April 18, 1917
It is a bit laughable to find on the fixture card next Saturday another meeting of Everton and Liverpool. Someone asked me the other day “What is the match next Saturday?” I answered that it was folly to ask a question like that nowadays. Didn’t he know that Everton and Liverpool were always meeting and saying “How d’ye do.”
Well it certainly is quaint that another Derby day should be recorded, in view of the double-edged meetings of the clubs at Easter time, but I declare that the public of Liverpool are quite content to continue football watching, so long as the standard of football is high and the Liverton players continue their gentlemanly methods.
It is one of the joys of Mersey life that its sport is clean and withal keen. It is meet therefore that the teams should gather together in rivalry and one could wish only one more thing that the players and officers should meet after the match and “chin” over “coffee”.
Time was when the best part of a great day’s sport was the evening “gallop” but with the League’s rise to fame the convivial point fell away. I was a pity, for there is nothing like meeting your opponent off the field.
The “spirit of sportsmanship” is carried to a logical point when victor and vanquished meet after a match. May I hope that this mild suggestion shall be taken up by those concerned?
Everton have chosen their side, which will be identical with that which won at Southport: Tommy Fern, Joe Smith, Bob Thompson, Tom Fleetwood, Billy Wareing, Alan Grenyer, Stephen Murray, Frank Jefferis, Ernie Gault, Joe Clennell, and Joe Donnachie.
Liverpool: Tommy Haughton, Ephraim Longworth, Tommy Lucas, John Bamber, Walter Wadsworth, Donald Mackinlay, Arthur Goddard, Arthur Metcalf, Tommy Bennett, Harry Lewis, and Tommy Cunliffe.
(Liverpool Echo: April 18, 1917)
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"Play Up, Liverpool" 