Liverpool take on Arsenal at Wembley later today in the Community Shield match that traditionally marks the beginning of a new football season. The official record shows that Liverpool won this competition for the first time only as recently as 1964 but, as highlighted in an earlier blog, Liverpool won the Sherriff of London Charity Shield (an early forerunner of the current competition) way back in 1906 https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/08/liverpool-fc-second-decade-1900-1910.html
Liverpool with the (gigantic) Sheriff of London Charity Shield in 1906
(following a 5-1 victory over Corinthian)
The Community/Charity Shield match is always a natural prompter for thinking of the season ahead, still full of promise and prospect for everyone.
Although
now heading into his 6th season as manager, Liverpool’s love affair
with Jurgen Klopp still feels fresh and giddy - such is the nature of true
love. And all those past managerial loves of recent years now seem like bad
mistakes (e.g. Roy Hodgson) or mere practice runs (e.g. Brendan Rodgers) for
the real thing.
Jurgen Klopp with his 2019-2020 squad
Having
done a ‘where are they now’ review in an earlier blog on Klopp’s first team in
charge of Liverpool https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/07/liverpool-fc-in-time-of-klopp-beginnings.html , now
on the eve of a new season is a good time to see where Liverpool’s best starting
team is at in terms of Klopp’s loving imprint, and how many of the key players
are mere mementoes from managerial old flames.
Based
on an analysis of minutes played in the Premier League for the 2019-2020 season,
I have assembled here the most frequently used first eleven Liverpool players
for the Premier League season gone by. Virgil van Dijk played the most (3,420
minutes) of any Liverpool player, with Joe Gomez just making it into the top 11
as the 4th defender, on 1,999 minutes.
The
next question then is how many of those most frequently used first eleven
players were signed by Klopp. And the answer is seven: Alisson in goal,
defenders Van Dijk and Andy Robertson, midfielders Fabinho and Wijnaldum and
strikers Mo Salah and Sadio Mane. Therefore, the Klopp ratio for the most
frequently starting Liverpool first eleven in the 2019-2020 Premier League season
is 7/11.
Among
the remaining four players, Trent Alexander-Arnold came through the youth
system. However, Klopp has a good claim on this player, having transformed him
from a winger or midfielder to one of the greatest full-backs in the world.
The
total spend by Klopp for those 7 first team players he’s signed comes in at 292.3 million
pounds from a total spend during his tenure of 435.75 million.
Klopp's three big money signings yet to make sustained impacts are Naby Keita (52.75
million), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (35 million) and Xherdan Shaqiri (13.75
million).
And
the total money taken in from sales during Klopp’s tenure is 363.5 million giving
a balance net spend of 72.25 million pounds, or just over 14 million per season
so far. These are astronomical sums but not when considered in comparison to
the money spent by some other Premier League and European clubs in recent
years.
The
remaining three players not signed by Klopp are all mementoes of past
managerial romances. Brendan Rodgers signed the emerging stalwart defender Joe
Gomez and the wonderful Roberto Firminho.
And
we have to go all the way back to Kenny Dalglish’s second stint as Liverpool
manager when, in 2011, he signed Jordan Henderson, our current captain fantastic.
In
comparison to the previous decade, when Liverpool claimed their first two top
flight titles and also endured relegation (see earlier blog: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/08/liverpool-fc-second-decade-1900-1910.html)
Liverpool’s third decade was mediocre and relatively uneventful, on the
football field at least. In football terms it was just half a decade, with
regular football suspended for four seasons of the decade (1915-1916, 1916-1917,
1917-1918 and 1918-1919) because of the outbreak of World War I.
In
the seasons from 1910-1915 leading up to that wartime suspension, Liverpool’s
final league positions bobbled up and down between a high of 12th
and a low of 17th, but all the while just about maintaining First
Division status. They fared no better in the FA Cup, apart from a first final
appearance in 1914 that ended in a 1-0 defeat to Burnley.
The Liverpool squad for the 1913-1914 season
Liverpool v Burnley in the 1914 FA Cup Final at Crystal Palace
Crucially, some key players
left the club at or just before the start of the decade, including their talismanic
captain Alex Raisbeck, their record goalscorer Sam Raybould and their goalkeeper,
‘Safe and Steady’ Sam Hardy: see earlier blog for more details on Raisbeck and
Raybould: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/08/liverpool-fc-second-decade-1900-1910.html
Alex Raisbeck (1878-1949) who played 312 times for Liverpool between 1898 and 1909 and also won 8 international caps with Scotland
Sam Raybould (1875-1949) scored 120 goals in his 211 games
for Liverpool between 1900 and 1907
Sam Hardy (1882-1966) played 219 games for Liverpool from 1905-1912
War-time
football consisted of a Lancashire Principal Tournament and Lancashire
Subsidiary Tournaments, with Liverpool winning the former in 1916-1917 and the
latter in 1917-1918 and 1918-1919.
After Tom Watson's untimely death at 62 from pneumonia, contracted after attending the last match
of the 1914-1915 season, Liverpool had no manager during the war until the managerial reins were
taken over by David Ashworth for the first post-war regular football season in
1919-1920 (for more on Tom Watson, see earlier blog: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/08/liverpool-fc-second-decade-1900-1910.html).
Tom Watson (1859-1915), still Liverpool's longest serving manager (1896-1915)
David Ashworth (1867-1947) who managed Liverpool from 1919 to 1923
Further
details on captains, final league positions, FA Cup performances and top scorers
are provided at the end of the blog, where you will note (with the exception of
Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion) the absolute dominance of northern clubs
in both the First Division and FA Cup, and not a single London team in sight as
winners of anything. Also of note is the strong pre-war performance of Everton,
winning the First Division title just before the suspension of regular
football, something that would happen again in the 1938-1939 season on the eve
of World War II. Coincidentally, Liverpool would start both post-war periods
strongly.
By the end of Liverpool's third decade in 1919-1920, the roll of honour for FA Cup and league champions was also starting to take shape. For FA Cup wins, Aston Villa led the way on six. For First Division titles, Aston Villa also led the way, again on six wins, followed by Sunderland on five. A century later these two old giants have finished the 2019-2020 season just hanging on to top flight football (in the case of Aston Villa) and languishing in the depths of third tier football (in the case of poor old Sunderland).
Punch magazine, October 1914. Critical of the football season continuing after the outbreak of war, the older man is saying: 'No doubt you can make money in this field, my friend, but there's only one field today where you can get honour'.
Despite
being relatively uneventful in footballing terms, there are a few key events
worth reflecting on from Liverpool’s third decade.
1914 FA Cup Final
When
Liverpool reached their first FA Cup Final in 1914 they were the only club to
date to have won a First Division title and not won the FA Cup. Liverpool made
tough going of the early rounds of the FA Cup, struggling to get past Barnsley,
Gillingham, West Ham United and Queens Park Rangers before pulling off a shock
to beat Aston Villa in the semi-final at White Hart Lane and make the final as slight
favourites. It is estimated that over 20,000 Liverpool fans made the journey
south for the final, the last of 19 finals to be played at Crystal Palace. The
game’s only goal came from Burnley’s Bertram Freeman three minutes into the
second half of what was described as a ‘largely dour struggle’. It would be
over half a century later before Liverpool finally won their first FA Cup. In the link below you can find a few minutes of grainy soundless footage from the 1914 FA Cup Final:
Looking
over the 1914 FA Cup Final programme leads me on to some further points of interest.
Firstly, the team formations seem very different to the modern set-up. In front
of the goalkeeper are two full-backs, then a line of three half-backs and then
a line of five forwards. Clearly a stark contrast to modern 4-4-2 or 3-5-2
formations, it’s hard to imagine a match played out with ten forwards. However,
based on that FA Cup Final at least, the apparently attacking formations did
not lead to a flood of goals.
Copy of the programme from the 1914 FA Cup Final - note the 'upside down' team formations in the top left of the image, with each team apparently fielding a line of 5 forwards
Four
players on that Liverpool team-sheet would go on to earn some infamy in 1915.
Jackie Sheldon, Tom Fairfoul, Tom Miller and Bob Pursell were to be handed life
bans for their parts in a betting related match fixing scandal. The match in
question was played against Manchester United on Good Friday 1915, with the
Liverpool players allowing United to win 2-0. Three of the United players also received
bans for their parts in the conspiracy. However, all but one of the players had
their sentences lifted after World War I in recognition of their military
service and one (Sandy Turnbull of Manchester United) was killed in the war.
Four
of the Burnley team in the 1914 FA Cup Final programme were England
internationals at the time of the match. While Ephraim Longworth, Liverpool’s left
back on the day, would later go on to become the club’s first representative to
captain England, Liverpool’s only current international on that FA Cup Final
team was Irish international Bill Lacey, from Enniscorthy in Co. Wexford.
Lacey
would join Elisha Scott from Belfast in becoming the two most iconic and
successful Irishmen to play for Liverpool FC in those early days.
But more
on Lacey and Scott in a future blog, because their heydays were yet to come.
A new decade in store - the Liverpool team in 1919-1920
Liverpool FC: the third decade in
summary
Season 1910-1911
Manager:
Tom Watson
Captain:
Arthur Goddard
Top
scorer: Jack Parkinson (20)
League
position: First Division, 13th (Winners: Manchester United, their
second win)
FA
Cup: 2nd round (Winners: Bradford City, their first win)
1911-1912
Manager:
Tom Watson
Captain:
Arthur Goddard
Top
scorer: Jack Parkinson (13)
League
position: 17th (Winners: Blackburn Rovers, their first win)
FA
Cup: 2nd round (Winners: Barnsley, their first win)
1912-1913
Manager:
Tom Watson
Captain:
Ephraim Longworth
Top
scorer: Arthur Metcalf (18)
League
position: 12th (Winners: Sunderland, their 5th win)
FA
Cup: 3rd round (Winners: Aston Villa, their 5th win)
1913-1914
Manager:
Tom Watson
Captain:
Harry Lowe
Top
scorer: Tom Miller (20)
League
position: First Division, 16th (Winners: Blackburn Rovers, their
second win)
FA
Cup: Runners up (Winners: Burnley, their first win)
1914-1915
Manager:
Tom Watson
Captain:
Harry Lowe
Top
scorer: Fred Pagnam (26)
League
position: 13th (Winners: Everton, their second win)
FA
Cup: 2nd round (Winners: Sheffield United, their third win)
1915-1916, 1916-1917,
1917-1918, 1918-1919: War-time football with no regular manager
or regular captain. Liverpool won the Lancashire Principal Tournament in
1916-1917 and the Lancashire Subsidiary Tournament in 1917-1918 and 1918-1919.
1919-1920
Manager:
David Ashworth
Captain:
Ephraim Longworth and Don McKinlay
Top
scorer: Harry Chambers (15)
League
position: First Division, 4th (Winners: West Bromwich Albion, their
first win)
FA
Cup: 4th round (Winners: Aston Villa, their 6th win)
Last Easter I wrote a two part blog about the first All-Ireland hurling championship, the final of which was played on Easter Sunday 1888 when Thurles of Tipperary defeated Meelick of Galway:
In the following decade, the hurlers of the Tubberadora club won All-Ireland titles for Tipperary in 1895, 1896 and 1898. Such was the legendary status of Tubberadora that their famous blue and gold was later adopted as the county colours of Tipperary. And such was their dominance that Ireland’s leading sports historian Paul Rouse has likened them to Alexander the Great, retiring undefeated ‘with no known worlds left to conquer’: https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/gaa/arid-20419254.html
Boherlahan-Dualla is the name of the GAA club that now covers the old Tubberadora territory.
One of the few photographs of the legendary Tubberadora hurling team
Plaque commemorating the three All-Ireland winning Tubberadora teams
While those late 19th Century hurlers of Tubberadora are immortalised in memory and in (literally) the very fabric of the modern Tipperary jersey, just ten miles south of Tubberadora lived another 19th century Tipperary sporting hero, one who is largely forgotten.
Lena Rice of Marlhill, New Inn, came from a very different background to the Tubberadora hurlers, being Protestant, wealthy and growing up on a large estate. But just like her neighbours from Tubberadora, she also had a brief and glorious sporting career.
Rice first played tennis at home with her family in Marlhill, where they are believed to have ‘entertained lavishly’, and subsequently at the Cahir Lawn Tennis Club. In her first tennis competitions outside of Tipperary she played in the Irish championships in Fitzwilliam in May 1889. There she lost narrowly (7-5, 7-5) in the semi-final to Blanche Hillyard, one of the leading players of the time. Partnered with Hillyard, she reached the doubles final and, with Willoughby Hamilton, she won the mixed doubles final.
Lena Rice
Willoughby Hamilton
Blanche Hillyard
After playing in Dublin, Rice went on to play at Wimbledon in June 1889 where she reached the women’s final, losing out narrowly again to Blanche Hillyard 4-6, 8-6, 6-4. Also of note in the 1899 Wimbledon championships, Lena Rice became the first woman to officiate at Wimbledon.
1890 started with success for Rice in both doubles events at the Irish championships and a singles final defeat to Louise Martin. But in a hint of the success to come later that summer, she went on to win the singles title at Lansdowne.
And then came her crowning glory when, on July 4th 1890 at Centre Court in Wimbledon, Lena Rice beat May Jacks 6-4, 6-1 to become the first and to date only Irishwoman to win a Wimbledon singles final. 1890 turned out to be quite a year for Irish players at Wimbledon, with the aforementioned Willoughby Hamilton becoming the first Irishman to win the singles title and the men’s doubles title being won by Irish duo Joshua Pim and Frank Stoker (a cousin of Bram, the creator of Dracula).
Considering the timing of her Wimbledon victory, coming just a few years from the All-Ireland hurling successes of her near neighbours in Tubberadora, one has to wonder if they had any mutual admiration or even awareness of their sporting achievements, or if their societal and religious differences meant that they lived in 19th century parallel universes.
After her glorious Wimbledon summer in 1890, Lena Rice then quietly disappeared from tennis and never played again, just as the name Tubberadora disappeared from hurling a few years later. Rice was the second youngest of eight children and her father had died young so it may be that, after her mother’s death in 1891, she had to support her family and thus give up on her sport.
The 1901 census records Helena (Lena) Rice, then aged 34, as living in Marlhill with her older sister Caroline. The religion of the sisters is recorded as ‘Church of Ireland’ and their occupation is recorded as ‘Owner of Land and Dividend’. Also in the house on that census night were Mary and Josephine Hally (also sisters, presumably) who were Roman Catholic teenagers and both recorded as ‘Domestic Servant’.
Census record for the Rice family at Marlhill in 1901
By the time of the 1911 census a decade later, there are no Rice family members recorded as living at Marlhill. Lena had died on only her 41st birthday, in 1907. She was never married. Tuberculosis, the cause of her death and the great plague of its day, did not recognise societal divides such as wealth, religion or social class.
In a subsequent link between Lena Rice and her neighbouring hurling heroes, Marlhill was purchased in 1938 ‘by the well known Leahy family of Boherlahan of hurling fame’:
Since posting this piece, I have been informed that New Inn Tennis Club holds an annual Lena Rice Tournament - many thanks to Dr. Noreen Keating for this information. Dr. Keating is a leading light of the nearby Kilfeacle Tennis Club and an all-round superstar.
Our family discovered the
sport of stone skimming during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. After those initial few
weeks of near total lockdown, when we were able to venture out with our children from the confines of our own house and backyard and give the trampoline
a well-earned rest, our first 2 kilometre-limited forays were down to the banks
of the Shannon. We have a secret spot by the river known only to ourselves, shrouded by a young
forest and accessible by climbing and scrambling across an array of fences
and ditches.
There we waded into the
water in our bare feet and savoured the liberating feeling of the great river, Ireland's Mississippi. We
took photos and threw sticks for our dog. We waved at passing boats like we
were holidaying happily on some tropical island. We talked about building a riverside fort, like Brian Boru's one on the opposite bank.
And then we started skimming stones.
Our secret skimming spot
I’m not sure who started the stone skimming,
but soon we were all at it. The learning curve for the children was steep but
rapid. We tried our best to
demonstrate to them the main components of skimming a stone across the
surface of the water but found that, a bit like explaining any automatic action,
such as opening a door or kicking a ball, it was hard to do in words.
So us parents threw stones and our children watched. Then they threw stones and we watched. And we critiqued each
other’s efforts and went again. And then we gathered more stones, discussing their physical merits and skimming potential. Over a few weeks, the whole process
started to become natural.
On our walk down to the river, the children would
stop when they found stones that looked like ‘good ones’ so that they would
have their pockets full by the time we made it to the river bank. And then they
gradually and unconsciously learned the different parts of the skimming action,
with occasional stops for performance analysis, breaking down and building up
again the different arcs of movement involved, the way a golfer might analyse their swing.
There’s the stance, the big sidelong swing of the arm and the simultaneous spin
of the stone, and the follow-through. Slow is smooth - smooth is fast.
In the first few days, maybe
only one in ten of the children’s stones would skim atall, and even then there
might only be two or three reluctant little jumps out of the stone before it
hurtled down to the river bed. But those initial few successes were enough to
get them interested, lining up each new throw with the enthusiasm and optimism
that is only possible with the spirit of a child.
And then we all started to
become experts. Three or four jumps of the stone became an acceptable minimum,
but the target number became at least eight or nine. We discussed the optimal
angle for the stone hitting the water. We discussed the importance of spinning the stone while throwing it.
And when our pockets were empty we waded out into the water in search of slim smooth shards of slate that would produce just a few more moments of skimming magic before darkness fell. We talked a lot about the stones themselves, in terms of their
weight, surface area, thickness and the need for a corner on them that could be
used to get a good spin going.
Slate is one of the most abundant types of stone in our area, with numerous now disused quarries around Ballina, Killoran and Portroe producing a once famous slate of a sea-green colour that has been used to roof countless civic buildings and homes in the Midwest and further afield. Despite being quarried from the Tipperary side of the Shannon it has always been referred to as 'Killaloe Slate', perhaps due to the location of the old canal barges that were once used to carry it away from the area.
Like all sporting endeavours, we started to develop little superstitions with our skimming, so we learned that saying that
a stone looked like a good one often led to a disappointing throw.
And we learned that relaxing and laughing and predicting a bad throw from a
lumpy looking stone frequently led to a pleasantly surprising sequence of skips
across the water. And of course the water and wind were factors too; wild
weather produces sea-like waves on the Shannon and stones don’t skim well when
they have waves to contend with.
Then I started to wonder if stone
skimming was a ‘sport’, however the term sport might be defined. And like all
good ideas, I realised that I was not the first one to have it.
So I read about the
differences between the European 'stone skimming' competitions (http://www.stoneskimming.com/) and the American 'stone skipping' competitions, the highly competitive world championships
held in Scotland (in a disused slate quarry in Easdale) and the United States and the fact that there are world
records for both the numbers of stone 'skips' (an unbelievable 88) and the overall length of a throw (the equally impressive 122 metres) - but all of that is for a future blog, perhaps.
For our family, the COVID-19 restrictions led us to our secret spot by the Shannon where we felt (at least until I did some
research) that we had stumbled upon our own novel sport.
And finally, a verse from William Butler Yeats that's to be found at Thoor Ballylee, Co. Galway, a place once described by Seamus Heaney as 'the most important public building in Ireland'. Yeats lived there with his family during the 1920s, having bought and rebuilt the ruin using, among other things, some of our sea-green slates. And along with mentioning our slate, his deceptively simple half dozen lines captures too the transient nature of all human endeavour, just like our own brief lockdown fling with the sport of stone skimming.
I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George;
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.
With evening approaching, a frantic search for a few final 'good' stones for skimming
In an earlier blog I
focussed on some of the key events in the first decade of Liverpool F.C., from
its formation in 1892 up to the 1898-1899 season. Here is the link to that
blog:
During that first decade,
Liverpool F.C. was formed following a dispute between then Everton F.C. President and the landlord of Anfield,
John Houlding, and Everton F.C.themselves, who were the original tenants of the ground. Everton F.C. walked out of Anfield and Houlding was left with a stadium but with no team. However, with the help of Irish duo John McKenna and William Barclay he went on to rapidly assemble
the Scot laden ‘Team of the Macs' and so Liverpool Football Club came into existence. Liverpool had a roller-coaster ride during that first decade, winning the Lancashire League in 1892-1893 and then winning election to the Football League Second Division in 1893-1894. Liverpool won the Second Division at the first attempt and were thus promoted to the First Division for the 1894-1895 season. This was followed by immediate
relegation and then promotion again for the 1896-1897 season. Despite this topsy turvy start to life in the Football League, Liverpool came
desperately close to winning the First Division in 1898-1899, losing out on the
last day of the season to the then kingpins of English football, Aston Villa.
The sine wave of successes
and failures was even more dramatic for Liverpool’s second decade. Liverpool's maiden First Division title was clinched in 1900-1901,
making Liverpool F.C. as a club the youngest ever champions.
Liverpool F.C. with their maiden First Division trophy
Being crowned league champions for the first time, with the Liver bird (mythical creature and symbol of the city of Liverpool) proudly watching on
The 1900-1901 triumph was then followed by
relegation to the Second Division a few years later in 1903-1904, immediate promotion in
1904-1905 and another First Division title in 1905-1906, making Liverpool the
first team to win Second and First Division titles in successive seasons.
Liverpool in 1905-1906 - their second top flight winning squad
Back row: John Carlin, Alf West, Charlie Wilson, Sam Hardy, Ned Doig, Billy Dunlop, David Murray, Joe Hewitt.
2nd row: William Connell (Trainer), James Hughes, George Lathom, John Hughes, Maurice Parry, Alex Raisbeck, George Fleming, Tom Charlton, Tom Watson (Manager)
3rd row: Robbie Robinson, Jack Parkinson, Sam Raybould.
Front: G. Robinson, James Gorman, Arthur Goddard, Jack Cox, James Garside.
Also, winners of the (gigantic) 1906 Sheriff of London Charity Shield
Another key highlight of
Liverpool’s second decade was the development (under the supervision of John McKenna) at Anfield of the spectator embankment that was initially known as
the Spion Kop, called after a famous battle site between
British and Boer forces in the second Boer War. Now known simply as 'The Kop', it is perhaps the world's most famous football stadium stand.
Incidentally, the Boer Wars
also had an impact on sporting matters in Ireland in the early 20th century, with a number of GAA clubs
in Tipperary and one in Galway being called after Boer leader Christiaan de
Wett, in nationalistic support of the enemy of Ireland’s enemy.
Some hardy looking South African Boers in front of the Spion Kop, site of a famous battle against the British in 1900 during the Second Boer War
The heart of Liverpool Football Club - The Kop, Anfield
Christiaan de Wet (1854-1922) Boer leader and inspiration for Irish nationalists
Some more hardy looking men: Lahorna de Wets, Tipperary senior hurling champions for 1902, named in honour of an enemy of Ireland's enemy
On a somewhat tangential note, another link between South Africa and Ireland's Midwest region (Limerick City in particular) is the use of the word 'takkie' or 'tackie' to describe running shoes. Legend has it that an Irish priest working in South Africa in the 1970s or 1980s brought the word home to Limerick with him where it has become incorporated into Limerick-ese. Special thanks for this sporting-linguistic gem goes to my good friend Alex Anagnostaras.
To continue with the wordplay, the word 'takkie' when used in South Africa usually refers to something with a thick rubber component, such as the sole of a running shoe or a tyre. And in a neat linguistic coincidence, Limerick's own Rubberbandits have something to say about takkies:
Runners, trainers or (if you're in South Africa or Limerick), tackies/takkies
The middle of this second decade in the club's history also saw Liverpool F.C. and Everton making Liverpool the
most successful football city in England, with Liverpool’s 1905-1906 First Division success
added to by Everton’s FA Cup success (Everton knocked Liverpool out in the semi-final).
1905-1906: Alex Raisbeck with Liverpool's First Division title and Jock Taylor with Everton's first FA Cup win, giving footballing supremacy to the city of Liverpool.
Meanwhile, eight decades later it was Gary Lineker versus Ian Rush, with the two
clubs again battling each other for the top two domestic trophies. This time Liverpool came out on top in both competitions, winning the first and to date only
League and FA Cup double in the history of the club. This is also covered in an
earlier blog: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/05/may-10th-1986.html
There were numerous key
individuals involved in Liverpool’s rise to the top of English football in only
its second decade in existence, but based simply on the raw data detailed
below, the two key individuals were manager Tom Watson and captain Alex Raisbeck.
Honourable mention should also go to Sam Raybould, who was Liverpool’s top
scorer for four seasons of that decade.
Tom Watson (1859-1915), still Liverpool's longest serving manager (1896-1915).
Along with assembling 'The Team of the Macs' and overseeing the first construction of The Kop, John McKenna can also take credit for bringing Tom Watson to manage Liverpool. Watson had already managed Sunderland to three First Division titles so getting his services for Liverpool was a huge coup. And Watson duly delivered, leading Liverpool to their two first top flight titles (1900-1901 and 1905-1906), their first FA Cup Final (a 1-0 defeat to Burnley in 1914) and he remains Liverpool's longest serving manager, dying from pneumonia at the age of 56 while still in his post.
Watson was the first of as yet only four managers to lead more than one club to top flight success in England, the others being Herbert Chapman, Brian Clough and Kenny Dalglish. And, as referred to in an earlier blog, here is a nice contemporary quotation that demonstrates a certain 'Klopp-ness' about Watson, from 'Olympian' of Sketch magazine: 'Superficial followers of the game would not think
that the success of a team would be affected by secretaryship (i.e.
management), but I make so bold as to say that the various triumphs of the
Sunderland Club have been not a little influenced by Mr. Watson's personality.
Mr. Watson had a good eye for football talent. Big names did not move him so
much as real abiliity...'
Alex Raisbeck (1878-1949)
played with Liverpool from 1898-1909, captaining the team from the centre-half position for nine of the ten
seasons of Liverpool’s second decade and leading the club to its first two First
Division titles. He is rightly described by Jonathan Wilson and Scott Murray in 'The Anatomy of Liverpool, A History in Ten Matches' as the first of five era defining players for the club, followed on by Elisha Scott, Billy Liddell, Kenny Dalglish and Steven Gerrard.
Like so many of Liverpool’s earliest star players, Raisbeck
was a Scot. He had played for Larkhall Thistle and Hibernian before moving
south of the border to Stoke in 1898, from where he signed for Liverpool for 350 pounds.
Just as his purchase price is impossible to fathom in the context of today's figures (a player of Raisbeck's quality would probably attract a fee several hundred thousand times higher than his 1898 purchase price), Raisbeck's loyalty to his club was something that is now rarely seen in the modern game. He stuck with Liverpool during the 1903-1904 relegation season and after, saying that 'I simply could not leave my club in its day of disaster'. After
312 games for Liverpool he started to develop a succession of injuries and returned to Scotland to end his playing career with
Partick Thistle before going on to manage Hamilton Academical, Bristol City,
Halifax Town, Chester and Bath City.
In the clip below featuring a November 1901 match between Liverpool (then First Division champions for the first time) and Newcastle United played at St. James' Park, you get to see the only available (as far as I'm aware) video footage of Raisbeck on the field of play:
Sam Raybould (1875-1949)is
probably the third key individual in Liverpool’s second decade, being top
scorer in four of those seasons. He scored a remarkable 120 goals for Liverpool in 211 games
between 1900 and 1907. He scored 31 league goals (and one in the FA Cup) in the 1902-1903 season, a Liverpool club record
that would only be surpassed by South African Gordon Hodgson in 1931.
Raybould reached the 50 goal mark for
Liverpool after only 80 matches and, to put this in perspective, it took Luis Suarez 86
matches to reach the 50 goal mark. In fact Raybould’s record would stand
for over a century until Fernando Torres scored 50 goals after 72 matches
in 2009, with Mo Salah reaching the 50 goal mark in just 69 matches in 2019. Raybould's 67 goals in his first 100 matches also stood as a club record for well over a century until he was again overtaken by Mo Salah just this year.
Raybould's value during Liverpool's second decade is also evident from the fact that his injury hit 1903-1904 season was a relegation season. After leaving Liverpool in 1907 he played with Sunderland and Woolwich Arsenal (now known simply as Arsenal) before dropping into non-league football.
The
second decade of Liverpool F.C., in summary
Major titles won during the decade:
First Division champions for 1900-1901 and 1905-1906
Sheriff of London Charity Shield Trophy 1906
1900-1901
Manager: Tom Watson
Captain: Alex Raisbeck
Top scorer: Sam Raybould
(18)
First Division: Champions
FA Cup: 1st round
______________________________
1901-1902
Manager: Tom Watson
Captain: Alex Raisbeck
Top scorer: Sam Raybould
(16)
First Division: 11th
FA Cup: 2nd round
______________________________
1902-1903
Manager: Tom Watson
Captain: Alex Raisbeck
Top scorer: Sam Raybould
(32)
First Division: 5th
FA Cup: 1st round
______________________________
1903-1904
Manager: Tom Watson
Captain: Alex Raisbeck
Top scorer: Jack Cox (9)
First Division: 17th (relegated)
FA Cup: 1st round
______________________________
1904-1905
Manager: Tom Watson
Captain: Alex Raisbeck
Top scorer: Robbie Robinson
(24)
Second Division: Champions
and promoted again to First Division
