I'm currently in a debate about City and Liverpool's history. Is there any info on Liverpool's 1960's investment and the Moores family?
I'm sure you will have used the contributions from others here on 'Bluemoon' regarding Liverpool's 60s investment sourced from the Moores family and probably (by now, I hope!) eviscerated the arguments put forward by the Scouse apologists you were dealing with. However, you might find this back-of-the-fag-packet calculation from a contribution I posted about four years ago useful if ever the discussion rears its head again?! Sorry if it goes on a bit..
"Please bear with me whilst I outline a discussion I had with a couple of pals, one an Everton fan, the other a Liverpool supporter, a year or so back.
Both had spouted the usual media tosh about City and 'oil money' (with its inherent racism) and us having no history (ie not having won anything for donkey's years and so on) and all the other stuff about buying success.. etc, etc, you know the score..
So, eventually, having sipped on my pint whilst listening to this guff, I slowly knocked each issue they had with City back into the covers, until finally going into some detail about things that I knew about their respective clubs, especially how their joint rise to success post-1960 was pump-primed by the Moores family/Littlewoods connections and shareholdings.
In 1961, Everton had consolidated as a top flight club for 3-4 years after promotion from the 2nd division and were about to appoint Harry Catterick as manager, whilst Liverpool were still a 2nd division side, with their newly installed manager, Bill Shankly.
Both clubs gained significantly from the Moores connections; Everton in 1959-60 to the tune of an initial £56000 interest free loan from John Moores himself plus a guarantee to underwrite transfer spending for the next few years; while a year later, Liverpool gained funding support to buy, most notably, both Ian St John and Ron Yeats for a total of almost £60000. Within a few years, both had won the 1st division title and the FA Cup, on their way to becoming part of English football's long-term elite.
'So what?' you might say.
Well, those sums of money were significant in kick-starting the Everton and Liverpool we came to know (and occasionally support, especially in Europe) over the next few decades. Just as with every other club that has enjoyed successes down the ages, from the Arsenal of the 30's onwards to Nottingham Forest in the late 70s to the modern day Chelsea and now City. And those sums of money given to create 'The School of Science' at Goodison and 'This Is Anfield' across Stanley Park were not piddling amounts.
As I then said to my pals, it's very difficult to locate club accounts information prior to 1974 but taking that year's statement of accounts for both Everton and Liverpool, they posted 'Incomes' of £499328 and £701289 respectively (with 'Income' defined as gate receipts and other sources of funding such as the club shop, programme sales etc less shares paid to other clubs and taxes etc) These figures were earned after some 10 years of being successful top-flight clubs, during which time both had won 2 titles and also the FA Cup, plus begun their early experience with European competition.
Now, using the Bank of England's inflation calculator, 1974's £499k (Everton) and £701k (Liverpool) translate to £223k and £314k in 1960/61. Remember, both were not the giants they later became, so their earnings would probably be much lower - but stick with these numbers for now.
The initial monies given to fund their respective transfer spending of the early 60s (£56k to Everton and £60k to Liverpool) represent approx. 25% of Everton's 1960 income, whilst for Liverpool it's 22%. That was some kick-start for both clubs, almost unprecedented at the time and absolutely the key reason for the subsequent successes both clubs enjoyed between 1962-74.
Again, 'so what?' Well, my two pals were astounded when I outlined this lot to them. In fact, the Liverpool supporter was blissfully unaware that Everton had benefited to such an extent from the largesse of John Moores.
Whenever I point such things out to fans from other clubs (should the occasion arise), they too are similarly shocked. The point being that, just as with our 'lottery win' of 2008, so too every club that wants to dine at the top table needs the ackers to go with their ambition. The numbers may have skyrocketed astronomically since the advent of the Premier League but the principle is exactly the same.
And as for the advent of the Premier League, I'd better finish now before I start on that one.. the accretion of power by (first) the 'BIg 5' of Everton, Liverpool, United, Spurs and Arsenal and then the 'Sky 4' of Liverpool, Arsenal United and Chelsea, is another one that rattles my cage when other clubs' fans seem to forget the history of the thing and what has been going on over the past couple of decades..!"
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