How do people feel about Gillett/Hicks

[The Glove]

I was impressed to read in tonights Echo that Gillett wants to see how things are run at the games. He wants to sit in the stands, not the directors box, go and see how long it takes to get served at half time and how they can improve that. I want him to come and stand on the turnstile with me, Ive got some pointers for him to improve the place. Fair play to him.

[REDSCOUSER]

You might be one of the first people to meet him then !

[Maestro]

I was impressed to read in tonights Echo that Gillett wants to see how things are run at the games. He wants to sit in the stands, not the directors box, go and see how long it takes to get served at half time and how they can improve that. I want him to come and stand on the turnstile with me, Ive got some pointers for him to improve the place. Fair play to him.

I'll have a lot of respect for him, if he does that.

[The Glove]

You might be one of the first people to meet him then !

I'll even take a glove off to shake his hand.

[Red_hot]

He can meet Rocky too!

[The Glove]

He can meet Rocky too!

**** that. Dont want to scare him off.

[The Glove]

I'll have a lot of respect for him, if he does that.

’It’s all about the fans and Anfield’s winning tradition‘ Feb 7 2007




by David Prentice, Liverpool Echo





BILL SHANKLY once famously stood on the Kop.

It was in the mid 1970s, after the Anfield Messiah had retired, and it caused a minor sensation.

Modern inhabitants of the Kop should perhaps brace themselves for a similar visit from their new owners.

George Gillett likes to get behind the scenes at sports clubs, to go walkabout and see what makes the fans tick, and he intends to maintain that approach at Anfield.

“It’s all about the fans and the winning tradition,” he explained.

“Liverpool have 28 million registered fans around the world. They have the largest fanbase in the world of any football club. That by itself is pretty amazing.

“But then when you go to the game and you feel the passion and the tribal nature, which is as basic as anything I’ve ever felt, it’s great fun and it’s delightful to be associated with this extraordinary club.

“I won’t be a visible owner. You’ll see me in the stand yes, but probably not so much in the directors’ box as out in front meeting people and thanking them for their support, visiting to see the quality of our food service and the length of time people have to wait in line – to get some idea as we start to build the new facility of things we can develop.

“I’m not a person who goes and hides. I’m not particularly interested in being available to the media, I’m much more interested in a relationship with the fans, finding out what’s on their mind and supporting their dreams.”

Co-owner Tom Hicks echoed his friend’s approach: “I guess my first official game as co-owner will be March 6 against Barcelona.

“I will meet the fans, but I’ve never met anybody like George Gillett for that. I had him down for an NHL game in Dallas two weeks ago and I couldn’t stop him wandering around the stadium talking to fans.

“We went to see the match the other night between Arsenal and the Hotspurs, I thought to see the new stadium, but he kept wandering off and was talking to everybody, to fans, the waitresses, the box stewards, he was trying to see what was needed to make it better for the fans.”


But if Reds fans fear an erosion of the club’s dearly held tradition and heritage, Gillett offered reassuring words also.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for Tom or I to try and convince the fans that we understand the heritage and legacy of the sport anywhere near as well as they do. But I think what we would try and say to the fans is that we have the word respect,” he added.

“Tom had the privilege of inheriting two sports teams which had a history before he arrived, and I had the Harlem Globetrotters and Miami Dolphins, so we’ve both been in situations where we’ve been at clubs which had a heritage, an illustrious heritage, and I would intend to meet some of the older players.

“We’ll take some time, but we had a similar situation in Montreal where we had a different country and a totally different culture in the French-Canadian province of Quebec and we didn’t try and convince anybody going in that we had that feeling.

“But after six years I think the fans understand that our job is to be custodians of this franchise, not the owners of this franchise.

“This is a special privilege to be afforded the opportunity of owning perhaps the greatest franchise in the history of the greatest sport in the world.

“It’s something rare and we would like to add to its lustre, not detract from that lustre.

“We love sports and we love passion. We love winning and I’ve never seen anything like the fans at a Liverpool match, away and at home. It’s just fabulous.

“The fans are so good and the club is so famous

“To have the privilege of having the number one club in the most popular sport in the world is really quite rare.

“I hope you never give me a test but I think we’re already learning a lot.”

[Red_Al_77]

the Hotspurs

[animal magic]

it sounds very impressive from both of them

[REDSCOUSER]

He can meet Rocky too!

thats right, take the glove off and smack him one

[baronvonskidmark]

Nice article in the Independent:

Benitez insists Liverpool can rival Real on and off pitch
By Andy Hunter
Published: 08 February 2007
Presidents from the other sporting passions of the new Liverpool co-chairman Tom Hicks, the Dallas Stars ice hockey and Texas Rangers baseball franchises, yesterday painted an image of a multimillionaire in favour of continuity, delegation and investment, in which case the astute Texan will be overwhelmed with Rafael Benitez's plans to expand his latest acquisition into a global rival for Real Madrid.

Hicks and his co-chairman, George Gillett Jnr - a man so enthused by his purchase of Liverpool that he was physically pulled out of Anfield to catch a flight to a Montreal Canadiens ice hockey game on Tuesday - met Benitez, the captain Steven Gerrard and the vice-captain Jamie Carragher before the public announcement of their £470m takeover for a brief but thorough lesson on the values of the club and a sport in which they, sensibly, confessed to only limited understanding.

Also from Benitez came a detailed marketing strategy that will suit the Americans' objective of long-term growth rather than short-term, inflated expenditure and, as he endorsed the Hicks and Gillett takeover yesterday, the Liverpool manager admitted that the historic and conservative English institution had to embrace the current climate of change.

"It was not a meeting where we discussed how much we will spend on transfers or where we were promised £100m. To be a successful club, it is not just about spending a lot of money on new players," Benitez said. "We spoke about bringing through young players for the future from the Academy, and how we can sign players for the present. We spoke about the future of the club and, by the end, I was convinced they want the best for the club."

The Liverpool manager added: "They recognised they need to change a lot of things. There are some aspects of Liverpool which must remain the same, but it's clear where we can improve. For example, how many club shops do we have around the world? We should be doing more in areas such as Asia, or even Spain, where we are very popular. There is a big difference between the commercial side of a club like Liverpool or Real Madrid. Maybe Liverpool cannot be as big as Real Madrid off the pitch, but they can learn from what clubs like this have done and become one of the biggest clubs in the world off the pitch as well as on it."

For a man who recently compared England's most successful club to Atletico Madrid, Benitez's grand vision illustrates the optimism with which Anfield has accepted the American takeover. Work is to commence on a new £215m, 60,000-seat stadium this spring while Hicks, an obsessive on stadium design, owns several Fox Sports networks in Central and South America that the owners of Liverpool intend to exploit for brand exposure and to entice young talent into the club's Academy system. A notable feature of the Americans' charm offensive at Anfield on Tuesday was their honesty, with Gillett Jnr insisting that the Liverpool board were right to reject his original offer in favour of Dubai International Capital in December and Hicks confessing his interest was stirred by the Premier League's lucrative new contract for overseas television rights.

Those responsible for the success of Hicks' varying sporting interests, however, insist that his motivation is not confined to what he can take out of Anfield.

"Soccer is the leading sport in the world and Tom wants to be involved in one of the biggest franchises, that is his style, but he won't go in there and re-invent the wheel," said Jim Lites, president of the Dallas Stars. "If there are revenues available then, rest assured, Tom will spend what he needs to be competitive. First and foremost he is a sportsman and with the support Liverpool have and the new TV contracts, he will want to win."

Jeff Cogan, president of the Texas Rangers, added: "The boss is very passionate about our legacy, our history, and sensitive about what we mean to the state. We had an opportunity to increase revenue by building a pool in the grounds of our stadium and though most of the board were in favour, Tom said, 'You have to think of the ball park as a cathedral', and turned us down."

As the dust settles on the takeover, it is expected that the Football Association's chief executive, lifelong Liverpool fan Brian Barwick, will meet Gillett and Hicks in the near future.

Barwick has met the Glazer family and the new West Ham United chairman Eggert Magnusson in the past and told the Liverpool Echo last week: "I am sure at some stage I will be able to offer the same invite to whoever eventually invests in Liverpool.

"Liverpool FC is something very precious to me and I have never made any apology for the fact that part of my upbringing has been to support a team. Foreign ownership is an issue that excites an emotional response. Football clubs are not passive. They are a big part of people's lives and they make a lot of people's lives tick.

"However, the reality of the situation in which we live is that nationality is not something that we discriminate on. We have tests about whether people are fit and proper."

Rick Parry is adamant that the great Bill Shankly would have approved of the takeover. "Bill was one of the great innovators of all time," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Parry said that he did not know why more investors from these shores had not looked at buying into the top flight. "Clearly we have been on the look-out for three years. There have been other clubs for sale, maybe they have overlooked opportunities in their own back yards, maybe the grass looks greener elsewhere."

[Parm]

all sounding pretty good so far.