The History of Everton Football Club
The euphoria following the move to Goodison Park and the club’s first appearance in a FA Cup final was soon to disappear as Everton’s indifferent form meant that they could not launch a serious assault on the league title, finishing sixth in the league containing sixteen teams. The main problem was the results away from home were they could only manage four victories and two draws during the season. The home form, however, was outstanding with the team scoring eight goals twice, against Darwen and Sheffield Wednesday, seven twice, against Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion, and six against Stoke City, in all 63 goals were scored at Goodison in just 15 games.
Jack Southworth, signed during the summer break, gave the fans something to cheer about with his goal scoring exploits. Having scored on his debut in a 7-3 defeat at Derby County, he scored 27 goals in just 22 games and ended the season as the countries top goal scorer, the first Everton player to achieve this fete. Over the Christmas period he struck 10 times in two games, four against Sheffield Wednesday and six against West Bromwich Albion. The double hat-trick was the first in the football league and still remains a club record for the most goals in one game.
The FA Cup was also a disappointment with the team not being able to repeat the previous season’s trip to the final when they were beaten by Stoke City in the first round. In a way of some consolation the Lancashire Cup was won, after beating Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers and Burnley, Newton Heath were beaten in the final but overall the season had been rather disappointing.
On November 23, 1893 Bovril Ltd became the first known sponsor of an Everton fixture when they they lent their support to a game played under Wells lights at Goodison Park. The match was played in aid of the Life Boat Fund and was between Everton and a Manchester & District XI which was drawn from Ardwich, Newton Heath and Bolton Wanderers. Everton won the match by three goals to one and each player received a 9 carat gold medal which were fitted in a leather case.
The season ended with Goodison Park being honoured by the FA when it was chosen to host the FA Cup final in 1894, only the second time the final had been played outside of London. The game took place on 31 st March and 37,000 people were in attendance to see Notts County beat Bolton Wanderers 4-1, to win the cup for the first time.
The following season, 1894-95, saw Everton start the season in superb form when they won their first eight games, scoring 30 goals in the process. Jack Southworth carried on were he left off the previous season when he scored nine in the first nine games, however, a serious injury forced him to retire from the game, his talents, however, were not limited just to football and he pursued a career as a concert violinist.
One particular day was being eagerly anticipated throughout the region, 13th October 1894 was the date of the first ever Merseyside derby. The game was played at Goodison Park and a League record attendance of 44,000, paying £1,026 12s 10d in receipts, turned out to witness the game. With the Lord Mayor of Liverpool in attendance the game started at a frantic pace and after eleven minutes Everton won a free kick. Stewart sent over a perfect cross and McInnes timed his header perfectly to put the home side into the lead. Liverpool pressed forward relentlessly but their naivety was exposed twice as Latta and Bell both scored on the counter attack to give Everton a 3-0 winning margin.
This win was to be the last of an excellent winning start to the season and partly due to the loss of Southworth’s prolific goal scoring, and loss of form, Everton lost momentum and had to be satisfied with a runners up spot to Sunderland, who won the league by five points.
On March 22 1895 a special general meeting was called with the purpose to discuss a proposal to purchase the land on which Goodison Park stood.
The exploits on the pitch during the season were to be overshadowed by a stormy annual general shareholders meeting. Taking place at the Picton Lecture Hall on 5 June the meeting got off to a good start when George Mahon presented the balance sheet that showed the club had made £6,319 over a three year period. The shareholders were then stunned as Mahon along with fellow directors Griffiths, Wilson, Read and Coates resigned, ‘owing to an acute administrative difference'. Their places were taken, following an election, by J.M. Crawford, J.C. Brookes, A.E. Leyland, J. Prescott, E.A. Bainbridge and W.C. Cuff, who was to become the new driving force behind the club. The chairmanship was reluctantly taken on by Dr. Baxter, who was later to be relieved when he discovered that George Mahon had been reinstated as a director.
Despite the problems in the boardroom major building work was progressing well at Goodison Park. A new stand was built on the Bullens Road side of the ground at a cost of £3,407 8s 11d and the Goodison Road side was strengthened and covered for £403 10s.
The club was to be honoured again when Goodison Park was chosen to stage one of the Home Internationals game, no less than the England v Scotland match. An attendance of 42,500, a record for the fixture, turned up on 6 th April 1895 to watch the game and they were treated to home nation win, by three goals to nil.
The 1895-96 season was memorable for all the wrong reasons for the club. On the field the side continued to perform well and ended the season in third place, behind champions Aston Villa and Derby County. However off the field incidents, a major theft of gate receipts and the clubs first taste of hooliganism, left the club with severe problems to resolve.
The first problem involved the theft of gate receipts by Goodison gate-keepers. The club’s directors had known for sometime that something was wrong with the cash returns from the turnstiles and when the club played Sunderland their suspicions were confirmed. It was discovered that several turnstiles had been tampered with and had been changed to show 200 units against the club. The man who was the main suspect was arrested and taken to the Bridewell in Westminster Road, plain clothes policemen began watching every turnstile and several men brought in more money than their stiles had registered. The men pleaded ignorance to what was going on and were released, but the man in the Bridewell told the police all he knew and this led to twelve stile-men, the mechanic and the groundsman to be arrested. Appearing in court at Dale Street the following Monday, all but the instigators were dealt with leniently by the Stipendiary Stewart. The incident was a slight embarrassment to the club but did lead them to install new, improved turnstiles at all entrances to the ground.
The second incident happened just two weeks after the thefts had been resolved and saw Everton experience their first taste of hooliganism. Small Heath, later to become Birmingham City, were the visitors on 28 th December, rain had fallen continuously for three days and because of inadequate drainage at the ground Goodison had turned into a swamp. It was still raining when the visitors arrived but the referee, James West from Lincoln, decided the pitch was fit for play. Everton were leading 1-0 after 37 minutes when Mr West decided the pitch had become unplayable and informed the players of his decision. Players of both sides wanted to play on but the referee was adamant and the game was abandoned, this then led to officials of both sides to approach the referee to insist that the game continue, Mr West then agreed to the resumption. However most of the players had by now bathed and changed and declared it was ridiculous to attempt to restart the game after such a delay and Mr West again called off the game and left the ground before anyone else could question his decision.
This was not to be the end of the matter, led by an army of street loafers, a mob made their way to the club offices demanding their money back. George Mahon confronted the crowd and tried to explain that any refund was not possible as no one could tell who had been at the game and who had not. Instead he offered free tickets for the rearranged game but the clamour for money was such that stones were thrown at Mr Mahon and it soon became evident that a full blown riot was about to start. The few police who were on duty for the game held the mob at bay until reinforcements could arrive. The crowd were making their way to the grandstand and shouts of “fire the stands” could be heard, as the incident was about to turn ugly two contingents of police arrived, drew their batons and attacked the mob. After a moment of futile resistance the crowd fled from the ground and the trouble soon subsided.
After the troubles of the previous season Everton hoped for better times both on and off the field. Jack Taylor was recruited from St. Mirren during the summer and such was his standing within the game that he was immediately installed as team captain. Taylor was to become the first player to play in more than 400 games for the club and set an unbeaten record of 122 consecutive games from his debut against Sheffield Wednesday on 5 th September 1896.
The 1896-97 season got off to a good start with four wins in the first five games but inconsistency in the teams play saw them only to win one game in the next nine. During this period goal scoring was becoming a problem with only 21 being claimed in the first fourteen games. Fortunes changed at the beginning of December as the team went on a seven game winning run, which included a first round win in the FA Cup against Burton Wanderers. Poor league form took over again; six straight defeats were recorded and despite a good end to the season Everton were to finish a disappointing seventh, the lowest position since the inaugural season of league football when they ended up eighth.
While the league form was patchy Everton were progressing well in the FA Cup and after beating Burton they were victorious against Bury and Blackburn to earn a semi final game against Derby County. There was great excitement on Merseyside as the other semi final was between favourites Aston Villa and Liverpool, so the dream of a all Merseyside final was a real possibility. Unfortunately for the city, Liverpool were beaten 3-0 by Villa, so the dream had to wait for another day.
Everton travelled to Stoke City’s Victoria Ground for their semi final against Derby County and, after spending a week at Lytham training and resting, they fielded a full strength side for the game. The first half was a forgettable affair and ended 0-0 but goals by Chadwick, Hartley and Milward after the break saw Everton through to their second final.
Everton’s reward for the victory was a trip to the capital to face Aston Villa at Crystal Palace, it was not the club’s first visit to London as they played friendly games their some years earlier but it was the first time they played a competitive game. The whole of the country were celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and the FA Cup final, which took place on 10 th April 1897, proved to be an excellent and fitting tribute to Her Majesty.
Everton fans filled six special trains that left Liverpool’s Lime Street station on the Friday evening and this helped to swell the attendance for the game to over 65,000, which was the largest crowd to date for a football match in England. The teams came out of the pavilion ten minutes before kick off, Everton in their blue shirts and white shorts were out first and Villa in their claret and light blue shirts with white shorts followed close behind.
The Everton side for the game was Menham, Meehan, Storrie, Boyle, Holt, Stewart, Taylor, Bell, Hartley, Chadwick and Milward but despite this being the club’s strongest side it was Villa who were firm favourites to win the match. The game swayed one way than the other as both sides held the lead for short periods but it was Aston Villa who ran out 3-2 winners at the final whistle , with all of the goals being scored in the first half. Reports at time described the final as one of the finest games of football ever played but this was of little consolation to Everton and changes to the playing staff were to take place at the end of the season.
Before the 1897-98 season started several changes were made to the playing staff notably goalkeeper Billy Muir was brought in to replace Menham, who was seen by many as the reason Everton lost the FA Cup final the previous year, Hartley joined Liverpool and Milward left for Southampton. Despite other new faces arriving at the club, in particular full back Billy Balmer, the Everton side had become somewhat disjointed; despite of this the side battled its way to fourth in the league, seven points behind champions Sheffield United.
The club again set about the FA Cup with vigour and after victories over Blackburn Rovers, Stoke City and Burnley, Everton found themselves in the semi finals for the second year running, as with the previous year the opponents were to be Derby County. The game was played at Wolverhampton Wanderers ground at Molineux on 19th March 1898 and by the time the match kicked off 30,000 people were in attendance. It was not be Everton’s day as they were reduced to ten men soon after the kick off when Stewart was carried off injured, there were no substitutes allowed at the time. Derby took the lead after 25 minutes and shortly after the second half started they went two up, Edgar Chadwick pulled a goal back for Everton but Bloomer added a third for Derby and the game was lost. The overall performance in the semi final was poor and it meant that the season ended on a disappointing note.
As the nineteenth century was drawing to a close and the last full season of the century, 1898-99, saw the start of a period of change for Everton. The departure of the influential John Bell to Tottenham Hotspurs was to spark a time of transition at the club and towards the end of the season England International Jimmy Settle was brought in at a cost £400 when he joined from Bury.
The team finished the season in a respectable fourth place in the league but went out of the FA Cup in the second round. What hurt the followers of Everton was not so much the indifferent form of their own team but the emergence of Liverpool as a force to be reckoned with, they finish runners up in the league and lost in the semi final of the FA Cup.
With most of the great players form the early years moved on, Everton began to assemble a new squad that could to take the club into the new century with optimism. With Jimmy Settle already on board he was joined by Walter Abbott, a £250 capture from Small Heath and Jack Sharp from Aston Villa in the summer of 1899. Sharp was one of those extraordinary sportsmen who excelled at more than one sport and played both football and cricket at the highest of levels. His time with Everton was not just reserved to the playing side and as his reputation as a shrewd businessman grew, he was made a director of the club.
By the end of the nineteenth century most of the old great players had moved on and Everton were in desperate need of inspiration and this was underlined by the disappointment felt at the club at the end of the season that spanned the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An eleventh place finish in the league was the lowest experienced by the club and an FA Cup exit in the first round to Southern League side Southampton did nothing to help to raise the spirits of any one linked to the club.
Please click on the season date to view statisics from the season