New Brighton began as a Liverpool merchant's idea. In the 1830s James Atherton bought land at the north-east corner of the Wirral, at the mouth of the Mersey, and laid out a resort with his son-in-law, William Rowson. He named it after Brighton, the resort he hoped to emulate.
For Liverpool supporters, the town has a football story too. Two New Brighton clubs played in the Football League, both at a ground built beside a tower taller than Blackpool's, and Liverpool crossed paths with each.
The ferry made the resort. Steam ferries were running from New Brighton from about 1830, and Wirral Council's heritage trail credits the steam crossing to Liverpool with making the area popular and letting the new settlement flourish. The crossing itself is far older: Mersey Ferries says ferries have featured on the river for more than 800 years.
The resort also had its own promenade pier. The iron pier designed by Eugenius Birch opened in September 1867, closed for good in November 1972 and was demolished later that decade. The ferry service had already gone. It was withdrawn in 1971, with the resort in decline and silt building up at the landing stage, and the ferry pier and stage were then dismantled.
Then came the tower. Work on New Brighton Tower began in 1896, and the steel lattice tower was formally opened in June 1898, standing taller than its rival at Blackpool.
It had a short life. The tower closed when the First World War broke out in 1914, was neglected through the war years and was taken down between 1919 and 1921. An aerial photograph from August 1920, held in the Britain from Above archive, shows the tower and the town midway through that period.
The ballroom at its base carried on without it. The Beatles played the Tower Ballroom 27 times in the early 1960s, and the building survived until a fire destroyed it on 5 April 1969.
The tower's owners built a sports ground beside it and in 1896 formed a club to play there. A second League club followed in 1923.
| Club | League years | Division | Home ground | League exit |
| New Brighton Tower | 1898–1901 | Second Division | Tower Athletic Ground | Wound up in 1901; replaced by Doncaster Rovers |
| New Brighton | 1923–1951 | Third Division North | Sandheys Park, then the Tower Athletic Ground from 1946 | Voted out in 1951; replaced by Workington |
New Brighton Tower, the Towerites, were no makeweights. They finished fifth in their first season and fourth in their third, but home crowds averaged only about 1,000.
The Rakers, as New Brighton were known, grew out of another Liverpool name: the club was formed in 1921 from the ashes of the bankrupt South Liverpool. The nickname is thought to come from their first ground, Sandheys Park, off Rake Lane, which was badly damaged in a 1942 bombing raid.
LFChistory's records show no competitive meeting with either club. Its New Brighton match record lists only friendlies and wartime games, and the Towerites met Liverpool in friendlies alone, including a testimonial for John McCartney at Anfield on 6 September 1897 that Liverpool took 4-1.
On Monday 29 October 1962, Liverpool crossed the river for a friendly to open the floodlights at the Tower Ground. A crowd of 8,500 saw New Brighton beaten 5-2, with Ian St John scoring twice.
Then there is Neil McBain, who made 12 League appearances for Liverpool in 1928. In March 1947, as New Brighton's manager and short of a goalkeeper, he played in goal himself in a 3-0 defeat at Hartlepool. He was 51 years and 120 days old, and his LFChistory profile records him as the oldest player ever to appear in a League match.
Away from football, the seafront had its amusements. Historic England's listing for a cast-iron shelter on Marine Promenade puts it at probably the late 19th century, and the Art Deco New Palace arcade followed in 1939.
Penny arcades took their name from the coin their machines once ran on, and slot machines were among them. Today the idea has an online counterpart: the hub for online slots at Fortune Games, a UK online casino, links to guides on individual games and explains how slots work, including the random number generator behind every result. Each spin is independent, and no strategy changes the odds.
The New Brighton ferry, the pier and the tower have gone, and both League grounds were given over to housing. Fort Perch Rock, built in 1826–29 to defend the approach to Liverpool, still stands, as does the Perch Rock Lighthouse of 1827–30. The Floral Pavilion, an open-air summer theatre when it opened in 1913, was rebuilt and reopened in December 2008 with Ken Dodd as its first act.
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