Monday, December 8 – 1890
Suppose we finish the mournful part of the business first. And yet it was not altogether mournful or unpleasant. The gathering of which took place at the residence of the popular and genial president of the Everton Football Club (Councillor John Houlding) last Monday night to bid farewell to one of the pillars of the club – Mr. John Brooks – had many agreeable phases about it.
Certainly Mr. Brooks will remember it with kindly and grateful feelings for many years to come. As soon as Mr. Brook’s departure from Liverpool to assume a more important Customs appointment at Grimsby was announced in Everton a spontaneous movement arose in favour of presenting him with some appropriate testimonial of his invaluable services to the club in the past.
The movement soon took definite shape, and culminated in the presentation to Mr. Brooks last Monday of one of the finest albums I have ever seen, in which was inscribed the following address: –
To John C. Brooke, Esq.
Dear Sir, – We, the committee of the Everton Football Club, cannot allow you to sever your long connection with us and it without expressing to you our esteem for your high character, regret at losing you from among us, and gratitude for the invaluable service you have rendered to the club from its infancy.
We sincerely hope that your promotion to a higher sphere may be conducive to your personal welfare, and a prelude to further and speedy advancement. In bidding you farewell, we trust that you may be long spared to enjoy the respect of all with whom you come in contact, to present the constant example of a manly and straightforward character, and to know of the continued success of the club, whose triumphs you have done so much to secure. –
Signed on behalf of the committee,
John Houlding, President.
W.E. Barclay, Vice-President.
Robert Wilson, Treasurer.
R. Molyneux, Secretary.
The presentation was made in a very neat and suitable speech by the president, whose remarks were supplemented by further observations from Mr. Barclay and Mr Molyneux. Mr. Brooks’s acknowledgement of the compliment was a model of its kind, and the sad occasion which brought the meeting together was afterwards quite forgotten amid the hospitalities of the president.
(Field Sports, 15-12-1890)
"Play Up, Liverpool" 