Merseysides Old Firm

There remains an enduring fascination with Merseyside football's relationship with religion. A prodigious amount of anecdotal evidence exists claiming Everton FC to be the team traditionally supported by the city's Catholic population and Liverpool FC predominantly supported by Protestants ─ a proposition summarily dismissed by most serious commentators as more urban myth than reality. This somewhat controversial subject, though, has never been investigated to any great depth and deserves closer scrutiny than the cursory attention it has hitherto been afforded. What has been absent from the debate is a dispassionate quest for knowledge about the claimed associations of the two clubs backed up by authentic and detailed research. The idea of this study is to provide this by adding documentary evidence to the anecdotal evidence this subject has trundled along on for decades.