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1878 - 1930

1878-1930

There is no place like Goodison Park when the place is full.

The atmosphere is quite unique but when the current team enters the arena to the sound of Z-Cars and the deafening noise from over 40,000 spectators, it's difficult to imagine an Everton team trotting out onto a park pitch with no dressing rooms, carrying the goalposts!

But that's how it all began.

The predecessors of heroes such as Dean, Lawton, Hickson, Labone, Ball, Latchford, Sharp, Lineker and Ferguson, were as far removed from the 21st Century image of a football player as it's possible to be.

The St Domingo School was opened in May 1870 and eight years later the football team using the name played its first match in the south-east corner of Stanley Park, with the players carrying the posts from the park lodge on Mill Lane before fixing them into the metal sockets at either end of the crudely marked pitch.

St Domingo's FC quickly established a local reputation for themselves and players were recruited from outside of the parish, precipitating a change of name in November 1879 - to EVERTON.

The hugely significant meeting that decided the new title took place at the Queens Head Hotel in Village Street, off Everton Road, a short distance from the lock-up tower that figures on the Everton crest to this day.

The first game as Everton Football Club took place on December 20th 1879 at Stanley Park against St Peter's. Wearing blue and white striped shirts, Everton won 6-0, although, sadly, there are no records of line-ups or goalscorers.

In those days, before football was a properly organised sport, a player recruited from another team could still wear the jersey of his former club, which led to much confusion!

Everton wanted a unified kit and so, to avoid purchasing a brand new one, they dyed all the various shirts of their players black! A two-inch wide scarlet sash was added and Everton rejoiced in the nickname, The Black Watch - after the famous military regiment.

Other colours were adopted as time passed, until the team settled for Royal Blue for the 1901-02 season.

Everton established themselves as a very good team and as crowds of up to 2,000 gathered to watch them in Stanley Park, it became evident that a new, enclosed ground would soon be needed.

The 1906 FA Cup Winners



The fourth and final season at the Park was 1882-83, when Everton reached the final of the new Liverpool Cup, only to lose to arch rivals Bootle in the Final.

For the following season, Everton moved to a field at Priory Road, which boasted dressing rooms and a makeshift grandstand - and the team went one better and actually won the Liverpool Cup, defeating Earlestown in the Final to secure the club's first ever trophy.

However, the owner of that Priory Road field soon tired of the presence of so many football supporters on his land and Everton were soon on the move again - to a field off Anfield Road that would one day become a world famous footballing arena!

The players changed at the nearby Sandon Hotel and would walk to their new Anfield Road pitch.

Football was still technically an amateur sport at this time, but more and more clubs were recruiting professional players, with Everton's first being full-back George Dobson from Bolton Wanderers and forward George Farmer from Oswestry.

Everton's first entry into the FA Cup was a dramatic one.

In October 1887, the side lost 0-1 at Bolton in the 1st Round. Everton lodged an appeal to the FA that Bolton had fielded an ineligible player, which was upheld and a replay was arranged. The replay was drawn, the second replay was also drawn, and on November 19th (over a month from the original tie) Everton finally beat Bolton 2-1 at Anfield.

The drama was far from over though!

Bolton lodged an appeal of their own, claiming that Everton had paid 7 of their registered 'amateur' players. This appeal was also upheld and Everton were suspended from playing for a month and had their Liverpool Cup trophy (won the previous season) confiscated!

In 1888, the leading clubs in the North and Midlands decided to form the Football League, and such was Everton's standing that they were invited to become founder members.

Dixie Dean



Thus, their first ever League match was on September 8th 1888 (at Anfield!) against Accrington Stanley and Everton won 2-1 (G.Fleming netting twice).

Everton ended that inaugural Football League season in 8th position, finished 2nd the following year, and then won their first Championship at the third attempt.

The 1890-91 title was secured in style, with Fred Geary assuming the mantle of the club's first ever goalscoring hero - netting 20 times in 22 matches, including 11 in the opening six games.

But the success on the pitch sparked problems off it.

The owner of the Anfield site doubled the rent in the aftermath of the Championship win and the Everton committee decided to move on again, rather than pay the inflated rate.

George Mahon, a respected city accountant and church elder, led the campaign to move from Anfield and he secured a lease on a piece of land on the North side of Stanley Park, known as the Mere Green Field.

The Everton members took just a matter of months to turn the wasteland that was the Mere Green Field into Goodison Park - the country's first purpose built football stadium.

Goodison Park was opened on August 24th 1892, with 12,000 spectators inside, and the first League match was on September 3rd against Nottingham Forest - ending in a 2-2 draw with Geary, fittingly, on target.

In total, Geary played 96 times for Everton, scoring 86 goals.

In 1892-93 he scored 19 in 24 League matches although, significantly, he missed the club's first ever FA Cup final (at Fallowfield, Manchester) which Everton lost 0-1 to Wolves.

The next flirtation with success came in 1897, when the team defeated Burton, Bury, Blackburn and Derby to reach another FA Cup Final.

This final, at Crystal Palace, also ended in disappointment though, with Everton losing 2-3 to Aston Villa - John Bell and Richard Boyle scoring the goals. Ironically, both Bell and Boyle were Scotsmen signed from Dumbarton - an Everton Cup Final goalscoring anomaly that was to be repeated some 97 years later!

With players such as Harold Makepeace, Harold Hardman and Jack Sharp in the squad, Everton entered the 20th Century positively, but it was 1906 before the FA Cup trophy finally ended up at Goodison.

Alex 'Sandy' Young scored the only goal against Newcastle United at Crystal Palace, and Everton were back in the final again just twelve months later, only to lose 1-2 to Sheffield Wednesday.

In 1914-15, inspired by Bobby Parker's impressive return of 36 goals in 35 matches, Everton clinched the Football League title again and the outbreak of World War I left the side as Champions for four years.

The War disrupted Everton's development but one particular signing during the 1924-25 season was to have a bigger impact on the club's fortunes than anyone could dared have hoped for.

William Ralph Dean scored 27 goals in 27 games for Tranmere Rovers before being enticed across the River Mersey - and his arrival was the catalyst for a glorious chapter in the history of Everton Football Club.

In Dean's first full season, 1925-26, he scored 32 league goals in 38 games. In his next he netted 21 in 27 and then, in 1927-28, he created history.

SIXTY league goals in 39 matches is a record that will surely stand for eternity - and astonishingly, Dean was still eight goals short of the record of 59 (set just twelve months earlier by Middlesbrough's George Camsell) with just 3 games to go.

But a brace against Aston Villa, four against Burnley and a last day hat-trick against Arsenal at Goodison ensured immortality for the Everton centre-forward.

Needless to say, Everton ended the season as Champions again but, astonishingly, relegation was to befall the club before more top honours were won.

Two seasons after finishing top, Everton finished rock-bottom despite winning four of their last five games and slipped through the relegation trap door for the very first time to begin the 1930s in the Second Division.
Christmas At Goodison
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