Is Everton a catholic club?

Everton's famous (and, unfortunately these days rare) derby win over Liverpool last week has prompted me to finish this piece which, you'll see from the references, involved quite a lot of research on a question I was sure I already knew the answer to.

Occasionally I see articles in the press which proclaim Everton is the catholic club on Merseyside, or that it isn't. Or which ask "is Everton catholic or protestant?" I've never given them much time before but I stumbled on one which gave some interesting insights into the background to the questions and led me to some further items, one of them a 474 page PhD thesis on the history of sectarianism in Liverpool over a period of two centuries.

However, I can cut to the chase and give to the quick answer before diving down the rabbit hole: the answer to the question is "is Everton catholic or protestant?" is quite definitely neither. I have on occasion debated the question with people who are genuine scousers (rather than, as me, born nearby in Lancashire) and who have occasionally been adamant as to the answer. But I know from my own experience that both clubs are essentially non-denominational. The anecdotes I normally recount to prove the point stem from the 1960s and 1980s.

In the 1980s there was a strange brief flirtation with "half and half" bobble hats, generally with an English club and a Scottish club. My recollection (confirmed by one of the links below) is that there were Everton/Rangers and Everton/Celtic hats. There were also definitely Liverpool/Celtic and Liverpool/Rangers hats, which showed up rather better with the colour contrast. My recollection is that the prevalence of these hats demonstrated no specific correlation between either Merseyside club and the undoubtedly religious based Glasgow clubs. They were also not particularly popular and pretty much frowned on by the majority of Merseyside football fans.

Which ties up with my 1960s anecdote. In those days it was necessary to get in the ground and onto the terracing by 45 minutes before kick off to get a decent speck, at least if you weren't still a full height adult. Which is rather a contrast to today, with allocated seating meaning that fans congregate in the refreshment bars  until 10 minutes before kick off, so there is no atmosphere in the stadium until just before the teams come out. Whereas back then there would often be a lot of chanting and singing in the half an hour before kick off, especially for big games. At Goodison in the 60s for the everyday games some fans on Gwladys Street started to relieve the boredom of the wait by chanting "Celtic" to which an equally small group would respond "Rangers". On and on it would go Celtic-Rangers-Celtic-Rangers until the rest of the crowd had had enough and drowned it out chanting "Everton". Not much evidence for a Catholic club there.

And to sort of prove my point, here is a Liverpool-Celtic half and half hat which you can currently buy online from a shop in the Anfield area:

I''ve often pooh-poohed the Everton is Catholic shibboleth by recounting the simple if mundane fact that Everton, as St Domingo F. C., was founded by a Methodist chapel minister for his younger congregation members to play football in the winter and cricket in the summer. Moreover, as the original St Domingo's morphed into Everton and then split into two clubs, Everton and Liverpool, it would be very odd for one to be Protestant and the other Catholic. As Michael Kenrick says both clubs were essentially formed by the same group of wealthy, middle-class people who were predominantly protestants, with a significant sprinkling of freemasons.

What I learned from reading the links below was that the early movers and shakers at both Everton and subsequently, when it came into existence as the Devil's spawn, Liverpool, worked hard to ensure that sectarianism had no place. Oh, they fell out about lots of other stuff  - part of the Everton-Liverpool split was to do with who got the beer sales, or indeed whether there should be any (Methodists, you see?).

Much later, with both clubs being firmly non-denominational, the Catholic hierarchy in Liverpool also worked hard to keep religion out of secular activities such as local politics and, yes, football. The Anglican and Catholic leaders on Merseyside have strived for many decades to forge strong ecumenical links, to the extent that one Anglican bishop from Liverpool interviewed by the Belfast Telegraph in the 1990s didn't want to be referred to as 'protestant', preferring the phrase 'catholic and reformed'. Which is strictly correct, of course. That reporter was of course able to find hardline protestants who wanted no part of papal infallability or what they call 'Maryology' by visiting an Orange Lodge, and there are still annual Orange day parades, though I had to look that up as I wasn't ever aware of such things when I  lived on Merseyside, which was until the mid 1980s. The last serious sectarian riot in Liverpool was probably in 1909 and there hasn't been any significant sectarian violence on Merseyside - I'm not counting a bit of name calling - since the second world war.  I've not seen any evidence whatsoever that when there was it was linked in any way to football. 

The Belfast Telegraph article concluded that football was the new religion on Merseyside and everything points to that religion being blind to any others. Martin Odoni (see link below) says that there is no particularly solid evidence to support the proposition that Everton is a Catholic club and Liverpool Protestant, other than an assumed similarity to the rivalry in Glasgow which he refers to as a  "silogistic fallacy". One can understand why people who don't understand the city of Liverpool might think there were parallels with Glasgow as Liverpool has the highest catholic population of any English city, with similar proportions of catholics and protestants to Glasgow*. But really one might just as well say there's a lot of folk in both cities whose antecedents had something to do with ships.

Returning to football, Odoni describes the Merseyside football rivalry as unique, the clubs being far more intertwined from the outset than the Glasgow clubs ever were, the split stemming from a business feud that turned personal. As a result of the close geographic proximity of the clubs it has been common throughout the existence of the clubs for families to split in temrs of support for the blues and reds, which would hardly happen if the support was sectarian based.

Indeed, if the Everton hierarchy was Catholic, why would they have moved in the 1890s to a ground adjoining St Luke's Anglican church?  St Luke's is sometimes called 'the church with its own football ground'. So close is the relationship with Everton that funeral and memorial services for prominent Evertonians such as Harry Catterick and Andy King (photo below) have been held there. 

The Parish vicar was appointed as Everton club chaplain in 1994 and became a leading figure in Everton's former players foundation.

Indeed maybe some of this was why Geoffrey Wheatcroft, writing an article on politics in the Guardian in 2004, is the only person I've seen to state that Everton was the protestant team and Liverpool the catholic. This prompted many reader comments to the effect that any religious affiliations exist only as a memory and sectarianism is repudiated in the city, prompting a correction to be printed two days later. Which just goes to show you can trust the Guardian to get even an incorrect argument the wrong way round.

So where did the Everton is Catholic story come from? Possibly it stemmed from the fact that after the war Everton was the first club to set up a scouting network in Ireland. They recruited a number of Irish players, including Peter Farrell and Tommy Eglington both of whom played around 400 times for the club in the 1940s and 50s. It's possible that the idea took hold that the link was stronger, to the point where Liverpudlian families, such as Cilla Black's, espoused the belief that Everton supporters must be Catholics and Liverpudlians Protestants. But there was never any substance in it and Kenrick concludes none of it means very much today except to a few zealots and fundamentalists.

Oh one can point to random factoids and make a sandcastle argument from them. For example Liverpool apparently didn't sign an Irish catholic until Ronnie Whelan in 1979. But Everton had the better scouting links there and being a catholic didn't stop Tommy Smith signing for Liverpool in 1960 and staying until 1978 even though some in his family had queried whether he would belong there. 

The fact that the football rivalry is not sectarian is remarkable in a city that did suffer from soured sectarian relations between its residents for two centuries with many reports of sectarian violence (just not associated with football). Local politicians were often elected on the basis of their ethno-religious pedigree until the 1970s.Weakening sectarianism in Liverpool has often been attributed to slum clearance but the reasons are probably more complex, according to a 2015 PhD thesis by Keith Roberts who summarised his work as follows:

".... the downfall of sectarianism coincided with the creation of a collective identity; an identity based not on ethno-religious affiliations, but on a commonality, an acknowledgment that principles which united were more significant than factors which divided. Importantly, the success of the city’s two football teams, Everton FC and Liverpool FC, gave the city a new focus based upon a healthy sporting rivalry rather than sectarian vehemence. A complex interplay of secularism and ecumenism, the economic misfortunes of Liverpool and their political impact in terms of class politics, the growth of a collective city identity and the omnipotence of (non-religiously derived) football affiliations combined to diminish Liverpool’s once acute sectarian fault-line."

So the non sectarian nature of the city's great passion for football is seen as a significant factor in the decline of sectarianism in the city. Football is indeed th new religion.

I'll end by quoting the conclusion of Martin Odoni's article, which seems to perfectly summarise one of the most special, intense and generally friendly rivalries in world football:

"The reality of the two fanbases, both in the city of Liverpool and beyond, is that there is no clear dividing line. Be it religious, social, historical, geographical, or even familial, there is no clear tendency influencing which of the two teams a football supporter on Merseyside is likely to support. Fans of both clubs are found in large numbers in all areas of the city, and always have been. Fans of both clubs are found with enormous frequency in the same family units, probably more so than in any other footballing rivalry, and, again, always have been. Yes, Catholics are about as likely to support Liverpool as Everton, and Protestants are about as likely to support Everton as Liverpool. Families of rich backgrounds, families of poor backgrounds, families of moderate backgrounds, if they are living on Merseyside, are as likely to have fans from both fanbases among their number as they are to have fans of only one of the two clubs.

The familial point is particularly strong, because in most parts of the world where there is more than one team, family preference is likely to be the decisive influence on which team a fan chooses, just as much as it will heavily influence which religion that person adopts. The fact that families on Merseyside tend to follow suit on religion, but can go either way on taste in football teams, is the most decisive bit of evidence available of the non-correlation between the two clubs and the Protestant/Catholic divide. Where fans do believe the myth of the teams being sectarian e.g. where a Protestant chooses to support Liverpool because of supposed Protestant sympathies at Anfield, they are probably doing so simply because of what they have heard, and not checked the history themselves.

It is a history they should feel is worth knowing. Partly because it is a remarkable and fascinating story in its own right. But more than that, without knowing such a history, without knowing what the rivalry is all about, what is the point of indulging in a rivalry at all?"

* Wikipedia makes the unsubstantiated claim that "75% (estimated)" of Liverpool's population have some form of Irish ancestry. This seems a bit on the highside to me: my personal experience is that I can recall school mates proclaiming Welsh links but not Irish. I didn't find any in my family tree going back to 1800, which admittedly proves nothing. UK census data does not distinguish between types of Christian in England. 57% of Liverpool's 2021 population was classified as Christian and 29% no religion. I've seen elsewhere estimates that 25% of Liverpool's population identifies as Catholic. If so the Anglicans would only slightly outnumber those of no religion and Catholics. In Scotland they do collect that data. For Glasgow it's not that different from my estimate for Liverpool: 32% Protestant, 29% Catholic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow

https://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/glasgow-merseyside.48424/ says you couldn't get Everton-Rangers half and half hats but as they would have been all blue it wouldn't have shown and the next link has someone explicitly saying they had a Rangers/Everton hat. It also mentions many other combinations and has a photo of a Wolves/Rangers combo: https://www.followfollow.com/forum/threads/who-remembers-the-half-n-half-hat-craze-in-the-80s.66396/

https://www.facebook.com/TheKopLocker/posts/rangerscelticrangersceltic-who-remembers-those-chants-from-the-old-kop-both-badg/1626387414196721/ shows half and half enamel badges with Liverpool/Celtic and Liverpool/Rangers and recalls the tiresome "Rangers/Celtic" chanting I heard at Goodison happening at Anfield.

Catholic or Protestant? Are Evertonians catholic or protestant? Seeking a balanced view by Michael Kenrick, Toffee Web editor https://www.toffeeweb.com/fans/beingblue/religion.asp

Football history: is it true that Everton is a Catholic club and Liverpool a Protestant  club? Martin Odoni, 18 Sept 2020. TheCritique archives, wordpress. https://thegreatcritique.wordpress.com/2020/09/18/football-history-is-it-true-that-everton-is-a-catholic-club-and-liverpool-is-a-protestant-club/. This piece includes a lot of detail on the split between the (Everton) "teetotallers" faction and the original saviour of Everton and founder of Liverpool, John Houlding. He covers the historical oddity that while Everton is officially the older club, Liverpool's company number is actually older, muddying the waters about which was actually the first of the two clubs. He gives a blow by blow account of what was a bitter and quite childish rivalry in the 1890s. Everton were probably complicit in keeping Liverpool out of the Football League in 1892 - they had to wait to join the new division 2 in 1893, playing in the Lancashire League in the meantime. Both teams reached the final of the Liverpool F.A.'s prime competition, the Senior Cup in 1893 - the first derby. Liverpool won 1-0 and the arguments started about refereeing bias in favour of Liverpool in that match, arguments that have rumbled on through Clive Thomas disallowing Bryan Hamilton's FA Cup semi final "winner"in 1977, Alan Hansen's goalline handball in the 1984 League Cup final, Everton's disallowed last minute winner (off Don Hutchison's back) in 2000 while a year later Gary Macallister scored in the last minute from a free kick that arguably shouldn't have been given. The 1893 incident was the most serious as Everton's accusations of refereeing corruption when a late penalty was not given to the blues for handball led to the trophy presentation being delayed until a later date. Eleven years later Everton, who finished third that year managed to lose to Stoke City in their last home game, condemning Liverpool to relegation instead of Stoke. Allegations that Everton deliberately threw the game were never substantiated but it was all fuel to the fire of ausually friendly but occasionally bitter rivalry that has continued from there. But it's nothing to do with religion.

https://efcheritagesociety.com/st-lukes-the-church-with-its-own-football-ground/

The rise and fall of Liverpool sectarianism. Keith Daniel Roberts, Liverpool University PhD thesis 2015. https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/2010280/3/RobertsKei_April2015_2010280.pdf. This is a serious academic study and is 474 pages long

Scouse for cripes! Geoffrey Wheatcroft, the Guardian 20 Oct 2004. A correction was published on 22 October 2004 after an avalanche of comments from Liverpudlians (i.e. residents of Liverpool, not supporters of Liverpool FC). The article was about the bizarre occasion when Michael Howard insisted Boris Johnson go to Liverpool to apologise for a tactless article about self pity. 

The struggle to stay 'Protestant' on Merseyside. Belfast Telegraph 11 Jul 1996

For more on the 1909 riot see The Belfast of England, BBC archive https://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2009/06/18/history_sectarian_1909_feature.shtml