Radio City 96.7 Liverpool’s Hit Music Station with local news and sport for Merseyside, the North-West and North-Wales. Including Pete Price, Simon Ross and Neil Fitzmaurice
This is featured post 1 title
To set your featured posts, please go to your theme options page in wp-admin. You can also disable featured posts slideshow if you don't wish to display them.
This is featured post 2 title
To set your featured posts, please go to your theme options page in wp-admin. You can also disable featured posts slideshow if you don't wish to display them.
This is featured post 3 title
To set your featured posts, please go to your theme options page in wp-admin. You can also disable featured posts slideshow if you don't wish to display them.
History of Liverpool FC
February 18th, 2010 
dave787 
Liverpool F.C. was founded after a dispute between Everton and John Houlding, the leaseholder of Anfield and Everton director. Fundamental difference emerged in how the club should be run when the club assessed the purchase of the whole of the Anfield site. Houlding was accused of motives for personal financial gain. Everton who had been playing at Anfield for eight years departed from Houlding and Anfield moving to a new stadium in Goodison Park.
Liverpool F.C. were founded by Houlding to play at the vacated Anfield. The original name was to be Everton F.C. and Athletic Grounds, Ltd., or Everton Athletic for short, but it was changed to Liverpool F.C. in June 1892 when The Football Association refused to recognise the team as Everton.
The club won the Lancashire League in their first season, and successfully applied to join the Second Division for the following season. They won the league and were promoted to the First Division. They won their first title in 1900–01, and were champions again in 1905–06. They reached their first FA Cup final in 1914 but lost 1–0 to Burnley. The club won back-to-back championships in 1921–22 and 1922–23, but after this the club did not win another trophy until 1946–47 when they won the League for a fifth time. The club reached the FA Cup final in 1950, but lost to Arsenal. Liverpool were relegated to the Second Division in the 1953–54 season.[5] During this period they suffered a 2-1 FA Cup defeat against non-league Worcester City FC in the 1958-59 season.
Not long after this infamous result, Bill Shankly was appointed manager and released 24 players. He also converted a room at Anfield originally used for boot storage into a room where the coaches could talk strategy over tea (and other beverages). There Shankly, along with other founding Boot Room members Joe Fagan, Reuben Bennett, and Bob Paisley, started reshaping the team.
Promotion to the First Division was achieved in 1961–62, and the club won the League for the first time in 17 years in 1963–64. Another League title followed in 1965–66, after the club had won their first FA Cup the previous season. The club won the League and UEFA Cup in 1972–73 and the FA Cup again a year later; after this, Shankly retired and was replaced by assistant Bob Paisley. Paisley was even more successful than Shankly and the club won the League and UEFA Cup in 1975–76, his second season as manager. The following season they retained the League title, won the European Cup for the first time, but lost in the FA Cup final, narrowly missing out on a treble. Liverpool retained the European Cup the next season, and the season after won the League again with 68 points—a domestic record, conceding only 16 goals in 42 league matches. During the nine seasons Paisley managed the club, Liverpool won 21 trophies, including three European Cups, a UEFA Cup, six league titles and three consecutive League Cups. The only domestic trophy to elude him was the FA Cup.
Paisley retired in 1983 and (as Shankly had done) handed the reins to a Boot Room veteran, assistant coach Joe Fagan. Liverpool won three trophies in Fagan’s first season in charge: the League, League Cup and European Cup, becoming the first English side to win three trophies in a season. Liverpool reached the European Cup final again in 1985. The match was against Juventus at the Heysel Stadium. Before kick-off, disaster struck: Liverpool fans breached a fence which separated the two groups of supporters and charged the Juventus fans. The resulting weight of people caused a retaining wall to collapse, killing 39 fans, mostly Italians. The match was played regardless and Liverpool lost 1–0 to Juventus. English clubs were consequently banned from participating in European competition for five years; Liverpool received a ten-year ban, which was later reduced to six years. Fourteen of their fans received convictions for involuntary manslaughter.
The statue of former manager Bill Shankly, outside Anfield
Fagan resigned after the disaster and Kenny Dalglish was appointed as player-manager. During his reign, the club won another three League Championships and two FA Cups, including a League and Cup “Double” in 1985–86. Liverpool’s success was overshadowed by the Hillsborough Disaster: in an FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest on 15 April 1989, hundreds of Liverpool fans were crushed. 94 fans died that day; the 95th victim died in hospital from his injuries four days later, and the 96th died nearly four years later without regaining consciousness. After the Hillsborough tragedy there was a governmental review of stadium safety. Known as the Taylor Report, it paved the way for legislation which required top-division teams to have all-seater stadiums. The report ruled that the main reason for the disaster was overcrowding due to a failure of police control. Dalglish cited the Hillsborough Disaster and its repercussions as the reason for his resignation in 1991. He was replaced by former player Graeme Souness. Apart from winning the FA Cup in 1992, Souness achieved little success and was replaced by a former member of the “Boot Room”, Roy Evans. Evans fared little better: a League Cup victory in 1995 was his only trophy. One highlight was a 4-3 victory over Newcastle United at Anfield on 3 April 1996, which was named in April 2003 as the Match of the Decade in the Premier League 10 Seasons Awards. Gérard Houllier was appointed as co-manager in 1998–99, but was left in sole charge after Evans resigned in November 1998.
In his second season in charge Liverpool won a treble of the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup. In the 2001–02 season, during which Houllier underwent major heart surgery, Liverpool finished second behind Arsenal. The following seasons failed to live up to expectations and Houllier was replaced by Rafael Benítez. The club finished fifth in his first season in charge but won the UEFA Champions League by beating Milan 3–2 in a penalty shootout after the match finished 3–3. The following season Liverpool finished third with 82 points—their highest total since 1988. They won the FA Cup as they had the Champions League victory the previous season, by beating West Ham United in penalty shootout after the match finished at 3–3. In 2006–07, the club’s search for investment came to an end when American businessmen George Gillett and Tom Hicks became the owners of Liverpool in a deal which valued the club and its outstanding debts at £218.9 million. That season, the club reached another Champions League final, but this time they lost 2–1 to AC Milan. In the 2008-09 season Liverpool achieved their highest Premier League points total of 86 points and finished as runners up to Manchester United.
Liverpool traditionally played in red and white, but this was changed to an all red kit in the mid 1960s. Red has not always been used. In the early days, when the club took over Anfield from Everton, they used the Toffees’ colours of blue and white. Their kit was almost identical to that worn by the Everton team of the time. By 1894 Liverpool had chosen red, and in 1901 the city’s liver bird was adopted as the club’s badge. For the next 60 years Liverpool’s kit was red shirts with white shorts. The socks were changed over the years from red, to black, to white, and back to red again.
In 1964, then-Liverpool manager Bill Shankly decided to send the team out in all red for the first time against Anderlecht, as Ian St. John recalled in his autobiography:
| “ | He thought the colour scheme would carry psychological impact—red for danger, red for power. He came into the dressing room one day and threw a pair of red shorts to Ronnie Yeats. “Get into those shorts and let’s see how you look,” he said. “Christ, Ronnie, you look awesome, terrifying. You look 7ft tall.” “Why not go the whole hog, boss?” I suggested. “Why not wear red socks? Let’s go out all in red.” Shankly approved and an iconic kit was born.[25] | ” |
Liverpool’s away colours are traditionally either white shirts and black shorts or all yellow. However, in 1987 an all grey kit was introduced, which was used until the centenary season of 1991–92, when it was replaced by a combination of green shirts and white shorts. After various colour combinations in the 1990s, including gold and navy, bright yellow, black and grey, and ecru, the club alternated between yellow and white away kits until the 2008–09 season, when they re-introduced the grey kit. The current kits are designed by Adidas, who made the club’s kits between 1985 and 1996. The only other branded shirts worn by the club were made by Umbro until 1985 and Reebok for ten seasons starting in 1996.A third kit, consisting of a turquoise top and black shorts, has been designed primarily for Champions League away games, but is used for any domestic games where both red and grey would clash.
Liverpool was the first British professional club to have a sponsor’s logo on their shirts, after they agreed to a deal with Hitachi in 1979. Since then they have been sponsored by Crown Paints, Candy, Carlsberg and soon to be Standard Chartered Bank. The contract with Carlsberg, which was signed in 1992, was the longest agreement in English top-flight football.
Liverpool have confirmed that sponsor Carlsberg will be replaced with Standard Chartered Bank at the start of the 2010-11 season, ending a 17-year association with Carlsberg.
The Liverpool badge is based around the city’s liver bird, which is placed inside a shield. Above the shield is a representation of the Shankly Gates with the title of club’s famous anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. The twin flames at either side are symbolic of the Hillsborough memorial outside Anfield, where an eternal flame burns in memory of those who died in the disaster.
Stadia
Exterior of The Kop
Liverpool has played at Anfield since they were founded in 1892. Anfield was built in 1884 on land adjacent to Stanley Park, and was originally used by Everton. They left the ground in 1892 over a dispute about rent with the owner of Anfield, John Houlding, who decided to form a new club to play at the ground. The capacity of the stadium was 20,000, although only 100 spectators attended Liverpool’s first match at Anfield.
In 1906, the banked stand at one end of the ground was formally renamed the Spion Kop after a hill in Natal. The hill was the site of the Battle of Spion Kop in the Second Boer War, where over 300 men of the Lancashire Regiment died, many of whom were from Liverpool. At its largest, the stand could hold 28,000 spectators, and was one of the largest single tier stands in the world. Many stadia in England had stands named after the Spion Kop, but Anfield’s was the largest Kop in the country at the time; it was able to hold more supporters than some entire football grounds.The stand was considerably reduced in capacity due to safety measures brought in following the Hillsborough Disaster. It was completely rebuilt as an all-seater stand in 1994, and remains a single tier stand with a reduced capacity of 12,390.
The Kop, as it stands after redevelopment in 1994. The picture shows Liverpool in a match against Israeli side Maccabi Haifa on 8 August 2006.
The Anfield Road stand is positioned at the opposite end to the Kop, and houses the away team’s fans. Rebuilt in 1998 with a capacity of 9,074, it is the newest stand at Anfield. The two stands adjacent to these are the Main Stand, with a capacity of 12,227, and the Centenary Stand, which has a capacity of 11,762. The Main Stand is the oldest part of Anfield, and has remained largely untouched since its redevelopment in 1973. It houses the players’ changing rooms and the director’s box, and the dug-outs are in front of the stand. The Centenary Stand was previously known as the Kemlyn Road Stand until it was rebuilt for the club’s centenary in 1992. The redevelopment saw the houses in Kemlyn Road demolished and the address become non-existent. The capacity of the stadium is 45,276. It is rated as a four-star stadium in the UEFA Stadia List.
On 30 July 2004, the Liverpool City Council granted the club planning permission to build a new 60,000-seat stadium just 300 yards (270 m) away from Anfield at Stanley Park, and on 8 September 2006 the Council agreed to grant Liverpool F.C. a 999-year lease on the land on the proposed site. Following the takeover of the club in February 2007 by George Gillett and Tom Hicks, the proposed stadium was redesigned. In November 2007, the new design was approved by the Council, and preparation of the site started in June 2008. HKS, Inc. are to build the new stadium. No construction has taken place as the owners have been unable to finance the project.
Training ground
Melwood, in West Derby, Liverpool, has been the home of Liverpool’s training ground since the 1950s. It is not attached to The Academy, which is in Kirkby. The ground previously belonged to St Francis Xavier, a local school.
Supporters
Shankly Gates
During the season 2008–09, Liverpool had the fourth-highest average League attendance for an English club: 44,318, which is 96.8% of available capacity. Liverpool fans often refer to themselves as “Kopites”, which is a reference to the fans who once stood, and now sit, on the Kop at Anfield.
The song “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, originally from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel and later recorded by Liverpool musicians Gerry & The Pacemakers, is the club’s anthem, and has been sung by the Anfield crowd since the early 1960s. It has since gained popularity among fans of other clubs around the world.The song’s title adorns the top of the Shankly Gates, which were unveiled on 2 August 1982 in memory of the former manager Bill Shankly. The “You’ll Never Walk Alone” portion of the Shankly Gates is also reproduced on the club’s crest.
Liverpool’s longest-established rivalry is with fellow Merseyside team Everton, against whom they contest the Merseyside derby. This stems from Liverpool’s formation and the dispute with Everton officials and the then owners of Anfield. Religious differences have been cited as a cause of division, although both teams stem from a Methodist origin, which undermines the notion of a Catholic–Protestant split. The Merseyside derby is usually a sell-out fixture. More players have been sent off in it than in any other fixture in Premier League history. It is one of the few local derbies that does not enforce fan segregation. Liverpool has a rivalry with its neighbours Manchester United. This is mostly due to the success enjoyed by the two clubs and the proximity of the two cities. The rivalry is so intense that the last player to be transferred between the two clubs was Phil Chisnall in 1964, when he moved to Liverpool from United.
The club’s supporters have been involved in two major tragic events. The first was the Heysel Stadium disaster, in which 39 Juventus fans were killed. They were penned into a corner by Liverpool fans who charged in their direction, the sheer number of fans cornered caused a wall to collapse. After the final UEFA laid the blame for the incident solely on the fans of Liverpool, English clubs were banned from European competition for five years and Liverpool served an extra year, a six-year ban. There were 27 arrests on suspicion of manslaughter – the only extraditable offence applicable to events at Heysel. The majority of these people were from Merseyside. Some of these people had previous convictions for football-related violence. In 1989, after a 5-month trial in Belgium, fourteen Liverpool fans were given 3-year sentences for involuntary manslaughter. Half the terms were suspended and it is unclear how many served their sentences.
The second was during an FA Cup semi-final in 1989 between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, 96 Liverpool fans died due to overcrowding in what became known as the Hillsborough Disaster. The Sun newspaper published an article entitled “The Truth”, in which it claimed that Liverpool fans had robbed and urinated on the dead and had attacked the police. Subsequent investigations proved the allegations to be false, and this led to a city-wide boycott of the newspaper. Many organisations were set up as a result of the disaster, such as the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, which represents bereaved families, survivors and supporters, who campaign for justice for the 96 people who died in Sheffield on 15 April 1989.
Ownership and finances
Liverpool is owned by George Gillett and Tom Hicks, who acquired the club on 6 February 2007 from previous chairman David Moores. The deal valued the club and its outstanding debts at £218.9 million. The pair paid £5,000 per share, or £174.1m for the total shareholding in the club, and £44.8m to cover the club’s debts. Disagreements between Gillett and Hicks, and their lack of the fans’ support, have precipitated rumours that Dubai International Capital (DIC), who were interested in buying the club before Gillett and Hicks took over, would bid for the club. Another group, Share Liverpool FC, also expressed interest in purchasing the club. They proposed to pay £500m, which would be funded by 100,000 fans contributing £5,000 each for a club share. However, the group have been unable to raise the required capital to make an offer for the club.
In April 2008, business magazine Forbes ranked Liverpool as the fourth most valuable football team in the world, after Manchester United, Real Madrid and Arsenal. They valued the club at $1.0bn (£605m), excluding debt. Accountants Deloitte rate Liverpool eighth in the 2008 Deloitte Football Money League, which ranks the world’s football clubs in terms of revenue. Liverpool’s income of £133.9m in the 2006–07 season moved them up from tenth the previous season.
Liverpool in popular culture
As the most successful team in the history of English football, Liverpool is often featured when football is depicted in British culture and has appeared in a number of media “firsts”. The club appeared in the first edition of the BBC’s Match of the Day, which screened highlights of their match against Arsenal at Anfield on 22 August 1964. The club was also the subject of television’s first colour football transmission, which showed their match against West Ham United live. Liverpool fans feature in the Pink Floyd song “Fearless”, in which they sang excerpts from “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Liverpool released a song known as the “Anfield Rap” in 1988. It was the club’s FA Cup anthem for the final against Wimbledon, and featured John Barnes performing a rap with other members of the squad participating.
A documentary drama on the Hillsborough Disaster written by Jimmy McGovern was screened in 1996. It features Christopher Eccleston as Trevor Hicks, whose story formed the focus of the script. Hicks, who lost two teenage daughters in the disaster, went on to campaign for safer stadia and helped to form the Hillsborough Families Support Group. Liverpool feature in the film The 51st State (also known as Formula 51). Ex-hitman Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle) is an avid fan of the team and the last scene of the film takes place at a match between Liverpool and Manchester United. The club was featured in a children’s television show called Scully; the plot revolved around a young boy, Francis Scully, who tried to win a trial with Liverpool. The show featured prominent Liverpool players of the time such as Kenny Dalglish.
Statistics and records
Liverpool’s first competitive game was an 8–0 victory in the Lancashire League against Higher Walton. Ian Callaghan holds Liverpool’s overall appearance record—he played 857 matches over the course of 19 seasons from 1958 to 1978— and the record for League appearances with 640. Of the current squad, Jamie Carragher has the most appearances; he played his 500th game for the club early in 2008.
Liverpool’s all-time leading scorer is Ian Rush, who scored 346 goals while at the club from 1980 to 1987 and 1988 to 1996. Rush holds the record for the most goals in a season with 47 in 1983–84. However, during his career, Rush could not surpass Roger Hunt’s record number of league goals, which has stood at 245 since 1970. In the 1961–62 season, Hunt scored 41 goals, which is the club record for league goals in a single season. Gordon Hodgson, the club’s third highest scorer with 240 goals, holds the club record of 17 hat tricks. The most goals scored by a player in a single match is five; John Miller, Andy McGuigan, John Evans, Ian Rush and Robbie Fowler have achieved this feat. Fowler also holds the club and Premier League record for the fastest hat trick: he scored three goals in four minutes, 32 seconds against Arsenal in the 1994–95 season.[79] Steven Gerrard is Liverpool’s all-time leading goalscorer in European competition with 29 goals.
Liverpool’s biggest victory is 11–0 against Strømsgodset IF in 1974. Liverpool’s 10–1 defeat of Rotherham Town in 1896 was its largest league win. This margin of victory was matched when Crystal Palace were defeated 9–0 at Anfield in 1989. Liverpool’s heaviest defeat, 1–9, came against Birmingham City in 1954. Liverpool’s 8–0 win against Be?ikta? J.K. in the Champions League was the largest victory in the competition’s history at the time.
History of Everton Football Club
February 18th, 2010 dave787 
Everton were founded as St. Domingo’s in 1878 so that people from the parish of St. Domingo’s Methodist Church in Everton could play a sport in non-summer months – cricket was played in summer. The founding date could be stated as two years earlier as that was when the cricket club was founded — many football clubs started out not playing football, however still retain the date of initial foundation. A year later, the club was renamed Everton F.C. after the local area, as people outside the parish wished to participate.
The club was a founding member of the Football League in 1888-1889, winning their first League Championship title in 1890–91 season. Everton won the FA Cup for the first time in 1906 and the League title again in 1914-15 season. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 meant that football was interrupted while Everton were champions, something that would again occur in 1939.
It was not until 1927 that Everton’s first sustained period of success began. In 1925 the club signed Dixie Dean who, in 1927-28 season, set the record for league goals in a single season with 60 goals in 39 league games, a record that still stands to this day. Dean helped Everton to achieve their third league title.
Everton were relegated to the Second Division two years later during internal turmoil at the club. However, the club was promoted at the first attempt scoring a record number of goals in the second division. On return to the top flight in 1931-32 season, Everton wasted no time in reaffirming their status and won a fourth League title at the first opportunity. Everton also won their second FA Cup in 1933 with a 3–0 win against Manchester City in the final. The era ended in 1938-39 with a fifth League title.
The outbreak of the Second World War saw the suspension of League football, and when official competition resumed in 1946 the Everton team had been split-up and paled in comparison to the pre-war club. Everton were relegated again in 1950-51 and did not return until 1953-54, when finishing as runners-up in their third season in the Second Division. The club have been a top flight presence ever since.
Everton’s second successful era started when Harry Catterick was made manager in 1961. In 1962-63, his second season in charge, Everton won the League title and in 1966 the FA Cup followed with a 3–2 win over Sheffield Wednesday. Everton again reached the final in 1968, but this time were unable to overcome West Bromwich Albion at Wembley. Two seasons later in 1969-70, Everton won the League championship, nine points clear of nearest rivals Leeds United. During this period, Everton were the first English club to achieve five consecutive years in European competitions—seasons 1961–62 to 1966–67.
However, the success did not last; the team finished fourteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth and seventh in the following seasons. Harry Catterick retired but his successors failed to win any silverware for the remainder of the 1970s. Though the club mounted title challenges finishing fourth in 1974-75 under manager Billy Bingham, and under manager Gordon Lee, third in 1977-78 and fourth the following season. Manager Gordon Lee was sacked in 1981.
Howard Kendall took over as manager and guided Everton to their most successful era. Domestically, Everton won the FA Cup in 1984 and two league titles in 1984-85 and 1986-87 and the club’s first and so far only European trophy when they won the European Cup Winners’ Cup in the 1985 final
The European success came after first beating University College Dublin, Inter Bratislava and Fortuna Sittard, Everton defeated German giants Bayern Munich 3–1 in the semi-finals, despite trailing at half time (in a match voted the greatest in Goodison Park history) and recorded the same scoreline over Austrian club Rapid Vienna in the final.
Having won both the league and Cup Winners Cup in 1985, Everton came very close to winning a treble, but lost to Manchester United in the FA Cup final. The following season, 1985-86, Everton were runners up to neighbours Liverpool in both the league and the FA Cup, but did recapture the league title in 1986-87.
After the Heysel Stadium disaster and the subsequent ban of all English clubs from continental football, Everton lost the chance to compete for more European trophies. A large proportion of the title-winning side was broken up following the ban. Kendall himself moved to Athletic Bilbao after the 1987 title triumph and was succeeded by assistant Colin Harvey. Harvey took Everton to the 1989 final, but lost 3-2 after Extra time to Liverpool.
Everton were founder members of the Premier League in 1992, but struggled to find the right manager. Howard Kendall had returned in 1990 but could not repeat his previous success, while his successor, Mike Walker, was statistically the least successful Everton manager to date. When former Everton player Joe Royle took over in 1994 the club’s form started to improve; his first game in charge was a 2–0 victory over derby rivals Liverpool. Royle dragged Everton clear of relegation, and also led the club to the FA Cup for the fifth time in its history, defeating Manchester United 1–0 in the final.
The cup triumph was also Everton’s passport to the Cup Winners’ Cup—their first European campaign in the post-Heysel era. Progress under Joe Royle continued in 1995–96 as they climbed to sixth place in the Premiership.
The following season, 1996-97, was not as successful and the club finished in fifteenth place. Royle quit in March. Club captain, Dave Watson, was given the manager’s job temporarily and he helped the club to Premiership survival. Howard Kendall was appointed Everton manager for the third time in 1997, but the appointment proved unsuccessful as Everton finished seventeenth in the Premiership; only avoiding relegation due to their superior goal difference over Bolton Wanderers. Former Rangers manager Walter Smith then took over from Kendall in the summer of 1998 but only managed three successive finishes in the bottom half of the table.
The Everton board finally ran out of patience with Smith and he was sacked in March 2002 after an FA Cup exit at Middlesbrough, with Everton in real danger of relegation. The current manager, David Moyes, was his replacement and delivered Everton to a safe finish in fifteenth place. After that harrowing season, in 2002-03 Everton finished seventh, the highest since 1996.
This period effectively saw Everton yo-yo-ing in the league, finishing a very poor seventeenth in 2003-04, and a remarkable fourth (their highest ever Premiership finish) in 2004-05, qualifying for the Champions League qualifying round. Yet 2005-06 had a nightmare start with Everton failing to make it through to the Champions League group stage and then an early exit in the UEFA Cup. Despite the poor league start, Everton recovered to finish eleventh.
It was under David Moyes’s management that Wayne Rooney broke into the first team, before being sold to Manchester United for a club record fee of £27 million.
David Moyes, the current Everton manager
Moyes has broken the club record for highest transfer fee paid on four occasions, signing James Beattie for £6 million in January 2005, Andy Johnson for £8.6 million in summer 2006, Yakubu for £11.25 million in summer 2007, and Marouane Fellaini for £15 million in September 2008.
The 2006–07 season saw Everton finish sixth in the league and attain UEFA Cup qualification. In 2007, Everton completed the takeover of the Toxteth Tigers basketball team, with the rebranding of Liverpool’s first ever top-flight basketball franchise, the Everton Tigers. 2007-08 saw Everton once again gain European football with a fifth place league finish, although they were eliminated from the 2008–09 UEFA Cup prior to the group stages by Standard Liege. The domestic 2008-09 season saw Everton finish 5th for the second successive year and reach the FA Cup final for the first time since 1995.
During the first decades of their history, Everton had several different kit colours. The team originally played in white and then blue and white stripes, but as new players arriving at the club wore their old team’s shirts during matches, confusion soon ensued. It was decided that the shirts would be dyed black, both to save on expenses and to instill a more professional look. The result, however, appeared morbid so a scarlet sash was added.
When the club moved to Goodison Park in 1892, the colours were salmon pink and dark blue striped shirts with dark blue shorts then switching to ruby shirts with blue trim and dark blue shorts. The famous royal blue jerseys with white shorts were first used in the 1901–02 season. The club played in sky blue in 1906, however the fans protested and the colour reverted to royal blue. Occasionally Everton have played in lighter shades than royal blue (such as 1930–31 and 1997–98) but these have proved unpopular with fans.
Everton’s traditional away colours were white shirts with black shorts, but from the 1968 amber shirts and royal blue shorts became common. Various editions appeared throughout the 70s and 80s. Recently however black, white, grey and yellow away shirts have been used. The current kit is all black with pink trim, reflecting an old kit when playing at Anfield.
| Period | Kit manufacturer | Shirt sponsor |
|---|---|---|
| 1974–1979 | Umbro | none |
| 1979–1983 | Hafnia | |
| 1983–1985 | Le Coq Sportif | |
| 1985–1986 | NEC | |
| 1986–1995 | Umbro | |
| 1995–1997 | Danka | |
| 1997–2000 | One 2 One | |
| 2000–2002 | Puma | |
| 2002–2004 | Kejian | |
| 2004–2009 | Umbro | Chang |
| 2009– | Le Coq Sportif |
The kit today remains royal blue shirts, white shorts and white socks although when playing teams away who also wear white shorts Everton typically wear all blue. Everton’s goalkeepers will wear a lime green shirt with light grey shorts and socks at home and all black away.
Shirt sponsors and manufacturers
Everton’s current shirt sponsors are Chang Beer. Previous sponsors include NEC, Hafnia, Danka, one2one and Kejian. For the 2008–09 season Everton became the first Premier League team to sell junior replica jerseys without the current name or logo of its main sponsor Chang beer, following a recommendation from the Portman Group that alcoholic brand names be removed from kits sold to children.Everton’s current kit manufacturers are Le Coq Sportif, who replaced Umbro from the 2009–10 season.
The club currently has two ‘megastores’, one located near to Goodison Park on Walton Lane and a store in the Liverpool One shopping complex, named ‘Everton Two’.
Crest
Blue/white Everton crest – featured on away and third kits
At the end of the 1937–38 season, Everton secretary Theo Kelly, who later became the club’s first manager, wanted to design a club necktie. It was agreed that the colour be blue and Kelly was given the task of designing a crest to be featured on the necktie. Kelly worked on it for four months, until deciding on a reproduction of Prince Rupert’s Tower, which stands in the heart of the Everton district.
The Tower has been inextricably linked with the Everton area since its construction in 1787. It was originally used as a bridewell to incarcerate mainly drunks and minor criminals, and it still stands today on Everton Brow in Netherfield Road. The tower was accompanied by two laurel wreaths on either side and, according to the College of Arms in London, Kelly chose to include the laurels as they were the sign of winners. The crest was accompanied by the club motto, “Nil Satis Nisi Optimum”, meaning “Nothing but the best is good enough”.
The ties were first worn by Kelly and the Everton chairman, Mr. E. Green, on the first day of the 1938–39 season.
The club rarely incorporated a badge of any description on its shirts. An interwoven “EFC” design was adopted between 1922 and 1930 before the club reverted to plain royal blue shirts, until 1973 when bold “EFC” lettering was added. The crest designed by Kelly was first used on the team’s shirts in 1980 and has remained there ever since, undergoing gradual change to become the version used today.
Nickname
Everton’s most widely recognised nickname is “The Toffees” or “The Toffeemen”, which came about after Everton had moved to Goodison. There are several explanations for how this name came to be adopted, the most well known being that there was a business in Everton village, between Everton Brow and Brow Side, named Mother Noblett’s, a toffee shop, which advertised and sold sweets, including the Everton Mint. It was also located opposite the lock up which Everton’s club crest is based on. The Toffee Lady tradition in which a girl walks around the perimeter of the pitch before the start of a game tossing free Everton Mints into the crowd symbolises the connection. Another possible reason is that there was a house named Ye Anciente Everton Toffee House in nearby Village Street, Everton, run by Ma Bushell. The toffee house was located near the Queen’s Head hotel in which early club meetings took place.
Everton have had many other nicknames over the years. When the black kit was worn Everton were nicknamed “The Black Watch”, after the famous army regiment. Since going blue in 1901, Everton have been given the simple nickname “The Blues”. Everton’s attractive style of play led to Steve Bloomer calling the team “scientific” in 1928, which is thought to have inspired the nickname “The School of Science”. While the battling 1995 FA Cup winning side were known as “The Dogs of War”. When David Moyes arrived as manager he proclaimed Everton as “The People’s Club”, which has been adopted as a semi-official club nickname.
Stadia
For more details on this topic, see Goodison Park.
Goodison Park
Everton originally played in the southeast corner of Stanley Park, which is the site for the new Liverpool F.C. stadium, with the first official match taking place in 1879. In 1882, a man named J. Cruitt donated land at Priory Road which became the club’s home before they moved to Anfield, which was Everton’s home until 1892. At this time, a dispute of how the club was to be owned and run emerged with Anfield’s owner and Everton’s chairman, John Houlding. A dispute between Houlding and the club’s committee over how the club should be run, led to Houlding attempting to gain full control of the club by registering the company, “Everton F.C. and Athletic Grounds Ltd”. In response, Everton left Anfield for a new ground, Goodison Park, where the club have played ever since. Houlding attempted to take over Everton’s name, colours, fixtures and league position, but was denied by The Football Association. Instead, Houlding formed a new club, Liverpool F.C..
Ever since those events, a fierce rivalry has existed between Everton and Liverpool, albeit one that is generally perceived as more respectful than many other derbies in English football. This was illustrated by a chain of red and blue scarves that were linked between the gates of both grounds across Stanley Park as a tribute to the Liverpool fans killed in the Hillsborough disaster.
Goodison Park, the first major football stadium to be built in England, was opened in 1892. Goodison Park has staged more top-flight football games than any other ground in the United Kingdom and was the only English club ground to host a semi-final at the 1966 FIFA World Cup. It was also the first English ground to have undersoil heating, the first to have two tiers on all sides.
The church grounds of St Luke the Evangelist are adjacent to the corner of the Main Stand and the Gwladys Street Stand.
On matchdays players walk out to the theme tune to Z-Cars, named Johnny Todd, a traditional Liverpool children’s song collected in 1890 by Frank Kidson which tells the story of a sailor betrayed by his lover while away at sea.
Everton’s reserves play at Halton Stadium in Widnes.
Proposed new stadium
For more details on Kirkby Project, see The Kirkby Project.
There have been indications since 1996 that Everton will move to a new stadium. The original plan was for a new 60,000-seat stadium to be built, but in 2000, a proposal was submitted to build a 55,000 seat stadium as part of the King’s Dock regeneration. This was unsuccessful as Everton failed to generate the £30 million needed for a half stake in the stadium project, with the city council rejecting Everton FC in 2003.
Late in 2004, driven by Liverpool Council and the Northwest Development Corporation, the club was in talks with Liverpool FC regarding sharing a stadium on grade two listed Stanley Park. Negotiations broke down as Everton failed to raise 50% of the costs. On 11 January 2005, Liverpool announced that ground-sharing was not a possibility, proceeding to plan their own Stanley Park stadium.
On 16 June 2006, it was announced that Everton had entered into talks with Knowsley Council and Tesco over the possibility of building a new 55,000 seat stadium in Kirkby. The stadium is expandable to over 60,000. The club took the unusual move of giving its supporters a say in the club’s future by holding a ballot on whether or not to move to Kirkby. The ballot returned 59.27% in favour. However, an inquiry into the move to the Kirkby stadium was filed 6 August 2008, delaying the construction by at least 18 months. The government has now rejected Everton’s plans to move. Local and regional politicians are attempting to put together an amended rescue plan. Liverpool City Council have called a meeting with Everton FC with a view to assess some suitable sites they have short listed within the city boundary.
The Football Association’s bid for the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup includes a bid from the city of Liverpool to host some games. Everton have stated that without a new stadium the club would not be able to host such matches.
Experiencing European Culture in Liverpool
February 18th, 2010 dave787 
Why has this once dreary waterfront city been dubbed a European culture capital?Bruce Schoenfeld finds more than just memorabilia in the Beatles’ hometown.
From April 2008 By Bruce Schoenfeld
Around the corner from where I’m standing is the marketing office for the Paradise Project, poised to pump $2 billion into urban renewal that will transform Liverpool’s center in the coming months. But for now, a busker with a guitar huddles against the chill of a bleak November afternoon in an alley off Williamson Street. He works his way through the dustier corners of the Beatles canon, doing a passable Paul on “Things We Said Today,” an uncanny John on “You Can’t Do That.” Pedestrians hurry by without a glance.
They’ll never dress up Liverpool, I can’t help thinking. They’ve named it a European Capital of Culture for 2008, invested billions in construction, built a fancy terminal for cruise ships on the river Mersey, but it still won’t be fashionable. Always off to the side, out of the mainstream, a gussied-up sailors’ town disdained by London (and all but abandoned for years by the British government), it’s quirky and strong-flavored: England’s Baltimore, but with far worse weather.
And that, I suspect, is why I keep coming back. In an increasingly homogenized world, Liverpool remains like nowhere else. People talk singularly, almost incomprehensibly, favoring guttural “oo’s” and other lower-register grunts. “You all right?” they greet each other, as if fearing the worst. Their stubborn pride in all things local is coupled with a lack of interest in outside opinions, an almost preternatural insularity that’s especially unusual in a port. The journalist Paul du Noyer describes Liverpool as “not a provincial city but the capital of itself,” and its hegemony, though limited in scope, is firm. If you’re from here, you typically remain. If you aren’t, you’re unlikely to even visit. Of my half-dozen London friends, none have ever seen it.
Like a handful of the world’s great cities—Venice, Moscow, San Francisco—Liverpool looks better in the rain, which is fortunate given the annual precipitation rate. Its architectural bravado, manifested over hundreds of years in soaring cathedrals, Victorian mansions, and ambitious skyscrapers, shows best against a dun-colored backdrop. When I think of Liverpool, I tend to see the sculpted cormorants atop the magnificent Liver Building, backed by a leaden sky. Or the stands of Anfield, where the famous Liverpool Football Club plays, backed by a leaden sky. Or the spires and smokestacks of the Wirral, across the Mersey, backed by… You get the idea.
Yet Scousers, which is what people from the area call themselves (after scouse, a ubiquitous meat-and-potato stew), are as sunny as their weather is grim. Warm and amiable, they’re eager for a laugh. “The world’s worst disaster will happen, and the Scousers will make the first jokes about it,” says Paul Askew, one of Liverpool’s top chefs. The grayness lends a reassuring sense of solidity, a fortification against the cruel vicissitudes of fashion. Suffice it to say that there won’t be a Nobu Liverpool anytime soon, or the Liverpool X Games. Liverpool is where trends go to die.
It isn’t surprising to learn that Paul Simon wrote “Homeward Bound,” his wistful ode to getting the heck out of town, at Liverpool’s Runcorn station. That sentiment tends to be the reaction of short-termers, first-timers, and anyone in search of the smooth, the comfortable, or the pretty. Liverpool mistrusts the contrived and self-invented, or anything overly glossy or blatantly marketed. “If Liverpool was a person, I wouldn’t sleep with it,” Courtney Love once remarked. I like to believe that Liverpool would return the sentiment.
But spend time here and you might come to love it. If you do, it’s yours forever. Liverpool is nothing if not steadfast. Once every generation or so, it offers up a renowned band or a fine soccer team or a distinguished piece of design, yet when the klieg lights have dimmed it shows itself to be just the same as before. Liverpool digests change like the snake digests the mouse, showing it to grotesque effect at first, but ultimately not at all.
A city less sure-footed might have Disneyfied the Beatles, transforming itself into a sort of Fab Four theme park. Not Liverpool. What remains of Strawberry Field is a graffiti-covered sign on a gate; Penny Lane is a dingy row of terraced houses. Instead, the city still has the same raffish, slightly seedy feel—“a certain black style of its own, a private strength and humour and awareness,” as the author Nik Cohn put it—that was evident in the first two-tone photos of the lads, leather-jacketed, their collars upturned against the wind. And those collars were no affectation. There’s wind, all right.
I’ve been eating well in Liverpool, including a dense but delicious pork sampler at Spire Restaurant, just off Penny Lane, and a particularly fine piece of calf’s liver at the unassuming Side Door. But my most compelling find is Paul Askew’s London Carriage Works. Askew lived here for much of his childhood, then followed his seafaring father to Asia. Now he’s determined to earn Liverpool’s first Michelin star, even if that means creating a more sophisticated dining experience than many customers desire. Some arrive at his handsome restaurant of two-colored brick, step past a striking glass sculpture, and have the temerity to ask for scouse, the local staple.
Askew’s cooking is country French layered atop traditional English. I ate a rabbit terrine larded with foie gras, then an exquisite slab of rare venison with braised root vegetables. It seemed Michelin-worthy to me. But the wine list was full of bottles that didn’t exist—not there, anyway—and service was timid and distracted. When I told Askew, he nodded sadly, well aware of the pitfalls of almost singlehandedly attempting to lift a city’s cuisine. “It’s the old Field of Dreams, isn’t it?” he said. “Build it and they will come. Or maybe not. But if you don’t build it, they’ll never come.”
The chef proposes to show me a traditional Liverpool lunch, done up right. Askew arrives with his seven-year-old, Harry, and a long face. He’d wanted me to see an oyster house he’d known in his youth, a long-forgotten landmark, but it turns out to have been sold and rebranded. Instead, we head to a pub said to make regional dishes with flair, only to find it hawking Mexican barbecue. Yet another has become part of a brewery-owned chain.
It’s three o’clock by now and I’m due at a soccer match, so we route the taxi to Anfield, where the streets are overrun with fans. We end up at a crowded pie shop eating, of all things, scouse, which—in this version, at least—tastes almost exactly like a can of Dinty Moore. “I guess it was fate that I confront my nemesis,” Askew says, spooning up the gelatinous mass with a determined face while Harry looks on in horror. “It’s the local culture, right there in a bowl.”
Somewhere high on the very short list of objects and entities even more beloved by Scousers than scouse is the Liverpool Football Club. From 1975 to 1984, Liverpool topped England’s Football Association seven times, and captured the European Championship—contested annually by the Continent’s best clubs—four times. These days, the Reds don’t have the resources of the London and Manchester behemoths, yet they nevertheless made a stunning run to the top of Europe in 2005, and another to the European Cup final match in 2007.
Anfield has been called soccer’s Fenway Park, though from the outside it seems a particularly unlovely factory. The field is an otherworldly green, all that moisture put to good effect. The scale is intimate, and everyone in the tightly packed stands wears red. Before each match, they rise in unison and sing the Rodgers & Hammerstein standard “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” once recorded by Liverpool’s Gerry and the Pacemakers. The song is syrupy, but as rendered by 40,000 true believers it sounds poignantly heartfelt. Even rival fans have been known to cry.
Last year, two American businessmen bought the Liverpool team. They’ve received permission from the city council to construct a $600 million stadium full of luxury boxes and other baldly capitalist amenities. I assumed Liverpool fans would be alarmed, bordering on rebellious, but the prevailing emotion seems to be a fatalistic kind of optimism. “It has to be done,” explains John Aldridge, 49, who grew up shouting for the team from the stands, then played for it, and now serves as a broadcaster. “It will be a sad day, but you have to be thick-skinned. A club has to vie on the money side today or it can’t compete.”
Aldridge and I see Liverpool win an impressive match against Fulham. Then he takes me for a drive. We head past Dingle, the squalid South Liverpool neighborhood where Ringo Starr grew up, to Garston, where Aldridge spent his childhood in even less desirable circumstances. He lived beside a tannery, the smell of which, he says, was almost unbearable. “And I didn’t have an indoor toilet until I was 21,” he says. “That was 1979. Not so long ago.” We pass the famously rough Mariners Pub—known for the one-liner: “I went to a fight at the Mariners and a pub broke out”—and Cast Iron Shore, the muddy riverbank where Aldridge and fellow urchins picked through the remains of beached ships. It all looks burned-out, hollow, depopulated. We can’t visit his home, or even his street, because the neighborhood has been razed. “European Union,” he says. “They gave us money to knock down the whole place and start over.”
But soon the urban landscape begins to change, and the effect of recent investment begins to show. A decommissioned airport terminal is now a swank Marriott. A former match factory has become prime office space. I begin to understand why Aldridge and others like him, the true Scousers who came from next to nothing, are sanguine about their prospects. “You have to move forward,” he says. “It won’t change Liverpool. It’ll bring opportunity.”
I already feel the difference. The old Moat House hotel, now demolished, used to cater to a mature demographic; it felt like a VFW convention had gathered at the bar. Instead I find Print hotel, a members-only club with a clientele two generations younger. It has music pulsing, no reception area, and six spacious, starkly designed guest rooms. It couldn’t be better situated, straddling the main shopping area and the Cavern Quarter of bars and clubs. Even more comfortable is the Malmaison, part of a small chain that specializes in retrofitting historic buildings. This one is newly built and has a Vegas feel. Rooms are dark, with black leather and wood. Shampoo and conditioner come in eight-ounce tubes and are meant to be taken home. A sleek lamp is turned on by tapping its base.
Best of all is the Hope Street Hotel, a converted furniture store in the Georgian Quarter, near several repertory theaters, the Liverpool Philharmonic, and the best restaurants. My room has two walls of exposed brick that are more than a century old. The floors and furniture are polished wood, the bathroom sink resembles an oversize salad bowl. The window faces the vast Liverpool Cathedral, a red sandstone masterpiece constructed over much of the 20th century that is the fifth-largest church in the world.
But up next, a few doors down Mathew Street from where the Beatles played the Cavern, is the Hard Days Night Hotel. With Beatles-themed rooms and other nostalgic kitschiness, it’s just the kind of blatant attempt at commercialization that seems bound to fail here. At the reconstructed Cavern, and at other nearby bars, the music scene is still thriving—as it has since the Merseybeat years, through Echo & the Bunnymen, the Teardrop Explodes, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Walking past this neighborhood at night, I’m aware of an excitement, even a frisson of danger. I can envision the middle-class suburban teenagers Lennon and McCartney arriving in the heart of this unpolished city, tramping cautiously down Mathew Street with their battered guitars: a sharply rendered image that connects me to the Beatles’ Liverpool years far better than some hotel room decorated for a song they wrote ever could.
That evening i visit the Tate Liverpool, in the converted warehouses of the Albert dock development, to view the installations nominated for the Turner Prize. Then I settle in on a bench behind the museum, overlooking the river. The sun has set, and the lights on the far bank glow yellow in the dusk. I spot a packet ferry leaving the Wirral, then track it as it crosses.
Not surprisingly, I can’t get the old Gerry and the Pacemakers’ song “Ferry ’Cross the Mersey” out of my head. I hear Gerry Marsden singing “This land’s the place I love/And here I’ll stay,” words that have enticed me since I first encountered them, not long after the song’s 1964 release. It occurs to me that I fell for Liverpool then, decades before I ever saw it.
I see the boat glide to the dock beneath the Liver Building, and the passengers stride off the gangway with an eager step. I look up and notice that it has just started to rain.
Places of Interest in Liverpool
February 18th, 2010 dave787 
Yellow Submarine
Chavasse Park, Liverpool.
This full-size replica of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine was specially built for the 1984 International Garden Festival. It now takes pride of place in Chavasse Park (across from the Albert Dock).
Eleanor Rigby
Stanley Street, Liverpool.
This sculpture of Eleanor Rigby sitting on a bench was created by the famous all-singing and dancing Sixties entertainer Tommy Steele.
Beatles statue
Cavern Walks shopping centre, Liverpool.
This statue of the Beatles can be found in Cavern Walks shopping centre.
“Four lads who shook the world” statue
Mathew Street
This sculpture – created by local artist Arthur Dooley in 1974 – is mounted on the wall above the Mood Indigo bar and depicts Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr as three cherubs in the arms of Mother Liverpool. John Lennon is represented as a small cherub situated to the right of the main sculpture.
John Lennon statue
Mathew Street
A statue depicting John Lennon in the Beatles’ Hamburg era.
Tours
Magical Mystery Tour
Tel: 0151 236 9091
Two hour guided tour of Beatles-related locations across Liverpool in a replica of the famous Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour bus.
Beatles Car Tours
Tel: 0151 707 9313
Personalised car tour that takes you through Beatles’ Liverpool.
Takuji Abe
Tel: 0151 220 9543
Japanese-speaking Beatles guide. Blue Badge approved.
