No Liverpool for Everton’s John Bell

Saturday May 7 – 1898
Now that Everton have fixed upon an “all-English” policy, they are finding that the task of realising upon the players whom they had placed upon the transfer list is not so easy a one as apparently they had expected it to prove. It is stated that Liverpool offered them £500 for the transfer of John Bell, but they could not see their way to letting their local rivals secure this star from them, so declined to treat. They were prepared to accept an offer of £350 from the Celtic, but then Bell kicked over the traces and refused to be sold to anybody. He is now expected to join Tottenham Hotspur, to whom he can go free of transfer. He vowed to the writer as we travelled back together from the International match at Glasgow, that he would never be sold, and John Bell is a man of his word. Everton are voluntarily parting with the best player they ever had when the thus let Bell slip.
(Lancashire Evening Post, 07-05-1898)