Featured player
 Terry FearnsBorn in Liverpool on 24 October 1977, Terry will never be forgotten by all Southport fans. Terry scored 33 league goals and eight in cup competitions more...
Featured Manager
 Paul CookFollowing Liam Watson was never going to be easy but Paul Cook took his first steps into management with Southport at the start of the 2006-2007 seaso more...
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SOUTHPORT v MANSFIELD TOWN
11.09.2010 at 15:00
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Welcome to Port Online
...an unofficial online historical record of Southport FC
Thursday April 23, 2009
This site is an online historical record of Southport Football Club, it is a vast resource covering a lot of the history of the club, and is intended to complement and not compete with existing club related websites. It will not be updated with the latest news, except that specifically relating to the content of the site itself. Full Article
Ralph Rylance. Football's forgotten genius
Wednesday July 07, 2010
Much has been made of R.L. Rylance's contribution to establishing association football in Southport. He came to Southport from Blackburn in 1881 where he was employed by a firm of solicitors. Before moving he played for the Blackburn Law team.
To set one popular belief to bed, whilst it had originally been thought that it was not even possible to buy footballs in the town at the time of Rylance's arrival that has since proven to be untrue. He did bring 3 footballs with him from his former club, but it has since been discovered that there was a sports store on Lord Street where it was possible to purchase footballs for the association game.
Football itself can be played on almost any surface and Players often find it easy to disguise their limited skills by blaming the pitch. Indeed some managers use it as a justifiable excuse too!
To prevent players hiding behind this popular excuse, it was felt necessary to provide a pitch with a flat and even surface in different seasonal weather conditions.
Step forward Ralph Leather Rylance.
As early as January 1881 Rylance had designed (GB 1881-7A) an entirely artificial pitch surface. It no longer had anything in common with your average natural grass field and he was not the inventor of astroturf. Even in it's most primitive form however an artificial grass surface wasn't to follow for nearly another 50 years. His invention consisted of a concrete, asphalt or wooden plank foundation with a rubber layer applied on top. Depending on the use and the sports grounds the rubber utilised was to be either solid, spongy or moulded.
Provisional specification left by Ralph Leather Rylance at the Office of the commissioners of Patents on 1st January 1881
Full Article
From the Archives
Two Richmonds in the Field
Saturday June 05, 2010
On 15th September 1884 the Liverpool Mercury printed the weekend's football results (13/09/1884) and amongst the list was reference to a 20-0 defeat for Southport at the hands of Halliwell. Given the frequency to report Rugby results as "football" at the time, at first glance I had assumed it to be a result from the egg-shaped game as there were a number of Rugby teams in the town at the time. However contrasted with the other results listed it was clear it was association football. Michael Braham had already confirmed to me that the Southport newspapers often failed to report results of games prior to 1888 and obtaining a complete picture of that time may well be impossible , so the question was whether I had actually uncovered "Southport's record defeat".
Sadly, or perhaps gladly, not. A letter from Club Secretary R.W.T. Hatch to the Mercury was published the following day (16/09/1884) which confirmed that the Mercury had in fact reported incorrectly a result from "new club" Southport Wanderers. Interesting to note that little over two years later in September 1886 with the original Southport Football Cub having folded in the summer, Southport Wanderers had moved to a new ground on Scarisbrick New Road and had unanimously voted to change their name to Southport FC at their AGM.
Full Article
From the Archives
Saturday June 05, 2010
The following article was published on 4th May 1885 in the Liverpool Mercury, digitised by the British Library in 2010.
The report concerns an experimental 4 a side tournament with Southport defeating Bootle by 1 goal to nil.
Full Article
June 2010 - What's New
Saturday June 05, 2010
Results from c.260 matches that took place between 1939 and 1946 have now been input. The information mainly came from the Times digital archive.
I have also updated and added a number of pre 1888 games to the database, including reports from the Liverpool Mercury.
Full Article
May 2010 - What's New
Friday May 21, 2010
This is still very much a long term project so progress is often slower than I would like with various work and family commitments taking priority, however, courtesy of the Liverpool Mercury archives, I have been very fortunate to have been provided with a large batch of results, goalscorers, line-ups etc covering 1888-1901 which have now been input into the site. This takes the total of pre-1921 matches in the database to nearly 500. Combined with the information I have gathered but am yet to enter from the [Manchester] Guardian the pre-1921 picture is starting to look a little healthier and over the next few weeks this data will be added too.
- c.290 results from 1888/89-1900/01 entered
The Times digital archives have also provided results from c.260 matches that took place between 1939 and 1946 which I will input in the first week of June.
Full Article
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OTHER TOP STORIES
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Friday February 12, 2010
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2010/2011 TOP appearances
Contact
Thanks to Geoff Wilde & Michael Braham, authors of "The Complete League History of Southport FC" and Trust in Yellow, "The Complete Non-League History of Southport FC 1978-2008", for their kind permission to reproduce information from their respective books. If you can provide any further information or spot anything incorrect please contact me
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