Liverpool FC Forum

by **yckatbjywtbiastkamb** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 12:06 am

i thought it might be a good idea to have a thread dedicated to local history were people can write posts not just about historical facts but also posts about local myths and legends concerning liverpool football club, the city of liverpool and the merseyside area in general.
it may help new fans or fans from around the world learn something about the history and culture of this great city that lies on the eastern banks of the river mersey and the football club that bears it`s name.

by **metalhead** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:24 am

Hi mate,

there is a nice thread that Bermenstein started regarding facts and figures for the history of the club right here

http://www.liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=28401

by **Kenny Kan** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 9:52 am

David Kennedy
1
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
By David Kennedy
People ‘dressed’ their houses to advertise Cup Final footballing
allegiances, though my Mum would never allow my brother’s Evertonian
blue to go up in case neighbours or passers-by mistakenly took us for
Catholics – John Williams (football sociologist)1
It was strange in the 1930s for a Catholic to support Liverpool – John
Woods (Liverpool author).2
In Liverpool, even in the two-ups and two-downs, most Protestants were
Conservative and most Catholics were Labour, just as Everton was the
Catholic team and Liverpool the Proddy-Dog one – Cilla Black (singer)3
Being a Roman Catholic school, religion played a large part in our school
life. Pop Moran even tried to turn me off football at Anfield – Catholics
were traditionally Everton supporters and players, Liverpool were the
Protestant team. Pop honestly thought that being a Catholic I wouldn’t be
happy at Anfield – Tommy Smith (ex Liverpool FC player and captain)4
A sectarian division between Everton and Liverpool football clubs is, for some, an
irrefutable part of local football culture. There is a prodigious amount of
anecdotal evidence claiming Everton to be the team traditionally supported by
the city’s Catholic population and Liverpool being predominantly supported by
Protestants. For others, however, sectarian affiliation is more urban myth than
reality: a tribal impulse amongst some fans to shore up and sharpen their
identity by suggesting a deeper meaning to support for the two clubs.5 Orthodox
opinion lies with the latter viewpoint, and football historians in particular have
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
2
dismissed notions of sectarianism as being without foundation and a divisive
intrusion into the study of both clubs. The issue, though, has never been
investigated in any great depth and, perhaps, deserves closer scrutiny than the
cursory attention afforded it. Whilst the claim of religious differences has little or
no meaning in defining the relationship of the modern day Everton and Liverpool
football clubs, the specific question to address is whether there is any justification
for the perception that, in an earlier period, the basis for such claims existed?
§
Naturally, claims of past sectarian connections have been resisted strongly by the
clubs themselves. Official club literature goes to some lengths to deny this
possibility by stressing Everton and Liverpool’s shared origins in order to
downplay what they view as nonsensical claims of sectarian affiliation. However,
it would be a mistake to dismiss perceptions that each club has acted as standardbearer
for distinct communities simply because of their shared point of origin.
The split of Everton FC in 1892 that brought Liverpool FC into existence saw the
emergence onto the football scene of a body of men with strong political
identities. The men who controlled the fortunes of Everton and Liverpool football
clubs also took an active part in local politics and it would be strange, given the
political environment these men operated within, that football in the City of
Liverpool could have remained untouched from matters of religious controversy
and discretely contained in a purely sporting context. To understand why this
would be so it is necessary to take a short detour into the sectarian history of
Liverpool politics.
During the pioneering period of professional football in Liverpool, religious
sectarianism dominated local life – affecting housing, schooling, and the city’s
occupational structure. By the mid-nineteenth century almost a quarter of the
city’s population were Irish born, and by the century’s end Liverpool remained a
key destination point for an exodus of Irish Protestants and Catholics. Friction
between the city’s Protestant and Catholic populations was a feature of the social
landscape – on many occasions erupting into street violence and rioting between
David Kennedy
3
ethnically divided communities. Some historians have argued that the ferocity of
the hostility between Irish Catholics in Liverpool and the “native” British and Irish
Protestant community surpassed the sectarian divide in Scotland, and only stands
close comparison with the experience of towns of Northern Ireland: ‘Liverpool –
sister of Belfast, rough, big hearted, Protestant and Unionist’.6 Like no other
mainland British city, Liverpool reflected the contours of the ongoing struggle in
nineteenth century and early twentieth century Ireland between Unionism and
Nationalism over the matter of Home Rule for Ireland.
Liverpool, therefore, was a harsh environment for the class-based politics found
elsewhere in England to prosper in. The local Labour Party struggled to gain a
commanding foothold in the city until well into the twentieth century. ‘Liverpool’,
the frustrated Labour leader, Ramsey MacDonald, wrote in 1910, ‘is rotten and we
better recognise it’.7 The local Home Rule supporting Liberal Party and, more
especially, the Conservative-Unionist Party were more adept at competing for
civic power by recourse to ethno-religious politics. The Liberals used their
commitment to Irish Home Rule to appeal directly to many Irish voters. By forging
an alliance with the local Irish party, the Liberal agenda tended to be
synonymous in most people’s eyes with defending the rights of Catholic voters in
the city. Their political rivals predictably put the matter more bluntly. Tory
leader William.B. Forwood offered the stark choice to the municipal electorate of
being either:
…well governed by the Conservative Party as it had for the past 50 years,
or governed by Home Rulers who had no interest whatever in Liverpool
but were simply in the city council to further the political interests of
Home Rule in Ireland. It was not a question of handing over the control of
the council to Messrs Holt, Bowring and Rathbone [Liberal Party
grandees] but to Messrs Lynskey, Taggart and Kelly [Irish Nationalist
councilors].8
Liberal organisation, though, was weak in Liverpool compared to the
Conservatives, who rather more successfully courted the native working class
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
4
electorate by being “sound on the Protestant ticket”. As the party viewed by
many as the political representation of the ties between Church and state, the
Tories enjoyed a fruitful relationship with the Protestant majority amongst the
electorate. Liverpool’s Tory Party hierarchy had traditionally played on the
emotions of the Protestant working class of the city by appealing beyond their
class interests to their religious identity. A brand of popular Toryism, therefore,
carried the day in Liverpool: deference shown to the Tory elite by the Protestant
working class (and their support at the ballot box) was rewarded by the party’s
close identification with the values and institutions they held in esteem, and
opposition to any significant improvement in the condition of the Irish Catholic
working class – more especially in the fiercely competitive casual labour market.
By playing the Orange card in this way the Tories (for all but a handful of years in
the 1890s) retained municipal control of Liverpool until the 1950s.
The important point to make here is that, whereas in other towns the issues
primarily to be addressed and contested by local parties would be the more
prosaic matters of, say, housing and health provision, or the setting of rates, in
Liverpool “Imperial affairs” (that is, the stance taken by ward candidates on
religion and the Irish Question), were paramount. For this reason it would be
completely understandable, given the high incidence of football club directors
active in the local Liberal and Conservative parties, if ethno-religious labels
became attached to Everton and Liverpool football clubs via the politic views
held by those directors.
I have highlighted elsewhere the strongly partisan political dimension to the
Everton split in 1892: http://www.evertoncollection.org.uk/article?id=ART74553
In the wake of that event the Everton boardroom became a relative stronghold of
men involved in Liberal politics, whereas the Liverpool boardroom was an almost
exclusive preserve of men involved in some way with the local Conservative
Party. In the Everton boardroom, James Clement Baxter was Liberal city
councillor for Liverpool’s St.Anne’s ward; George Mahon – Everton’s first
David Kennedy
5
chairman – was committee member of Walton Liberal Association; Dr William
Whitford was chairman of Everton and Kirkdale Liberal Association; William.R.
Clayton was the chairman of Formby Liberal Association; Alfred Gates was
leader of the Liberal Party in Liverpool City Council. Two other Everton directors,
Will Cuff and Alfred Wade, were also involved in local Liberal politics.9 All seven
men would become chairmen of the club. By contrast, at Liverpool FC boardroom
involvement in local party politics was of a distinctly Conservative nature. Six
directors: Benjamin E.Bailey, Edwin Berry, John Houlding, William Houlding,
Simon Jude, and John McKenna were members of the Constitutional Association,
the ruling body of Liverpool Conservatism.10 The Constitutional Association
exercised complete control over district Conservative Associations in Liverpool
and affiliated societies and organizations such as the Orange Order. In the
council chamber John Houlding, Edwin Berry, William Houlding (John Houlding’s
son, and fellow director) and club secretary, Simon Jude, were Conservative
councilors representing neighbouring north Liverpool wards. Other Liverpool FC
directors involved in Conservative politics were: Harry Oldfield Cooper, a
member of the Liverpool Junior Conservative Club, and Thomas Croft Howarth,
the leader of the Conservative group in the Liverpool Parliamentary Debating
Society.11
It seems hard to believe that such stark difference in political complexion – and
the connotations they held – would escape the attention of a general population
keenly tuned-in to the attitudes of those involved in public life on matters of
religion. In fact, there were many public statements made by prominent club
members concerning the issues of religion, ethnicity and the all-pervasive matter
of Irish Home Rule to drive the differences home. For example, Everton director,
William Whitford, described as ‘an ardent Home-Ruler’, made an impassioned
speech during the municipal election campaign of 1892 against the blocking of
Home Rule by Ulster Unionists:
Ulstermen do not desire to govern Ireland according to the wishes of the
people of Ireland, but according to the narrow prejudices of the so-called
“loyal minority”. Irish Catholic bishops and priests had not the illegitimate
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
6
power we in this country are asked to believe. Their views are, however,
in accordance with the nationalist aspirations of the Irish people. The
priests had been loyal to the people, unlike the priests of other
denominations…The Irish priests could not and had not the power to lead
the Irish people in temporal matters against their honest convictions 12
Everton director and fellow Liberal-Nationalist, Alderman Alfred Gates (a name
which was ‘as a red rag to a furious bull’ to the Conservative-Unionist Party) was a
‘strenuous advocate of Home Rule’ keen to show that ‘the Orange Tory Party were
losing ground in Liverpool’. Another director of the club and Everton’s first
chairman, Dublin educated George Mahon, helped reorganise the Walton
Liberal Association in the wake of the defection of Liberal Unionists opposed to
Gladstone’s proposed solution to the Irish Question. Mahon was a prime mover in
the Walton Liberal Party’s adoption of the policy plank of Home Rule and was one
of the officers of that district body affirming in the local press their 'total support
for Home Rule'.13 And frequent press reports of directors James Clement Baxter
and Alfred Wade attending Irish Nationalist League meetings would have
underlined for the public a sense of the general sectarian tone of the men
inhabiting the Everton boardroom.14
From figures amongst the Liverpool FC hierarchy, on the other hand, there was
an equally strident and public outpouring of feeling toward the Protestant-
Unionist cause. Founder and Chairman of Liverpool FC, John Houlding, quite
obviously found it difficult to contain his religious leanings as a Conservative-
Unionist and Orangeman whilst carrying out his duties as a Guardian at the West
Derby Poor Law Union. As reported by the Liverpool Courier, as Guardian of the
West Derby Union Houlding pointedly refused granting to Catholic priests any
payment for ministering to Catholic inmates of workhouses whilst allowing such
payment to Church of England and Nonconformist ministers. In reply to a motion
put before the Poor Law Union to make the payment to Catholic priests ‘as an act
of justice and common fairness’ Houlding replied:
I defy any member of the Board or any judge in the land to show him an
Act of Parliament which expressly stated that they should pay Roman
David Kennedy
7
Catholics for services performed in workhouses. If English Unions did
appoint a Roman Catholic priest it is only done by a clear evasion of the
law, and often perhaps for the sake of quietness 15
Another Liverpool FC director, and a successor to Houlding as chairman, Edwin
Berry, leaves us evidence of his vigilance against the re-emergence of an
influential Roman Catholic Church in British society – a matter of much debate in
Liverpool political circles in the late Victorian period. Addressing an audience of
the British Protestant Union in 1898, Berry offered his support to ‘the repression of
lawlessness and Romanising influence’, declaring himself to be a ‘loyal
Churchman with every desire to further the principles of the Church of England
in accordance with the Reformation’. This was a position on the issue he
reiterated six years later when attempting to outflank the challenge of an
independent Orange Order candidate for his council seat.16
A close associate of both Houlding and Berry both in local political circles and at
Liverpool FC was MP for Everton and President of the National Protestant Union,
Sir James A Willox. Willox, the proprietor of the Liverpool Courier, was not a club
director but was an influential large shareholder in Liverpool FC, using a “proxy”
on the board to advance his interests in the club. Willox publicly backed the
decision to set up Liverpool FC out of the remnants of the staff left behind at
Anfield in the wake of the 1892 split and remained a close ally of the club’s board
until his death in 1905. A firebrand in the defence of British dominion over
Ireland, Willox, speaking to a meeting in his Parliamentary Division, attacked
Liberal policy on Ireland: ‘To conciliate four million people in Ireland’ he asked
his audience, ‘are we going to sacrifice one million and a half of loyal Protestants
and faithful lieges of the Queen?’. Speaking to another Conservative audience,
Willox called for ‘more of Cromwell’s courage and more of his religion’ in public
life. 17
The Unionist sentiments of the hierarchy of Liverpool FC are firmly underlined by
the connections many of their directors had with the Liverpool Working Men’s
Conservative Association (WMCA), an organisation affiliated to the Liverpool
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
8
Tory Party machine. The overlap of personnel between the Liverpool boardroom
and the WMCA gives us further scope in understanding how perceptions of a
sectarian football division between Everton and Liverpool could have taken root.
Described as ‘the engine of Protestant power’18 within Liverpool Conservatism,
the WMCA were at the vanguard of anti-Catholic politics in the city. To gain an
appreciation of the nature of this organization we can turn to the words of Barbara
Whittingham-Jones, a local political journalist writing at the height of the WMCA’s
power in the Inter War period. The WMCA and the Orange Order, declared
Whittingham-Jones, were as ‘identical in political outlook as in personnel’. She
described the proceedings on her visit to one branch meeting in 1936:
Meetings at Conservative clubs cannot proceed until an incantation has
first been declared by all present. The chairman opens the meeting by
requiring members who have been guilty of ‘consorting’ with Catholics to
confess their delinquencies and upon doing so they then receive a
warning. Catholics who have strayed in by chance are requested to leave
the room. Even Questions have to be preceded by the formula: “By my
Protestant faith and Conservative principles…” with hand raised in the
Hitler salute. Such is the democratic character of this sectarian classridden
caucus that no Roman Catholic workingmen can join the
Conservative Party in Liverpool or frequent the Workingmen’s
Conservative Association clubs.19
An organization ‘held together by its tough Orange fibre’, the Liverpool WMCA
was predictably staunch on the Irish Question, offering its support for the
maintenance of the Union with Ireland. The Association’s policy prior to the
partition of Ireland was to oppose the breaking up of the Union and to back the
reprisals carried out by the British auxiliary force, the notoriously brutal Black
and Tans, against Irish Republicans. Writing in 1920, the Liverpool WMCA
Chairman, Sir Archibald Salvidge, saluted Black and Tan operations as the
actions of ‘...those who will not submit meekly to the fiendish destruction of life
and property which Sinn Fein gunmen claim as noble acts of heroism…[but,
rather] give Sinn Feiners a taste of their own medicine’. In the aftermath of the
setting up of the Irish Free State in 1921, the Liverpool organisation’s emphasis
David Kennedy
9
merely switched to the safeguarding of Protestant Ulster and the adoption (no
doubt with one eye on local affairs) of “No Surrender” Unionist politics.20
The amount of people involved in the ownership and control of Liverpool FC in
the period under review who were also key figures in the WMCA is quite
remarkable. These included such club luminaries as John Houlding, Edwin Berry
and Benjamin Bailey – all chairmen of Liverpool at some point prior to the First
World War, and key players in this quasi-religious organisation. But the link was
a longstanding affair at the club, stretching beyond the First World War to the
1950s. Director, Albert Edward Berry, succeeded his brother Edwin as WMCA
solicitor in 1925, holding the position until 1931. This post was then passed on to
yet another Liverpool FC director and Conservative councillor, Ralph Knowles
Milne, a position he held until his death in 1954. The club’s solicitor in the 1940s,
Maxwell Fyffe, also provided a connection between Liverpool and the WMCA.
And at shareholder level too the connection was significant: John Holland, one of
the small number of shareholders involved in the club when it was formed in
1892, and who remained a shareholder until his death in 1914, was one of the
founding members of the Liverpool WMCA in 1867 and was the Association’s
longstanding secretary; the aforementioned Sir James A.Willox, was Vice
President of the WMCA. Conservative councillor, Ephraim P. Walker, a major
shareholder in Liverpool from 1899, was a member of the WMCA’s governing
council. And yet another significant shareholding connection was that of Bents
Brewery. Bents held shares in Liverpool FC at a time when control of the brewery
was in the hands of Archibald Salvidge, Chairman of the WMCA and Edward
J.Chevalier, Vice Chairman of the organisation.21
In the context of deep sectarian tensions in Liverpool society, the strong
connection the Liverpool board had with this avowedly sectarian organization is a
significant one. In this respect it is interesting to note that the Glasgow Working
Mens’ Conservative Association were equally central to the early development of
Glasgow Rangers FC.22 The reputation of the Glasgow club as a bulwark of
Protestant and Unionist ascendancy in the West of Scotland is well established.
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
10
The undoubted influence of the Liverpool WMCA on Liverpool FC’s development
perhaps demonstrates an unconsidered connection, therefore, between the
Merseyside club and that of the stridently Unionist Rangers.
And it is difficult to ignore another similarity in the boardroom profile of the
Liverpool and Glasgow clubs: the significance of Masonic influence amongst
club directors. Studies concerned with Glasgow football culture have
speculated about the role of Freemasonry in the development of Glasgow
Rangers Football Club. Rangers’ longstanding chairman, and majority
shareholder, Sir John Ure Primrose, established Masonic connections at
Rangers in the late nineteenth century. It has been argued that Freemasonry
acted as a bonding agent at Rangers, ensuring loyalty to the club, and the
loyalty of the club to the Craft.23 The exclusion of Catholics from Masonic
membership – whether by being actively blocked or through the conflict such
membership would have had with their religious belief – meant that this was
another means of excluding Catholics from employment at Rangers. Though the
connection between Liverpool FC and Liverpool Freemasonry was not as
explicitly stated, my own research suggests that anyone at the club with
boardroom ambitions would have found that being a Mason had its advantages
(http://www.freemasonrytoday.com/47/p10.php). At least this seems to have
been the case in the period of the club’s history dominated by its first chairman,
John Houlding. Houlding, who had been a founding member of both Anfield
and Sir Walter Raleigh Lodges, rose through the levels of Freemasonry
attaining the status of Provincial Grand Registrar and Provincial Grand Warden
in West Lancashire during the 1880s. His Masonic career reached its zenith in
1898 when becoming Grand Senior Deacon of England. Houlding was one of
the few Freemasons who attained the “33rd Degree” – the highest possible level
any Freemason can attain, an exclusive order within Freemasonry restricted to
seventy five members at any one point in time.24 Between 1892 and his death in
1902, eight of the thirteen directors and two secretaries at Liverpool FC were
Freemasons.25 At provincial level in West Lancashire and Cheshire, Liverpool
directors made their mark: J.J Ramsey and John McKenna were Provincial
Grand Deacons in West Lancashire, as was club secretary, Simon Jude.
David Kennedy
11
Director, Edwin Berry, attained Provincial Grand Registrar status in West
Lancashire, whilst his brother, and fellow director, Albert E. Berry, achieved the
rank of Provincial Grand Deacon (Cheshire). In the period after Houlding’s
death to the First World War, this pattern of Masonic association was
maintained at Liverpool FC. Of the nine new directors joining the Liverpool
board after 1902, four directors: William C. Briggs, Richard L. Martindale,
William R. Williams and Albert Worgan,26 were Freemasons. Briggs and
Martindale both reached the status of Provincial Grand Deacon through their
respective lodges, Anfield Lodge and Toxteth Lodge, thereby maintaining an
earlier Liverpool director tradition of achieving prominence within local
Masonic circles. A letter to a Freemasonry journal underlines the pride felt by
Masons in Liverpool for the part the Craft has played in the club’s history.
http://www.freemasonrytoday.com/50/p19.php Is it reasonable to suggest,
then, given the extensive Masonic connections established at Liverpool FC, that
this – along with the Unionist politics of many senior members of the club –
would have contributed to the establishment of a common religious ethos at the
helm of Liverpool in its formative period similar to that established at Glasgow
Rangers?
§
If there was a demonstrable difference in terms of attitude to religious and
political affairs between the clubs at boardroom level – and this does appear to
have been the case in an earlier period – did this necessarily translate into the
clubs operating along sectarian lines? I think, overall, the answer to this question
is that they did not, although the matter is a complex one. Certainly, the scope
was there for the two clubs to capitalise and prosper on a sectarian business
model. In a number of Scottish and Northern Irish towns religious and political
leaders took the crucial lead in the development of professional football
organisations. They viewed ethnic Irish football clubs as a form of cultural capital
able to consolidate religious and ethnic identity in the face of a hostile Protestant
Unionism. In Liverpool, however, a city similarly riven with sectarian tensions,
this lead was not forthcoming.27 Though some in the Liverpool Irish community
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
12
attempted to form their own football organisations (Liverpool 5th Irish being
probably the most obvious example28) this avenue of setting up specifically
ethno-religious football clubs was not pursued by the city’s Irish Catholic
hierarchy. Under these circumstances the established professional football clubs
of Liverpool stood to profit by judicious appeals to different religious
communities – to indulge in the type of carving up of the local football market
associated, for example, with the ‘Old Firm’ clubs of Glasgow.
One of the means a symbolic message could have been sent out by the clubs
would have been to follow a recruitment policy that encouraged the signing of
players from a particular background (or, putting it another way, a policy of
excluding players from a particular background) as was the case with Glasgow
Rangers or Belfast club, Linfield. An unwritten ‘policy’ of not signing Roman
Catholic players was in place at those clubs until well into the latter decades of
the twentieth century, and it became a crucial strategy in securing a sectarian
division in local demand for football as supporters identified with the playing staff
assembled before them. In the case of Glasgow Rangers this went as far as the
marginalisation of players within the club who had married Roman Catholics.
Ironically, an argument often used by those defending the Merseyside clubs from
the charge of sectarianism has been to highlight Everton’s signing of Irish born
players, especially in the 1940s and 1950s, as an explanation for the ‘confusion’
over religious links attributed to the two Liverpool teams. In the mid twentieth
century Everton forged connections with clubs in Ireland, such as Dundalk and
with Dublin teams Shamrock Rovers and Shelbourne. These links reaped a
harvest of players, such as Tommy Clinton, Peter Corr, Tommy Eglington, Peter
Farrell, Jimmy O’Neill, George Cummins, Dan Donovan, Mick Meagan and Jimmy
Sutherland. The employment of former Manchester United captain and Irish
international, John Carey, as manager in 1958 gave the team a distinctive
“Hibernian” flavour - a point made by former Everton player Brian Harris in his
biography, and in a not entirely complimentary fashion.29 However, well before
the post Second World War era Everton had established a frequent supply line in
Irish talent, a connection so rich as to be described as an Eireann tradition. The
David Kennedy
13
first signing from Ireland was Jack Kirwan, a player plucked from Gaelic Football
outfit St James Gaels in 1898. Kirwan’s move to Goodison was followed by
Shelbourne team mates Valentine Harris (another convert from Gaelic Football)
and Billy Lacey – men who went on to manage the Irish Free State national team in
the 1930s). Other notable Irish internationals that went on to play for Everton
were Billy Scott, Belfast Celtic’s Jackie Coulter and Alex Stevenson.30 Probably
for this reason Everton were the first English club to have a supporters’
association set up in Ireland, becoming the first example of a club with a large
‘overseas’ support, as hundreds of Irishmen travelled to Liverpool for Everton
games. Symbolically, the connection between Everton and Ireland was cemented
with the move of Everton’s greatest ever player and iconic figure, William Ralph
(Dixie) Dean, to Sligo Rovers in 1939; Dean going on to win the Irish Cup with
Rovers in the 1939/40 season.
By contrast, Ireland was a virtually untapped market for Liverpool FC until the
end of the twentieth century. During the 1980s Liverpool signed a host of Irish
international stars including Ronnie Whelan, Steve Staunton, Jim Beglin and
Michael Robinson. This relatively late influx into the club has led some to talk of a
less welcoming attitude toward Irish born players at Liverpool FC than
traditionally was extended by their near neighbours. However, the reason for this
disparity can perhaps partly be explained by the initial scouting networks set up
by Liverpool. Through the club’s first secretary-manager, John McKenna,
Liverpool from their inception targeted (and out of a necessity as a newly formed
club to ‘hit the ground running’), proven players of quality from Scotland, a
traditional route followed by many English clubs seeking professional players
during this period. McKenna immediately signed thirteen Scots professionals
from which were constructed the celebrated ‘team of macs’ of 1892. This was a
deep well of talent that McKenna returned to in his four years as club secretarymanager
between 1892 and 1896, and it became a scouting pattern which his
successors kept faith with over the years. Thus, a tradition was set in place. In the
words of one Liverpool fan:
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
14
Liverpool FC has been blessed with the impressive contributions of many
nationalities down the years, but the impact of Scottish players and
managerial staff is arguably unequalled at Anfield…Liverpool’s history is
built on the shoulders of Scottish players and their grit, skill,
determination and excellent leadership and motivational ability. 31
In total the club has signed a staggering 149 Scots-born players since 1892 that
went on to play first team football. They include the names of the most celebrated
players in the club’s history: Alex Raisbeck, Ted Doig, Billy Liddell, Ian St.John,
Ron Yeats, Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness. It has been argued that this
heavy bias toward recruitment north of the border inculcated the club with ‘a
robust Scottish Protestant ethic’.32 The fact that this Scottish recruitment included
players from both sides of the religious divide, though, questions the validity of
stressing the sectarian importance of the sourcing of players from Presbyterian
Scotland rather than Catholic Ireland. The earliest Liverpool teams included many
players transferred from Scots-Irish clubs who were of Irish Catholic descent,
such as Andy McGuigan from Hibernian, and James McBride and Joseph McQue
from Celtic. The celebrated Manchester United manager, Matt Busby, signed in
1935 and made club captain soon after, was a devout Roman Catholic.
Similarly, the claims suggesting that the Merseyside clubs operated an informal
city based scouting arrangement along religious lines must also be rejected.
Specifically, this was said to have worked on the basis of Everton and Liverpool
casting their net over promising young players within the city’s schoolboy
representative teams: Everton being given the opportunity of choosing the cream
of local Catholic talent; Liverpool allowed free rein to do the same with state
schooled or Protestant schooled boys. However, and certainly in the post-Second
World war period, it is clear that many players brought up in the Liverpool-Irish
community had little problem in becoming Liverpool players. In the 1950s and
1960s boys from Catholic backgrounds such as Bobby Campbell, Jimmy Melia,
Chris Lawler, Tommy Smith and Gerry Byrne were signed by Liverpool. In fact,
Byrne was signed up for Liverpool whilst playing for the Liverpool Catholic
Schoolboys team.33
David Kennedy
15
§
Beyond signing policy, another way that the Merseyside clubs could have
stressed differing identities would have been by forging exclusive associations
with particular religious or ethnic organisations. Did differences here provide
substance for the Catholic-Protestant religious tags that have been attached to
each football organisation? Again, we can go back to the example of Scottish
football where the use of such symbolism was employed to secure and reinforce
support from ethno-religious communities. Glasgow Rangers’ association with the
Orange Order, for instance, underlined their Protestant and Unionist credentials.
On occasion, the Glasgow club offered its Ibrox stadium as a venue for the annual
religious service held by the city’s Orange Lodges, and allowed its team to play
benefit matches in Northern Ireland for a variety of Orange Order charities. For
their part, Rangers rivals, Celtic, emphasised their role as a totem of Irish
Catholic cultural identity in the city by, for example, making its founding
principle the provision of charity for the Catholic poor and by making their
ground Celtic Park available for the holding of Roman Catholic mass on important
feast days during the religious calendar.34
This state of affairs was not repeated on Merseyside. All available evidence
points toward a non-partisan approach to community relations by the clubs, with
neither Everton or Liverpool predominantly favouring one particular religious
denomination over another. For example, the Liverpool Catholic schools annual
sports days were hosted alternately at Goodison Park and Anfield in the Inter
War period. Another institution enjoying the patronage of both clubs was The
League of Welldoers: a charity set up in the Victorian period at Limekiln Lane, off
Scotland Road in the heart of “Irish Liverpool”. Also known as “Lee Jones’” after
its philanthropist founder, the charity provided a crucial intervention in the pre
welfare state era amongst the poor and destitute of the Scotland Road area.
Everton hosted food parties and organized games for children sent by the
charity, whilst Liverpool director Richard L. Martindale was one of the League’s
governors. Everton and Liverpool football clubs also appear to have been on
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
16
friendly terms with the premier Catholic college in Liverpool: St Francis Xavier.
My research also reveals that both clubs gave assistance to St Francis Xavier’s by
providing coaches to help train their various sporting teams.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp....91~tab=
citations Everton player – and future club director - Daniel Kirkwood, and
Liverpool player, Alex McCowie, were seconded to Saint Francis Xavier as
coaches.35 And the outreach efforts of the clubs were not restricted to the
Catholic community. In the pre Second World War period the players and
management of Everton and Liverpool took part jointly in services held by
Nonconformist congregations. These so-called ‘Football Sundays’ were formal
affairs, often with a civic dignitary in attendance, with directors and players from
each club called upon to speak.
More typical of Everton and Liverpool’s community support, however, was their
aiding of secular causes, such as alms giving to local hospitals. Stanley Hospital in
the Kirkdale district of Liverpool in particular was the frequent recipient of
financial donations from both clubs. They also appear to have taken an interest in
alleviating the hardship of the local labour force in periods of economic
downturn. In 1895, at the height of a bleak winter of trade inactivity in the port,
Everton donated £1000 to relief agencies and set up a soup kitchen to provide for
12,000 people. And in 1905 both clubs agreed to donate a third of the gate
receipts from the Liverpool Senior Cup final to the city’s Unemployed Fund
(although the extent of the Liverpool board’s good will in this respect is
questioned by their later refusal to allow matchday collections for striking
Liverpool dockworkers).36
§
Returning to our question, then, Is there any substance to the assertion that
religious differences in some way have played a part in the history of the
Merseyside clubs? Perhaps a judicious conclusion to make would be that, though
David Kennedy
17
there is no compelling argument to make the case that football on Merseyside
followed the path taken in Glasgow or Belfast, there was, in some respects, a
significant cleavage between the clubs that does warrant acknowledgement.
Certainly, the patterns of control at each club in the late Victorian and Edwardian
period are startling in their difference, and the political distinctions between
them would not look out of place when comparing the hierarchy of Glasgow’s Old
Firm or that of, say, Belfast Celtic and Linfield. Historians plotting the
development of football clubs associated with religious sectarianism in Scotland
and Northern Ireland, for example, are firm in their opinion that the identities of
these clubs are less a result of their being initially founded as sporting
outgrowths of churches or chapels than they are the product of long established
boardroom hierarchies who stamped them in their own image.37 Clubs like
Glasgow Celtic, Hibernian and Belfast Celtic, founded to provide charity to the
Catholic poor and as an outreach to young Catholic men, soon found their
direction dictated by a local business elite, many of whom were involved in
Nationalist politics. Similarly, the identity of Glasgow Rangers and Linfield – clubs
which, if not being founded by Presbyterian chapels certainly had their roots
within that religious tradition38 – were moulded by the Unionist politics of men
dominating their boardrooms. For this reason alone, the claims of a religious
schism in Merseyside football circles cannot simply be dismissed as the product
of a tendency amongst some supporters to look for convenient binary opposites.
In terms of determining whether such obvious differences in leadership impacted
on the running of the club, it could, one supposes, be argued that it may have led
to differences in the targeting of imported players, and that Everton’s forging
strong links with Ireland was a “follow on” of some aspect of its boardroom
profile. Such a policy might explain the large amount of anecdotal evidence
professing Everton to be a team supported by Liverpool Catholics: the amount of
Irish players the club attracted to it igniting a certain degree of ethnic pride in
Everton amongst the city’s Irish-born or those of Irish descent. One writer with
knowledge of both the Glasgow and Merseyside professional football scene
believed this to have been the case. ‘Everton Football Club, like Celtic Football
Club’, wrote Celtic historian, James Handley, ‘owed its success to immigrant
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
18
support, the Irish in Liverpool rallying wholeheartedly round it’. This is an
opinion still at large today amongst onlookers to Merseyside football’s affairs. 39
However, despite there being a marked difference between Everton and
Liverpool in the volume of players selected from Ireland, evidence suggests that,
overall, there was no attempt by the clubs to operate discriminatory policies on
the grounds of religious sectarianism when employing playing staff. And neither
does there appear to have been any policy to build up support amongst one
section of the population to the detriment of attracting support from another
section. There was, in short, no obvious effort to secure a support base by
repeating the type of divisive practices via “community outreach” found in
certain other football cultures elsewhere in Britain (nor, indeed, to mirror the
divisions found in the city of Liverpool on every level: from schooling to housing;
from welfare provision to workplace recruitment). This latter point may have
prompted the Liverpool Lord Mayor’s observation in 1933 that the two clubs had
done more ‘to cement good fellowship…than anything said or done in the last 25
years’ - a period blighted by sectarian unrest in the city.40
Notes
1 John Williams Into the Red: Liverpool FC and the Changing Face of English Football, p.10.
2 John Woods Growin’ Up: One Scouser’s Social History of Liverpool, p.43.
3 Liverpool Echo 17th December 2002. ‘Cilla and Ricky’s “Scouseness” Test’.
4 Tommy Smith and Dave Stuckey I Did It the Hard Way, p.14.
5 See: P.Ayres, Life and Work in Athol Street, (Liverpool, p69; T.Campbell, Rhapsody in
Green: Great Celtic Moments, pp.285-286; B.Clegg, The Man Who Made Littlewoods, p183;
Alan Edge, Faith of Our Fathers, pp.96-99; J.E.Handley, The Celtic Story: A History of the
Celtic Football Club, p27; D.Hill, Out of His Skin: The John Barnes Story, pp.68-69; B.Murray,
The Old Firm: Sectarianism, Sport and Society in Scotland, p96n; M. Owen, Everton in
Europe: Der Ball ist Rund, 1962-2005, p. 178-79; S. Redhead, Football with Attitude, p.20;
T.Smith, I Did it the Hard Way pp.14-15; J.Williams et al, Football and Football Hooliganism
in Liverpool, p18.
6 Ian Colvin, quoted in Dan Jackson, ‘Friends of the Union’, Liverpool, Ulster, and Home
Rule, 1910-1914’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, number
152, 2003, p.114.
7 Davies, Liverpool Labour: Social and Political Influences on the Development of the Labour
party in Liverpool, 1900-1939, p.19
David Kennedy
19
8 Liverpool Daly Post (Hereafter LDP) 29th October 1892.
9 For Clayton see: Southport Liberal Association, Annual Reports, 1899-1930; Executive
Committee Meeting Minutes, 1880-1930. For Baxter see: Liverpool City Council Annual
Committee and Sub-Committee Reports, 1906-1921; Baxter’s funeral report, Liverpool
Mercury, 28 January 1928. For Mahon see: See Bootle Times, 11 January and 1 March 1889
for reports of Walton Liberal Association meetings. There are no surviving records of the
Liverpool Liberal Party. Confirmation of Dr Whitford’s status comes from local newspaper
coverage of Liberal Party meetings during the period under review (see, for example,
LDP, 13 April and 10 and 11 June 1892). For Cuff see: press reports of local Liberal Party
meetings in the early 1890s. See Bootle Times, 26 April 1890; LDP, 18 October 1892. For
Wade (the brother of J.A.Wade, chairman of the Walton Liberal Association) see LDP, 22nd
and 26th October; 1891, 5th and 11th April 1892; and 18th June. for Alfred Gates see LDP,
23rd May, 1942.
10 Liverpool Constitutional Association, minutes and annual reports, 1860-1947.
11 Liverpool City Council Annual Committee and Sub-Committee Meeting Minutes, 1890-
1910. Other Liverpool FC directors involved in Conservative politics were: Harry Oldfield
Cooper, a member of the Liverpool Junior Conservative Club (see LDP, 20 May 1915), and
Thomas Croft Howarth, a figure key to the formation of the club, the leader of the
Conservative group in the Liverpool Parliamentary Debating Society (see LDP, 13 October
1939.
12 LDP, 11th June 1892. See also Porcupine, 26 December 1896 .
13 For Gates see LDP 21st Oct. 1910; Liverpool Catholic Herald 1st Nov. 1913. For Mahon see
Bootle Times 8th Feb. 1890. (See also Bootle Times, 11th Jan. and 1st March 1890 for more
evidence of Mahon’s presence with the pro Home Rule Walton Liberal Associaition.
14 For Baxter see: ‘Loss to Liverpool Catholicity’, Liverpool Catholic Herald, 4 Feb. 1928, 2;
obituary, LDP, 28 Jan.1928). For details on Wade see LDP, June 18th 1892.
15 Liverpool Courier (hereafter LC), 19th May, 1892.
16 LDP, 29th Oct.1898; Speaking in Porcupine, 22nd October 1904, Berry describes himself
as being ‘zealous to bring Ritualistic offenders to book’.
17 LDP, 17th May 1892.Waller, p.157
18 Waller, Democracy and Sectarianism: p.286.
19 Whittingham Jones, Barbara, The Pedigree of Liverpool Politics: White, Orange and
Green, p.7. Down With the Orange Caucus p.6-7
20 Salvidge of Liverpool, Stanley Salvidge, p.186.
21 For details on John Houlding, Richard H.Webster, William Houlding and Thomas Croft
Howarth see press reports of Working Men’s Conservative Association district meetings
Bootle Times, 4th Dec. 1886, 2 Feb. 1895; LDP, 3 Feb. 1892). For Simon Jude see LDP, 30
January 1897. For Edwin Berry see LDP, 23 Nov. 1925. For B.E. Bailey see Liverpool
Conservative Association minutes and annual reports, 1890/91. For Albert E. Berry see
Liverpool and Merseyside Official Red Book, ‘Political Associations: Working Men’s
Conservative Association’, 1925. For R.K. Milne see LDP 4th May 1953. For details for John
Holland see LDP 30 Jan. 1912. For J.A. Willox see Liverpool and Merseyside Official Red
Book, ‘Political Associations: Working Men’s Conservative Association’ 1902. For E.P.
Walker see LDP, 30th Jan. 1897. For Archibald Salvidge see Waller, Democracy and
Sectarianism p.509.
22 Finn, Gerry P.T., ‘Scottish Myopias and Global Prejudices’, in Finn, G.P.T. and
Giullianotti, R. (eds), Football Culture: Local Contests, Global Visions, pp.60–1.
23 The significance of Freemasonry on Glasgow football culture has been touched upon by
Gerry P.T. Finn, ‘Racism, Religion and Social Prejudice: Irish Catholic Clubs, Soccer and
Scottish Society’, International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol.8, (1), (1991) pp.72-95,
and by Bill Murray, The Old Firm in the New Age: Celtic and Rangers Since the Souness
Revolution, pp.173-77.
24 LC 19 March 1902. Stephen Knight, The Brotherhood, p.41
25 For W.C.Briggs see LC, 23 February 1923; John McKenna, LDP, 23 March 1936;
JJ.Rarnsey, LC, 18 October 1918. For Simon Jude, see LC, 2nd January, 1922. For A.E.Berry
see LDP, 27 February 1931 Edwin Berry, LC, 23 November 1925. Hamer Lodge (1395)
J.C.Brooks; Wilbraham Lodge (1713) A.E.Leyland. Source: Grand Lodge of England
Country Returns
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
20
26 For W.C.Briggs see LC, 22d February, 1923; R.L.Martindale see LC, 24th February, 1926;
W.R.Williams see LDP&M, 22nd January, 1929; A.Worgan see LC, 16th October, 1920.
27 By contrast to Scotland, at the end of the nineteenth century, second and third
generation (that is to say the Liverpool-born) Irish, were increasingly focused on the
struggle for the rights of citizenship (manifest in their commitment to municipal politics) as
much as they were for the rights of Home Rule for Ireland; a denationalisation process
encouraged by the Catholic Church in the city anxious that Catholicism was not so
synonymous with Irish-Catholicism that it would adversely affect its capacity to cut across
Irish-British identities in accordance with its main aim of integration. (See Hickman, Mary
J. Religion, Class and Identity: The State, the Catholic Church and the Education of the Irish
in Britain.
28 The team’s origins lay in the 5th Irish Volunteer Rifle Brigade, a body of men recruited
exclusively from the Liverpool Irish Catholic community. ‘The Irishmen’ as they became
known were formed in 1888 in the Everton district and played their football competitively
in the Liverpool and District Amateur League and West Lancashire and District League.
The team were disbanded in 1894.
26 ‘I don’t have fond memories of Johnny Carey’, wrote Harris of his first Everton manager,
‘he favoured the Irish contingent at the club and the two of us did not get on at all’. Quoted
in Westcott, C., Brian Harris: The Authorised Biography’ , p.37.
29 ‘I don’t have fond memories of Johnny Carey’, wrote Harris of his first Everton manager,
‘he favoured the Irish contingent at the club and the two of us did not get on at all’. Quoted
in Westcott, C., Brian Harris: The Authorised Biography’ , p.37.
30 See Young, Percy Football on Merseyside
31 http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2008....de.html
32 Figures on Liverpool’s Scottish players from Liverpool FC historian Eric Doig. Eric
calculates this to be 23 per cent of all playing staff at the club since its inception. Quotation
regarding Liverpool’s ‘robust Scottish Protestantism’ taken from: Hill, David Out of His
Skin: The John Barnes Story, p.69.
33 Williams, John (Ed), Passing Rhythms: Liverpool FC and the Transformation of Football,
p.20); http://www.lfchistory.net/redcorner_articles_view.asp?article_id=2213
34 Murray, Bill The Old Firm in the New Age: Celtic and Rangers Since the Souness
Revolution; Murray, Bill The Old Firm: Sectarianism, Sport and Society in Scotland.
35 See The Xaverian, January, 1899, 202-03; November, 1899, p.366. T. Mason, The Blues
and the Reds: A History of the Everton and Liverpool Football Clubs, p18.
36 Percy Young, Football on Merseyside p.56; Belchem, John, Irish, Catholic and Scouse,
p.242.
37 Finn, Gerry P.T. ‘Racism, Religion and Social Prejudice: Irish Catholic Clubs, Soccer
and Scottish Society – II Social Identities and Conspiracy Theories’, International Journal of
the History of Sport vol.8, number 3 (1991) pp.370-397. Burdsey D. and Chappell R. ‘“And
if You Know Your History…” The Sports Historian, number 21 (1), (2000) pp.94-106
38 Rangers were formed in 1873 out of the remnants of a Presbyterian boys football club.
39 Handley, James E. The Celtic Story: A History of the Celtic Football Club. . Irish social and
economic commentator, David McWilliams, underscores the point made by Handley in his 2007 article
on the fate of what he terms ‘HiBrits’ (the offspring of Irish emigrants to Britain: the Hibernian-
Britons). On Merseyside football, and Wayne Rooney’s rise to prominence in particular, McWilliams
writes that ‘Father Inch [parish priest of the Blood of the Martyrs Catholic Church, Croxteth] is a
Toffee true and true. Everton Football Club is the Irish team in Liverpool and it’s no surprise therefore,
that Rooney is a Blue.’ http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2007....dsgain#
comments
40 Lord Mayor Cross Liverpool Echo, 5th Jan 1932.
David Kennedy
21
Bibliography
Ayres, Pat Life and Work in Athol Street (Liver Press, 1997)
Belchem, John, Irish, Catholic and Scouse (Liverpool University Press, 2007)
Campbell, Tom Rhapsody in Green: Great Celtic Moments
(Mainstream,1990)
Clegg, Barbara The Man Who Made Littlewoods (Hodder &
Stoughton,1993)
Davies, Sam Liverpool Labour: Social and Political Influences on the
Development of the Labour party in Liverpool, 1900-1939 (Keele, 1996)
Edge, Alan Faith of Our Fathers (Mainstream, 1997)
Finn, Gerry P.T. and Guilianotti, R. (eds) Football Culture: Local Conflicts,
Global Visions (Routledge, 2000)
Handley, James E. The Celtic Story: A History of the Celtic Football Club
(Stanley Paul,1960)
Hickman, Mary J. Religion, Class and Identity: The State, the Catholic
Church and the Education of the Irish in Britain. (Avebury, 1995)
Hill, David Out of His Skin: The John Barnes Story (WSC Books Limited,1989)
Murray, Bill The Old Firm in the New Age: Celtic and Rangers Since the
Souness Revolution (Mainstream, 1998)
Knight, Steven The Brotherhood: The Secret World of Freemasonry
(HarperCollins1983)
Mason, Tony The Blues and the Reds: A History of the Everton and Liverpool
Football Clubs (1985)
Murray, Bill The Old Firm in the New Age: Celtic and Rangers Since the
Souness Revolution (Mainstream, 1998)
Murray, Bill The Old Firm: Sectarianism, Sport and Society in Scotland
(revised edition. Mainstream, 2000)
Owen, Mike Everton in Europe: Der Ball ist Rund, 1962-2005 (Countyvise,
2005)
Redhead, Steven Football with Attitude (Ashgate, 1991)
Red and Blue and Orange and Green?
22
Salvidge S. Salvidge of Liverpool, (Hodder & Stoughton, 1934)
Smith T and Stuckey D I Did It the Hard Way (Arthur Baker, 1980)
Waller, Phillip J. Democracy and Sectarianism: A Political and Social History
of Liverpool, 1868-1939 ((Liverpool University Press,1981)
Westcott, C., Brian Harris: The Authorised Biography’ (NPI Media Group,
2003)
Whittingham-Jones, Barbara Down With the Orange Caucus (Liverpool,
1936)
Whittingham-Jones B. The Pedigree of Liverpool Politics. White, Orange
and Green (Liverpool, 1936)
Williams, John Football and Football Hooliganism in Liverpool (Leicester
University, 1987)
Williams, John (Ed), Passing Rhythms: Liverpool FC and the Transformation
of Football (Berg, 2001)
Williams J. Into the Red: Liverpool FC and the Changing Face of English
Football (Mainstream 2002)
Woods Growin’ Up: One Scouser’s Social History of Liverpool, (Palatine,
2007)
Young P.M. Football on Merseyside (Stanley Paul, 1963)

by **yckatbjywtbiastkamb** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:29 pm

metalhead wrote:Hi mate,

there is a nice thread that Bermenstein started regarding facts and figures for the history of the club right here

http://www.liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=28401

cheers mate, that thread should be one of those permanent ones on the main page.

by **destro** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:38 pm

I wont be russian dolling that post Kenny Kan !!!!

by **yckatbjywtbiastkamb** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:34 am

good post that ken, and i agree with it`s conclusion, although some have tried to turn liverpool and everton into a celtic and rangers type situation sectarianism never extended in to footy in this city.
both liverpool and everton originated from the same methodist church team (st.domingo`s) and although liverpools founder john houlding did have links to the orange order, before he was chairman of liverpool he was the chairman of everton!
another fly in the ointment to any theory that everton were the catholic club in the city is the name everton itself, anyone who lives in liverpool knows that the district of everton, along with garston, were the 2 traditional strongholds of the orange lodge / orange order in liverpool. if there was any pre-concieved plan to create a club to represent the catholic community within the city everton fc would be the last name they`d choose!
although everton and garston were both the epitome of tough, densely populated, working class districts, as late as the 1960`s both of those districts voted conservative although they lie in the heartlands of a left wing politically radical city. even today in everton despite the slum clearances and the big park you`ve still reminders of evertons orange past, for instance the derry club on mere lane and the other lodge place on everton road.
also, unlike the old firm set up were fans gave the rival club a wide berth you used to get a lot of fans watching liverpool one week and everton the next (and visa versa).
my own dad, as staunch a red as you can get, used to go to goodison quite often and especially in our second division days (if we were away) just to see the likes of the great wolves and man united teams of the 50`s play. in the days before television if you wanted to see the likes of stan matthews, tom finney or duncan edwards you had to go to the game, if liverpool were in the second division people went to goodison to watch the best sides in the country and visa versa again.
when i was growing up i met a lot of arl fella`s that genuinely supported both clubs, i doubt that happens in glasgow.
also unlike glasgow because anfield and goodison are situated so close together in the days before cars and buses the 2 clubs drew support from the same local community.
it was a totally different situation in liverpool compared to glasgow.

by **Reg** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 10:38 am

I think it fair to say by the 1970's Liverpool's 2 football clubs were divided 90% by football loyalty and only 10% religion.

Talk at school for us young lads was never the religious aspect, just results. The Beatles were dragging the city into the cultural first world and the excitement of Shankly's FA cup win in 1965 then league successes put football to the front. Maybe Cilla Black came from a different background where religious divides were still a significant factor but by the mid 70's and into 1980 family traditions dictated allegiances. I know fanatical reds who've never been into Goodison and never will til the day they die - can't bring themselves to cross the divide - football deviide though, not religious.

You think the Bitters are bitter because of religion or lack of football success? They hate us because we are red or because of religion?

Glasgow was and still is much worse, I'd like to think we've got that one unwanted aspect out of our system.

by **yckatbjywtbiastkamb** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:51 am

actually last st.patricks day there was a good article in the echo pointing out the links between ireland and liverpool.
i always thought the links really started during the famine (when my own relatives left ireland and came here) but the links go way back further than that, and i mean way back, before recorded history infact.
800 years before king john (he of magna carta fame) awarded liverpool it`s town charter in 1207 a welsh monk called maewyn succat gave a sermon in what now is hatton gardens in liverpool city centre before setting off across the irish sea in order to, as popular belief dictates, drive all the serpents out of ireland.
at the place where maewyn succat, or as we know him these days - st. patrick, delivered the sermon a large wooden cross was erected and it stood for hundreds of years until it fell down in the 1700`s during a violent storm, these days there is a plaque on a wall to denote where it stood.
by the 1200`s the early historians began to notice the large number of irish names within the liverpool community and that was even before the place recieved it`s town, never mind city, charter so the irish in liverpool pre dates it being even a town, there was a large irish community in liverpool when it was just a fishing village and trading post.
the irish continued to emigrate to liverpool right through the centuries and in 1795 a writer noticed the `great influx of irish within the city`.
a census taken in the mid 1800`s before the famine noted that 17% of the cities population was born in ireland (that wasnt including the second / third etc generation irish living in the city)
during the famine the numbers of irish people arriving in liverpool exploded, it`s estimated a million irish people arrived here during the famine years, most left again on ships to america and canada (apparently the u.s wouldnt let them in for some reason which surprised me) and also australia / new zealand but many stayed, some moved inland to manchester and the lancashire mill towns.
in 1846 280,000 irish immigrants arrived in liverpool of which 106,000 sailed to the states etc, in 1847 300,000 arrived of which 170,000 departed on ships elsewhere.
by the turn of the century only dublin and cork had more irish born catholics living there than liverpool, there were more irish born catholics in liverpool than even belfast.
even in the 1930`s the government set up a commision to halt the number of irish arriving in liverpool (after the free state was created in the 1920`s the british government probably started to get a bit arsey and started saying you are all foreigners now you cant just come here whenever you feel like etc)
liverpool is the only city on the british mainland to elect an irish nationalist MP, he was elected to parliament about 6 times and they only stopped voting for irish nationalists when the free state was created, as well as MP`s many politicians on a local level like city councillors etc were elected on an irish nationalist ticket.
the echo mentioned other interesting facts like the irish rebel michael collins played footy on newsham park, plus during the easter rising there were 3 liverpool women who fought with the irish rebels and they were in the post office which apparently was centre stage of the uprising in some way, they only left when they were ordered to by the coup leaders and the british knew about them but never found them.
there were loads of facts like that in the article.
of course the irish national hero james larkin was born in liverpool, nearly forgot that one.

by **yckatbjywtbiastkamb** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:49 pm

here`s an atmospheric short clip of anfield from a few years ago.
it says 1979 on the tag but thats a mix of clips from a few different years imo, at one point you can clearly see the paddock before seating was installed and i`m sure the seats went in during the early 70`s and the team walking out at the end of the clip is deffo 80`s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs03dJ6dHn8

by **yckatbjywtbiastkamb** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:16 am

a short piece the BBC did about the origins of the name spion kop during the 2010 world cup in south africa.
hard not to get a bit emotional when listening to shanks describe how people have their ashes spread on the pitch at the kop end because that was his final wish (and resting place) too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQq859tTto4

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