A recent St Helens Town news article on the Vodkat League website made reference to a cash book from the original club covering season 1912-13 and some matches during the First World War. The book has been loaned to the club by Town stalwart and president of the St. Helens Football Combination, Eric Bond and according to club official Glyn Jones it makes very interesting reading.

He said, The book lists the financial accounts on a match-by-match basis and bears auditors markings to verify the figures. Season 1912-13 is covered in full, but not 1913-14. Curiously, a number of matches from 1914-15 are also included, but I do not know whether they amount to a full season. Nevertheless, the information contained in the book is fascinating.

In 1912-13, St. Helens Town were members of the Lancashire Combination, Division 1. They finished 14th of 18 teams, played 34, won 12, drew 5 and lost 17 games, scoring 49 goals and conceding 75. Local rivals St. Helens Recs., in their final season as a soccer club, ended the season in 8th place.

Glyn added, Results of games are not given in the cash book, but the two St. Helens clubs met at Park Road on Christmas Day, when gate receipts were £41 9s. 2d (£41.46) and a further £1 was made in the Refreshment Tent, the only occasion it appears in the accounts. The Police were paid 9s. (45p), gatemen 4s. 6d. (22p) and sawdust cost 6d. The return game took place on Good Friday, 21st March 1913.

Looking at 1912-13 as a whole, a pre-season friendly was played at Barrow on 2nd September (a Monday), producing half gate receipts of £27 3s. (£27.15), which were the best receipts other than those for the Recs. derby game on Christmas Day. Over £10 was taken as a half-share of a cup-tie gate at Macclesfield and the only other gate over £10 was for the home game with Tranmere Rovers on 16th November, £16 8s 1d (£16.40). All the other home gates were significantly below £10, many around £2. The lowest was £1 18s 3d. (£1.91) against Chester on 5th April. Most players went unpaid through the season, but there were several instances of some players receiving between five shillings (25p) and twelve and sixpence (62p).

There were several instances of the payment of lost time: this arose as a result of players missing a Saturday morning in work, in order to play football. The usual working week in the North of England was five and a half days. Payment of lost or broken-time money was prevalent after 1895. That date was significant in that it was the year of the split between the Rugby Football Union and the Northern Union (later the Rugby League), which came about as a direct result of Northern Union clubs wishing to compensate their players in the industrial North for time lost from work. The book shows several instances of players receiving amounts varying from 2s. 6d. (12p) to 10s. (50p), in lost time payments.

Other overheads included train fares for away travel and for a few players travelling from out of town to St. Helens. The whole team travelled to Barrow for £3 12s (£3.60). Two shillings was incurred for repairing pipes at the home game with Eccles in February and rates of £5 10s. 3d. (£5.51) were paid in March. Printing of posters etc., regularly came to 10s. or 15s. The game with Haslingden on 11th January was postponed due to an ice and snow storm and it would appear that the game with Heywood on 26th October was abandoned, as it had to be played again on 7th December, when £1 18s. (£1.90) was paid out to the visitors for their expenses.

The cost of running a football club was an enormous burden on the directors. There were many instances of the Chairman, Peter Phythian, and his fellow directors, dipping into their own pockets to make up the income to cover the expenditure. This was particularly prevalent during the 1914/15 season. If the cash book covers the whole season, then only 11 games were played. Fixtures appear to start on 28th November 1914 and finish on 19th April 1915. The opening game v Skelmersdale yielded just over £5 in gate receipts and the other three home games (against Everton, South Liverpool and Burscough) just exceeding £4 in total.

Glyn noted, The directors subsidised the club in 8 of the matches to the tune of over £11. Perhaps optimistically, one of the last credit entries appeared as Season Tickets £9 19s. 1d. (£9.95), which I suspect might have been a bookkeeping exercise to give the directors their money back. I wonder if they ever did get their season tickets as I have yet to see what happened to the club in the 1915-16 season.

Glyn received a number of excellent contacts (including the promise of copies of a number of early Town programmes) following the recent Unearthing Towns History article. If you have any information relating to the original St. Helens Town (1901-1923) please contact Glyn at glynjones1@sky.com or call him on 07764 655460.