THE CULT OF BILL: Kenwright is 77 and has just a 1.3 PER CENT stake in Everton... yet he cannot cut ties and still wields huge power at Goodison, as owner Farhad Moshiri looks for investment to boost the club's dire financial state

When Mike Ashley was considering a bid for Newcastle United in 2007, he had dinner with Everton chairman Bill Kenwright.

Kenwright, one of the country's leading theatre producers, was Everton's biggest stakeholder and told Ashley: 'You buy a football club and you get terrible sh** thrown at you.' Sixteen years on and Ashley has been and gone at Newcastle. But for Kenwright and Everton the muck is still flying.

In Premier League circles, Everton are known as one of its most dysfunctional clubs and at the centre of it all, aged 77 and in less than perfect health, is Kenwright.