Liverpool

Why HS2 matters now!

HS2

Despite the fact that the project is one of the most important infrastructure schemes ever proposed for the north of England, there remains a huge amount of apathy from business leaders to the much discussed and debated High Speed 2.

This is largely because the new fast tracks from London to the North are not likely to be laid anytime before 2026, with full completion not due until 2032. Add to that timescale the inevitable delays that seem to accompany every major British infrastructure project, and we’re more likely looking at 2035, by which time many of us will be eligible for a senior citizens rail card – if we’re still here at all.

However, this is to miss the point of how the North and its great cities and regions can market, promote and attract investment.

Speaking to several overseas visitors and potential investors over the past few weeks at the International Festival for Business in Liverpool, and it is interesting to note that they are vaguely curious about the past ten years; certainly interested about the next ten; but most quizzical about what strategies and plans are in place for the next twenty five years.

If you are representing a company that is looking to relocate or establish a major brand in a new city, then it is not unreasonable for you to want to be confident that your investment is being made in a place that has a sustainable, long term future.

This is why the winning of the argument about HS2 is so crucial. And then HS3 on the back of it, to better connect northern cities together.

Getting to London thirty minutes quicker may or may not be a killer HS2 argument for many, but HS3, the ability to then connect Manchester to Leeds on modern, high speed trains and tracks must surely win the approval of any serious business leader in the north.

Whilst London continues to plough hundreds of millions of pounds improving its infrastructure, and is squabbling not about ‘if’ a new airport but ‘where’, there is not a whisper of discontent from the Capitals chattering classes or the Westminster political fixers. Money spent in the south, it seems, is unquestionably well spent.

The nonsense spoken of in terms of the costs surrounding HS2 must be seen as what they are – an antiquated vision of a dilapidated, slow moving north, grateful to be kept afloat by the crumbs from an ever growing, indeed overflowing, South East table.

Of course the renaissance of our big cities in modern times, Leeds, Liverpool and particularly Manchester, has been remarkable. But for us to continue and indeed accelerate the progress of our region, then investment not only in rail, but on our road networks too, is absolutely essential.

HS2 and HS3 may not be here in your lifetime – but those international companies and investors want to be confident that it will be here at some point. And that is why HS2 is important now, and why we must fight enthusiastically for it to be delivered.

IFB could be Liverpool’s MIPIM

IFB Mipim

Week two of the International Festival for Business and from hoteliers and taxi drivers to property developers and professionals, the city’s business community has embraced the jamboree of events, networking and deal making in positive fashion.

Of course the scale of this ambitious project means that mistakes will be made and lessons learnt. However, the overall opinion from Liverpool’s business leaders about IFB so far is a huge ‘thumbs up’.

Already there is a growing appetite, among Downtown members at least, for the city to seize the opportunity of hosting an IFB Festival if not annually, then certainly biennially.

Seven weeks may be a tad too long for a regularly hosted festival, but organising something throughout the month of June every other year seems eminently sensible and achievable.

Downtown will be hosting a series of ‘IFB Legacy events’ with Liverpool Vision from July, and no doubt there will be much to discuss and debate. But my initial thoughts are, it’s great for the city; Liverpool puts on a good show; and although the £5m from central government towards the cost of the programme was gratefully received, and would be again, there is no reason why we should be awaiting permission from BIS, UKTI and Ministers, before announcing that Liverpool is up for hosting IFB 2016. Aside from anything else, with a more generous run up to that potential Festival, I am sure we could pull in at least that amount of cash in private sector sponsorship.

There is much to be done before all of that of course, but as always Downtown is happy to put the marker down and kick start the debate.

For our part, we hosted the Downtown Liverpool Business week this week, with ten events in five days that attracted big numbers of delegates and stimulated entertaining and informative discussion.

Several action points have emerged from the programme that I will share will you in future week’s, but among the highlights from this week was the chief executives of Everton and Liverpool Football Clubs announcing to the 150 plus guests at the ‘Future of Football’ forum on Wednesday morning the fixtures for the 2014/15 season. If that wasn’t an exclusive, I don’t know what is!

A special review of the whole Business Week will be available from Tuesday, so keep a look out for that, whilst Downtown will be taking its ‘Sexy Networking’ brand to the ‘pub in the hub’ on Thursday 26th June. I hope to see you there.

We Are Ten…

We Are TEN

Next week Downtown celebrates its tenth anniversary. We will be doing a lot over the next seven days, hosting a birthday party for 300 people, launching a new website and introducing an APP.

It’s all exciting stuff, and part of what I would describe as a growing movement rather than a growing business.

We have come a long way in the last decade, and much of what we have been involved with and achieved has been covered in the latest edition of our quarterly magazine DQ – in the printers now, and on your desks in about a week.

For me personally it has been, and continues to be, an incredible journey. When I set Downtown Liverpool in Business up in 2004 I would not have imagined having a presence in Lancashire, Manchester and Leeds. Indeed, I was told by a senior official of Liverpool City Council that ‘Downtown won’t last five minutes’.

I thought it would work in Liverpool, but I doubted if the brand was ‘exportable’. Four cities and 800 member companies later, and I am beginning to think it is.

Reflecting and reminiscing is not something we tend to do very often at Downtown Towers. We spend most of our time thinking of what we can do next, rather than what we have achieved in the past. This is the main reason why we maintain vibrancy, dynamism and a spirit that no other organisation in our space can match in my opinion.

However, on this occasion I hope you forgive me for some self indulgence. Here are my personal highlights of Downtown life over the last ten years.

  • Interviewing Lord Michael Heseltine in 2010.
  • Tony Wilson interviewing James Barton at the very first Downtown event at the Racquets Club, Liverpool in 2004.
  • The making of our ‘Relax’ video for the 2008 ‘Livercool’ Awards.
  • Steve Broomhead, then chief executive of the Northwest Development Agency, proclaiming that Downtown was ‘the business club with attitude’ at the City of Liverpool Business Awards in 2006.
  • The launch of Downtown Manchester at Cloud 23 with Sir Howard Bernstein and 200 Manchester business leaders in 2009.
  • The inaugural 2013 Lancashire Business Growth Conference, one of the most dynamic business events I have ever attended – and it was ours!
  • John Bishop, who performed at three awards dinners for Downtown before he made his fame and fortune (it’s all down to us).
  • The launch of Downtown Leeds in 2012 at a very noisy and challenging Corn Exhange with shadow minister and Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves, and 200 business leaders.
  • Manchester’s singing icon Rowetta and her performance at our ’24 Hour Party People’ inaugural ‘City of Manchester Business Awards’ at the spectacular Cathedral in 2011.
  • Sexy Networking 2004 onwards, and upwards!

I hope you remember some of these too, have many more of your own, but most importantly work with us to create new memories in the future. Here’s to the next ten years!

David Moyes

Moyes

It came as no surprise that David Moyes failed as the manager of Manchester United. Not to Evertonians anyway.

During his reign at Goodison Park he turned Everton from perennial relegation strugglers to a team that finished consistently in the top half of the table. He replaced an ageing squad with a younger, hungrier group of players. He brought respectability and pride back to one of England’s traditional ‘big clubs’. And on the back of all this, he became the third best paid manager in the Premier League whilst at Everton – and then landed the United job ten months ago.

His achievements at Everton did not go unnoticed; largely due to Moyes’ own ability to spin a very credible and plausible tale. He was doing all this with one hand tied behind his back. He had no money to spend. He was operating on a shoe string budget. He had to sell his best players.

He convinced the media, and he convinced the majority of Everton fans, myself included, that finishing in the top half of the Premier League was ‘job done’ at a club like Everton.

The facts somewhat betray the ‘miracle’ that he and his friends in the press would have us believe he presided over though. Indeed, Everton were not punching ‘above their weight’. They were finishing in a league position that was in and around the amount of money they were spending in comparison to their Premier League rivals.

Other than Wayne Rooney, he was able to replace any player he sold with someone better. He was given the resources to break the club record transfer fee on several occasions. And, he was never undermined by his chairman, or the supporters.

His Premier League record was decent, but closer analysis of his performance at Everton clearly provides evidence that he was a ‘bottler’.

In his eleven years at Everton, Moyes failed to win a single game at Anfield, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge or the Emirates. He took Everton in to the Champions League in 2005. But his side were knocked out in the qualifying Round.

Though he led the Blues to an FA Cup final against Chelsea in 2009, his side failed to show up on the day, weakly surrendering despite taking the lead within a minute of the games start. Often overlooked, he scraped through to the final with a penalty shoot out victory over Man United’s RESERVES!

In 2012, he was back at Wembley for another semi final, this time against arch rivals Liverpool. Again Everton took the lead. Again, they lost the match as they went in to a second half meltdown against one of the worst Liverpool sides I have ever seen.

In truth most Blues supporters thought it was time for him to go then. He had taken Everton as far as he could.

Unfortunately the clubs chairman was not among that number, and we were ‘stuck with Moyes’ until United came knocking – but not until he had led Everton to an FA Cup Quarter final battering to Wigan.

On his final day in the home managers dug out at Goodison, he was given a heroes farewell by those of us who had accepted his ‘managed expectations.’ The Everton faithful recognised that when the biggest club on the planet come knocking…

There was a guard of honour, a standing ovation and a bloody great send off for a guy who had actually not won us a single trophy or even an away ‘derby’ game in eleven years. He left on the crest of a wave, head held high and with our very best wishes. But then!

It took Moyes eleven minutes to destroy a reputation that it had taken him eleven years to build. In a remarkably stupid press conference at Old Trafford he criticised his former club, the club that had made him, the club that paid him a salary that was the third highest in the league, the club that had given him that rousing farewell only weeks earlier, for not being grateful for a nickel and dime bid for two of their leading players.

He tried to bully Everton in to selling Marouane Fellaini and Leighton Baines on the cheap. He disrespected Everton in a way that would have been unacceptable for any manager to do, let alone one who had enjoyed the long association he had enjoyed with the club.

Not surprisingly Evertonians best wishes evaporated, replaced by the contempt he had shown them and their club.

Long before this though, and long before the disaster that has been the last ten months at United, I knew the Old Trafford job was too big for him. United fans often told me Moyes would succeed Sir Alex and I always, always said ‘that job is too big for him’. So it proved.

The manner in which he was dismissed was appalling, and not in keeping with a club of Manchester United’s stature. However, some may say ‘what comes around goes around.’

Many pundits have argued that Moyes hasn’t been given enough time. In my opinion, ten months or ten years, he would have been unable to hack a job where expectations cannot be managed; defensive football not tolerated. Even inheriting a Premiership winning team, albeit one in decline, he still failed to win at Anfield, the Emirates, Stamford Bridge or, fatefully, Goodison Park.

And if there was ever any more evidence required to prove that Moyes and United would never have worked, you only have to look at Everton since he left, under the leadership of Roberto Martinez.

Gone is the pragmatism, the negativity, the dampening of ambition. The Spaniard oozes positivity, confidence and hope. He dares his club to dream; recognising rather than dismissing its rich and proud history.

He does this whilst his team on the field of play perform in a swashbuckling style that has seen the phrase ‘school of science’ return to Goodison Park, replacing the more conservative ‘people’s club’ motto coined by his predecessor.

David Cameron once said to Tony Blair across the dispatch box of the House of Commons “You were the future once.” Martinez could have shouted the same thing across the dugout of Goodison Park to Moyes as he managed United for the final time.

The Old Trafford hierarchy may not have covered themselves in glory over Moyes’ dismissal, but give them credit for recognising relatively quickly that he was the wrong man for the huge job that is manager of Manchester United.

That does not make Moyes a bad manager though, and I expect him to return to a hot seat soon with a Newcastle, Villa or Sunderland and do a fantastic job for them. That is his level, and he, along with thousands of Evertonians and United fans, should know that now too.

The highs, lows, laughter, tears and downright frustration of Football

Football

I have been a football supporter for as long as I can remember – and an Evertonian even longer than that.

As a kid, my Dad always told me that whoever was top of the table at Easter would win the league. If that still holds today, then in a few weeks time Liverpool will be crowned Champions.

This week on Merseyside football fans have gone through every single emotion that the beautiful game can throw at you.  At Anfield on Sunday, Liverpool finally overcame Man City 3-2, and then in mid week watched their Manchester rivals totally blow the title with a disappointing performance against relegation bound Sunderland resulting in a 2-2 draw.

After the euphoria of an incredible performance and win over Arsenal less than a fortnight ago, Everton seriously dented their prospects of joining their neighbours in the Champions League next season, falling to a 3-2 defeat at the hands of lowly Crystal Palace.

Amidst all this was the twenty fifth anniversary of a football related tragedy that remains an indelible stain on the English game – Hillsborough.

Far more qualified writers than me have put into words just how much of a catastrophe that totally unnecessary and wholly avoidable horror was. Those that lost loved ones have finally secured a modicum of justice and content through their sterling, relentless campaigning work.

Weather you support Leeds, Blackburn, Burnley or Carlisle, you will admire the work of those families. If you were going to big football matches during the seventies and eighties you will have thought at some point ‘that could have been me’.

It took twenty five years for the 96 who were killed at Hillsborough to get some kind of justice. It took about twenty five weeks before the powers that be recognised that if it was to survive as a sport and as a business football could not go on treating fans like cattle, sub human, cretins.

Today we have 21st century state of the art stadiums, sensible policing and clubs that by and large recognise the need to ‘entertain’ before and after the match even if what you are watching during the ninety minutes of play is not particularly riveting.

All the regeneration, television money and razzamatazz have made football a safer sport to watch in terms of your physical well being. Emotionally, it can still kick you in the guts when you’re least expecting it. And that’s why it’s still the greatest game on the planet.

Justice for the 96. And don’t buy the Sun!