August 22, 1903
Liverpool are beginning the season with a highly-experimental team. Three veteran players have left in Sam Raybould, John Glover, and William Goldie; the new-comers are not of equal standing, and whether they will fill the shoes of their predecessors remains to be seen. None of them can be called a “capture.”
The players available will be the following: –
Goal, Peter Platt; backs, Billy Dunlop, John Chadburn, Joe Hoare, and James McLean; halves, Alex Raisbeck, Maurice Parry, Charlie Wilson, Andrew Raisbeck, Herbert Craik, John Hughes, George Fleming, and Charles Morgan; forwards, Arthur Goddard, Frederick Buck, John Cox, Edgar Chadwick, John Carlin, Henry Nixon, George Latham, Richard Morris and Sidney Smith.
Of the above Platt comes from Rishton, Chadburn and Buck from West Bromwich, Hoare from Southampton, McLean from Vale of Leven, Hughes from Aberdare, and Craik from Greenock Morton. The company is not too large to carry Liverpool through their League, Cup and Lancashire Combination engagements, and it is perhaps scarcely distinguished enough to win the double event. Local substitutes will, no doubt, be available, and local talent is to be used in other directions.
The League team centre-forward is a “local lad,” Sidney Smith, a schoolmaster in Liverpool, that is, if he proves a success. Raisbeck has been re-elected captain.
The League tournament opens against Nottingham Forest away on September 5th, and the first match at home on the 12 with Sheffield Wednesday.
(Lancashire Evening Post: August 22, 1903)
"Play Up, Liverpool" 