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EVERTON BIRTHDAY?

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We morphed from St Domingo's cricket team as Bootle had a Football team & Cricket Team too - it was decided St Domingo's would have a football team - we played on Stanley Park & were quite successful - however the crowds on the touch line got quite big, 2000 crowds ruining the parkland, along the touchlines, and the park politely told us to play somewhere else - - enter John Holding he got us a ground on Priory road it was a mud heap plus the player who offered the land on the side of his house got fed up with the noise every Saturday - his families inconvenience of it all etc.

John Holding found us an athletics track-Anfield which was ideal - which our fans & players improved into a stadium.... We changed in the Sandown pub owned by Holding & he hiked the rent up after all the hard work as we entered the football league without even turning up to their meeting - the crowds increased - Holding was getting the beer monies - the food the rent for the ground - seeing the crowd gates increase he put the rent up by 2/3rds - The EFC board under DR Baxter held meetings at Liverpool Library with holding there the vote pushed by Dr Baxter & others was to decline the rate rise & move to over the park to a closed old Mere Market Garden site on Goodison road where an interest free loan by him would secure security of EFC ..... it would be named Goodison Park -

John Holding was fuming as a top brewery man known as King John as a businessman - he threatened to start another Club at Anfield & also keep our name - the FA stepped in & told him he could start a team, but not take our name & he picked LFC as their name - he took some of our players with him too - as soon as the paperwork went through of his new club - we spawned the devil of a club -

In the early days we were superior better stadium admired by everyone until then Bootle FC were our main competitors locally mainly in the Liverpool Cup - the date of formation may be something I would have to look up as we played at three grounds before Goodison 1878 St Domingo's FC formed - 1879 merged into Everton FC in a meeting at the Queens Head Hotel - match details go back from 1886/7 one game noted as we were in our infancy as - 1888 /89 we were in the football league ... but our history as a local team preceded that date ..... St Domingo's was a Methodist Church, not Catholic - it's a total myth to state we ever were a Catholic team ....
 
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Joey66 said:
We morphed from St Domingo's cricket team as Bootle had a Football team & Cricket Team too - it was decided St Domingo's would have a football team - we played on Stanley Park & were quite successful - however the crowds on the touch line got quite big, 2000 crowds ruining the parkland, along the touchlines, and the park politely told us to play somewhere else - - enter John Holding he got us a ground on Priory road it was a mud heap plus the player who offered the land on the side of his house got fed up with the noise every Saturday - his families inconvenience of it all etc.

John Holding found us an athletics track-Anfield which was ideal - which our fans & players improved into a stadium.... We changed in the Sandown pub owned by Holding & he hiked the rent up after all the hard work as we entered the football league without even turning up to their meeting - the crowds increased - Holding was getting the beer monies - the food the rent for the ground - seeing the crowd gates increase he put the rent up by 2/3rds - The EFC board under DR Baxter held meetings at Liverpool Library with holding there the vote pushed by Dr Baxter & others was to decline the rate rise & move to over the park to a closed old Mere Market Garden site on Goodison road where an interest free loan by him would secure security of EFC ..... it would be named Goodison Park -

John Holding was fuming as a top brewery man known as King John as a businessman - he threatened to start another Club at Anfield & also keep our name - the FA stepped in & told him he could start a team, but not take our name & he picked LFC as their name - he took some of our players with him too - as soon as the paperwork went through of his new club - we spawned the devil of a club -

In the early days we were superior better stadium admired by everyone until then Bootle FC were our main competitors locally mainly in the Liverpool Cup - the date of formation may be something I would have to look up as we played at three grounds before Goodison 1878 St Domingo's FC formed - 1879 merged into Everton FC in a meeting at the Queens Head Hotel - match details go back from 1886/7 one game noted as we were in our infancy as - 1888 /89 we were in the football league ... but our history as a local team preceded that date ..... St Domingo's was a Methodist Church, not Catholic - it's a total myth to state we ever were a Catholic team ....
Click to expand...
it seems that it will be difficult to say exactly when in 1878 st domingo was founded, it seems that november 1879 can be accepted as the birthday, but which november?
 
davek said:
Everton were basically founded as an ale house club like many others, such as Spurs, and with players who'd played informally and locally in church teams.

Despite all the usual bunkum about religious origins, the club really emerges when they were founded at the Queens Head in Everton in 1879. There's no documentary evidence of any St Domingo FC morphing seamlessly into Everton FC. That spin was put on the club's history by opponents of Houlding in later years to distance themselves from his type: a brewer.
Click to expand...
and still to this day, this ethos continues ;)
 
Joey66 said:
We morphed from St Domingo's cricket team as Bootle had a Football team & Cricket Team too - it was decided St Domingo's would have a football team - we played on Stanley Park & were quite successful - however the crowds on the touch line got quite big, 2000 crowds ruing the parkland, and the park politely told us to play somewhere else - - enter John Holding he got us a ground on Priory road it was a mud heap plus the player who offered the land on the side of his house got fed up with the noise every Saturday - his families inconvenience of it all etc.

John Holding found us an athletics track-Anfield which was ideal - which our fans & players improved into a stadium.... We changed in the Sandown pub owned by Holding & he hiked the rent up after all the hard work as we entered the football league without even turning up to their meeting - the crowds increased - Holding was getting the beer monies - the food the rent for the ground - seeing the crowd gates increase he put the rent up by 2/3rds - The EFC board under DR Baxter held meetings at Liverpool Library with holding there the vote pushed by Dr Baxter & others was to decline the rate rise & move to over the park to a closed old Mere Market Garden site on Goodison road where an interest free loan by him would secure security of EFC ..... it would be named Goodison Park -

John Holding was fuming as a top brewery man known as King John as a businessman - he threatened to start another Club at Anfield & also keep our name - the FA stepped in & told him he could start a team, but not take our name & he picked LFC as their name - he took some of our players with him too - as soon as the paperwork went through of his new club - we spawned the devil of a club -

In the early days we were superior better stadium admired by everyone until then Bootle FC were our main competitors locally mainly in the Liverpool Cup - the date of formation may be something I would have to look up as we played at three grounds before Goodison 1878 St Domingo's FC formed - 1879 merged into Everton FC in a meeting at the Queens Head Hotel - match details go back from 1886/7 one game noted as we were in our infancy as - 1888 /89 we were in the football league ... but our history as a local team preceded that date .....
Click to expand...

Joey, Lupson cites Press reports of the second game against St Peter's, played 24 January 1880, under the new name (see my post above), which say that we played in a 2-2-6 formation, with a line up of W Jones (goal) T Evans and J Douglas (Backs) C Hiles and S Chalk (half backs), RW Morris, A White, F Brettle, A Wade (Alfred Wade had been one of the founders of the St Domingo cricket team as well as the football club, and then was involved in the new Everton Club), ? Smith and W Williams (Forwards).

@davek I only saw your post after writing the previous post. I really recommend David Kennedy's works including "Merseyside's Old Firm" which is published as a book and his academic dissertation "The Split of Everton Football Club, 1892: The Creation of Distinct Patterns of Boardroom Formation at Everton and Liverpool Football Club Companies" - both of these are well researched and have copious footnotes giving sources.

As regards the link between St Domingo's and Everton he cites the writings of William C Cuff a director and chairman of EFC whose family had been congregants at St Domingo's and Thomas Keates, the first club historian and also an early director of EFC.

"Both emphasize the role played by the chapel side (established in 1878) in the club's formation....However, in their accounts both men also mentioned the debtt the nascent Everton owed to players from other churches in the district" - Lupson states that six United Church and four St Peter's players had joined, which was a major factor in the name change.

Kennedy does agree that it is "a little creative to suggest a single definitive source for Everton FC. Instead it points toward a number of tributaries....The newly formed Everton FC became more solidly associated with public houses (rather than churches and chapels).

When Houlding, the brewer and hotelier became President before the 1881-2 season - at this stage EFC played as members of the Lancashire FA - the HQ moved to his Sandon Hotel. The Football League was founded in 1888 with EFC as founder members.
 

Bluerover said:
Joey, Lupson cites Press reports of the second game against St Peter's, played 24 January 1880, under the new name (see my post above), which say that we played in a 2-2-6 formation, with a line up of W Jones (goal) T Evans and J Douglas (Backs) C Hiles and S Chalk (half backs), RW Morris, A White, F Brettle, A Wade (Alfred Wade had been one of the founders of the St Domingo cricket team as well as the football club, and then was involved in the new Everton Club), ? Smith and W Williams (Forwards).

@davek I only saw your post after writing the previous post. I really recommend David Kennedy's works including "Merseyside's Old Firm" which is published as a book and his academic dissertation "The Split of Everton Football Club, 1892: The Creation of Distinct Patterns of Boardroom Formation at Everton and Liverpool Football Club Companies" - both of these are well researched and have copious footnotes giving sources.

As regards the link between St Domingo's and Everton he cites the writings of William C Cuff a director and chairman of EFC whose family had been congregants at St Domingo's and Thomas Keates, the first club historian and also an early director of EFC.

"Both emphasize the role played by the chapel side (established in 1878) in the club's formation....However, in their accounts both men also mentioned the debtt the nascent Everton owed to players from other churches in the district" - Lupson states that six United Church and four St Peter's players had joined, which was a major factor in the name change.

Kennedy does agree that it is "a little creative to suggest a single definitive source for Everton FC. Instead it points toward a number of tributaries....The newly formed Everton FC became more solidly associated with public houses (rather than churches and chapels).

When Houlding, the brewer and hotelier became President before the 1881-2 season - at this stage EFC played as members of the Lancashire FA - the HQ moved to his Sandon Hotel. The Football League was founded in 1888 with EFC as founder members.
Click to expand...
Tom Preston's PhD thesis is online. This will tell you all you need to know about the foundations of EFC:

 
Joey66 said:
We morphed from St Domingo's cricket team as Bootle had a Football team & Cricket Team too - it was decided St Domingo's would have a football team - we played on Stanley Park & were quite successful - however the crowds on the touch line got quite big, 2000 crowds ruining the parkland, along the touchlines, and the park politely told us to play somewhere else - - enter John Holding he got us a ground on Priory road it was a mud heap plus the player who offered the land on the side of his house got fed up with the noise every Saturday - his families inconvenience of it all etc.

John Holding found us an athletics track-Anfield which was ideal - which our fans & players improved into a stadium.... We changed in the Sandown pub owned by Holding & he hiked the rent up after all the hard work as we entered the football league without even turning up to their meeting - the crowds increased - Holding was getting the beer monies - the food the rent for the ground - seeing the crowd gates increase he put the rent up by 2/3rds - The EFC board under DR Baxter held meetings at Liverpool Library with holding there the vote pushed by Dr Baxter & others was to decline the rate rise & move to over the park to a closed old Mere Market Garden site on Goodison road where an interest free loan by him would secure security of EFC ..... it would be named Goodison Park -

John Holding was fuming as a top brewery man known as King John as a businessman - he threatened to start another Club at Anfield & also keep our name - the FA stepped in & told him he could start a team, but not take our name & he picked LFC as their name - he took some of our players with him too - as soon as the paperwork went through of his new club - we spawned the devil of a club -

In the early days we were superior better stadium admired by everyone until then Bootle FC were our main competitors locally mainly in the Liverpool Cup - the date of formation may be something I would have to look up as we played at three grounds before Goodison 1878 St Domingo's FC formed - 1879 merged into Everton FC in a meeting at the Queens Head Hotel - match details go back from 1886/7 one game noted as we were in our infancy as - 1888 /89 we were in the football league ... but our history as a local team preceded that date ..... St Domingo's was a Methodist Church, not Catholic - it's a total myth to state we ever were a Catholic team ....
Click to expand...


Agreed Joey, we were always open and tolerant of all backgrounds but we left behind a nasty sectarian rump at anfield.

Kennedy....."At Everton, ownership was dispersed amongst a large number of shareholders holding small amounts of stock; whereas at Liverpool FC ownership was concentrated in the hands of a few club directors.....Everton sought ...to keep the base of financial control of the club as wide as possible....once the obstacles placed in the path of the commercial designs of Houlding and his allies had been removed (by the split) the commercial rights of the board and the concentration of power therein were immediately established at Liverpool FC.

...In the years following the Split of 1892 the Everton boardroom became a stronghold of men involved in Liberal politics. Conversely the Liverpool boardroom was the almost exclusive preserve of men involved in Conservative politics.

In the Everton boardroom, surgeon Dr James Clement Baxter was Liberal City Councillor for St Anne's Ward. Baxter was a devout Roman Catholic whose services to the poor and infirm of his parish St Francis Xavier's in Everton, were commemorated in a stained glass window erected in his honour at that church, His family wealth ...allowed him to forward the bulk of the £2000 Everton required to begin work on their new home at Goodison Park.....Dublin born George Mahon, Everton's first chairman, was a committee member of Walton Liberal Association.....Fellow Irishman Dr William Whitford joined Mahon on the board of directors. Whitford was chairman of Everton and Kirkdale Liberal Association ....also an outspoken figure against the drink trade....something he shared with Everton and Liberal Party colleague William Clayton

BTW at the January 25 General Meeting of EFC William Clayton proposed that “That the Everton Football Club offer Mr. Houlding £180 rental, and Mr. Orrell £100 a year for his portion of the land, on a lease to run for ten years.

As a business man he would prefer to get the Goodison road ground at £50 a year. However, to save time, and because it was desirable to remain on the present ground if possible, he would propose the resolution he had read, with the addition that if Mr. Houlding refused the terms the committee should be empowered to secure another ground, Goodison Road for preference. Of the 500 in attendance only 18 voted against Clayton's proposal and supported Houlding. On the 15th March Houlding was removed as president


Back to Kennedy ...."as can probably be discerned, there was a strong Irish contingent amongst the early post-split Everton boardroom - Mahon, Whitford, Coates, while Baxter was second generation Irishman and like Whitford trained as a surgeon in Ireland. (NB The Irish influence was not universally RC - indeed some of the Irish directors were non-RC. However, they certainly did not share the sectarian and anti-Home Rule views of the LFC directors- BR's comment)

By contrast the politics of the men at the helm of Liverpool FC was of a distinctly Conservative nature. Seven directors....were members of the Constitutional Association (the ruling body of Liverpool Conservatism). The Constitutional Association exercised complete control over district Conservative Associations in Liverpool and its affiliated societies such as the Loyal Orange Institution.

....The Conservative leaning "Liverpool Courier" owned by the Conservative MP for Everton swung...behind the newly created Liverpool FC and bought shares in the club.... Thomas McCracken, the Deputy Grandmaster of the Orange Order (Liverpool Province)...became a close associate with the board of directors at Liverpool FC...even joining that body for a short period in the 1890s. Houlding and McCracken appear to have been particularly connected; friends as well as politically singing from the same hymn sheet...McCracken was a man Houlding described as 'a decades old friend'. Their involvement together at Liverpool FC alongm with other longstanding Orange allies of Houlding - Joseph Williams and James Freeman Booth - is highly significant and...indicates the club hierarchy to have been firmly at the forefront of sa hardline struggle against the immigrant Catholic Irish in Liverpool..."

Kennedy's footnotes are copious - for this passage he cites minutes of Liverpool City Council Annual Committee and Sub Committees 1890-1910;
Liverpool Daily Post Feb 20 1892 on McCracken - "The Tory differences in Everton". also Liverpool Mercury Mar 3rd 1893 "Liverpool FC Theatrical gala"; Liverpool Mercury Aug 24th 1994 "a great day with the Liverpool Football Club; Liverpool Mercury Jan 11th 1895 "Champagne for Mr John Houlding".

(Kennedy describes how McCracken waged war with what he perceived as a softening from some Conservatives concerning religious affairs - that is their failure to espouse staunch enough Protestant politics...in the face of the growing challenge from a caucus of RCs, Liberals and radicals.)

There is copious evidence of the Conservative/Orange/Working Men's Conservative Association control of the board at early LFC. I have found no such evidence on the post 1892 Everton Board. On the contrary, our tradition has been to welcome all.
davek said:
Tom Preston's PhD thesis is online. This will tell you all you need to know about the foundations of EFC:

Click to expand...

Thanks - I will read now.

Just posting a follow up with more from Kennedy
 
I found that “quote” I apologize for the confusion in my previous response. You are correct that the official Everton Football Club website only mentions the year 1878 as the founding year. However, according to historical records, Everton FC was actually founded on January 22, 1878, in St Domingo Methodist Church, Liverpool.
 

Reading Preston's thesis, I note the list of Everton players from 1881 only include Chalk and Brettel (Brettle) from the Jan 1880 team that played St Peter's.

By this time I assume Houlding had become President, and it is also noticeable that six of the eleven are from Scotland or Wales.

Whatever influence St Domingo's Chapel may have had on the new EFC was certainly very much diminished.

Reading all of the sources, it seems that in Nov 1879, the players from St Domingo's (Methodist) , some United Church, some St Peter's (both Anglican - CofE) and perhaps others (St John's?) met at the Queen's Head and agreed to form a new Everton FC that was not aligned to any particular congregation.
 
EVERTON_BULGARIA said:
I found that “quote” I apologize for the confusion in my previous response. You are correct that the official Everton Football Club website only mentions the year 1878 as the founding year. However, according to historical records, Everton FC was actually founded on January 22, 1878, in St Domingo Methodist Church, Liverpool.
Click to expand...

Where did you get that from my friend?
 
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Bluerover said:
Where did you get that from my friend?
Click to expand...
That cannot be correct as we entered the FA Cup in 1886 just found this -

History.jpg

Also, the School of science football @Groucho is mentioned at the beginning of our history as EFC played artistic football not hoofing the ball as teams did then ..... ;)
 

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