March 15 – Walk Alone No More | On This Football Day

March 15 – Walk Alone No More

JUST to show that we are entirely unbiased and even-handed here at OTFD after yesterday’s entry about the blue half of Merseyside we thought today we would make the short journey from Goodison across Stanley Park to Anfield where today in 1892 a new football club was formed called Liverpool FC.

It is entirely possible, and even probable, that Liverpool would still be a one-club city today had it not been for a simple falling out over rent. Anfield stadium had been home to Everton since 1884 who paid rent to play their matches at the ground but by 1892 a man named John Houlding had bought the ground and decided to start making his investment pay.

He demanded an increased rent from Everton who did not like this one bit and called Houlding’s bluff by marching off across Stanley Park to build their own ground on Goodison Road.

This left Houlding with something of a problem as he now had a stadium but no team to play in it. ‘Only one way out of this,’ he thought, and founded his own team. Initially he even tried to name the team Everton Athletic but he was forced to change it to Liverpool by the Football League.

So now he had a stadium, check, and a new club, check, all he needed now were some players, as all the local ones already played for Everton.

Faced with this conundrum Houlding sent his old friend John McKenna up to Glasgow to find him some players who came up McTrumps and brought 13 Scotsmen back with him to Liverpool. ‘The Team of the Macs’ was born as no less than eight of the new players had the ‘Mc’ prefix in their surnames, with John McKenna the club’s first manager.

The hastily constructed team spent their first season of existence in the Lancashire League (1892/93) before being elected to the Football League Second Division for the 1893/94 term. Promotion was achieved at the first attempt and by 1901 this team that were only created to fill a a stadium were league champions for the first time.

Since then the ‘Pool have gone on to become the most successful club side in the history of English football, having won more trophies than any other, although Koppites won’t like to be reminded that Manchester United are catching them fast.

Still, if old John Houlding hadn’t been so greedy the club may never have existed at all.

Have a look at this clip from the BBC’s Panorama programme from 1964 when some plummy reporter-type-chappy from down south came for a look at Anfield.