According to Trinity Mirror’s ever-diligent Data Unit, there are 80 stands in Premier League football grounds.
Every single one has a name, some have been in existence for almost a century – but only five are named after former players.
That’s a surprising omission. But even more depressingly, twice as many are named after corporate sponsors than former players.
We quite correctly bemoan the commercialisation of our national sport, but here we seem to be missing a very easy way of connecting stadia with supporters.
You don’t mess with tradition. The Kop will always be The Kop, the Street End will always be the Street End, as will The Shed, the Holte End or the Gallowgate.
But to name only five stands after former players in a country where it is becoming increasingly easy to be labelled a ‘legend’ seems to be missing a trick.
Every stand at every stadium has a name. But a staggering 28 of those 80 in the top flight are named unimaginatively after points of the compass, North, South, East or West.
That was the case for all four stands at Hull City’s KC stadium (itself a corporate abbreviation – Kingston Communications) until they decided to rename the stands after sponsors: sponsors which included a medical company, a solicitor and a building supplies merchant.
That seems to be chasing the corporate buck just a little too zealously.
And cynics who say Hull don’t have any players worthy of such an accolade didn’t see Ken Wagstaff.
Stoke City has two stands named after sponsors, as does Burnley’s lovely old Turf Moor stadium, although the Clarets do even it up a little by naming one stand after the gloriously gifted Jimmy McIlroy.
The Premier League’s other claret and blues, West Ham, make even more of a nod towards nostalgia with stands named after both Bobby Moore and Trevor Brooking.
But elsewhere in the Premier League there are just two more stands bearing legends’ names – Colin Bell at Manchester City and Jackie Milburn up in Tyneside.
It’s a glaring omission.
Howard Kendall and Kenny Dalglish lead their teams out at Wembley for the first ever all-Merseyside FA Cup final, May 10th 1986
Chairmen fare almost as badly. Aston Villa has a Doug Ellis Stand, Burnley one named after Bob Lord, while Chelsea pay tribute to Matthew Harding and Crystal Palace Arthur Wait.
Managers are almost completely overlooked.
Just one solitary stand in the top flight of English football is named after a manager.
It’s down the East Lancs at Old Trafford where Manchester United celebrate the achievements of the most successful manager in their history with the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand.
But since when have we waited for Manchester to show us the way?
We have two enormously worthy recipients of such an accolade here on Merseyside – two 24 carat, undeniable living legends, but both symbolically ignored and unappreciated at the stadia they did so much to grace.
Football legends Howard Kendall and Kenny Dalglish were voted for by the public as famous faces from the city they are most proud of. Howard and Kenny place their bricks in the Peoples Path.
Kenny Dalglish is the greatest footballer Liverpool has ever seen. Apart from his unparalleled majesty on the football pitch, he then became a supremely successful manager – twice, and that’s without even starting to talk about the strength he showed and the succour he gave to the grieving families of
Hillsborough.
Yet his name is nowhere to be seen at
Anfield.
Across the park,
Howard Kendall is the most successful manager Everton Football Club has ever had. He cultivated a football team which gave Evertonians back their pride, he put a succession of trophies on the Goodison sideboard … all after playing a significant part as a player in one of the most celebrated league championship winning teams Evertonians have ever witnessed.
Again he is ignored at
Goodison Park.
There are lounges named after Dixie Dean, Brian Labone and Alex Young, but nothing bearing Kendall’s name.
It is sometimes a strange protocol that football clubs only honour their greats after they have left us forever and lined up in a celestial XI.
Howard and King Kenny are still very much with us. But why wait until we are mourning legends before acknowledging their contribution to their clubs?
Dixie Dean scored the last of his 383 goals for Everton almost 70 years before a statue was erected in his honour.
Bill Shankly had passed away 16 years before Anfield’s iconic statue was cast.
We have it in our gift to acknowledge the enormous debt we owe to two giants of Merseyside football. Why wait any longer to repay it?
The Kenny Dalglish Stand and the Howard Kendall Stand have an appeal and an allure about them.
