wonder if FSG, which is quite remote as owner, with Henry hardly in Liverpool and progress slow and costly, may sell the club, particularly once planning permission has been secured. FSG and Henry have not said that is a possibility. The stated plan is to expand the ground and enable Liverpool to compete again by making more money, so attracting better players by offering them huge wages on a par with the other top clubs.

      Liverpool's remaining neighbours, suffering some of Britain's worst living conditions, are grappling with hardball offers, to have their houses knocked down and make way for it all. In the Premier League of the 21st century, this is Anfield.


      http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2013/may/06/anfield-liverpool-david-conn?CMP=twt_gu

      This is disgusting and absolutely shameful.

      We need folk to be aware of this.

      What sets this club apart from every other club is the communitarian spirit - something at complete odds with the untamed capitalism of the Premier League. Yes, we need to play the game and make the club as profitable as possible, but ethics and morals should play a part. Unfortunately, this is endemic of everything about capitalism at the moment, which has left it's dirty mark on the money making machine that is called the Premier League. Let's not make any bones about this - every club would do the same thing as Liverpool. The fact that it is Liverpool FC - a club of great tradition and people spirit and togetherness - is doing this makes you lose all hope about English football. The soul of the game has gone, and it's up for the ordinary folk to try and reclaim it. I find the whole episode just utterly utterly depressing.
      stuey
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #3: May 07, 2013 08:29:12 am
      This is disgusting and absolutely shameful.

      We need folk to be aware of this.

      What sets this club apart from every other club is the communitarian spirit - something at complete odds with the untamed capitalism of the Premier League. Yes, we need to play the game and make the club as profitable as possible, but ethics and morals should play a part. Unfortunately, this is endemic of everything about capitalism at the moment, which has left it's dirty mark on the money making machine that is called the Premier League. Let's not make any bones about this - every club would do the same thing as Liverpool. The fact that it is Liverpool FC - a club of great tradition and people spirit and togetherness - is doing this makes you lose all hope about English football. The soul of the game has gone, and it's up for the ordinary folk to try and reclaim it. I find the whole episode just utterly utterly depressing.

      The whole agenda is faulted; the time scale, people management, financial implication and the logistics in general.
      This is no doubt the reason nothing concrete is ongoing with one party diplomatically suggesting the onus lies elsewhere.
      Nobody has got the commitment or the financial will to lay that first brick in the wall.
      shabbadoo
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #4: May 07, 2013 11:18:59 am
      Wrong on all fronts.

      I could never feel comfortable sitting in a stand I knew was built through manupulation & forced eviction.

      Any owner who happens to be our custodians should do the right thing here and that is to move to a new stadium and rebuild a community in Anfield,that would be a far better legacy.
      « Last Edit: May 07, 2013 11:34:26 am by Shabs »
      HUYTON RED
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #5: May 07, 2013 12:08:20 pm
      Wrong on all fronts.

      I could never feel comfortable sitting in a stand I knew was built through manupulation & forced eviction.

      Any owner who happens to be our custodians should do the right thing here and that is to move to a new stadium and rebuild a community in Anfield,that would be a far better legacy.

      It'd be the same if we moved to a new ground, look at what happened to the Vernon Sangster sports centre. They demolished that when we were supposed to still be building on Stanley Park and said they would replace it by building a new sports centre. Instead the club said that the Anfield Youth and Community Centre which is near to the supporters club on the way to Tuebrook. That has nothing to do with the football club and a decent enough distance away from where the Vernon Sangster was knocked down and has acted as the replacement.
      JD
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #6: May 07, 2013 01:57:56 pm




      TheRedMosquito
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #7: May 07, 2013 02:35:07 pm
      I heard about this some time ago. A group called "Anfield Scandal" I believe. I'm more surprised it took people this long to either a) know about it; or b) report it.

      Shocking stuff. The worst thing about it is this isn't all that uncommon in professional sports. No one willing to reign these clubs and teams in for things like this.
      stuey
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #8: May 07, 2013 03:00:15 pm
      Shameful is an understatement, that a Labour council should act in this manner is disgraceful.
      Not only are they treating the people of Liverpool without a shred of respect and disregarding their welfare they are making the city a laughing stock.
       
      racerx34
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #9: May 07, 2013 03:40:47 pm

      Venmore Street.


      Lothair Road.

      LFC-LCFC
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #10: May 07, 2013 04:08:40 pm
      The fact they're trying to buy these houses for as little as possible is possibly the worst thing the football club is doing.

      These are terraced houses in a fairly poor part of Liverpool. They're not expensive. The money the club has wasted on plans for stadiums they never intended to build could have paid for every house in the immediate area ten times over. Instead the club just want these people out of the way as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible.

      In reality the difference between paying people what their homes are worth, plus a bit of compassionate compensation, and what they're actually doing is for a club our size negligible. When you take stories like this alongside players wages today, sponsorship with tax dodging banks and a constant disregard from the club towards it's supporters it makes you think are we the club we all think we are?

      Liverpool Way is the Modern Football way. £££.

      Wasn't aware of this at all. Really, really disheartening. And before anyone says this is what we have to do to be competitive, we're crap and unsuccessful on the pitch at the same time.
      Semple
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #11: May 07, 2013 08:01:01 pm
      Jesus, modern football just doesn't help itself.
      Scotia
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #12: May 07, 2013 09:17:09 pm
      Hard to feel pride at that - but I also recognise as an out of towner that I may not "get" the whole picture.
      AussieRed
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #13: May 07, 2013 10:21:42 pm
      Reading that article and then seeing the photos has left me shaking my head in disbelief.
      bigvYNWA
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #14: May 07, 2013 10:37:58 pm
      I remember when I visited Liverpool in '08 I was absolutely shocked to the state of the area around the stadium. Since then I'd done a bit of online research and kinda had an idea of the less than "YNWA" ideals the club had employed in their efforts around the area... but that article certainly wraps it up nicely.

      The club could easily have gone about it a better way. Open dialogue with residents rather than third party would have been appreciated I'm sure. Yeah they would have spent more, but so they should too. Rather than send people packing for a pittance.

      A lot of people I meet ask me what it's like around there when I say I've been there. And they're often surprised to see my face drop a little and a "Besides the stadium, it's pretty average to say the least."

      Situation needs to be resolved with those people left deserving of better treatment. Some appreciation from the club would go a long way.
      Roddenberry
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #15: May 07, 2013 10:58:42 pm
      Shocked to see when it all started.
      NavyNick
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #16: May 08, 2013 11:47:37 am
      I have a house in the L4 area, lckily that is not in the area that is getting boarded up.  I want the area to get updated as its good for the area.

      But let me ask you a question you have a ghost agent who is going around offering money for people to give up there homes, they get offered a certain amount.  They have a choice yes or no?

      But if Liverpool Football Club go calling and say can i have your house for 80 grand, you are going to say straight away no, as you re thinking that  you can get more money from them as they have a lot of money.

      I can see where the club are coming from, they just did it in a wrong way.

      But if a mega rich persons offers you X amount for something you own you are going to try and get as much as possible and become greedy.

      Before you start slating me, I actually own a house about 2 minutes away from Anfield.  And i want whats best for the area.  it needs knocking down and regenerated.  this is not LFC's fault, its the Governments for decades of neglect.
      stuey
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #17: May 08, 2013 06:08:28 pm
      What never ceases to amaze me is the actions or innaction of the council as a major player in this charade.
      Who advises the city leaders on making decisions based on absurdly cloudy half promises which have no solid foundation?
      Have they been taken in completely by FSG's hollow infrequent updates? Cos nobody else takes a bit of F***ing notice.
      For whatever reason forcing people from their homes is an extreme solution to................
      We don't know what answer the is, a lot of people don't know what the F***ing question is.
         
      Brooklyn Red
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #18: May 10, 2013 01:55:58 pm
      I remember when I visited Liverpool in '08 I was absolutely shocked to the state of the area around the stadium.

      Not '08 for me, but it was shocking.

      Anyway, I just caught this article on ESPN and figured I'd post it:

      Anfield: home of disconnect between club and community
      The secret, it appears, is out. The treatment by Liverpool Football Club to the residents of Anfield has been brutally -- and expertly -- mapped out by The Guardian’s David Conn.

      If words could kill, this is the smoking gun; nearly 3,000 words which expose how the club have bought houses near the stadium for two decades, allowing them to remain empty and promote stagnation, dereliction and decline in the area.

      Except the secret is not really a secret. Not for those who have seen the daily deterioration of the area; not for those who have walked up Walton Breck Road on days when no football is played, snaking up and down the side streets paved with tin. The area surrounding Anfield has been long forgotten, if it was ever thought of at all in the first place.

      Conn’s findings -- the bitterness, upset and anger of the residents -- is simply more confirmation of something explicitly obvious: there is a disconnect between the club and all those who serve it, and for as long as money can be drawn from the latter, there is little desire of reconciliation.

      Forget the floodlights of the stadium, so effervescent and alluring on Champions League nights; disregard the red-tinted vibrancy that the television focuses on before a sunny summer kick-off in August. That paints a picture, granted, but not a very true one.

      On the days the cameras switch off, the Anfield area is dilapidated, barren. Pubs that are brimful of a weekend are inhibited by only a handful; there are no supermarkets, few eateries and little reason to visit, little for the local children to do.

      As one of those children, what Conn penned came as no surprise. I grew up just 15 minutes from the stadium and occasionally played football in the streets which housed the shadows of the famous ground. Everything grew over time: the Centenary stand had already done so and the Anfield Road both became higher and held a bigger capacity in front of my agog, youthful gaze; the number of tinned-up houses -- a symbol of Liverpool’s aimless purchases -- rose too. Even my little legs started to grow, if not their ability to kick a ball hard into the increasing number of vacant terraced houses.

      I did not realise at the time, but this all correlated with the growth of one particular thing: Liverpool's necessity to increase revenue.

      The formation of the Premier League saw the club left in a shadow of their own, one created 30 miles away in Salford. As Manchester United embraced the new-found wealth of English football, Liverpool floundered. They could either mimic their Manchester rivals or retain a sense of community and socialism which Bill Shankly promoted when manager. They chose a half-hearted compromise; disconnect and disinterest began.

      And so the bottom line became the bottom dollar, with no thought to the supporters or its area. Ticket prices rose and have done steadily over the past decade -- a Champions League semi-final ticket against Chelsea in 2005 was less than £30, but next season will see the same fixture in the league cost over £20 more in some sections of the stadium.

      It’s a checklist of woe: McDonald's was built upon the Kop before being removed to make way for an even bigger club shop; the opportunity for local support to purchase tickets at the ticket office diminished, replaced by premium-rate phone lines barely able to withstand a few calls at a time; children still cannot attend games at Anfield without an adult accompanying them. An entire generation of supporters possibly lost unless their parents have deep pockets and an affinity for football.

      How the club has acted with the residents of Anfield is shocking, upsetting, maddening -- but the most maddening thing is that it does not come as a shock. It highlights the lack of direction in the hierarchy, a level of doubt and insecurity at boardroom level on how to move forward - to borrow a middle-management phrase of choice -- with Liverpool.

      This is not to lambast current owners Fenway Sports Group. The first house was bought and left to ruin in 1996, after all. They are simply inheriting a problem nearly two decades old, a mind-set that has been prevalent within the club for far too long. It is brash and brazen, a mammoth shrug of the shoulders to any dissenting voice.

      They are not monsters, of course; they have not come to Liverpool with destruction on the agenda. They are successful businessmen, ones who knew that by taking charge of Liverpool, it was not just a football club they controlled -- it was a community and city, too.

      But they need to realise -- and reverse -- the contempt the club has held for those who it supposedly serves. They need to ruminate upon the relationship between the club, its supporters and city.

      Introducing Mighty Red -- a child-friendly mascot to entertain the newly-built family park -- is a good idea in isolation, but a real gesture would be to ensure young children are inside the ground, with their friends, at cheaper ticket prices. The club's reticence to do so has forced supporter union Spirit of Shankly to offer free children's tickets, given up by members. It is those values, that unselfishness, which should be adopted.

      Likewise, an increase of social media channels across the world is important to the global fan base, but its local support should never be dismissed either because they bring less money into the stadium on match day.

      All is not lost, but much of it hinges upon the new stadium. It must be built and it must take the community into consideration. Conn's article was powerful, but it did not highlight what happens beyond those tinned-up streets in the wider Anfield area. A community still exists, albeit one betrayed by those who should have protected it more; Anfield is not simply a home of violence and arson -- it is debatable whether that is because of the club’s house-buying policies, anyway -- but a place where people can flourish.

      The club have forgotten its community far too much over in recent decades -- there must be an effort to halt that. More than any player signing or trophy, that is a legacy FSG should strive to be remembered for.

      http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/liverpool/id/961?cc=5901
      bigvYNWA
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #19: May 10, 2013 09:43:57 pm
      Not '08 for me, but it was shocking.

      Anyway, I just caught this article on ESPN and figured I'd post it:

      Anfield: home of disconnect between club and community


      The club have forgotten its community far too much over in recent decades -- there must be an effort to halt that. More than any player signing or trophy, that is a legacy FSG should strive to be remembered for.

      http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/liverpool/id/961?cc=5901

      That last line. Damn good one. Though should be "along with trophies.." but I like the idea behind it.
      hardcoresoldier
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      Re: Guardian: Anfield - the victims, the anger and the shameful truth
      Reply #20: May 12, 2013 07:54:52 pm
      This is F***ing disgusting, disgraceful and underhand at best. The way they have treated people is despicable and not the way to gain support from the local community or Liverpool supporters worldwide.

      As was pointed out earlier that the people had a choice to accept the offer or not then i have to disagree. LFC have exploited their own family, they have stolen from them. They have been underhanded in driving the prices of houses down in the area and then striking while the iron is hot. Taking advantage of honest hard working people and manipulating circumstances to their own advantage.

      They've even put the lives of people at risk with these actions and that is unforgivable.

      These people are our family, they are members of the Liverpool family, they should be helped, not robbed.

      I really don't know what to say.

      All they had to do was discuss their needs with the locals, agree a fair price and it could have all been done with dignity. Even if they are now starting to pay fair prices for the houses it doesn't F***ing matter, those values have been driven down by the Club that many of them worship.

      Do you think they'll square up the difference with the residents they've ripped off already?, no F***ing chance.

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