With an Ashes match to come at the new Everton Stadium, we look back at the history of rugby league in Liverpool.
WE SPEAK with an accent exceedingly rare, meet under a statue exceedingly bare, and if you want a cathedral, we’ve got one to spare…
So sang The Spinners in ‘My Liverpool Home’, a folk song written in the early 1960s in homage to the city from where they emerged.
When it comes to rugby league, this location has had five homes with a sixth on the way.
Everton’s state-of-the-art new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, a glistening £750 million, 52,888-capacity arena alongside the Mersey, will stage the second of three Ashes Tests against Australia this autumn.
It will be 117 years after the same football club hosted the Kangaroos in the first of four visits by them to Goodison Park, the much-loved ground they will leave at the end of this round-ball season.
Goodison has been around since 1892, but if things had happened differently, Everton might have been playing at the equally well-known Anfield, another of the quintet of rugby league settings, while arch-rivals Liverpool might not have been formed.
For the latter were created in 1892 to play out of Anfield when the former, who had existed since 1878, been based there since 1884 and become one of the strongest sides in the country, fell into dispute over the rent.
As well as being a brewing magnate and local politician, John Houlding was both president of Everton and the co-owner of Anfield.
Founder members of the Football League in 1888, Everton, originally formed as the Sunday school side of St Domingo’s Methodist Church, were champions in 1890-91, and drawing big crowds.
Sensing a money-making opportunity, Houlding had been raising the rent while also insisting on-site catering be handled by his company.
This upset other club members, in particular George Mahon, the organist at St Domingo’s, who had always been uncomfortable about Everton’s close links with the beer trade.
He had an ally in a wealthy doctor, James Baxter, and the pair put into motion a move to build a new venue on Goodison Road, on the other side of Stanley Park in the north of the city.
This upset Houlding, who secretly registered the name Everton (the district in which St Domingo’s was sited) as a limited company, and vowed to set up a new club under that title.
Houlding was booted off the board, the Football Association ruled the original Everton should retain that name as they relocated to Goodison, the new club at Anfield became Liverpool – and the rest is history.
Everton’s new home was quickly developed, becoming the most advanced ground in England and hosting the 1893-94 FA Cup final in which Notts County beat Bolton before 37,000.
The Northern Union was, of course, formed the following year, and while Liverpool had its own albeit short-lived team in 1906-07, it was absent from the list of stop-off points on the game’s first-ever tour, by New Zealand to Australia, England and Wales in 1907-08.
However it featured twice on the itinerary when Australia visited twelve months later.
While the failed first Liverpool City outfit were based at Stanley Athletic Grounds – despite the name, a couple of miles away from Stanley Park and the two football arenas – it was a relatively primitive site.
And Goodison, by now covered on all four sides and featuring the work of pioneering stadium architect Archibald Leitch, got both tour games, with a Northern Union XIII beaten 10-9 in front of 6,000 and England clinching a 14-7 victory seen by 4,500.
When the Kangaroos came again in 1910-11, they returned to the home of Everton, which had staged the 1909-10 FA Cup final replay in which Newcastle defeated Barnsley before 60,000.
This time 6,000 witnessed a 16-3 triumph over a Northern Union XIII while 17,000 were in attendance when the 1921-22 tourists were 29-6 victors over a Lancashire League XIII.
While Goodison acted as a neutral venue for many more big football matches, among them five 1966 World Cup ties, as far as rugby league was concerned, that was it.
However in 1934-35, England beat Wales 24-11 with 7,100 watching at Stanley Greyhound Stadium, not far from the Stanley Athletic Grounds and home to the new Liverpool Stanley, the latest version of a team which started out as Wigan Highfield in 1922-23 before spending the 1933-34 season as London Highfield.
The early Liverpool years were the side’s most successful as they twice reached the play-offs, with their 10-9 home semi-final defeat by Widnes in 1935-36 attracting 14,000.
However gates waned, particularly in the post-war years, and after a 18-year spell at a second ground, Knotty Ash Stadium, and a name change from Stanley to City (unrelated to the earlier version), came another move, to Huyton in 1968, so Liverpool lost its rugby league club.
The 13-a-side code has made the occasional return through events at Anfield, starting with Widnes’ Charity Shield success against Wigan ahead of the 1989-90 season, when 17,263 watched.
Early in 1991-92, Wigan won the World Club Challenge against Penrith Panthers with 20,152 present, while St Helens took a Super League game to the stadium in both 1997 and 1998.
There were 40,042 at Anfield for Australia’s 34-8 win over New Zealand in the 2016 Four Nations final and 26,234 for England’s 20-14 victory over the Kiwis two years later.
And in 2019, Super League’s Magic Weekend recorded attendances of 30,057 on the Saturday and 26,812 on the Sunday.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 507 (April 2025)
