And Then There Was Football: Merseyside Football, A History 1878-2025

In this landmark book, Philip Ross delivers an exhaustive chronicle of football’s evolution across Merseyside, from its Victorian origins through to the present day. This meticulously researched work traces the story of the beautiful game in one of its great heartlands, capturing the social, economic and cultural forces that shaped football in Liverpool, the Wirral and surrounding areas.

Ross charts the transformation of a nascent sport in the nineteenth century into a global entertainment business that puts the region on TV screens worldwide every weekend, while also detailing how the grassroots game at every level across Merseyside feeds this cultural and economic behemoth.

Central to the story are the founding of iconic clubs: Everton’s evolution from St. Domingo Methodist Church team in 1878, Liverpool’s dramatic birth from the Anfield boardroom split of 1892, and the emergence of several other professional clubs and dozens of amateur sides across the region. Ross illuminates lesser-known tales and the countless works teams, church sides and amateur leagues that formed football’s grassroots foundation. From Goodison Park’s construction to Anfield’s Spion Kop, from Sunday morning kickabouts to European Cup nights, every level of the game receives attention.

The narrative is supplemented with detailed summaries of clubs at every level and the grounds they play on, as well as extensive appendices of competition winners – from the Premier League to the I Zingari League – published together in a single volume for the first time.

With unprecedented detail on forgotten clubs, obscure competitions, as well as the characters who built the game, this definitive account reveals football as both cultural phenomenon and community cornerstone, making it essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Merseyside’s unique place in football history.

This is more than sports history – it’s the story of how football became embedded in Merseyside’s DNA.