Every person who bought a copy of Everton, Howard’s Way will have helped to save lives in L4 after all the funds from the film were pumped into the building of The People’s Place.
Everton in the Community’s The People’s Place is the first purpose-built mental health and wellbeing hub attached to a Premier League football club and was officially opened this week by Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who is also a lifelong Evertonian. Those being helped at the centre have another boyhood Blue to thank for turning the club’s charity’s vision into reality though in the shape of Phil Brown, the Scouser who has been chief executive officer of London-based Causeway Technologies since 1999.
Not only did Brown fund the film Everton, Howard’s Way – the 2019 documentary that charts the rise of the Blues’ most-successful team in the mid-1980s under the management of the club’s former midfielder Howard Kendall – he then used the proceeds to create The People’s Place back in his home city. Brown told the ECHO: “It’s incredible. I’m so proud of everybody who has made this thing happen because it’s been a big effort, not just from people who have been able to financially contribute but people like Carina (Duffy, Everton’s fundraising manager); Sue (Gregory, Everton in the Community’s chief executive officer); Lesley (Beattie, Everton in the Community’s former director of development) before; Richard Kenyon (Everton’s director of communications) and Mike (Salla, Everton in the Community’s deputy chief executive officer) of course.
