"Chippy" Hannah arrived from the successful Sunderland side that had won the League Championship twice in his four years at the club from 1890-1894. Hannah had made a significant contribution by scoring in every third game in roughly 90 appearances. He was bought in November 1894 to strengthen Liverpool's attacking options as the club was on a serious slide down the First Division. He scored in his second game in a 2-2 draw against Everton at Anfield with a “grand shot” which was so magnificent it “almost sent the crowd frantic, even the Evertonians applauding the home team for their gallant play.” Hannah put Liverpool 2-0 up just before half-time in the following game against his old club, Sunderland, but the champion-elect showed its class by winning by three goals to two. Hannah scored six goals in 17 matches but his contribution was not enough to prevent an immediate return to the Second Division. Davy was called on 11 times the following season as Liverpool won the second division Championship for the second time in three years and made a further four appearances during the 1896/97 season, one of which saw him score two goals against Sunderland. Tom Watson, his old Sunderland boss was by then in charge of Liverpool.
“He was a beautiful goalgetter, but his greatest delight was never in the scoring of goals; it lay in his feeding of the big guns on either side of him", said a reported at the Sunderland Daily Echo in 1936. "That artful pass of his with either foot, through a defence was the means of scoring more goals than from any inside forward I ever knew."