August 27, 1938
Liverpool F.C.: Team of all the thrills
Pessimists may not see eye to eye with me, because, if anything I am given to optimism, but not to such an extent as not to be able to see faults in any team – even though Liverpool wound up last season with a flourish of triumphs. There is, I think, good reason for presupposing Liverpool will have one of their best seasons.
Almost invariably they go to extremes. As a team which rarely finds itself in one of the happy, if unimportant, half way positions the wearer of the red must view 1938-39 confidently.
And I am with them. Their best work was done last back-end, and forgetting the defeat at Stoke – a last-match failure – they did little wrong in the course of the last three months.
I am taking Liverpool to start well and take sufficient points from home games to ensure being contenders for the championship from time to time.
Much depends on Kinghorn, successor to Alf Hanson, now of Chelsea, whose first game for his new club brings him into opposition with his old club at Anfield.
I will be candid I have not seen Kinghorn. But those who have say he carries a cannon-ball shot, and if this is the only similarity between Hanson and Kinghorn, it will be a compensating one. If Kinghorn can, like Hanson, take up the right position for Nieuwenhuys’s centring, then Hanson’s loss will not be severe.
Liverpool have gambled on Kinghorn. Their doubts will disappear when the rish they have taken is justified by the quality of Kighorn’s play.
I should say the Chelsea match today represented one of the most vital of all Liverpool’s games in the first half of the season. It could make or mar.
Fred Rogers, who got an unexpected chance thus early, is another for whom the match could have important consequences. This time a year ago Liverpool went full of hope to Stamford Bridge, and came back with the emptiness of despair and the humiliation of a smashing defeat. It took them a long time to get over that result, and their revival did not come until they believed in themselves and went on the field knowing their chance of taking one or more points in away matches.
When McInnes filled a weak position in the half-back line, Liverpool strode ahead and became feared “tigers” to strong home opponents. They “murdered” Brentford, and all but “murdered” Arsenal, in one of those matches where the side which has been heavily outplayed for three parts of the game comes up trumps in the end.
Many things go to the promise of success in Mr. William John Harrop’s continued year of chairmanship. The way the side finished last season; the three-point switch of Balmer, Fagan and Phil Taylor; the confidence of the side as a whole, and the experience of men like Riley, Busby and Cooper.
Trials and charity matches being notoriously wrong guides, Liverpool have distinct chances of an outstanding season.
Here’s wishing them and the other twenty-one clubs freedom from injury; a series of sporting matches, and just as many victories as they deserve.
Liverpool Data:
Arthur Riley
Date signed: August 18, 1925;
Debut: Tottenham Hotspur; October 4, 1925;
League appearances: 288;
Total goals: 0.
Alf Hobson
Arthur Riley
Date signed: April 9, 1936;
Debut: Stoke City; August 29, 1936;
League appearances: 26;
Total goals: 0.
Dirk Kemp
Date signed: December 12, 1936.
Debut: Manchester United; March 27, 1937;
League appearances: 20;
Total goals: 0.
Tommy Cooper
Date signed: December 4, 1934;
Debut: Chelsea; December 12, 1934;
League appearances: 395;
Total goals: 2.
Jim Harley
Date signed: April 30, 1934;
Debut: West Bromwich Albion; September 28, 1935
League appearances: 46;
Total goals: 0.
Bernard Ramsden
Date signed: March 7, 1935;
Debut: Chelsea; August 28, 1937;
League appearances: 14;
Total goals: 0.
Matt Fitzsimmons
Date signed: October 14, 1936.
Matt Busby
Date signed: March 11, 1936;
Debut: Huddersfield Town; March 14, 1936;
League appearances: 273;
Total goals: 13.
Tom Bush
Date signed: March 23, 1933;
Debut: Wolves; December 30, 1933;
League appearances: 35;
Total goals: 0.
Jimmy McInnes
Date signed: March 15, 1938;
Debut: Brentford; March 19, 1938;
League appearances: 11;
Total goals: 1.
Fred Rogers
Date signed: March 15, 1933;
Debut: Preston North End; October 27, 1934;
League appearances: 40;
Total goals: 0.
John Browning
Date signed: March 13, 1934;
Debut: Chelsea; April 20, 1935;
League appearances: 17;
Total goals: 0.
Stan Eastham
Date signed: May 4, 1938.
Keith Peters
Date signed: May 4, 1936.
John Easdale
Date signed: February 26, 1937.
Cliff Lloyd
Date signed: November 27, 1937.
Berry Nieuwenhuys
Date signed: September 11, 1936;
Debut: Tottenham Hotspur; September 23, 1933;
League appearances: 182;
Total goals: 57.
Phil Taylor
Date signed: March 14, 1936;
Debut: Derby County; March 28, 1936;
League appearances: 71;
Total goals: 13.
Willie Fagan
Date signed: October 22, 1937;
Debut: Leicester City; October 23, 1937;
League appearances: 65;
Total goals: 15.
Jack Balmer
Date signed: September 23, 1935;
Debut: Leeds United; September 21, 1935;
League appearances: 80;
Total goals: 23.
Bill Kinghorn
Date signed: Queens Park; April 30, 1938;
Debut: Chelsea; August 27, 1938;
League appearances: 300;
Total goals: 8.
John Shafto
Date signed: November 26, 1936;
Debut: Leicester City; October 23, 1937;
League appearances: 13;
Total goals: 6.
Ted Harston
Date signed: June 18, 1937;
Debut: Chelsea; August 27, 1938;
League appearances: 132;
Total goals: 118.
Harry Eastham
Date signed: February 27, 1936;
Debut: Arsenal; October 31, 1936;
League appearances: 36;
Total goals: 2.
Eric Paterson
Date signed: June 11, 1937.
George Paterson
Date signed: May 20, 1937.
Harry Rawcliffe
Date signed: May 4, 1938.
Herman Van Den Berg
Date signed: October 18, 1937;
Debut: Everton; February 16, 1938;
League appearances: 3;
Total goals: 0.
Cyril Done
Date signed: January 10, 1938.
Jack Haines
Date signed: November 10, 1937.
Ronnie Jones
Date signed: March 10, 1938;
Debut: Manchester City; March 26, 1938;
League appearances: 30;
Total goals: 11.
(Source: Liverpool Echo: August 27, 1938)
"Play Up, Liverpool" 