About the author

I grew up in Ormskirk but my father was Liverpool born and therefore Liverpool was his club. My first football experience was being taken to Anfield to watch Liverpool take on Lech Poznan in the European Cup in 1984. Being only 3, I don’t have any memories of that game, but I do have fond memories of visiting Anfield with my father on other occasions, standing on the Kop (well, sitting on the crush barriers so I could see!) to watch the great Liverpool sides of the late 80s.

My love affair with Southport did not begin until 1992 but the seeds had been sown back in April 1989. My father had bought two tickets for Liverpool’s FA Cup Semi Final against Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough, with the intention of taking me to the game. I, however, had other plans and decided that a day trip with the Beaver Scouts to Jungle Jim’s underneath Blackpool Tower was where any self-respecting 8-year-old should be. With what happened at Hillsborough on that fateful day, in hindsight it was probably the smartest decision I have ever made.

In 1992, for reasons completely unbeknown to me, I found myself at a Southport v Marine game at Haig Avenue with my father and a family friend, Henry Nutter. I’m convinced that prior to setting foot in the ground I did not even know it was there – at only 11 years old, I had no knowledge of anything below the First Division. That season Southport won the Northern Premier League, and I became a regular from 1993 alongside my father, Southport’s first season in the G.M. Vauxhall Conference.

As an enthusiastic student I became the creator and editor of the first Southport Football Club website in 1996 and held several voluntary roles with the Club, including Press Officer, in the years since.
In the early 2000s my father moved to Glasgow and began to work for The Celtic Football Club, a club steeped in history and tradition. I stayed at home in Aughton with my mother and attended Edge Hill University to study for a Bachelors degree in Communication and Media. It was there, in my second year of study, that I met Becky. 

In 2006, Becky and I got married, and two years later we had our first child, Olivia. In 2010, we added Cameron to our clan, and he has attended games with me frequently since he turned five or six. He enjoys his football even more than I do and spends a lot of time with Becky’s family – his Grandad Steve and Uncle James – watching Wigan Athletic, in addition to the Sandgrounders. Researching the origins of Rugby for this book helped me to fall back in love with a sport which I briefly dallied with in the early 2000s, Rugby League, and Cameron and I also find ourselves watching Wigan Warriors as often as we can.

Ever since I had first read the opening chapter of ‘the book’ (as the Complete League History of Southport FC by Wilde and Braham is most often referred to) in the mid-90s I had been fascinated with the early history of Southport Football Club, and seeing the way that Celtic embraced and celebrated its history made me even more keen to see Southport celebrate its own. I’m very fortunate that over the years, as my own interests grew, and I started to keep my own Southport FC records, Geoff and Michael indulged by enthusiasm.

I have worked as a Business Analyst in the Financial Services industry since 2005. My analytical mindset lends itself to research work and in 2019 I started the Southport FC Former Players Association to help promote the history and heritage of the club.

I’ve spent a number of years researching the very early years of Southport Football Club and have contributed a number of articles to the Club’s match day programme, Club website and to the Former Players Association’s website, but, encouraged by Michael Braham, decided that it was perhaps about time I wrote a book! That book, “The Town’s Game” was published in July 2022, and covers the period of 1872 to 1889 and the events that led up to the formation of the current club in 1888.

DJH