Untouchables

Jeff Goulding, Kieran Smith

Description

The Untouchables: Anfield's Band of Brothers chronicles the rise and fall of one of the greatest Liverpool teams ever. In 1918 an enlisted man, Tom Bromilow, stepped off the streets of Liverpool and straight into the team. Still in uniform, he was one of tens of thousands of Liverpudlians who fought in World War One. His signing completed a jigsaw that eventually revealed an image of footballing perfection, a team so great they were called 'The Untouchables'. The book brings to life a host of incredible characters, uncovers friendships and rivalries and reveals amazing backstories. Meet men like Bootle-born Walter Wadsworth, tough-talking Irishman Elisha Scott, champion boxer Jock McNab and many other fascinating figures. The Untouchables reveals previously unknown detail and sheds new light on old controversies, including the real reason behind the departure of the club's manager, Dave Ashworth. Meticulously researched and lovingly told, the book breathes new life into a fascinating and long-forgotten story.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 20 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801500296
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jeff Goulding and Kieran Smith, 2021
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785318634
eBook ISBN 9781801500296
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Foreword
Part 1: Origin Story: Three Boys, Their Club and Their City
1. Football and the City
2. Walter Wadsworth, the Champions and Owd Tom
3. Catastrophe and Revolt on the Mersey as Walter and Elisha Arrive at Anfield
Part 2: The Untouchables at War
4. Private Tom Bromilow: from Flanders Fields to Anfield
5. Wounded on the Western Front: Private Danny Shone s Battle for Survival
6. The Home Front
7. Tales of Gallantry and Redemption
Part 3: The Untouchables Assemble
8. War Is Over but a New Foe Stalks the Land as Football Finally Returns
9. David Ashworth, His Captain, and the 1920s Boot Room
10. The Gentlemen of the Board
11. Creating the Band of Brothers
Part 4: Liverpool FC 1921/22: All Hail the Champions
12. Champions Again, at Last!
13. Celebrations and Speeches
14. Defence of the Crown
15. Matt McQueen to the Rescue as Ashworth Departs
16. Glory and Adulation as Hero Tom Marries His Sweetheart
Part 5: All Good Things
17. Whatever Happened to the Untouchables?
18. Farewell to Waddy, Tom and Danny
19. A Legacy Worthy of Kings
Bibliography
Photos
This book is dedicated to one of the greatest Liverpool teams ever to grace Anfield, The Untouchables , and to their families.
May they never be forgotten. They will never walk alone.
Those Were the Days
How well I remember.
The Kop without its lid And Wadsworth giving it to Our Kid . The way Billy Lacey used to pass. And Tommy Bromilow s class
How well I remember!
When Harry Chambers used to score In Championships galore Dicky Downs overhead jinx Everton nil Crystal Palace six!
How well I remember.
McKinlay s lethal free kicks And Scott s excellence between the sticks Dean s 60 - all in one season Is yet another reason,
Why, those were the days I well remember.
Mr E. Lloyd Jones, Liverpool matchday programme, 2 April 1982
Preface and Acknowledgements
FOR SUPPORTERS of the modern Liverpool Football Club, its history is dominated by the legacy of one man: Bill Shankly. The Anfield that Shankly stepped into was beset with decaying infrastructure and a boardroom seemingly content to wallow in the second tier of English football and overseeing a team unable to punch at its own weight, let alone above it. Given the transformation that followed, it is little wonder that the great Scot has since been endowed with almost messianic status.
We count ourselves among Shankly s most fervent admirers. However, this is a football club that not only survived, but thrived throughout the 67 years that preceded his arrival. It had already secured five league titles and appeared in two FA Cup Finals, it had survived two world wars, while its owners had not only overseen its birth, launching it into the Lancashire League with barely dozens of fans in attendance to see its first game, but they had also guided it to the top of English football, securing a first championship within a decade of the club s creation.
In the decades that followed, Liverpool FC signed a succession of incredible players and developed countless others. The stadium itself became architecturally one of the grandest in the country, and at one end of the pitch a vast terrace grew up on Walton Breck Road, becoming both fearsome and iconic long before its stone steps reverberated to the sound of Gerry Marsden s You ll Never Walk Alone .
Our generation frequently chastises the modern football fan, lecturing them that the sport was not invented along with the Premier League in 1992. It was not, of course, but neither did Liverpool FC s journey begin in 1959. Alongside many others, we feel passionately that this football club has a rich and fascinating history that stretches all the way back to its foundation in 1892. Indeed, the seeds of its inception stretch back beyond that, to the creation of Everton Football Club in 1878 and the eventual boardroom split that set it off on its glorious journey.
Prior to the arrival of Shankly there are many tales to tell, managers to understand and revere, players to celebrate and championships that were as hard-fought as any since the war. The people and events brought as much joy to supporters then as they do now. That these moments in the history of our club could one day fade from view is an idea we find unbearable.
In the summer of 2020, locked in the grip of a pandemic, we were reminded that the world had endured a similar catastrophe a little over a century earlier. In 1919 the influenza pandemic would go on to kill more people worldwide than the world war it followed. The city of Liverpool had been among some of the hardest hit in Europe, yet its people had seemed to soldier on.
We found it remarkable that men who had fought amid the slaughter on European battlefields from 1914-18 could return to a country ravaged by disease and economic ruin and decide to play football. Had they merely found it within themselves to engage with sport for the simple joy of it, to find relief from the grim reality of life, that would have been enough. However, these men rose to become the best in the country, not once but twice in consecutive seasons.
Yet to all but a relative few among the vast ranks of Liverpool supporters, their story is largely unknown. To their families and descendants they are heroes and legends, their keepsakes, photos and medals are treasured possessions, but with each passing year their legacy is fading from view. There is barely any film footage of these men and those that exist contain no sound. We will never know their voices and hear their accents. They are mere images, records, match reports from a bygone era and occasionally they speak to us from the columns they wrote and interviews they gave.
They are so much more than that, and they lived in a glorious age, as complex, dramatic, comic and tragic as our own. After many conversations spent bouncing around ideas about how we could celebrate these men, the idea for this book emerged. It has become something of a mission ever since.
We were inundated with offers of support and practical help from a host of people dedicated to the history of our club, and others with a passion for football s lost stories. These dedicated historians gave up hours of their own time to furnish us with clippings, anecdotes and photographs, many of which have been used in this book and all of them have informed our thinking and research. Their sense of common cause has sustained us throughout what has been a monumental undertaking.
In the face of such generosity, a mere thank you seems insufficient, but to Mark Platt of LFCTV for his moral support as much as his willingness to share so much invaluable information; Jonny Stokkeland, Liverpool Football Club s official archivist, for his meticulous attention to detail; Stephen Done, Liverpool Football Club s museum curator, for his insights; Everton FC Heritage Society; Arny Baldursson editor of LFCHistory.net , for his time and support; Kjell Hanssen of Play Up Liverpool for his insights and time; the historian, author and journalist Stephen F. Kelly for his insights and for the photographs of Charlie Wilson; George Sephton for giving up his precious time; Adrian Killen for sharing his wonderful scrapbook - truly a treasure trove; George Scott; Tom Neal; Plunkett Carter; Brian Hayes Curtin of the Cork Independent ; Dan Kay of the Liverpool Echo ; Chris Lloyd of the Northern Echo ; and Kerenza Moore of the Cornish Times .
We also appreciate the efforts of Fraser Kinnie, genealogist at Heir Hunter UK, who tracked down relatives of Fred Hopkin; the author Karl Coppack of The Anfield Wrap for his thoughts and insights; Omar Saleem, Steven Scragg and Will Sharp of These Football Times for their support; Joanna Durkan of This Is Anfield for her thoughts and insights; the historian Mal Holmes; John Pearman from Red All Over the Land for his insights; the author Andy Marsden for introducing us to programme collectors and for providing so many invaluable leads; match programme collectors Rob Gowers and Andrew Weir for their time and for sharing so much of their precious collections; Vicky Griffiths and Tina Ball of the Prescot Museum and Kirkby Gallery; the author and historian Chris Jones; Tony Zeverona of Prescot Cables FC; and Prescot football historian and author, Neville Walker. Thanks also to the author and musician Peter Hooton for his insights; and Liverpool FC blogger David Moen; we offer all of you our sincere gratitude.
When we set out on this journey, we were committed to getting as close as possible to a three-dimensional representation of the period, the game, the club and the people as we could. It was our desire to reveal these players not through statistics and grainy images, but as people who lived, loved, had adventures, struggled, had families and served their club and football with distinction. The record books, i