How A Disagreement Led to The Inception of Liverpool Football Club

Now John, was a self-made millionaire - I use that term loosely because in today's climate, he would be. He was born into a fairly wealthy family and after watching them lose all the monies made due events beyond their control, on leaving school, he tried several different things, including door to door milk salesman but due to his love of figures ended up at the city's Cotton Exchange. The invasion of the Irish to escape the potato famine soon, put paid to this and John returned to help out the family business.

In 1854, John felt the time was right for him to begin earning an independent salary once more and he began working for a local brewery. Now John was an extremely hard worker and with help from his love of figures he ended up as manager and by the end of his twenties, ended up with two pubs and a brewery of his own. This also led to him becoming involved in the city's political scene and he ended up as Lord Mayor.

By his mid-thirties he was a very rich young man and began to look for another outlet to immerse himself into. His first love was sport and he was a very good swimmer and cricketer, but a small club called Everton who had its home in a Liverpool backwater called Anfield caught his attention. Their nick name at the time was the Black Watch and this was people believe attributed to the fact that their kit was black and white.

His enthusiasm led to his involvement and 1883 when Everton had to move from Stanley Park, he persuaded a cattle dealer called James Cruit to rent him a field in nearby Priory Road. This was fine to start with until James grew tired of fans ruining his Saturday afternoons. This led John to look for a solution closer to home and opposite his home on the Anfield Road was a patch land. Now this land was owned by his fellow brewers John and James Orrell who after an approach were only too glad to lease out the land.

The conditions of the lease were that John paid the brothers £100 a year in rent and that he promised to keep the existing walls in good repair. He also agreed to pay a donation each year to a local hospital in the name of Mr Orrell.

On the 27th September 1884 Everton held their first game at this ground winning 5-0 against a team called Earlstown. This was the beginning of a period where under John Holdings leadership, Everton became a force in the local Northern leagues. The winning mentality that surrounds Liverpool FC today had begun. He also had the foresight to understand that supporters liked to have information before the game and published the first ever football programme. John also oversaw the introduction of football nets into the game.

Up until 1885 all football players were amateurs and I suspect it all the games were more like the Sunday Leagues of today. This though changed during that year when professionalism was brought into the sport and Everton's players signed their papers. This also signalled the start of new signings being brought in from as far away as Scotland and Ireland. Three years later the Football League was born and and the first team Everton faced was Accrington Stanley. At that time though Rugby was the major sport in Liverpool and it was only when the Docker's won the right to a five and a half day week that the men, needing something to do on a Saturday afternoon began to attend the games.

John's business interests were also doing well at the time and he brewed a beer called Houlding's Everton Beacon Ale. He was also buying up more pubs in the surrounding districts and the city centre.

It was this involvement though, that was to mark the beginning of the rift between John and his colleagues within the football club. Everton which previously had been known as St Domingo Football club still had a lot of Methodist s amongst its membership. Now in Victorian England, they were part of a major temperance movement - alcohol was deemed as a major evil and disliked his involvement. It did not matter to them that he was moving their club forward; they were more concerned with his involvement in ensuring several licensing laws were passed.

They were also becoming concerned with his lack of administration offices at the ground - he used to run the affairs of the club from his pub, The Sandon Hotel in Walton Breck Road. This also doubled as the players changing rooms at the time. This was very popular with the pubs clientele at the time, but was not very good for the professionalism that surrounded the club.

The Liverpool Echo began to receive letters which I suspect touched a nerve with in the workings of the club and in 1891 after Everton won their first league Championship; John Houlding paid the Orrell brothers £5,845 to buy the land outright. He became the clubs first landlord, and drew up several new rules - one of which was that his beer was the only alcohol that could be sold at the ground. He also raised the rent from £100 to £250.

This set the scene for a series of objections from the rest of Everton's members and he asked them to consider a further way forward. This would be to turn the club into a limited company and buy the club from him. This would have made him a handsome profit on his original investment, but it was not to be. The response from them was even more hostile than he imagined after their leader, St Domingo's Church Organist, George Mahon refused to buy and began to challenge his authority as leader.

One of the things they did was to offer him a reduced rent of £180, but this offended John Holding and he wrote to them asking why he was being treated in such a way. This though led to further problems and he was called to a crisis meeting on 12th March 1892. The meeting rather than being cordial became a battle of words and after a while George Mahon left the meeting and headed towards Goodison Park along with the vast majority of Everton's 279 members. John Houlding was left behind with a small group of loyalists and wondering what to do next.

Three days later though and after a lot of soul searching, he came up with the idea of forming an entirely new club. He summoned several of his supporters to 73 Anfield Road and asked for their backing. This was agreed and with the Football League already having rejected his idea of calling it Everton, a simple solution was sort and on the 15th March 1892 Liverpool Football Club was born.

It was though as I have said three months later before the club registered its change of name with the Board of Trade. In that time a £500 loan was given to the club and John Houlding started hiring the men that would ensure it became the dominant force on Merseyside. Until 189 they had to play in the amateur leagues because the Football League refused to admit them. That season though turned out to be a great success although there were several hitches along the way, but we were underway and our journey to becoming the success we are today had begun.