Articles
LFC during WWI
3-5th Battalion of the Kings Liverpool. Formed in May 1915
The outbreak of war on 4 August 1914 sparked an internal, sporting political war in England, centred on the issue of whether, in the circumstances, football should be played at all. Football won – at first. The 1914/15 season progressed as if there was no war on (the ‘It’ll all be over by Christmas’ syndrome), though attendances fell significantly below the previous season’s figures. Liverpool ended a little worse than mid-table, as had commonly been the case since the top of the table triumph of 1905/06, this time suffering the added ignominy giving the title to Everton by beating the Blues’ rivals Oldham on the last day of the season. By the summer of 1915, however, the seriousness of the conflict, especially the number of casualties, caused the abandonment of the normal league programme. It is believed that ‘attendances had fallen dramatically during the second half of the 1914/15 season’, but that was not Liverpool’s experience – average gates fell from 20,200 to 19,000 after New Year, the fall largely due to two aberrant figures for Newcastle (3,000) and Sheffield United (4,000); both were on a Monday, no games being played on a Sunday before 1982/83.
A rather convoluted pattern of games followed in 1915/16, the main decision by clubs in the Football League at their Annual Meeting to have a series of regional competitions instead, with Lancashire getting its own tournament, a reflection of the continued dominance of the county in top-grade football. No club south of Birmingham won the league title before Arsenal in 1931. (The other regions were London, Midland and South-Western, while football in the north-east seems to have been decimated until the short-lived Victory League in January 1919.) Note the word ‘tournament’ - this was not a league, and in one case (Everton v Oldham) the match was never played. The matches had some of the hallmarks of friendlies – indeed the ‘Echo’ reported the LFC v Stockport match on 9 October 1915 as ‘friendly’. Sheffield United, playing at Leeds City in the Midland Tournament, had to ask a visiting fan to make up the eleven. Sadly, it is not uncommon to find the whole period dismissed in a sentence or two in published club histories.
The crowds during these matches should also be mentioned, for they included battle-hardened soldiers on leave or injured for whom the normality of football must have been a considerable relief from their recent memories of battle. Goodness knows that they would have thought about serious ‘handbags’ flaring up on the pitch.
The number of clubs in the new Lancashire competition was fixed at 14, compared with the 20 in a normal league season, presumably with one eye on the war ending, and in order to avoid having too many David and Goliath mis-matches. Even then, the 14 included Rochdale and Southport from below Division 2. Stoke City, also in Division 2, was not even in an adjoining county, let alone in Lancashire. That decision having been taken, another problem raised its head with the war showing few signs of ending. The 26 games in this ‘Principal Tournament’ would leave a six-week gap in the spring of 1916, with no football or cricket, and no income for the clubs. (Even with a full League programme, the average Anfield gate had fallen from 27,500 in 1913/14 to 19,500 in 1914/15.) The solution to filling the gap was to have two parallel mini-tournaments, each with six clubs (including Bury and Southport in a ‘Northern Division’) and a ‘Southern Division’ with Liverpool and what is now Greater Manchester. Rochdale and Stoke from the original 14 were the clubs omitted.
These ‘Subsidiary’ (or, more properly ‘Supplementary’) matches took place after the Principal Tournament finished on 26 February, 1915, but in later seasons, the odd Supplementary game occurred much earlier, presumably for convenience at the time – Southport on Boxing Day 1916, Everton on New Year’s Day 1918 and 1919. There was no built-in, progressive or status relationship between the Principal and Supplementary tournaments.
Learning the lessons of 1915/16, two more clubs were added to the Principal Tournament participants (Blackburn, which had evidently had enough of being out in the cold, and Port Vale from the Potteries). The now sixteen clubs, if divided by half again, would have made the season too long, but luckily it was discovered that sixteen divided by four. Hence, for the remainder of the war, the Supplementary mini tournament turned into a 4x4, Liverpool being in Group B, then A and finally D.
Liverpool’s varying success in the war seasons may be seen in Appendix 1. After a not unusually mediocre start, they finished the period strongly, winning the Principal Tournament in 1916/17 with only three losses (one of the strongest performances in Liverpool’s history).
Average Anfield gates for the remainder of the war years (with Supplementaries only, in brackets) were:
1915/16 14,500 (17,000)
1916/17 14,800 (21,500)
1917/18 17,400 (21,000)
1918/19 22,000 (25,000)
The apparently greater attraction of the Supplementary matches is easily explained – they all contain by far the most popular event of the season – Everton at Anfield.
War guests
During 1914/15, before the national patriotic recruiting drive and conscription, no war guests (i.e., non-LFC players) replaced LFC players missing because of the war. In the following years, however, sixty-two were recruited, providing a total of 378 appearances. One only, Harold Wadsworth, stayed on into the 1919/20 season, but by then he was on the full-time staff.
No competitive match was played in that period without at least one war guest in the LFC team, but we seem to have fared better than many other clubs – Preston, for example ‘are experiencing the utmost difficulty in raising teams’, and Bolton ‘were mainly composed of local juniors’ (Echo, 2/10/ and 6/9/1915). The number of guests actually used in at least one match during the seasons 1915/16 to 1918/19 were 16, 28, 20, 14, and the numbers used in each match declined until, in 1918/19, only one match involved more than three guests. Normally up to five guests played in each 1915/16 match (even seven against Stockport on 25 March 1916, a figure repeated against Southport Central on 6 April 1918). Guests scored 18 of LFC’s 69 goals in that season. They were sometimes referred to as ‘newcomers’ rather than ‘war guests’.
The 1914/15 Liverpool team: Back row: Thomas Fairfoul, Harry Lowe, Sam Speakman, Ken Campbell, Bob Pursell, Donald MacKinlay, Robert Ferguson. Front row: Jackie Sheldon, Arthur Metcalf, Robert McDougall, Billy Lacey, Jimmy Nicholl.
The main problem positions to fill were goalkeeper (in the absence of Elisha Scott), and the two wingers Jack Sheldon and Jimmy Nicholl. (The former escaped the ignominy of the match fixing scandal by being the only LFC player joining up to the Football Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment, eventually having his lifetime ban lifted because of the war effort.) Replacement wingers used were Arthur Goddard and Alex McGhie.
Fifteen guests played for LFC during 1915/16, with Arthur Goddard (26), James Middlehurst (27) and Ernest Pinkney (24) the main contributors. With 27 playing during the next season, only Goddard (26) maintained this level of team selection; thereafter, George Schofield (27) in 1917/18, and Elisha Scott’s brother William in 1918/19 played more than anyone else.
There was no single source for finding footballers who would volunteer to be war guests, and no single motivation for them to do so. A few, such as Arthur Goddard, had been LFC players in the past, and had recently retired from football, or were now registered with other clubs. (Goddard also guested for Barnsley.) Some were amateurs, only too keen to have the experience of playing for a big, well-known club which would have been unavailable to them in normal times. Others used Anfield in wartime as a steppingstone into professional football. Jimmy Stansfield and Harold Wadsworth did so by staying at Anfield, while others went further afield. Stephen Beattie guested for LFC en route from Runcorn to Stockport County, Joe Butler moved via Liverpool from Lincoln City to Stockport County, Thomas Cunliffe from St Helens to Altrincham, Thomas Green from Southport to West Ham, Joseph Lees from Barnsley to Rotherham, ‘Spud’ Murphy from Crewe to Man City, Thomas Page from South Liverpool to Port Vale, Clement Rigg from Todmorden to Burnley and Bombadier Walter Smith from Leicester City to Port Vale.
Some played as war guests while their own club were unavailable to them – Benny Cross from Burnley, Frank Curtis from Wolves, ex-Everton Joseph Donachie and Arthur Gee from Oldham, James Henderson from Cardiff, Teddy Hughes from Man City, James Middlehurst from Hull City, John Page from Everton, Charles Spencer Sutcliffe of Leeds United, and Ted Taylor from Oldham.
No home or non-English player joined the full-time playing staff of LFC during the war, there being no formal contracts.
I can find only four of LFC’s own players guesting for other English clubs, far fewer than in the Second World War. Of our 1914/15 squad, Phil Bratley played for Barnsley as a guest, Ken Campbell appeared (one game only) for Southport Central, Henry Lowe for Nottingham Forest (to which he later transferred), and Bob McDougall for West Ham.
Goalkeeping favourite Elisha Scott returned home to an Ireland controversially divided by the war. The Easter Rising of 1916 was the start of the nationalists’ armed resistance to English rule, eventually sparking the war of independence 1919-21 and civil war 1922/23. Westminster had wisely decided not to apply conscription to the island. Scott guested for Belfast City, Belfast United, and Linfield, the last also attracting Bill Lacey and the Scot John Bovill. They were part of a mini-diaspora, which took both Irish and Scottish LFC players back to their roots when war broke out, either as guests or transfers. Some volunteered for the army from there, rather than from Liverpool. Scots transferring home were Jimmy Dawson and Tom Gracie to Hearts, Bob McDougall to Falkirk, Bob Ferguson, James Nicholl and Tom Miller to Whishaw Thistle (the last to Royal Albert also), Ernest Peake to Third Lanark and James Stewart to Hamilton Academicals.
Not all foreign players left Anfield, however, especially Donald McKinlay and Ken Campbell who continued to play a dominant role in the club’s history, the latter while serving in the armed forces - though where remains a mystery (see Appendix 2).
Appendix 1
Lancashire final tournament tables 1915/16 to 1918/19, pieced together largely from www.footballandthefistworldwar.org.
1915/16 Principal tournament
| Pos | Team | Played | W D L | F:A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester C | 26 | 16 3 7 |
61:35 |
35 |
| 2 | Burnley |
26 |
14 5 7 |
71:43 |
33 |
| 3 | Blackpool | 26 | 14 3 9 |
54:41 |
31 |
| 4 | Everton | 25 | 15 0 10 | 59:42 |
30 |
| 5 | Oldham | 25 | 13 3 9 | 52:44 |
29 |
| 6 | Liverpool | 26 | 11 7 8 |
48:42 |
29 |
| 7 | Stockport | 26 | 13 3 10 |
47:43 |
29 |
| 8 | Stoke | 26 | 10 7 9 |
43:46 |
27 |
| 9 | Southport | 26 | 9 6 11 | 41:41 |
24 |
| 10 | Bury | 26 | 10 3 13 |
46:52 | 23 |
| 11 |
Manchester U | 26 | 7 8 11 | 41:51 | 22 |
| 12 | Bolton | 26 | 9 3 14 | 48:65 | 21 |
| 13 | Rochdale | 26 | 7 5 14 | 34:56 | 19 |
| 14 | Preston | 26 | 4 2 20 | 23:67 | 10 |
1915/16 Subsidiary tournament South
| Pos | Team | Played | W D L | F:A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester C | 10 | 5 3 2 |
23:19 |
13 |
| 2 | Everton |
10 | 6 1 3 |
19:16 |
13 |
| 3 | Liverpool | 10 | 4 2 4 | 21:13 |
10 |
| 4 | Oldham | 10 | 4 2 4 |
17:21 |
10 |
| 5 | Stockport |
10 | 4 1 5 | 19:18 |
9 |
| 6 | Manchester U | 10 | 2 1 7 |
12:24 |
5 |
1916/17 Principal tournament
| Pos | Team | Played | W D L | F:A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 30 | 19 8 3 |
62:26 |
46 |
| 2 | Stockport |
30 | 18 7 5 |
61:31 |
43 |
| 3 | Stoke | 30 | 16 7 7 |
64:36 |
39 |
| 4 | Manchester C | 30 | 14 9 7 | 49:29 |
37 |
| 5 | Everton | 30 | 15 7 8 | 62:41 |
37 |
| 6 | Burnley | 30 | 15 4 11 |
73:56 |
34 |
| 7 | Manchester U | 30 | 13 6 11 |
48:54 |
32 |
| 8 | Rochdale | 30 | 12 5 13 |
47:54 |
29 |
| 9 | Southport C | 30 | 10 8 12 | 40:43 |
28 |
| 10 | Bolton | 30 | 9 6 15 |
59:65 | 24 |
| 11 |
Blackburn | 30 | 10 4 16 | 52:66 | 24 |
| 12 | Preston | 30 | 8 7 15 | 47:65 | 23 |
| 13 | Bury | 30 | 7 8 15 | 40:63 | 22 |
| 14 | Oldham | 30 | 8 6 16 | 36:65 | 22 |
| 15 | Port Vale | 30 | 7 7 16 | 50:60 | 21 |
| 16 | Blackpool | 30 | 6 7 17 | 44:80 | 21 |
1916/17 Subsidiary tournament Group B
| Pos | Team | Played | W D L | F:A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everton | 6 | 4 1 1 |
16:5 |
9 |
| 2 | Stockport |
10 | 2 3 1 | 6:10 |
7 |
| 3 | Liverpool | 10 | 2 1 3 | 13:10 |
5 |
| 4 | Southport C | 10 | 1 1 4 | 5:15 |
3 |
1917/18 Principal tournament
| Pos | Team | Played | W D L | F:A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stoke | 30 | 22 4 4 |
109:27 |
48 |
| 2 | Liverpool |
30 | 21 6 3 |
101:26 |
48 |
| 3 | Everton |
30 | 19 6 5 |
92:36 |
44 |
| 4 | Manchester C | 30 | 15 8 7 | 57:28 |
38 |
| 5 | Stockport | 30 | 17 3 10 | 59:32 |
37 |
| 6 | Rochdale | 30 | 14 9 7 |
78:51 |
37 |
| 7 | Bolton | 30 | 13 4 13 |
68:70 |
30 |
| 8 | Manchester U | 30 | 11 8 11 |
45:49 |
30 |
| 9 | .Oldham | 30 | 11 6 13 | 50:59 |
28 |
| 10 | Preston | 30 | 12 3 15 |
38:53 | 27 |
| 11 |
Port Vale | 30 | 9 8 13 | 47:58 | 26 |
| 12 | Blackpool | 30 | 10 5 15 | 46:70 | 25 |
| 13 | Southport C | 30 | 8 6 16 | 33:69 | 22 |
| 14 | Bury | 30 | 8 5 17 | 46:64 | 21 |
| 15 | Burnley | 30 | 5 4 21 | 32:104 | 14 |
| 16 | Blackburn | 30 | 2 1 27 | 22:127 | 5 |
1917/18 Subsidiary tournament Group
| Pos | Team | Played | W D L | F:A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 6 | 5 0 1 |
24:7 |
10 |
| 2 | Everton |
6 | 5 0 1 | 19:7 |
10 |
| 3 | Stockport |
6 | 2 0 4 | 6:13 |
4 |
| 4 | Southport | 6 | 0 0 6 | 1:23 |
0 |
1918/19 Principal tournament
| Pos | Team | Played | W D L | F:A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everton | 30 | 27 2 1 |
108:26 |
56 |
| 2 | Stoke |
30 | 20 3 7 |
84:36 |
43 |
| 3 | Liverpool |
30 | 19 4 7 |
82:33 |
42 |
| 4 | Bolton | 30 | 15 6 9 | 58:58 |
36 |
| 5 | Manchester C | 30 | 15 3 12 | 57:36 |
33 |
| 6 | Southport V. | 30 | 15 3 12 | 49:53 |
33 |
| 7 | Preston | 30 | 12 6 12 |
41:51 |
30 |
| 8 | Stockport | 30 | 11 7 12 |
48:52 |
29 |
| 9 | .Manchester U | 30 | 11 5 14 | 51:50 |
27 |
| 10 | Rochdale | 30 | 11 5 14 | 56:61 | 27 |
| 11 |
Blackpool | 30 | 10 5 15 | 45:61 | 25 |
| 12 | Port Vale | 30 | 10 4 16 | 39:77 | 24 |
| 13 | Burnley | 30 | 10 3 17 | 54:76 | 23 |
| 14 | Bury | 30 | 7 6 17 | 27:58 | 20 |
| 15 | Oldham | 30 | 7 4 19 | 39:62 | 18 |
| 16 | Blackburn | 30 | 5 4 21 | 35:83 | 14 |
1918/19 Subsidiary tournament Group D
| Pos | Team | Played | W D L | F:A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 6 | 4 2 0 |
13:6 |
10 |
| 2 | Stockport |
6 | 3 1 2 | 7:6 |
7 |
| 3 | Southport C |
6 | 2 0 4 | 9:12 |
4 |
| 4 | Everton |
6 | 1 1 4 | 5:10 |
3 |
Appendix 2
LFC players and ex-players in the armed forces.
Please contact [email protected] if you have any additions or corrections. A list of regimental abbreviations follows the players' list. One normal source of information about players’ activities off the fields of play was clearly understandably muzzled when it came to the war effort, and only rarely do we get even a hint in newspapers of what the missing players were doing. Goalie Ken Campbell’s footballing injury was noted ‘fortunately …. will not prevent his “gunnery” which just now is in the direction of recruiting.’
| Name | Played | Unit | Killed | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aldcroft, W A | Reserve | KLR 3105 | 17/5/1918 |
In Gallipoli |
| Allman, M W | 1908 |
RGA 193552 |
||
| Banks, W (Billy) | 1913-19 | KLR 11141 and later 3757752, or KLR 24127 or KLR 77898 later 217882 | ||
| Barker, J | Triallist | KLR16351 | 13/1/1916 | |
| Bartrop, C H W | 1914-18 | RFA 252318 | 7/11/1918 | |
| Beeby, A R | 1909-11 | RGA 77187 | ||
| Berry, A | 1908-09, 1912 | KLR 3/59746, LF62798, ELR 54142 and 2379558 | ||
| Bovill, J M | 1911-14 | RIR | ||
| Bradley. G | Trialist | KLR 1711 | 25/9/1915 | |
| Bratley, P W | 1914/15 | CG 27841 | demobbed 26/1/1919 | |
| Brennan, J F |
Reserve LF | 235518 | 6/9/1917 | |
| Buck, F R | 1903-04 | RASC M/371447 | ||
| Campbell, K | 1912-20 | |||
| Chorlton, T | 1904-12 | RGA 112875 | ||
| Crawford R S | 1909-15 | RE 94033 | disharged 1919 [b 4/7/86 | |
| Dargie, A | Reserve 1911-12 | WRGA | 18/9/1917 | |
| Dines, J O | 1912-13 | KLR | 27/9/1918 | |
| Fairgrieve, R W | 1897 | Reserve RSLR 17622 | ||
| Gracie, T | 1912-14 | RSLR 19024 | 23/10/1915 | leukemia |
| Grayer, F | RE 70880, C of E Hants RGA # 2102 or 353267 | wounded at Ypres | ||
| Griffin, M | 1907-09 | |||
| Hardy, S | 1905-12 | RN L9639 | discharged 6/5/1918 | |
| Holden, R | 1910-14 | MGC 85939 | discharged 15/8/1919; LFC testimonial | |
| Honess, A | Reserve BWRH S/11805 |
22/10/1917 | died of wounds | |
| Leavey, H J | 1910-11 | RE 98594 |
||
| Livingstone, G T | 1902-03 | RAMC 102166 | ||
| Lowe, H C | 1911-20 | KLR 2194 | ||
| Mainman, H L | Reserve 1897-98 | RASC M2/034881 | ||
| McDonald, J | 1909-12 | GH | ||
| McDougall, R | 1913-15 | RFA 4424/655774 | ||
| Metcalf, A | 1912-19 | RN | ||
| Miller, T |
1912/20 |
enlisted 1915 | ||
| Morris, W | Reserve 1909/10 | RNVR Bristol/Z/7330 | 21/9/1918 | killed at sea |
| Murray, D B |
1904/05 | ASH PL S/3845 | 10/12/1915 | |
| Pagnam, F | 1914-19 | RGA 124544 | ||
| Parry, MP | 1900-09 | SWB | ||
| Pursell, R | 1911-20 | MRFB |
||
| Randles, R | Reserve 1906-10 | CEF 130202 | 8/10/1916 |
|
| Raybould, S |
1900-07 | |||
| Satterthwaite, C O | 1899-1902 | RF CLR GS/39044 |
||
| Sheldon, J | 1913-21 | MRFB F/1695 | ||
| Sloan, D | 1908-09 | BWRH S/9311 |
1/1/1917 | Buried in Arras, France |
| Thompson, A A | Trial, reserve 1910, 1912-13 | if Alec | ||
| Tosswill, J S | 1912-13 | RE 72726 | 28/9/1915 | died after medical operation |
| Uren, H J | 1906-12 | DE 10668, 226034 | ||
| Watson, W | Reserve 1914-16 | RGA 85397 | 24/7/1917 | died of wounds |
| West, A | 1903-09; 1910-11 |
BWRH Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)
CG Coldstream Guards
CEF Canadian Expeditionary Force
DR Devonshire Reg
GH Gordon Highlanders
KLR King’s (Liverpool) Reg
KR King’s Reg
LF Lancashire Fusiliers
MGC Machine Gun Corps
MRFB Middlesex Reg Football Battalion
PLASHR Princess Louise’s (Argyll & Sutherland) Highlanders Reg
RAMC Royal Army Medical Corps
RASC Royal Army Service Corps
RE Royal Engineers
RFA Royal Field Artillery
RF CLR Royal Fusiliers (City of London Reg)
RGA Royal Garrison Artillery
RIR Royal Irish Rifles
RN Royal Navy
RNVR Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve
RSLR Royal Scots (Lothian Reg)
SWB South Wales Borderers
WRGA Welsh Royal Garrison Artillery
-----
Article by Dr. Colin Rogers for LFChistory.net
