Club Legend – William Edward Barclay

It seems strange to talk of an Everton manager as a Liverpool legend, but that is what William Edward Barclay counts as. To some, he wasn’t the sole manager of the Reds, on account of the fact that he worked so closely with John McKenna, who was the Club Secretary at the time. Mainly, though, there are numerous different ways in which management hundreds of years ago worked compared to how it works today.

Barclay and McKenna will have worked together closely in order to get Liverpool performing as well as possible, not least of all because of the fact that the club had only just been formed when the pair were in charge.

William Edward Barclay was the first manager of Everton and also the first manager of Liverpool, working with club secretary John McKenna. pic.twitter.com/FHltyOtT5Z

— Richie Gillham (@RWGbluenose) June 10, 2021

Barclay, of course, had been the Everton manager when the Blues played their games at Anfield. Whilst most of the staff made the switch over to Goodison Park when it was decided that the club wouldn’t pay the rent being asked for by John Houlding, Barclay stayed loyal to him and was therefore asked to take on the role of Secretary/Manager as a result.

That involved not only picking the Liverpool team but also travelling up and down the country in the search for new talent that could help to push the side further on in its ambitions. He worked with McKenna, yes, but he was an important figure in Liverpool’s history in his own right.

The Early Years of Barclay’s Life

William Edward Barclay was born in the Irish city of Dublin on the 14th of June in 1857. He was from a middle-class family, with his father, David, being the governor of the Malone Reformatory, which was an institute that offered young offenders a choice of somewhere to go other than prison.

This position ensured that his family had enough money to live in relative comfort, with William taking advantage of that fact by going on to complete two university degrees, becoming a Bachelor of Arts and Science. We know from his various registered addresses that he also travelled a lot during the more formative years of his life.

Before he settled in Liverpool, Barclay lived in the likes of Aberdeen, Lancashire and Belfast, marrying Emily King, a woman from Yorkshire, at around the same time that a football club called St Domingo was formed. Located in a borough of the city of Liverpool called Everton.

The Methodist clergy had created the team in order to give those that lived in the parish a way of playing sports when the summer was over and cricket was no longer a viable option. The games took place on Stanley Park, with Barclay living nearby as the Governor of a school in Everton, which remained one of his positions of employment until 1898.

Barclay & Everton

As a man of wealth and influence, it is likely that Barclay will have mixed in the same sort of social circles as men like John Houlding. Houlding had been one of the key figures in helping to turn St Domingo into Everton Football Club, as well as moving it from Stanley Park to playing games at Anfield. It is also likely that the men became friends, joining John McKenna as key allies on the Everton board.

When Everton played its first season in the newly created Football League in 1888-1889, Barclay was made the first Secretary-Manager of the team. They won 20 points, finishing the season eight out of the 12 sides that made up the division.

William Edward Barclay died on 30 January 1917.
Born in Dublin in 1857, Barclay was Liverpool FC first ever manager (from 1892 to 1895). He led the #LFC team to some early success – winning the Lancashire League in 1893 and Second Division in 1894.#LFChistory_net pic.twitter.com/9AHIGKY44w

— LFChistory.net (@LFChistory) January 30, 2021

With Preston North End having won the league and the FA Cup in a double, a benchmark had been set. As a result, it was decided that Barclay would move to the boardroom and use his administrative skills to help the team rather than his management ones. It was a good decision, with Everton improving enough to finish second, following that up with a title winning season the year after.

The problem wasn’t on the pitch at that stage but with the board members, with a split forming between the methodists and the liberal members, who had become allied with John Houlding, a Tory politician and local brewer who was part of the Orange Order.

Staying with Liverpool

There is an extreme likelihood that there will have been rivalries on the Everton board based on the likes of cultural and political allegiances, with some members of the club board not happy that players drank in the Sandon Hotel, which was owned by Houlding. There was certainly an opinion that Everton’s inability to retain the title in 1892 was because of this, with tensions rising.

When the 500 members of the club met to discuss the increase in rent that Houlding had asked for, just 18 votes went his way and he was removed as the Club President. Not only that, but a decision was taken to move the club away from Anfield altogether.

William Edward Barclay like Legions of Irish emigrated from Dublin to Liverpool. Here, he named the team after his adopted city. pic.twitter.com/ISxLi2ybyZ

— “YNWA” The Story of Liverpool FC (@LFCHistoryShow) October 13, 2016

Houlding was left with a burgeoning stadium but no club to play matches in it. As a result, he decided to create his own team and one of his loyal men, William Edward Barclay, suggested that he call the new side Liverpool. It had to play its games in the Lancashire League, which was owning to the fact that an application to join the First Division was rejected.

The club needed a manager and Barclay was experienced in the role, so it was decided that he would work alongside John McKenna to look after footballing duties. There was an ambition amongst the men to match the achievements of Everton, which obviously paid off.

The two teams played each other for the first time towards the end of the 1892 season, thanks to the fact that both Liverpool and Everton made it into the final of the Liverpool Senior Cup. The game was played at Hawthorn Road in Bootle, with Liverpool emerging as victors. The Everton board protested the result and wanted the presentation of the trophy delayed. Regardless, Liverpool won the Lancashire League in 1893 and gained promotion to the Second Division, which they won a year later.

They were relegated back down to the Second Division in 1895, winning the Second Division again in Barclay’s last year as manager.

Was he the First Liverpool Manager?

There is some debate as to whether or not Barclay can be considered to be Liverpool’s first manager. This is largely because of what is considered to be a misunderstanding over the role of manager in 1892 when compared to the modern understanding of the role. The Secretary of the club took charge of the administrative duties at a football club, which included the recruiting of players and the selection of match day squads.

It was Bill Shankly that changed how the manager was thought of at Liverpool, so there is certainly an argument that Barclay was the first manager, even if that didn’t mean what a lot of people think.

2 – Rafael Benítez will be only the second manager ever to take charge of both Everton and Liverpool in the two clubs’ histories, after William Edward Barclay, who was Everton’s first manager in 1888 and Liverpool’s in 1892. Crossing. pic.twitter.com/YrlRG13IXt

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) June 30, 2021

It is not uncommon for people to say that Barclay and McKenna were joint-Secretaries, but documentation from 1892 describes Barclay as the ‘Honorary Secretary’ and McKenna was being on the Committee of Directors.

When the Football League Rule Handbook was published for the 1893-1894 season, Barclay was still recorded as the Secretary. In the sports paper Cricket and Football Field, an 1895 edition explained that Barclay had resigned his role as secretary. That is somewhat contradictory to the commonly understood version of events that had him still in the role when Liverpool won the Second Division in 1895.

William Edward Barclay’s Honours List

Until Rafael Benitez was appointed as the Everton manager in 2021, William Edward Barclay was the only person considered to have managed both Everton and Liverpool. His time at Liverpool saw him serving two spells as the Liverpool Chairman, whilst away from Anfield he did some work for the Football Association. Here is a look at what we can consider to be his managerial achievements:

• Football League Second Division: 1893-1894, 1895-1896
• Lancashire League: 1892-1893

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