In
one of the feedback comments to my last blog on the history of Liverpool FC,
see link: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/08/liverpool-fc-third-decade-1910-1920.html, a
friend of mine suggested that I may be developing LFCOCD, i.e. a rare form of
obsessive compulsive disorder related to history and facts about the world’s
greatest football club. As this friend is a renowned and learned psychiatrist and
historian (Dr. Aidan Collins, also known in Twitterland as @navaniarmhi), I’ve
decided to take his advice on board and try and avoid obsessive levels of overinclusiveness
for this week’s blog, on Liverpool’s 4th decade, the 1920s.
So
for the 1920s I have tried to condense Liverpool’s decade under a few key
headings: their two First Division title wins during that time, their two most
influential Irishmen of the decade and two very important Macs. Carrying on
with the Irish theme, I have also paid tribute to a longstanding Liverpool
trainer who, while not born in Ireland, had a very Irish name and probable
Irish roots.
Two titles
The 1920s would prove to be Liverpool’s most successful to date, with two First Division titles and First Division status maintained for the entire decade. In fact, Liverpool would not have a better decade until the 1960s, when under the stewardship of a certain Mr. Shankly. However, FA Cup success continued to elude Liverpool.
Liverpool FC, First Division champions for the 3rd time, 1921-1922
Back row: William Connell (Trainer),
Harry Chambers, Jock McNab, Elisha Scott, Walter Wadsworth, Tom Bromilow, Dick
Forshaw
Front row: David Ashworth (Manager),
Bill Lacey, Ephraim Longworth, Donald McKinlay, Tommy Lucas, Fred Hopkin,
George Patterson (Secretary)
On ground: Danny Shone, Harry Lewis
The players and trainers are in the second row from the front:
Charlie Wilson (Trainer), Bill Lacey, Dick Forshaw, Jock McNab, Walter Wadsworth, Elisha Scott, Donal McKinlay, Ephraim Longworth, Tom Bromilow, Dick Johnson, Harry Chambers, Fred Hopkin, William Connell (Trainer)
Two Irishmen and two Irelands
Belfast
born Elisha Scott (1893-1959) was one of Liverpool’s first great heroes,
playing as goalkeeper with the club before World War I from 1912-1915 and again
after the war from 1919 right the whole way through to 1934, making him
Liverpool’s longest serving player of all time, a record that still stands.
Scott’s
absolute heyday came during the two championship winning seasons in 1921-1922
and 1922-1923, when he conceded just 67 goals in 84 games. Although relatively
small for a goalkeeper at 5 feet 9.5 inches, he was described by one reporter
as having ‘the eye of an eagle, the swift movement of a panther when flinging
himself at a shot and the clutch of a vice when gripping the ball’.
It’s
also said that he was the first Liverpool player to have his own personalised
chant, the Anfield crowd urging him on with deafening calls of ‘Lisha, Lisha, Lisha’.
Scott’s almost mystical comment - ‘I speak to these people’ - showed that his
bond with the Liverpool fans was clearly mutual, deep and Shankly-esque in
intensity.
Scott
delivered an emotional farewell speech at Anfield prior to his last home game
in 1934 when he said: ‘We have always been the best of friends and shall always
remain so. I have finished with English association football. Last, but not
least, my friends of the Kop. I cannot thank them sufficiently. They have
inspired me. God bless you all’. In ‘The Anatomy of Liverpool: A History in Ten
Matches’, Jonathan Wilson and Scott Murray rightly describe Elisha Scott as one
of Liverpool’s five era defining players.
From
the other end of the island of Ireland came Bill Lacey, (1889-1969) who was
born in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. Following stints with Shelbourne and then
Everton, Lacey played with Liverpool from 1912 to 1924, with two ‘guest’ spells
at Belfast United and Linfield during World War I.
Lacey
seems to have played in all positions at some stage or other and scored 18
goals during his 230 games with Liverpool. As highlighted in an earlier blog https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/08/liverpool-fc-third-decade-1910-1920.html, Lacey
was the only international player on the Liverpool team that lost the 1914 FA
Cup Final to Burnley. However, he was to have international success that year,
when he helped Ireland to their first British Home Championship on a team that
included Patrick O’Connell, who would go on to captain Manchester United and
later manage Barcelona https://www.the42.ie/patrick-oconnell-barcelona-3565751-Aug2017/
The
wonderful and intrepid Sportyman southeast
correspondent Dr. Denise Rogers (@Denis1Rogers on Twitter) is a proud native of
Enniscorthy and she has sent me on some further information on the great Bill
Lacey:
https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/enniscorthy-guardian/20170725/281560880859025
In
the link above you can read the heart-warming story of how a civic reception
was held in Enniscorthy in 2017 for Bill, attended by his grandson, also Bill
Lacey, his wife and their sons James and Lewis Lacey. The town has also
honoured Bill Lacey with a plaque on the Ross Road, where he grew up.
Dr.
Rogers has also kindly forwarded the link below, to a Gorey Guardian article in
2010 announcing the unveiling of Bill Lacey’s plaque and providing further
information on his career and life:
Liverpool First Division champions from across the footballing ages pictured in 1964:
Bobby Graham and Gordon Wallace (champions in 1963-1964), Joe Hewitt (1905-1906)
and Bill Lacey (1921-1922 and 1922-1923)
While
Elisha Scott and Bill Lacey were at one stage united as team-mates for both
Liverpool and Ireland, the partition of Ireland in 1921 leading to the
partition of Irish football in 1924 would later separate them. Scott stayed on
playing with the Belfast based Irish Football Association (IFA), earning a total
of 31 caps. However, after his pre-partition 23 caps with the IFA, Lacey
switched to the Dublin based Football Association of Ireland of the new Irish
Free State, winning an additional 3 caps between 1927 and 1930.
The
growing and increasingly bitter sectarian and political divisions in Ireland
hit home for Elisha Scott during his later managerial career when, on December
26th 1948, his highly successful Belfast Celtic side were attacked
at the end of a game by opposition Linfield fans. Because of, among other
things, a lack of police protection on the day for the Belfast Celtic players,
the club withdrew from competition at the end of the season and subsequently
ceased to exist. A terrible irony here is that Scott himself was blind to
religious background, famously saying that ‘I don’t play Protestant players and
I don’t play Catholic players. I play good players’.
Scott’s
playing and managerial achievements with Ireland, Liverpool and Belfast Celtic
along with his non-partisan religious views all combine to make him a truly
heroic figure and one whose memory should be cherished and acknowledged more
overtly in his home city.
For
background information and insights on Elisha Scott, special thanks are due to
my lifelong friend and Belfast native, Dr. Dermot Shearer (@dalekboy on Twitter).
Two Macs
In
the summary of the 1920s at the end of this blog, you will see that Liverpool
was managed and captained by two important Macs for most of the decade. In a
blast from the early days and ‘The Team of the Macs’ (see earlier blog: https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/05/aston-villa-5-liverpool-0-1899-and-2019.html),
Matt McQueen (1863-1944) returned to become the first former player to manage
Liverpool. Initially lured south from Scotland as a player in 1892 by John
McKenna and William Barclay, he had joined an almost exclusively Scottish group
of players to form Liverpool’s first teams and in fact he was joined as a
teammate by his brother Hugh in Liverpool’s first ever Football League match in
1893. McQueen seems to have played all over the field, including in goal, and
won two Second Division titles with Liverpool, in 1893-1894 and 1895-1896.
McQueen came back as manager in early 1923 to take over from David Ashworth who left in
the middle of that second consecutive title winning season to return to his alma mater club
of Oldham Athletic. Despite starting on the high of a league championship
victory within a few months, McQueen would not have any further trophy success
but managed to keep Liverpool safely in the top half of the First Division for
most of the rest of the decade.
The
second Mac, Donald McKinlay (1891-1959), was another remarkable servant for
Liverpool during this era, playing times 434 times between 1910 and 1929 and
captaining the club from 1921 to 1928. He was therefore captain for the two
successive championship winning seasons, and he earned a reputation as a hardy
defender who could play in both the full and half back lines. Noted as having a
powerful shot and described as being ‘as nippy and quick as a jack-in-the-box’,
he scored 35 goals for the club. In 1955 he was quoted as saying, in wistful reflection
on his time with Liverpool: ‘If I had 20 years to go again, I would go back to
them’.
And finally – Irish blood, English heart
The
huge influx of Irish people from the time of the Great Famine onwards meant
that late 19th Century Liverpool was a very Irish city. At one
stage, approximately one quarter of the city's inhabitants had been born in
Ireland. Liverpool remains a fiercely independent city, full of Irish history,
surnames and a tendency towards Scouseness as opposed to Englishness.
One
prominent Irish surname in the early days of Liverpool FC was that of William
Connell. An unsung hero of the club, he can be seen as a constant presence in
team photographs for the first three decades of the 20th century,
during which time as ‘chief trainer’ he led Liverpool to its first four First
Division titles. In fact, such was the length of his time with Liverpool that
he was described by one club director as ‘growing white in the service of the club’. His importance
to the club was highlighted with the benefit match played for him at Easter in
1924, against Rangers, and he retired ‘with full benefits’ in 1929. Connell was
succeeded as trainer by Charlie Wilson, with former Liverpool player and
England international Ephraim Longworth taking over as coach. Connell's funeral in
1940 was attended by the leading players and management of both Liverpool and
Everton.
Liverpool in the 1920: summary of the
decade
Note: for top scorer the goals scored is for all competitions combined, i.e. league and FA Cup
1920-1921
League:
4th in First Division (Winners: Burnley, their 1st win)
FA
Cup: 2nd round (Winners: Tottenham Hostpur, their 2nd
win)
Manager:
David Ashworth
Captain:
Ephraim Longworth
Top
scorer: Harry Chambers (24)
1921-1922
League:
Champions (3rd win)
FA
Cup: 2nd round (Winners: Huddersfield Town, their 1st
win)
Manager:
David Ashworth
Captain:
Donald McKinlay
Top
scorer: Harry Chambers (21)
1922-1923
League:
Champions (4th win)
FA
Cup: 3rd round (Winners: Bolton Wanderers, their 1st win)
Manager:
David Ashworth/Matt McQueen
Captain:
Donald McKinlay
Top
scorer: Harry Chambers (25)
1923-1924
League:
12th (Winners: Huddersfield Town, their 1st win)
FA
Cup: 4th round (Winners: Newcastle United, their 2nd win)
Manager:
Matt McQueen
Captain:
Donald McKinlay
Top
scorer: Jimmy Walsh (19)
1924-1925
League:
4th (Winners: Huddersfield Town, their 2nd win)
FA
Cup: 4th round (Winners: Sheffield United, their 4th win)
Manager:
Matt McQueen
Captain:
Donald McKinlay
Top
scorer: Dick Forshaw (19)
1925-1926
League:
7th (Winners: Huddersfield Town, their 3rd win)
FA
Cup: 4th round (Winners: Bolton Wanderers, their 2nd win)
Manager:
Matt McQueen
Captain:
Donald McKinlay
Top
scorer: Dick Forshaw (29)
1926-1927
League:
9th (Winners: Newcastle United, their 4th win)
FA
Cup: 5th round (Winners: Cardiff City, their first and to date only
win)
Manager:
Matt McQueen
Captain:
Donald McKinlay
Top
scorer: Harry Chambers (21)
1927-1928
League:
16th (Winners: Everton, their 3rd win)
FA
Cup: 4th round (Winners: Blackburn Rovers, their 6th win,
a record)
Manager:
Matt McQueen
Captain:
Donald McKinlay
Top
scorer: Gordon Hodgson (23)
1928-1929
League:
5th (Winners: Sheffield Wednesday, their 3rd win)
FA
Cup: 4th round (Winners: Bolton Wanderers, their 3rd win)
Manager:
Matt McQueen/George Patterson
Captain:
Tom Bromilow
Top
scorer: Gordon Hodgson (32)
1929-1930
League:
12th (Winners: Sheffield Wednesday, their 4th win)
FA
Cup: 3rd round (Winners: Arsenal, their 1st win)
Manager:
George Patterson
Captain:
James Jackson
Top
scorer: Jimmy Smith (23)
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