Bill Kenwright died of a thing more tangible than a broken heart but it is hard to imagine he ever felt greater hurt than the day he was asked to stay away from Goodison Park.
His greatest critics will insist they loved Everton more, but that isn’t true. No one loved Everton more than Bill. He didn’t always know how to fix it, and that sometimes led him to make mistakes, but that love was Kenwright’s saving grace as an owner. His heart was in the right place. He was always trying his best. And he would have done anything to keep Everton from the mess they are in now.
This is no tragic existence because Kenwright’s was a life well lived. He enjoyed loving relationships, had a wealth of friends, and his success as one of the most prolific and insightful theatrical impresarios in the world had afforded him a place on the board at his beloved football club since 1989, for many years as chairman.
Yet it was in that role, when the fortunes of the club took a downward turn, that he became a target for a faction of supporters. That backlash against his stewardship had just started when we chatted in his London office in 2015. He seemed genuinely grateful for the support. He always was. He never forgot a positive word, or a sympathetic article, and could get quite emotional about either. I’ve been to the first nights of his shows, where friends have told me how big his empire could have been were it not for one thing: Everton Football Club. Michael Crawford was incensed on hearing a phone-in suggesting Kenwright used Everton money to finance his productions. Nothing could have been further from the truth. How big could Kenwright’s career as a producer have become had he not dedicated a quarter of each year to the transfer window?
Kenwright was always a true blue. He used to get two buses and a tram to Everton as a kid and stand behind the goal. When the half-time whistle blew, some of the men would go to the back of the terrace to relieve themselves and the product would run down the steps. “I wished I didn’t have holes in my shoes,” Kenwright recalled. “My ambition wasn’t to own Everton. It was just to be able to watch them without standing in a puddle of wee.”
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• Bill Kenwright, impresario and Everton FC chairman, dies aged 78
He could always tell a story, Bill. Like the first time he encountered a demonstration against his ownership. “I was told there was going to be a protest, and then two lads came up and handed me a leaflet, ‘Evertonians For Change,’ ” he recalled. “I said, ‘Are you the demo, lads? Is it you two? Right, what do you want to change?’ And they said, ‘We need more money.’ I said, ‘Great, I’ll be your president if you want. That’s the change we need.’ ” But, over time, the numbers protesting grew, the humour curdled and then, last January, Kenwright and his fellow directors were told to stay away from Goodison Park for their own safety.
That pained him. There are quite a few absentee owners, even successful ones. Sheikh Mansour’s visits to Manchester City can be counted on one finger, the Glazers are rarely around to hear how Old Trafford feels and Joe Lewis won’t be setting foot in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium any time soon, even with Spurs top of the Premier League. Yet Kenwright was a fan. A true blue. David Sullivan is a fan of West Ham United who, for a time, ran Birmingham City. Jim Ratcliffe is a fan of Manchester United who kept a season ticket at Chelsea. But it is impossible to imagine Kenwright happy anywhere but Everton.
He rarely ate in the directors’ box, home or away, before matches because he was too nervous and, when more physically able, would spring from his seat at a goal, a goalscoring chance or even a corner in the tenser campaigns. When the deal went through to buy the club, he ran from his office down four flights of stairs and out into the street, pumping his fists with excitement. So it disappointed him when he was advised he should no longer travel on public transport to matches and had to go by car. He enjoyed going with the fans, but had to concede the mood had altered.
All passings are sad, and 78 is not old these days, but the timing of Kenwright’s — with Everton facing uncertainty and a Premier League investigation — feels especially cruel. More positively, he will have been buoyed by the thought of a new stadium and of having kept the club viable long enough to see that coming to fruition, while Sean Dyche appears capable of turning the team around. Yet one thing is certain: whoever is in charge of Everton this time next year cannot love the club as much as Bill Kenwright, the man who used to explain his connection through the words of Stephen Sondheim. He would quote the lyrics to Sondheim’s song Loving You, from the musical Passion:
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“Loving you is not a choice / And not much reason to rejoice / But it gives me purpose / Gives me voice / To say to the world / This is why I live / You are why I live.”
And perhaps that does sound over-emotional, but it was, most surely, also the man.
