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The English Game

In these strangest of times, I've found myself indulging in a fair amount of what the kids these days call 'binge-watching' series after series on Netflix, BBC iPlayer, etc. One such programme which I had recommended to me by a fellow Evertonian was The English Game, a beautifully crafted dramatization of one of the most interesting subtexts in the early days of Association Football, pre-League, when friendly matches took place up and down the country, the game was amateur and the FA Cup really was 'the big one'… well, it was the only one really, barring county-level contests.

Without going into too much depth, The English Game kicks off with the tale of Darwen FC, a working-class team attached to the mill in the small town outside Blackburn. The canny mill-owner has tempted two players from Glasgow club Partick, against whom Darwen appear to have been given a footballing lesson in a recent friendly tie. The two players are Fergus Suter and Jimmy Love, a pair of game Glasgow boys, being (unlawfully by footballing laws of the day) paid to play for Darwen, while nominally employed at t'mill.

In reality, Jimmy Love had arrived first, Suter following a few weeks later. Their tempting south was in fact with the aim of implementing what would have been known at the time as The Scottish Game. English football tactics in that era generally stemmed from the public school system of 'rushing', whereby teams charged forward in unison, in a more rugby football style and formation, scrimmaging for the ball, battering opponents out of the way with a shoulder charge or whatever body part they could throw at their opposite number, effectively bundling the ball forward and past the poor goalkeeper who received barely any protection whatsoever from the officials.

For so-called gentlemen, this style of play, or lack-of, employed by the likes of Old Etonians, Wanderers, et al, was utterly at odds with a more measured approach being pursed north of the border, namely that of passing the ball to players in space. Attempting to play in and around the opposition, rather than simply charging straight through them like a battering ram, hoping to carry the ball along in doing so before punting it between the sticks. Wahay!

Fergus Suter was noted as a skilled exponent of this technique, playing from deep and controlling the flow of the game. Hopes were high in Darwen that his arrival would herald a new dawn for their team, a revolution perhaps in the way the game was played in England. The programme shows the ups and downs of those early months. Much creative license is employed by creator Julian Fellowes (of Downton Abbey fame) in adding a complex back story to Suter's personal life which drives him and before long he is off, for more money, to hated local rivals Blackburn. The people of Darwen turn on Suter, all hell breaks loose. Has the game really changed that much?

Further factual details are toyed with, embroidered or replaced entirely for dramatic effect, as I suspected while watching and have confirmed with a little research since. But it's a cracking watch. Rare for a football-based drama to pull off the live action in a more than passable fashion and the dramatic touches make for good viewing. Suter, Love, Arthur Kinnaird and Co were real characters with interesting stories. Do some digging and see what you find.

I, of course, was looking for an Everton angle. You might want to watch the series (it only comprises six 43- to 55-minute episodes) before you read the rest of this, as I don't want to ruin anything. If you have already seen it, I hope the following is of interest.

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The English Game culminates with the good guys emerging triumphant. Quite right too, and accurate in terms of what happened, if not the finer details. Which is where an Everton connection does come into play, and — wouldn't you know it! — it is the individual who once turned out in an Everton shirt who is ultimately robbed of his moment of glory by the editorial decisions made by Fellowes and his team in the name of art! His club as well, in fact. But let's make it all about us, eh?!

The 1882 FA Cup Final was indeed contested between Arthur Kinnaird's Old Etonians and Fergus Suter's Blackburn… ROVERS (this is important, in The English Game, they are simply ‘Blackburn'). The match took place before a crowd of around 6,500 at Kennington Oval on 25 March 1882 and, as expected, the public schoolboys ran out 1-0 winners with a goal from forward William Anderson. In The English Game, Kinnaird, the main protagonist alongside Suter, appears to slot almost every single goal the Eton boys score. Hard luck Blackburn, but there's a definite sense that the tide is about to turn. The public-school crew have been in a game at last against their working-class rivals.

In an interesting aside, Wikipedia tells us that in May 2013 a programme from the game sold at auction at Sotheby's for £35,250, a world record for a football programme.

A year later and again the FA Cup Final is contested between those Old Etonian brutes and Blackburn. Suter has his shot at revenge and boy does he take it, scoring twice to cancel out an Arthur Kinnaird opener and claim a watershed 2-1 victory. The Cup travels north, for the first time in working-class hands. Kinnaird and Co are finally forced to accept that the game is bigger than them. That the times they are a-'changin' and The People's Game is born!

All of the above DID happen... sort of. Only it was Blackburn OLYMPIC who won the Cup in 1883, 2-1. Fergus Suter never played for them. Arthur Kinnaird was at half-back for Old Etonians, but the winning goal was scored in extra time by inside-left James Costley, who was born in Liverpool in 1862. Old Etonians had taken an early lead through Harry Goodhart — who, incidentally, would go on to become Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University — only for Arthur Matthews to equalise. J Yates played on the left-wing for Olympic, alas his Christian name being John, not James, and no relation of mine that I know of! The trophy was presented to the Blackburn Olympic skipper by referee Major Marindin, who appears as goalkeeper — not to mention arrogant, ignorant, posh berk in chief — in the Old Etonians team throughout The English Game.

Real-life goal hero, James Costley, would go on to make at least four appearances and score at least one goal in an Everton shirt during the 1886-87 season of friendly and cup matches, apparently in place of his younger brother, Tom.

Tom Costley made at least 41 pre-League appearances, scoring at least 18 goals for Everton in their Anfield days. He made a further six League appearances in the opening season of League football in 1888-89, scoring twice on his League debut as outside-left on 20 October 1888 at the Racecourse Ground in a 4-2 win versus Derby County. His home debut was again on the left-wing against the same opposition a week later in a barnstorming 6-2 victory. On 17 November 1888, Tom turned out at centre-forward in a 2-2 draw at Turf Moor against Burnley, before returning to the left-flank for a 3-2 win in the return fixture at Anfield a week later.

On 1 December 1888, Tom failed to finish the game at Stoney Lane against West Brom, hobbling off the field as Everton trailed the Baggies 3-1. His final Everton appearance hints at the fact that injury may well have brought the curtain down completely on his footballing career at just 23 years of age. Again, he was forced to retire hurt, this time before the interval, as 10-man Everton clung on for a 0-0 draw at the Victoria Ground against Stoke on 15 December 1888.

Thomas Halliwell Costley was born 3 March 1865 in Liverpool and the Costley family were living at 19 Duke Street in 1871. By the time of the 1881 census, Tom, his six siblings and their mother Grace had relocated to Blackburn, where a 16-year-old Tom was working as a cotton weaver. This also explains how older brother James, a 19-year-old cotton spinner, found his way into one of the Blackburn football teams by 1883.

Tom would make his first recorded Everton appearance on 25 August 1886, at inside-left, in a 3-1 victory over Stanley at Anfield. His first goals would follow a fortnight later, on 4 September 1886, a brace in a 4-0 home win over Astley Bridge. James Costley would pull on an Everton jersey for the first time a few months later, turning out on the left-wing in a 7-0 victory over Rawtenstall, on 22 January 1887, at Anfield. There does not appear to be any record of both Costley brothers appearing in the same Everton line-up.

After calling time on his football career, Tom Costley would go on to work as a caretaker at 211-213 Chatsworth Street in West Derby, and in the 1911 census is proprietor of a “chip potato business”, while living at 22a Prescot Road in Fairfield. He married a girl from Plymouth by the name of Fanny Margaret Shepherd, in Liverpool, in 1889. The couple had four children and retired to Dyserth, near Rhyl where Tom died at Cartrefle Hospital on 12 July 1941, aged 76.

James Lawrence Costley was born in Liverpool in early 1862. He married fellow Scouser Ellen Minshull on 27 April 1889 at Blackburn, St Michael and All Angels. In 1891, the couple were living at 9 Cotton Street, Blackburn; then, in the 1901 and 1911 censuses, the couple can be found making a home with their three children (in 1901 accompanied by James's widowed brother William), at 12 Boland Street. Throughout this time, James remains in employment as a cotton spinner. And, of course, retains the title of FA Cup Final winning goal scorer. Such different times! James Costley passed away in Blackburn in 1931, aged 69.

Please see my friend Tony Onslow's excellent piece on the Costley brothers from 2014 for more: a Wikipedia entry for James Costley contradicts much of the above, and what Tony writes, but appears to confuse the brothers' careers completely. In fact, Tom Costley doesn't get a mention.

This obituary from the Liverpool Echo, dated 16 July 1941, however, rightly remembers Tom Costley as the Everton stalwart:

Death of Tom Costley

One by one the old Everton stalwarts of half a century or so ago are being taken from us. A month or so ago the death took place of Alf Milward, the Blues' famous winger and English international.

Today I have heard of Mr Tom Costley, who passed away in hospital at the age of 76.

Tom Costley played for Everton for several seasons in the ‘80s, while his brother scored the goal that brough the FA Cup north for the first time in history, when Blackburn Olympic beat Old Etonians.

Mr Costley had lived in retirement for many years at Dyserth, near Rhyl. The death is also reported from Dundee of Harry Ritchie, partner in the famous Dunn-Ritchie international wing, brought south by Everton 13 years ago.

(*more on Harry Ritchie in a forthcoming article!)

To finish, I had a look at Fergus Suter's record versus Everton. It makes for some reading, particularly given that he only appeared three times versus the Toffeemen.

Suter's first appearance against Everton came on 2 October 1882, at Blackburn Rovers' Leamington Road ground. Final score: Blackburn Rovers 8 Everton 0. Ouch.

What should have been Suter's second appearance versus Everton turned out not to be, in that he didn't turn up! Everton made a better fist of it, but 10-man Blackburn Rovers still prevailed, winning 2-1, at Anfield on 14 March 1885.

The Liverpool Mercury reported a couple of days later:

About three thousand spectators lined the arena at Walton Breck enclosure to witness Everton play the well-known Blackburn Rovers. The latter team included five first eleven players, but Suter was missing at the last moment, and the visitors contented themselves with ten men. They certainly had not such an easy task, though the combined play of the two teams was brilliant, and the visitors won by two goals to one. Everton had rather the best of the contest, and might have won had the shooting been more steady. The main feature of the Rovers' display was the magnificent dribbling of Fecitt throughout, and in the opinion of all he played a beautiful game. Barton, Blankhorn, and Woolfall likewise were seen to advantage. On the other side, Everton were well represented by Arlow (who was the best back on the field), and Stewart, Brown, McGill, Richard, and Higgins were also very conspicuous in their respective positions.

Suter was back in the team six months later, on 3 September, at Leamington Road as the home side again vanquished a hapless Everton, running out 5-0 winners. His final showing on record versus an Everton XI came on 15 January 1887, in a friendly, again at Blackburn, where Everton finally emerged with a measure of respectability, earning a 0-0 draw.

With thanks to:

www.evertonresults.com as always!
The British Newspaper Archive
Ancestry.co.uk

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