The Curious Case Of New Brighton Towers FC

A brand spanking new ground with an eighty thousand capacity, rich owners of a 20 acre leisure complex, on site cowboys and lions and fair (oh my!), this team was destined for greatness.

This greatness was to begin in 1896 and along with other teams such as Liverpool (who where in their infancy at the time) and Chelsea a team was manufactured to play in a purpose built stadium in the New Brighton Tower leisure complex, this was primarily done to bring in visitors and tourists during the winter months.

The complex was a bold venture which consisted of the New Brighton Tower which was the tallest structure in England, a Ballroom, Fair, Theatre and even a small zoo with two very special star attractions, Prince and Pascha where the resident lions, they even had an Wild West show which consisted of Cowboys and Indians (who where notoriously bad on the Firewater, so much so that the Native Americans where prohibited from being served alcohol in the New Brighton and Wallasey area, Sitting Bull would not have been impressed!) and had a five hundred strong cast of performers in the show.  It had vast gardens complete with man made canals and Venetian Gondolas and the theatre boasted the biggest stage in the world at seventy six foot deep.  It would be most comparable to a modern day Las Vegas resort and Casino.

The teams first season started successfully with silverware as they won the Lancashire League with apparent ease in the 1897-1898 season and applied for election to the Football League, at this point the Football League only had two divisions so this was a huge deal to this new club barely two years old and they where no slouches in making plans for the big time, Home Nations international players were brought in to bolster the squad, the plan was going well.

Business was booming for the leisure complex, top acts where playing to huge crowds, the seaside resort was truly becoming the place to be in the North West, the affluent flocked there to see this truly stunning structure that looked down upon the promenade, the River Mersey and the Irish Sea.

In their first season in the Football League the success continued with a fifth placed finish and followed that with a fourth place finish the following season, success on the pitch was astronomical with the club looking at the very real possibility of top flight football surely not too far away in their future.  Off the pitch things where very different, in that giant stadium and athletic ground that at the time was state of the art there was at least seventy nine thousand unsold tickets for each and every home game.

The Towers folded in 1901 after the owners saw the business of running the football club no longer financially viable, thirteen years later the demise of this bold, brave and grandiose complex followed suit.  In 1914 the First World War broke out and the tower was requisitioned for military use, this may be due to the fact that from the top of the tower military personnel could see as far down as the Great Orme in Llandudno right out to the Isle of Man and as far up as the Lake District.  Whilst the Military where in situ during the war years due to lack of maintenance the steel of the tower became rusty and dangerous and when the war was over the owners decided that they would dismantle the structure as the cost of renovating would be much more than they could afford after losing so much business because of the war.

Boom and bust the story of New Brighton Tower and the Football Club, in a different time the story could have been so very different, but alas it was not to be, New Brighton did have a team that brought the Football League back to Wallasey but this club was born out of the ashes of South Liverpool FC who went bankrupt and they filled the void in the Lancashire Combination League and where not connected to the Towers FC or their owners.

Next time you are ambling down New Brighton prom, think to yourselves how impressive the complex and the sports ground must have been but be careful…….there is a lot of rat-arsed Indian’s roaming around looking for a rogue cowboy.

@TheBullensUltra