Merseyside football and the slave trade

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is about the roots of Everton Football Club and, given their shared heritage, Liverpool FC. It concerns a dimension to the history of both clubs that has been largely overlooked but should be considered in light of Liverpool’s ongoing civic reckoning with its historic slave trade connection. The research carried out suggests that the foundation period of professional football on Merseyside was marked by the patronage of well-known figures in Liverpool society who, directly or indirectly, profited from the exploitation of slave and other forms of coerced labour. It is contended that there was a reciprocal relationship between a cohort of club patrons and the evolving football scene in the city. It is also argued that Everton FCs recent commitment to memorialize the slave associations of the dock land site of its new stadium – a move it has reaped praise for – can also be viewed negatively as an underscoring of the ‘maritimisation’ of the impact of slavery, further obscuring the pervasiveness of the slavery story beyond maritime spaces.