How Everton led the way with the first football pop song!

Taken from article in Liverpool Echo by David Prentice:

Everton is a Football Club of ‘Firsts’.

The Toffees were the first team to wear shirt numbers, the first team to lift the league championship trophy, the first team to win a European Cup penalty shoot-out, the first team to play 100 seasons of top flight football … and many, many more.

But there’s a new one which can be added to the list.

In 1963 the first ever football pop song was recorded … by Everton.

And the disc was cut here in Liverpool at Percy Phillips’ historic Kensington Studios.

In 1970 the England football team topped the charts with “Back Home”, while two years later Chelsea enjoyed a number five hit with the catchy “Blue Is The Colour” – the same year Everton recorded their enduring club anthem Forever Everton.

The sleeve of Everton’s 1963 pop record
The sleeve of Everton’s 1963 pop record
But Everton actually proved pioneers of the football pop song phenomenon.

Harry Catterick’s side had just won the League Championship, the Merseybeat phenomenon was sweeping the world – and Everton’s title winners dropped into Percy Phillips’ iconic studio in Kensington.

Percy’s grandson Peter, explained: “It was Britain’s first football pop song ever recorded.

“The A side was E-V-E-R-T-O-N and the B side featured a version of Men with Harlech with the alternative words Everton For Me.

Percy’s studio was also the venue for the first ever recording cut by The Quarrymen, later to become The Beatles, on July 12 1958.

Billy Fury and Ken Dodd cut their first discs there and the acknowledged first rock n roll record ever cut in the city – Johnny Guitar and Paul Murphy’s “She’s Got It” was cut there in 1957.

To mark the 60th anniversary of the Quarrymen recordings a recreation of Percy’s studio will be mocked up in The Empire Room at the Adelphi Hotel as part of the Beatles Convention and one of the Everton singles cut will be on display.

Fans will be able to hear it, as well as records cut there of The Kop singing Beatles songs and a record of radio highlights from the 1965 FA Cup final against Leeds.

Read the full article here! – https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/how-everton-led-way-first-14817413