21/04/06 BLOG!

The Liverpool Football Echo, on April 21st 1906, reported that the English Cup Final had been held at The Crystal Palace, with an immense crowd of 75,609, packing the stadium to witness Everton beat Newcastle United, 1-0, when, at last, the cup went to the city of Liverpool.

The report was sent by "Spire Wire" and the growing popularity of football was finally recognised, with no radio "Sports' Report" available at the time, only newspaper reports.

It might have been a wait until Sunday morning or even Monday, when the "Athletic News" appeared to report the Saturday results. Liverpool was the first city to launch the "Football Echo" as early as 1901. The city's two clubs, Liverpool and Everton, had both won the League Championship (First and top division in those days) with 40,000 or more watching the two Merseyside clubs.

The inside pages of news of the paper were printed already and when the results came out, they were included in the outside pages, at the last minute. Scores were telegraphed to the Echo's office and the race began to get the paper onto the street corners as quickly as possible.

In 1906, Liverpool became the first city to produce both the FA Cup winner and First Division League title holder in the same season. Liverpool won the League title from Preston and Everton, having beaten Liverpool at Aston Villa  in the semi-final of the Cup, went onto win the FA Cup.

Everton's victory over Newcastle in the final served as a perfect example of how reports were wired back to the "office". The type set for the match was done in preparation and the report of the game written minute by minute to hasten the publication. Messengers wired the minute report to the "Echo's Office" and compositors would begin the typeset the one setence text on to the page so that once the final whistle was blown, printing could begin.

Details of the match would often get lost deep in the text, for example, the winning goal scored by Sandy Young, did not occur until near the end of the report at 4.55pm:
IT READ...."At last a goal, Sandy Young the hero. Fireworks and minature (sic) earthquakes in galore-shades of San Francisco (actually this disaster happened the week before).  Not the greatest way of a minute by minute sporting event but at the time it served the purpose of getting the news and all the results on to the streets as quickly as possible.

Two of Lancashire's most celebrated  sportsmen helped Everton win the FA Cup for the first time. They were Jack Sharp and Harry Makepeace (see below). They had both played full international games for England at football and cricket. (apparently there have only been 12 players to achieve this accolade). Also for amusement, spot the "Peaky Blinder"!

Sharp was a right winger and Makepeace a half back. Between them, playing cricket for Lancashire CCC, they had scored nearly 80 hundreds!
Makepeace had won an FA Cup winner's medal, a League Championhsip medal (1915), a cricket Championship medal (actually four!) and played for England at both football and cricket.
Sharp provided the cross that Young scored the winning goal, fifteen minutes from the end.

The Magpies lost the final at Crystal Palace for the second year running, having been beaten by Aston Villa 2-0 in 1905; 101,117 watched this earlier disappointment..