On This Day: April 4th

On this day in 1921 Southport Football Club became a Limited Company. With a capital of £4,000 in 8,000 shares the secretary Mr Edwin Clayton remarked that it was “now or never”.

In the Summer of 1919, Southport Vulcan, as they had been known since the Vulcan Motor Works had taken over the running of the club the previous summer, applied for admission to the Second Division of the Football League at the League’s Annual General Meeting. When this proved unsuccessful the Vulcan motor works had given up the running of the club.

Their application had never been likely to succeed as Football League would not allow the club to play under a trade name. A meeting was held at the Temperence Institute to consider the question of reforming the club at which the Mayor, Alderman E. Wood, presided. It was decided to reform the club as “Southport Football Club”, with a committee of R.J. Bentley, J.H. Preston, H. Watchorn, J.W. Robinson, G.H. Collinge, J. Winterbottom and T. Rimmer (who still represented the Vulcan Motor Company).

On 1st July 1920 Southport Vulcan FC were reconstituted as a new and distinct club, and on 17th July were elected to the West Lancashire League. The club entered the Richardson Cup and Lancashire Junior Cup. They played at Warren Road High Park under the Chairmanship of George Green with W.G. Rimmer as Treasurer and M. Simm as Secretary. They appointed Irish International Jack Kirwan, a former Southport Central, Chelsea and Spurs inside-forward, as their coach.

The team and officials are pictured in front of a Vulcan motor van (below).

For the first time since the 1890’s Southport had two Town teams.

Then Southport Central FC had been members of the Lancashire League whilst North Meols, an amalgamation of Churchtown and High Park had played in the Lancashire Combination from 1891-1893 and then in the Lancashire Alliance. By 1895 they had gone into liquidation and their assets had been sold by public auction.

Southport Vulcan had just one season in the West Lancashire League.

When Southport Football Club were elected to Division 3 (North), in march 1921 Southport Vulcan announced that they would not continue in opposition to them, instead amalgamating with the premier club to form Southport Reserves, who subsequently took Vulcan’s place in the West Lancashire League for the 1921-22 season.