| Full name | Bootle Football Club | |
|---|---|---|
| Nickname | North Enders[1] | |
| Founded | 1879 | |
| Dissolved | 1893 | |
| Ground | Hawthorne Road | |
| League | Second Division | |
| 1893 | 8th (resigned) | |
| ||
Bootle Football Club was anEnglishfootball club based inBootle,Lancashire. Founder members of theFootball Alliance, the club was one of the first two clubs to resign from theFootball League.[2] and also one of only two clubs (the other beingMiddlesbrough Ironopolis F.C.) to spend a single season in the League.
Bootle F.C. were formed in 1879 as Bootle St Johns AFC and played their first fixture in October 1880 againstEverton.[2] Later that year the club changed its name to Bootle F.C. and then entered theFA Cup for the first time the following season.[2]
In 1887 Bootle signed formerScotlandinternationalAndrew Watson, the first black international player. If, as is likely, he was paid then he was the first black professional footballer in history, pre-datingArthur Wharton.[3]
When the Football League was founded, William MacGregor invitedEverton as the representatives of the city ofLiverpool, rather than Bootle. Instead, in 1888-89 Bootle joined theFootball Combination, and then in 1889-90 were founder members of theFootball Alliance.[2] That season was their most successful as they finished league runners-up (winning every home match), and reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, where they lost 7–0 toBlackburn Rovers.[4]
However the club suffered when playing away from Hawthorne Road; in its second Alliance season, the club only secured 1 point away from home, and in the third and final season only 1 away win. At the end of the 1891–92 season, the club was in serious financial difficulties, owing £300 to lenders and £800 for the construction of new stands, against annual income of £2,000. In order to raise funds the club decided to form a limited liability company.[5]
When the Alliance merged with the Football League in 1892, Bootle became founder members of the newSecond Division.[6] The club's crowds however declined from the usual 2–3,000 in the Alliance to just 1,000 by the end of its one League season. Despite finishing in eighth position, the club resigned, its last League action being supporting a resolution to increase the First Division to 20 clubs (opposed by Everton) to avoid Liverpool becoming a one-club monopoly. Bootle was one of the first two clubs to resign from the League, the other beingAccrington F.C., and is one of only two clubs to have spent just one season in the Football League, the other beingMiddlesbrough Ironopolis.[7]
In its final season the club's expenditure was £2,198, half of which was due to wages, as against an income of £1,355 plus donations of £155.[8] The club did enter theFA Cup for 1893–94, and was drawn to play atStockport County in the qualifying rounds,[9] but, on 28 August 1893, before the tie could take place, the club passed a resolution putting itself into liquidation.[10]
Four Bootle players appeared forWales:[11]
