Rob Sawyer
Everton FC left Anfield in 1892, never to return. Right? Well, not quite.
The schism in the Everton committee that led the Toffees to up sticks to Goodison Park on the site of Mere Green Field, leaving John Houlding to form a new club, Liverpool FC, to play at the vacated ground is well documented. However, by the time Houlding passed away in 1902, much of the antagonism had abated, and Everton players were among the pall bearers at his funeral.
Further evidence of the thawing of relations between the once bitter rivals came in the summer of 1909. The Blues had commissioned Archibald Leitch to design and oversee the construction of the Goodison Road stand – the start of an enduring relationship with the Glaswegian which shaped ‘Toffeeopolis.’
With it being clear that work on this gargantuan double-decker edifice would hinder pre-season activity, a telegram was sent by Will Cuff, Everton’s secretary, to Liverpool’s chairman, John McKenna, sounding out the Reds’ amenability to the Blues vs Stripes pre-season trial match (the expected first team versus reserves team) on 26 August. To his huge credit, McKenna replied without hesitation in the affirmative.
The match, played against the backdrop of a potential national players’ strike, took place at 5:45pm on Thursday 26 August. 10,000 turned up to watch the match, a unique experience for many Blues to call Anfield ‘home’, albeit for just 90 minutes.
The line-ups were:
Blues: Scott, R. Balmer, Maconnachie (captain), Adamson, Taylor, Clifford, Buck, White, Freeman, Young, Turner.
Stripes: Berry, Stevenson, Meunier, Rafferty, Borthwick, Weller, Michaels, Lacey, Gourley, Anderson, Mountford.
Played in what the Daily Post described as ‘charming weather’ the Blues came through 2-1 winners. Gourlay had given the Stripes a first half lead, but Wattie White equalised with a curling shot just before the change of ends. The Scot added a second to secure victory for the first string. The Liverpool Courier reported wrote:
The outcome of the game, although is represented the League team as winning by two goals to one, left the spectators with the conviction that Everton have a reliable and clever lot of men in their reserves team.
When the league season got underway on 1 September (a midweek match), Wattie White was on target once more in a 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednesday, watched by 15,000. The new stand – which ‘Bee’ Edwards would dub the Mauretania (after the famous liner) was not complete, but would become a defining symbol of Goodison Park until its demolition in 1969-1970.
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