Everton
Football Club and the Football Association Challenge Cup - Seasons 1897/98-1904/05
In
season 1897/98 the Toffees embarked upon their quest to reach their
second successive FA Cup Final and their third in five years with a
home tie against struggling Blackburn Rovers, whom they had defeated
2:0 at Goodison in a last eight clash en route to their epic final tie
tussle with Aston Villa the previous April and 3:2 in a second round
replay in season 1894/95. Both First Division encounters between these
two long-standing rivals had finished 1:1 earlier in the campaign, but
this time, the first of seven occasions upon which the Toffees would
enjoy the good fortune of emerging from the FA Cup draw hat first in
seasons 1897/98 to 1904/05, fortune favoured the Moonlight Dribblers:
fringe outside?right Billy Williams, whose only previous claim to Everton
fame, besides celebrating a goalscoring debut for the club in a 3:0
home victory over Stoke City on 7 January 1895, had been a brace to
his name in an extremely gratifying 3:0 Everton triumph over cross-park
rivals Liverpool at Goodison Park on 16 October 1897, notched Everton’s
winning strike in his first and last FA Cup appearance for the club
in a narrow 1:0 victory on 29 January 1898. Including replays, this
was the first of seven home FA Cup successes which the Toffees would
register in the eight seasons covered by this article.
As in season 1890/91, the first of the nine away ties which the FA Cup
draw would hand to Everton in seasons 1897/98 to 1904/05, saw Everton
travel to Stoke City in round two of the competition, though this time
the Moonlight Dribblers fared better, returning home with a second shot
at the Potters firmly in their sights following a 0:0 draw at the Victoria
Ground on 12 February 1898. The Toffees made no mistake at all in the
replay at Goodison five days later, thrashing the North Staffordshire
outfit by five goals to one, with centre-forward Laurie Bell, who had
featured in the Sheffield Wednesday side which had defeated Wolverhampton
Wanderers 2:1 in the 1896 FA Cup Final, notching a brace and John Cameron,
Edgar Chadwick and Jack Taylor, netting the first of the unequalled
total of seven strikes which he would register in FA Cup ties in seasons
1897/98 to 1904/05, adding the other three. Stoke City exacted a revenge
of sorts in a 2:0 First Division home victory over the Toffeemen on
9 April 1898, but this was not sufficient to prevent them from finishing
bottom of the table on goal difference from Preston North End, Notts
County, Bury and Blackburn Rovers, all of whom, amazingly, finished
the season on twenty-four points. However, every cloud has a silver
lining and, in the train of the increase in the First and Second Divisions
from sixteen to eighteen teams apiece the following season, Stoke City
were spared the dreaded drop.
There was a possible upset on the cards in the FA Cup third round, with
inform Second Division table-toppers Burnley, who had been relegated
from the top flight the previous season, playing host to First Division
Everton on 26 February 1898. However, the Moonlight Dribblers declined
to play ball, putting the would?be giant?slayers firmly to the sword
to the tune of three goals to one in this, the first of three FA Cup
victories on opposition territory which Everton would register in seasons
1897/98 to 1904/05, by virtue of two strikes from Jack Taylor and one
from Laurie Bell, his third and final FA Cup goal for the club.
Saturday, 19 March 1898, FA Cup semi-final day, saw Everton facing mid-table
Derby County, whom they had eliminated at the same stage of the competition
by three goals to two at the Victoria Ground, Stoke, the previous season,
though this time the tussle was staged at Molineux, the home of Wolverhampton
Wanderers who had defeated Everton 1:0 in the 1893 FA Cup Final. In
the only First Division match which these two semi-final opponents had
contested to date that season the Rams had defeated Everton 5:1 at the
Baseball Ground on 11 September 1897 and, true to this form, they duly
frustrated the Toffeemen’s ambitions of reaching the FA Cup Final for
the second season in succession. In a tussle in which Everton’s 1897
FA Cup Final captain Billy Stewart, making his final appearance in the
club’s colours, was forced to vacate the field of play early in the
first half, the Moonlight Dribblers, as would be the case in the 1910
Everton versus Barnsley semi-final replay and the 1915 Everton versus
Chelsea semi-final, contested most of the encounter, which took place
in very poor weather conditions, with only ten men. Steve Bloomer fired
the Rams in front on twenty-five minutes, with John Goodall doubling
their lead in the second half. Although Everton’s Edgar Chadwick reduced
the deficit, it was too little, too late and Derby countered by registering
a further strike to emerge victorious by the margin of three goals to
one. According to one eye witness, whom Thomas Keates quotes in his
History of the Everton Football Club 1878?1928, this was “one of the
most humiliating exhibitions of poor form by an Everton League team.
Feeble play, and lack of combination were painful to watch. The defence
was all right but the attack was crude. Conscious of the inglorious
play, the team walked off the field as dolefully as if they were at
a funeral. John Bell, sub rosa [in confidence], told one of the directors
later that he had only received and touched the ball once in the second
half.”
This was the first occasion upon which Everton had tasted the bitter
pill of FA Cup semi-final defeat. In due course, ten further reverses
at this penultimate hurdle would follow: 2:1 in a replay versus Aston
Villa at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, in 1905, 3:0 in a replay versus Barnsley
at Old Trafford, Manchester, in 1910, 2:0 versus Chelsea at Villa Park,
Birmingham, in 1915, 1:0 versus West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford,
Manchester, in 1931, 2:0 versus Liverpool at Maine Road, Manchester,
in 1950, 4:3 versus Bolton Wanderers at Maine Road, Manchester, in 1953,
1:0 versus Manchester City at Villa Park, Birmingham, in 1969, 2:1 versus
Liverpool at Old Trafford, Manchester, in 1971, 3:0 in a replay, courtesy
of the, in Everton circles, infamous Clive Thomas, versus Liverpool
at Maine Road, Manchester, in 1977 and 2:1 in a replay versus West Ham
United at Elland Road, Leeds, in 1980. However, only four of the sides
who vanquished the Toffees at this stage of the competition were actually
destined to lift the coveted trophy, namely, Aston Villa in 1905, West
Bromwich Albion in 1931, Manchester City in 1969 and West Ham United
in 1980, who defeated Newcastle United 2:0, Birmingham City 2:1, Leicester
City 1:0 and Arsenal 1:0 respectively. Derby County, lambs?to?the?slaughter
victims of Everton’s club record victory of eleven goals to two in an
FA Cup first round tie at Anfield on 18 January 1890, were also the
first of those Everton semi-final conquerors not so destined, succumbing
3:1 to Nottingham Forest in the 1898 FA Cup Final.
The first round FA Cup draw in season 1898/99 presented the Moonlight
Dribblers with a cakewalk of a home tie against non league no hopers
Jarrow on 28 January 1899, and this scruffy bunch of ragged-trousered
philanthropists were duly frogmarched back to the black hole from whence
they had ventured forth to taste the fruits of Goodison civilization
to the tune of three goals to one thanks to strikes from Edgar Chadwick,
notching the last of his thirteen FA Cup goals for the club, John Proudfoot
and Jack Taylor. Gizza job.
In the second round of the competition the gods of the draw again favoured
Everton with a home tie, this time against FA Cup holders Nottingham
Forest on 11 February 1899. This was the third FA Cup meeting between
the two clubs, with Everton having won the 1892/93 second round Goodison
clash 4:2 and the 1895/96 first round tie at the Town Ground, Nottingham,
1:0. The Moonlight Dribblers thus had a hat-trick of FA Cup victories
over Nottingham Forest in their sights, but the East Midlanders had
other ideas, and in a contest in which long?serving Edgar Chadwick took
the FA Cup field for the thirtieth and final time in Everton’s colours
they duly repeated their 3:1 Goodison triumph over Everton in a First
Division tussle on 2 January 1899, this time by one goal to nil. This
was the first of three FA Cup reverses on home soil which Everton would
incur the indignity of suffering in seasons 1897/98 to 1904/05.
Everton Football Club were handed the keys to the door in season 1899/00,
though their twenty?first?birthday celebrations fell very flat indeed
in view of the fact that the Toffees slumped to eleventh place in the
First Division, their least impressive showing to date. The first round
FA Cup draw handed Everton an interminable trek to the South Coast to
face Southern League Southampton at the Dell on 27 January 1900, the
very first meeting in any competition between these two clubs. Given
that the Toffeemen failed to exploit this avenue of FA Cup opportunity
in their coming of age season, being sent packing to the tune of three
goals to nil, the heaviest FA Cup defeat which they suffered during
the eight?season period covered by this article, the less said about
this sorry affair the better. Suffice to note that this shock reverse
marked the first of the total of forty-two FA Cup tussles which Jack
Sharp would contest for the Toffees in an Everton career spanning ten?and?a?half
years and that Everton 1897 FA Cup Finalists Peter Meehan, the right
back whose name was misspelt Meechan in the 1897 FA Cup Final programme,
an error which is being repeated to this day (see http://hometown.aol.co.uk/captainbeecher/PLAYERSindex?L.html),
and Alf Milward were on Southampton’s books at this time and would both
feature in the Saints eleven which was comprehensively vanquished by
Bury in the 1900 FA Cup Final by four goals to nil.
It was very much a case of as you were in season 1900/01, with Everton
again embarking upon an around the world in eighty days expedition to
the Deep South to face Southampton in an FA Cup first round tie at the
Dell on 9 February 1901. However, in this encounter, the previous season's
"passengers", to quote Thomas Keates, having been "dropped",
the Moonlight Dribblers turned the tables on their 1899/1900 tormentors,
with Jimmy Settle, Jack Taylor and, his first and last FA Cup goal for
the club, Joe Turner, netting in a comfortable 3:1 Everton success.
Round two of the FA Cup witnessed Everton and their elephants crossing
the bleak, snow?swept Pennines to Bramall Lane, Sheffield, to face a
distinctly average Sheffield United side featuring Billy “Fatty” Foulkes,
who stood six feet two inches tall and weighed twenty two stones, between
the sticks, the second time these two clubs had been drawn together
in the competition. On the first occasion, Everton had triumphed 3:0
in a second round encounter at Goodison on 15 February 1896, but this
second meeting, which was staged on 23 February 1901, proved to be last
stop saloon for the Toffees, who, having slumped to a 2:1 First Division
defeat against the same opponents at the same venue on Christmas Day
1901, duly repeated their impersonation of Christmas puddings, this
time to the tune of two goals to nil, no doubt to the great amusement
of both their hosts and their goatskin?coated followers. Given the fact
that Sheffield United progressed to the 1901 FA Cup Final, only, in
a replay at Burnden Park, Bolton, to lose 3:1 to Southern League Tottenham
Hotspur, the sole non?league side ever to lift the trophy following
the introduction of the Football League in season 1888/89, this was
the second season in a row in which Everton had been ousted from the
competition by the eventual vanquished finalists.
The first round of the 1901/02 FA Cup campaign paired the two clubs
eyeing each other uneasily across Stanley Park together for the first
time in the history of the competition, with Everton, forced to don
their tin hats and cross no-man’s land en route to their former Anfield
chez-nous on 25 January 1902, drawing the short straw. In matter of
fact, having drawn 2:2 at Anfield on 14 September 1901 and thrashed
the living daylights out of their neighbours from hell 4:0 in the return
First Division encounter at Goodison just a fortnight prior to this
FA Cup clash, it should have been a fairly straightforward affair for
what was a superior Everton side. And so it proved in the first instance,
with Everton, for whom Forfar born Adam Bowman made his first appearance
in the club's colours at inside?left, the first and, at the time of
writing, last Everton player to make his debut in an FA Cup tie versus
Liverpool, re-negotiating no man’s land with a creditable two two draw
in their kitbag thanks to strikes from Jack Sharp and the fratricidally
inclined Sandy Young, netting, on his Everton FA Cup debut, the first
of the fifteen goals which he would notch for the club in the competition.
In the inimical prose of the period, the Red and Blue Favours section
of the programme for the 1911 FA Cup first round clash at Goodison Park
between Everton and Liverpool on Saturday, 4 February 1911, in which
Everton prevailed by a margin of two goals to one, comments on this
inaugural FA Cup encounter as follows: “The twain were first brought
together in this connection on January 25th, 1902, the game being down
for decision on the Anfield enclosure. A draw of two goals was the verdict.
[…] For the Anfielders Robertson (penalty) and Hunter scored, while
Taylor (sic) and Sharp added points for the Blues.”
In the replay at Goodison Park five days later, however, disaster struck
for the Toffeemen and it was Liverpool and the ailing John Houlding,
the erstwhile Everton and latter?day Liverpool bankroller, former Lord
Mayor of Liverpool (1897-98), Conservative councillor for Everton and
Kirkdale (1885-1902), Orangeman and Grand Master second in Freemason
seniority only to the King himself, destined to breathe his last in
a hotel in Nice, France, a mere forty?six days later, who were toasting
a surprise 2:0 victory over their cross?park elders and betters that
afternoon. In view of the fact that the comments contained in the reprint
of the Everton versus Liverpool programme dating from 1 October 1932
included in the programme for the Everton versus Liverpool First Division
clash on Saturday, 8 December 1973 to the effect that “there is much
less bitterness in these meetings nowadays than was the case some twenty
or thirty years ago” confirm that the bad blood which the 1892 rift
had generated between the two clubs was still very much in evidence
at that time, this FA Cup defeat at the hands of their cross?park enemies
must have been a very bitter pill to swallow indeed for everyone associated
with Everton Football Club, players, coaches, officials and supporters
alike. They will thus doubtless have drawn a great deal of solace from
the fact that ex?Toffeemen Edgar Chadwick and Peter Meehan featured
in the Southern League Southampton side which hammered the Anfielders
4:1 at the Dell in the next round of the FA Cup, a reverse rendered
all the sweeter for Blues enthusiasts by virtue of the fact that Liverpool
attracted a veritable barrage of postmatch brickbats in the wake of
this defeat for having resorted to launching physical attacks upon their
underdog opponents during the course of the contest.
Round one of the 1902/03 FA Cup campaign pitted Everton against Southern
League outfit Portsmouth at Goodison Park on 7 February 1903, the inaugural
encounter between these two clubs and one from which Everton emerged
comfortable victors by a margin of five goals to nil, the most emphatic
FA Cup victory which the Toffees recorded in seasons 1897/98 to 1904/05.
1897 FA Cup Final man of the match Jack Bell, who had returned to the
Everton fold from New Brighton Tower via Celtic the previous season,
bagged a brace for the Toffees while Walter Abbott, an inside?right
turned wing-half and full England international, Liverpool?born utility
forward John Brearley on his FA Cup debut for the club and Jack Sharp
all notched one strike apiece to complete the rout.
Everton were again blessed with a home tie against inferior opposition
in the second round of the competition, this time against Second Division
Manchester United in what was the first FA Cup meeting between these
two Lancashire rivals. In an encounter which saw future Goodison stalwart
Harry Makepeace making his Everton debut, John Brearley marking his
final appearance for the home side and left-back Jack Crelley and outside
right Bruce Rankin making their FA Cup debuts for the club, prawn sandwiches
were most definitely off the menu. Instead, Everton served bread and
dripping to the Heathens, to re?coin a contemporary term of reference,
dating from their Newton Heath days, for the present?day scourge of
hordes of breast?beating Kopites from Oslo to the Old Kent Road, in
the shape of a 3:1 Manchester United setback thanks to strikes from
Walter Abbott, Tommy Booth, whose namesake was to score the winning
goal for Manchester City against Everton just seconds from time in the
1969 FA Cup semi-final at Villa Park sixty six years hence, and Jack
Taylor.
The third round of the Football Association Challenge Cup saw the Toffeemen
travel to the Capital for the first and last time in the FA Cup in this
eight-season period to face Millwall, featuring the Everton 1897 FA
Cup Finalist, Scottish left-back Davie Storrier, in their ranks, in
appalling weather conditions at North Greenwich on 7 March 1903. It
proved to be one round too far for the Toffees, who returned home smarting
from the indignity of having suffered an embarrassing 1:0 reverse at
the hands of the Southern Leaguers in this, the first?ever encounter
between the two clubs.
The first round FA Cup draw in season 1903/04 once again paired Everton
with a completely unknown quantity, this time in the shape of Southern
League Tottenham Hotspur, the 1901 FA Cup Winners, for whom centre-forward
Sandy Brown, whose 1960s namesake has secured a permanent place in Everton
folklore thanks to a spectacular flying header into his own net in a
3:0 reverse against Liverpool at Goodison Park on 6 December 1969, notched
the, to this day, record, haul of fifteen strikes during that FA Cup
campaign. Suffice to say that for the first time in their history Everton
somehow contrived to suffer a home FA Cup defeat against a non?league
side, with Jack Taylor notching the Toffeemen’s consolation effort in
a shock 2:1 reverse. Good grief. Roll on next season.
Roll on next season indeed. For the second time in just three years
the first round draw of the FA Cup presented Everton with an away tie
against their cross?park rivals, now riding high in the Second Division
after having been relegated for the second time in almost as many days
in their, in comparison with the Moonlight Dribblers, brief, history
at the end of the 1903/04 season, doubtless to the dancing?in?the?street
delight of Evertonians the length and breadth of the land. According
to the above?mentioned Everton versus Liverpool FA Cup 2nd round programme
dating from Saturday, 4 February 1911, Harry Makepeace, equalizing from
the penalty spot ten minutes from time, did the honours for Everton
in the 1:1 draw at Anfield on 2 February 1905, whilst future Manchester
United Chairman Harold Hardman and, registering his first FA Cup strike
for the club just five minutes from time, inside right Tommy McDermott,
sealed Liverpool’s fate in the 2:1 Everton triumph in the replay at
Goodison six days later.
For the third time in fourteen years the FA Cup second round draw pitted
Everton against Stoke City at the Victoria Ground, Stoke, on 18 February
1905. The First Division encounter between these two sides at Goodison
Park on 10 December 1904 had resulted in a comfortable Everton victory
to the tune of four goals to one, and this was to prove a reliable pointer
towards the outcome of this FA Cup clash, with the hapless Potters sinking
without trace in a 4:0 reverse. Tommy McDermott notched a brace and
Harry Makepeace and Jimmy Settle netted the two other strikes for the
Moonlight Dribblers in this, Everton’s record FA Cup triumph away from
home to date, surpassing the 3:0 victory which the Toffeemen had recorded
at non?league Southport Central in an FA Cup first round tie on 2 February
1895. Indeed, this 4:0 score line was not bettered until Second Division
Everton registered a 6:0 victory over Third Division South Crystal Palace
at Selhurst Park in an FA Cup fourth round tie on 24 January 1931, an
occasion on which Bill Dean bagged the still unequalled haul of four
FA Cup strikes for Everton on opposition territory and a score line
which still stands as Everton’s record away success in the FA Cup to
this day.
Curiously enough, the heaviest home FA Cup defeat which the Toffees
have ever suffered is also 6:0 against the very same opponents, then
in the Second Division, in a first round tie on 7 January 1922. Commenting
on this humiliation in his History of the Everton Football Club 1878?1928,
Thomas Keates writes: “In the first round, drawn against Crystal Palace
at Goodison Park, the game was regarded as a walk?over; the Palatians
crystallized six goals, and did not allow us to score at all. Our players’
exit from the field was a dead march. And thousands mourned.” The High
in the Sky and then Down in the Dumps section of the Arsenal versus
Everton programme dating from Saturday, 23 February 1957 furnishes some
additional information on this debacle: “Away back in the early twenties,
Everton spent what amounted to, at that time, quite a sum of money.
They were known as the Bank of England team. In the first round of the
Cup competition in 1922 they had what looked like an easy game – at
home to no more than average Second Division Crystal Palace. On their
own pitch, however, they went out by the staggering score of six goals
to nothing. When the game was over, and crestfallen supporters were
leaving the ground, they were confronted by a vendor of postcard photographs
of the Everton team. […] It is said that this is how the fellow selling
the cards advertised his wares: Here you are! All the Everton players
on a postcard. This morning they were worth thirty thousand pounds.
You can have the lot for tuppence.”
In the FA Cup quarter final draw Everton were followed out of the hat
by Southampton and the Toffeemen duly emerged comfortable 4:0 victors
from this, their third FA Cup tussle in five years with this Southern
League outfit, which was staged at Goodison Park on 4 March 1905. Jimmy
Settle notched a hat?trick for the Blues, with a solitary Tommy McDermott
strike putting the icing on the Everton cake. According to Thomas Keates
in his History of the Everton Football Club 1878-1928, “this game, against
Southampton, in the third round, was one of those that stick in the
memory of enthusiasts. Everton played with confidence and fascinating
brilliance from the start to the finish.”
The FA Cup semi-final draw pitted Everton against their 1897 FA Cup
Final conquerors Aston Villa at the Victoria Ground, Stoke, on Saturday,
25 March 1905. In 1897 it had been reigning League Champions and First
Division leaders Aston Villa who had had the coveted Double in their
sights, but on this occasion it was First Division table?toppers Everton
and their Championship rivals Newcastle United who were gunning to emulate
Aston Villa’s 1897 achievement. The 1904/05 First Division meetings
between these two sides had finished all square, with Aston Villa triumphing
1:0 at Villa Park on 12 September 1904 and Everton turning the table
on the Midlanders in the return clash at Goodison Park on 22 October
1904 to the tune of three goals to two. However, this FA Cup semi-final
encounter, in which Jack Taylor, the only player out of a grand total
of forty-two who took the FA Cup field in Everton’s colours to appear
in all twenty two FA Cup ties which the Moonlight Dribblers contested
in seasons 1897/98 to 1904/05, was the sole Everton survivor from the
1897 FA Cup Final, ended in stalemate, with England football and cricket
international Jack Sharp notching Everton’s strike against his former
club in a fiercely contested 1:1 draw.
The two sides resumed hostilities four days later at Trent Bridge, Nottingham,
with Everton’s superstitious Welsh international goalkeeper Leigh Roose,
destined to be killed in action on the Somme on 7 October 1916 whilst
serving with 9th (Service) Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 19th (Western)
Division, sporting the same unwashed jersey which he had donned in every
tussle in the competition so far. However, such hocus?pocus proved to
be entirely in vain as Everton, who, James Corbett's erroneous assertion
in his book Everton – The School of Science to the effect that "Villa
were the superior side" notwithstanding, according to a Mr Pickford
in his “great four?volume standard work on Association Football” quoted
by Thomas Keates, despite the setback of conceding two early strikes,
“monopolized the attack so persistently that, after scoring one goal
[through Jack Sharp], they looked certain winners, but failed to get
another“, slumped to an ill?deserved 2:1 defeat. Aston Villa would duly
proceed to lift the trophy for the fourth time in their history, unexpectedly
defeating a Newcastle United side registering what would be the first
of five FA Cup Final appearances for the Magpies in seven years, four
of which they would lose, 2:0 in the final tie at the Crystal Palace.
For the Toffees, however, the season would end in nothing but abject
doom and gloom: a 2:0 success over Nottingham Forest at the City Ground,
Nottingham, in their last outing of the season on Monday, 24 April 1905
notwithstanding, the two clashes in as many days on opposition territory
which they had lost to Manchester City and Arsenal, this latter a rearranged
affair following the abandonment of the original match in November 1904,
in which Everton were leading by three goals to one with just fifteen
minutes left on the clock, three and two days previously respectively,
cost them dear and they were pipped at the First Division Championship
post by losing FA Cup Finalists Newcastle United, who won their game
in hand to top the table from Everton by a one?point margin.
Just to go to prove the theory that it never rains but it pours, not
only did their insufferable local rivals also emerge from their lamentably
all?too?brief twelve?month Second Division exile as table?toppers, they
duly proceeded to finish the next season, which saw the First and Second
Divisions expanded from sixteen to eighteen clubs apiece, as League
Champions. However, this particular dark cloud would, at the third FA
Cup Final time of asking, at least have a silver lining for the Moonlight
Dribblers in that, at long, long last, the coveted FA Cup would finally
adorn the Goodison Park trophy cabinet. Anthony Williams. (09/03/05)
Sources
Publications
James Corbett, Everton – The School of Science,
2003
Thomas Keates, History of the Everton Football Club 1878-1928, 1929
(1998 facsimile reprint)
Tony Onslow, The Men from the Hill Country, 2002
Steve Pearce, Shoot. The ultimate stats and facts guide to English league
football, 1997
John K. Rowlands, Everton Football Club 1878-1946, 2001
Database
Jeff Hurley, Everton AFC Database (1887-1996),
1996
Principal Web sites
FA Cup Finals (http://www.innotts.co.uk/soccer/facup/finals01.htm)
Toffeeweb (http://www.toffeeweb.com/)
Everton
History Index
