Month: November 2018

John Arthur Eyton-Jones. There was a “larger than usual” crowd of Journalists filling the Anfield Press Stand when the Everton players took to field, on the 7 of January 1888, to play Nottingham Rangers. They were here to record what side the club executive would place in field following the one-monthsuspension they had incurred for paying players they had imported fromNorth of the Border. The Scots had now departed so they were obligedto fill the vacant positions with local amateur players who were eligible for selection. One of them, John Arthur Eyton-Jones, had been born, 1863, at Wrexham in North Wales.   The 1871 census records that Thomas Eyton-Jones is living with his Wife Sarah at Priory Street in Wrexham where they are waited up on by 5 servants. They have 3 sons Thomas John and Hugh who attend the local Grove Park School. On the 8th of October 1880, the name of JA Eyton-Jones appears playing football, for Saffron Waldron Town in...

Thomas Horn Fayer. Unlike many of early Everton football players, who met on Stanley Park, Thomas Fayer came not come from the newly established Anglican community around the Breckfield Road area but from their Anglo-Irish neighbours in another part of Everton. His Father William, had been born in Preston where he had met and married Newry born Anna Horn before moving to settle at 151 Great Homer Street in Liverpool. Their first child Thomas, was born here on the 11th of January 1866 and baptised at the church of St Anthony. The family later moved to Rokerby Street where 2 additions to the family were baptised at the church of St Francis Xavier. The Liverpool newspapers do not mention where Fayer developed his football skills but he is first reported, playing for Everton, against Bootle at the start of the 1885-86 season. He took a while to settle in with his team mates until he gained some plaudits, from the Lancashire press, for...

  When Harry Parkinson arrived at the Thornyholme Ground, he had intended to watch a Football League match but instead found himself taking part. He had been born, 9th of December 1866, in Oswaldtwistle, and spent the early years of his life, along with his Mother Catherine, living at the Star Inn where his Grandfather is Landlord. At the time of the 1881 census, Catherine is now the Landlady while her son has started to work as a Weaver in the Cotton Industry. Being brought up in a beer drinking environment may have been the reason why Harry developed an aversion to alcohol for he is now a confirmed teetotaller and playing football for a working mans club known as Bells Temperance. They enter the 1885- 86 Lancashire Junior Cup and, after disposing of Everton, win the trophy by beating Darwen Rovers, 6-2, in the final tie at Fleetwood. Next season Harry Parkinson, and his team mates, again reached the final, which was...

Problems, due to injured players, forced the Everton selectors to “look elsewhere” in order to strengthen the team for an away fixture against Northwich Victoria. They enlisted the help of Frederick G Heaton. He had been born, 1858, near the Staffordshire town of Leek where his Father Edwin was a Land Agent. Frederick, the 5th children born to his wife Elizabeth, appears on the 1861 census living at Basford Villa, Chaddesden and first appears playing football, under the rules of Staffordshire FA, at Lichfield in 1879. Around this time, he moved to Liverpool where he became a Cotton Dealer and took rooms, in property owned by Mrs Hale, at 168 Bedford Street. Frederick Heaton was almost certainly acquainted with Robert E Lythgoe, an experienced footballer, who was a committee member of the North Wales FA. Now residing in Wirral, he was the architect behind the formation of the Birkenhead Football Association in 1879. Heaton was in the side when they faced Everton,...