DAVIE WILSON THE FIRST £100,000 EVERTON PLAYER – ALMOST – Steve Zocek

by Steve Zocek Comment Closed
Davie Wilson played for Glasgow Rangers from 1956 until 1967. During that time, he made 373 appearances for the Ibrox club. Davie was an outside left who could play anywhere and he wasn’t shy in front of goal either, finding the net 157 times. This included six goals in one game against Falkirk in 1962 which is still a post-war record. Unbeknown to me previously, he caught the eye of Everton when in 1962 he was approached by the Merseyside outfit. Jimmy Greaves at the time was the British record transfer with a fee of £99,999 from AC Milan to Tottenham Hotspurs. Tottenham manager Bill Nicholson didn’t want Jimmy to be the first £100,000 player as he thought the fee might put pressure on him. I caught up with this sprightly 80-year-old to find out about the interest from Everton, and why the move didn’t happen. ‘I was attending to my pigeons in the pigeon loft next...
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Harry Grundy An Everton Winger – Tony Onslow

by Tony Onslow Comment Closed
When Elizabeth Bradley moved to work in Liverpool from Chirk, she caught the eye of William Grundy, then working as Groom, and they were married, in 1870, at the Welsh Chapel dedicated to St David on Brownlow Hill. The couple then settled at 4 Moorside in Neston where the head of the household worked as a Coachman. It was here, on the 15th of March 1883, that their 6th child Thomas Henry was born. He became known affectionately as Harry. The 1891 census finds the family now living at 25 Parkgate Road where William has become the Clerk at the local parish church of St Mary. He was still working at this occupation when Harry, having completed his education, began work as a Bricklayer and play football for West Cheshire League club, Heswell. During the months of Summer, he would earn as much as £80 competing in various athletic events and received accolades for the skill he displayed at the...
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The Charlie Parry Grave Event – 1st March 2019 – Rob Sawyer

by Rob Sawyer Comment Closed
An unprepossessing road in the shadow of Goodison Park, is named Salop Street. Salop, or Shropshire as it is more commonly known, might not, at a first glance, be awash with Everton links but that can be misleading. In fact the, largely rural, county has a loyal Blues following (the Shropshire Blues is the local official supporters club branch). Oswestry, 50 miles from Goodison, has several connections links to Everton that go back to the earliest days of the club. George Farmer, a son of the town and a Welsh international footballer, was a key player in the club’s early days and lined up in the Blue’s first ever Football League match in 1888. More recently, one of the Toffees’ greatest players, Alan Ball, spent his formative years in the area when his father, Alan Ball Senior, was managing Oswestry Town FC. But, it was to mark the life of another former player that EFC Heritage Society came to...
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Winterhalder and Dawson, Everton Wingers – Tony Onslow

by Tony Onslow Comment Closed
Signed to cover the abrupt exit of the Wilson brothers, Arthur Winterhalder, a promising Outside Left, joined Everton from West Ham United. He was descended from a family of Clockmakers who had emigrated from Germany to settle in the Marylebone area of London. His Father Richard did not choose to follow this profession but decided instead to enlisted in the 3rd Dragoon Guards and was stationed at Colchester when he married local girl, Martha Gibbons. Around 1878 Richard left the Army to work as a Carter at Stratford in London. In 1883 he took up position as a Carriers Agent and moved the family to Oxford where Arthur, his 6th child, was born at the 13th of October 1884. The family and missing from 1901 census but records reveal that Arthur Winterhalder married Lucy Skinner, at West Ham, early in 1906. He was reported as being … a local amateur who hails from Wanstead when he made his Southern...
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