Long-standing Everton Director, Bill Kenwright passed away this week. Callum Davies of Everton News gave me his reaction to the passing.
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00:00 I feel like as a human you can't be anything other than sad to hear news like that, regardless
00:07 of how you may feel about his actions when he was chairman.
00:13 And I've been saying this quite a lot, I think few can fault his dedication, his love for
00:20 Everton as a football club, Everton fan, living the dream of owning his own football club,
00:26 which he obviously loved, and I think he more than anyone wanted it to succeed, and I think
00:30 level-headed Evertonians can separate his failures, if you want to put them in that
00:38 way, from the man who has passed away.
00:42 In his perhaps younger days at Everton, owning the club then in the earlier days, he seems
00:48 to have garnered a lot of respect and helped Everton get out of tricky situations in the
00:52 past financially, and of course there was a time when David Moyes went to Everton and
00:56 were doing really well, sort of the early to mid-2000s, do you think that's created
01:00 a lot of respect for him amongst the fanbase for four recent years?
01:05 I think most of the people you speak to when you see the tributes flooding in, he was a
01:10 very well-liked figure, everyone has lots of good words to say about him, and it was
01:16 a relationship soured in recent years, but like you said, I think he did build up a lot
01:21 of credit for the manner in which he took over, and as an Everton fan it was like a
01:27 sense of hope.
01:29 The Moyes era, as you say, it was steady, and Everton fans were largely quite happy
01:35 with that, until demand for finances came in to compete with the modern-day era which
01:44 is so finance-driven.
01:46 And then again, he did deliver on his promise of bringing in finances, the recent years,
01:51 whilst you may say he may have clung on a bit too long, you can't really attribute
01:56 it to him, because he wasn't spending the money, it was Moshiri's money.
02:01 So yeah, I do think he built up quite a good bank of credit with his early years, and it's
02:05 unfortunate that it has been soured with recent events.
02:10 You mentioned those recent events, obviously Everton, both on and off the pitch in the
02:14 last two to three years, has not been a good place to be, both if you're in the boardroom
02:20 or the players' staff and the supporters, there's been really a disjointed relationship.
02:26 Can he be accredited with any of the blame for that, or as you say, does it come down
02:30 to where the money was spent, who it was spent by, or the players on the pitch?
02:37 I think it's an awkward one to discuss really, in light of events, but he has been ever-present
02:47 in probably the most barren run in Everton's history with regards to silverware, and for
02:53 that you can't help but attribute some of the failure to him, but in the same way, in
02:57 the same breath, it would be harsh to pile the blame on him.
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