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Astride Stanley Park are two of the world’s greatest football club grounds. This is not accidental - it reflects the park’s importance to the development of team games, and to the development of spectator sports in Liverpool.

Stanley Park - Birthplace of Liverpool Football

By Ray Physick

When Stanley Park was opened in 1870, the Mayor of Liverpool called it the ‘People’s Park’. Indeed, the park was fulfilling an urgent need for more open space in a town that had grown with immense rapidity in the nineteenth century. Liverpool had one of the lowest ratios of open public space for leisure in Britain. Two years prior to the park opening, a government report noted that the parliamentary boundary of Liverpool contained 7.8 square miles, with a population of 500,860, or about 100 inhabitants to the acre; over twice as many an acre as Manchester and Salford.
While merchants and professional classes had the knack of acquiring land for pursuing their sports: for swimming baths, for cricket, for racing at Aintree and to host the Liverpool Olympics in 1862, 1863, 1864 and 1867, the barrier to leisure for workers was the long hours of work endured in the nineteenth century.
From the 1850s onwards, whole sections of British workers began a campaign for the Saturday half-day holiday. This demand was not fully won in Liverpool until well into the 1890s.
The following letter to the Liverpool Mercury of July 1853 sums up the desire of many workers on Merseyside:

And why should not we also get some little time for recreation? Here have I been in an office for six years and never had but three days holiday, with the exception of Sundays.

There was a particular problem with obtaining the Saturday half-day holiday - especially for dock workers because of the casual nature of their work, and for clerks: ten years after the above letter, clerks in Liverpool were still working 7am to 6pm Monday to Saturday.
Momentum for a shorter working week was kept up with the Nine Hours Movement in the 1870s, and by 1872 the bulk of the skilled trades had won the Saturday half-day holiday, but it was April 1890 before the dock workers obtained it, following months of strikes and lock-outs. With the bulk of the working class now having free time on a Saturday afternoon, a time slot for leisure had been created paving the way for the development of mass spectator sports.
Before 1860, the dominant team sport in Liverpool was cricket, and this played a big part in the issue of sport and space. There were private cricket clubs such as Liverpool and Bootle, but as the game became more popular the need for large open public space became ever more apparent. This was satisfied to a certain extent with the opening of Wavertree Park in 1856 and Newsham and Sheil Parks in the late 1860s. But these parks were not then located in working class areas and it was there where the need was greatest.
Prior to Stanley Park being opened, sports were played around the area on various fields. More than forty cricket teams played at these venues. This undermines the notion that cricket was the social preserve of the middle class. Indeed, as more workers obtained the Saturday half-day holiday, the number of cricket teams in working class areas grew.
Following the opening of Stanley Park, several more pitches came on stream and the number of teams increased. When the park opened in May 1870, there were 25-30,000 people present. The mayor stated:

Although the corporation of Liverpool has several parks, such as the Sheil Park, the Wavertree Park and the Newsham Park, there is no park that has yet been opened to the public which deserves the name of the People’s Park more than Stanley Park.
When I consider what large masses of people live within the space which stretches from the outskirts of this park down to the Mersey, and the confined habitations in which they dwell, and when I look at the grand scene around me today I cannot but believe that the park will be the greatest benefit in various ways to all classes of the community – a benefit both morally and physically.

Indeed, 50-60 acres of the park’s one hundred were given over to sport and leisure, and this did not include the lake, which was obviously provided as a leisure resource.
Elsewhere in Britain, Birmingham for example, the new sport of Association Football was gaining ground. This is no accident, as Birmingham was far in advance of Liverpool in obtaining a shorter working week for the bulk of the working class, and by the late 1860s-early 1870s football was increasingly associated with the working class.
It was 1878 before the first football teams were put on an organised footing in Liverpool, the most notable team being from the local Methodist church, which called itself St Domingo. This team finally emerged as Everton Football Club in 1879, playing its first game at Stanley Park on 21 December 1879 and beating another church based team St Peter’s 6-0. For the first three years Everton played at Stanley Park in front of ever-growing crowds. It was this numeric pressure, and the need to generate income, that forced Everton to move to an enclosed ground at Priory Road in 1883, and eventually to Anfield in 1884.
Everton leaving the park in 1883 was not the end of football in the park - there were numerous other teams at this stage with a growing fan base. But once the bulk of the Liverpool workingclass obtained the Saturday half-day crowds at Anfield grew exponentially, and Everton emerged as the dominant team from the Stanley Park birthplace. When Everton left Anfield, they found another field near the park to build an enclosed ground. Liverpool FC took over tenancy of Anfield and the rest - as they say - is history. But it is important to note that Stanley Park - not Anfield or Goodison - is the birthplace of Liverpool football.

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Sorry Comments Closed

Comment left by Peter Walsh on 12th January, 2007 at 7:05
hello all, I am an ex-pat Scouser and I am now living in Brisbane Australia and love reading all about the great history of the great port Liverpool keep up the good work for the education of he youth of today, Peter...

Comment left by David Heywood on 17th January, 2007 at 10:26
Great article,but could you tell me where the name for Stanley park came from?

Comment left by Vauxpop on 29th January, 2007 at 15:13
i am interested in your source for the atatement by the lordmayor............the city did not receive 'city' status till 1880 the city was 'allowed' to have a mayor in 1893.......so the speech in front of all those people in 1870 was delivered by whom.....??????? regards

Comment left by Phil Lovgreen on 4th February, 2007 at 1:04
Named after the Stanley family, the Earls of Derby, one of Liverpool's aristocratic families.

Comment left by H RUSHTON on 7th February, 2007 at 11:18
How can i help to keep the park as it is, you can put a football club anywhere, can we get a petition up to stop it Everton were stopped, so get all the Evertonians to sign it and everyone else in the city who wish to, and get this council out. they would soon change there mind, if not Everton will take another third , on the grounds of equal rights .

Comment left by p.hogg on 8th May, 2007 at 3:38
answer to H rushton keep the park as it is was your suggestion have you walked through the park recently?? There is nothing left of it the bridges are longer nothing of the great stanley park is there any more L.F.C has said they will redevelope the park for the whole off liverpool not just liverpool fans. Seems to me like your just looking after your own interests by trying to involve EVERTON fans . Your not interested in making stanley park a place for our kids to go and enjoy.

Comment left by J Byrne on 25th July, 2007 at 23:57
after just reading p.hoggs reply to h rushton I would like to know what side of the park you support football should come second to this the point is the park was once called the peoples park instead of a ground being built get the council to get the park sorted out im 53 I remember my mum and dad taking me there when it was a great park please get it back that way

Comment left by dave savage on 30th July, 2007 at 14:15
hello everyone, i live just a stones throw away from the proposed new lfc stadium in anfield and i have done all my life. this is such a exciting time for reds fans and indeed the residents of the whole area.to those who say lfc should not be allowed to build on the park are talking quite frankly, rubbish. the ones with the loudest voices against are those who either dont even live in the area or dont even use the park.the whole area needs regeneration and lfc are promising just that.i for one just cannot wait.

Comment left by harry charles on 17th September, 2008 at 11:08
A very one sided and biased article, that does not give the true discription of Everton FC,and you saying the [REST IS HISTORY]well its not, This is 100 per cent written by a twenty year old Liverpool supporteror a older very bitter red and does not reflect the true history,Everton was the birthplace

Comment left by Joe Southern on 13th April, 2011 at 22:12
Lots of writin but we want to know about everton (best team ever) not about the city and that!! :)

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