Elisha Scott

Elisha Scott (1912)

Elisha Scott (born August 24, 1893 in Belfast , Ireland ; † May 16, 1959 ibid) was a Northern Irish football goalkeeper and coach . Between the 1910s and 1930s he was Liverpool FC goalkeeper for almost 22 years . As a coach, he was able to win 31 titles with the Catholic Club Belfast Celtic in the 1930s and 1940s . In addition, he was 31 times in the goal of the Irish national football team .

Scott was not a tall goalkeeper (about 5 feet, 9 inches ~ 1.75 m), but was known for his speed, agility and dedication. Because of his longstanding loyalty to Liverpool FC, he was extremely popular with fans of the club.

career

Scott joined the Broadway United youth team at the age of 15 from Linfield FC in his hometown for better training . His older brother Billy Scott , a long-time successful goalkeeper at Everton and 25 times Irish national goalkeeper , placed him at the age of 18 as a replacement goal for Liverpool .

On January 1, 1913, he made his debut for Liverpool against Newcastle United , which he survived without conceding. But it was not until 1914/15 that Scott could become the Reds' regular goalie. His career in England was soon interrupted by the First World War. Until his return to Liverpool in 1920, he played for some time in the War Emergency League of the Belfast Region at Belfast Celtic , where he was able to celebrate the runner-up and the cup win each. The years following his return to Liverpool would be Scott's most successful period with the Reds. After he had already become a national player in 1920, he had a large share in the two championships of Liverpool in 1922/23 and 1923/24. In the total of 81 appearances for the Reds in both seasons, the opposing teams were only able to score 67 goals against him.

In the following years, the Reds could not repeat these successes. However, Scott always remained very popular with the club's supporters. In the early 1930s, however, it became apparent that Scott was getting older and slower. 1933/34 during his last season in Liverpool, he came only to ten missions. On February 21, 1934 Scott played one last, 468th time for the first team after more than 21 years at Liverpool, before returning to his home town of Belfast. Scott remained Liverpool's record player until the 1950s, and to this day he is the player who has been under contract with Liverpool for the longest time as a professional - 21 years and 51 days.

He became player-coach at Belfast Celtic, for which he had played briefly during the First World War. After 1936 he ended his active career, but continued to coach Celtic. He should go down in the history of the Northern Irish Association as one of the most successful coaches. In the twelve years 1936-1948 his club won ten championships, seven of them in a row from 1936 to 1942. There were also seven cup wins, in total Celtic won 31 titles during this time.

Scott was coaching Belfast Celtic when the so-called "Boxing Day Incident" on December 26, 1948 occurred. During his club's away game at local rivals Linfield FC - less than a kilometer away from their home stadium, Belfast Celtic - supporters of the Protestant / royalist Linfield FC stormed the pitch and beat up the players and some of the staff of the Catholic visiting team that some of the players suffered fractures. As a result of this incident, Celtic resigned from the Northern Irish League and later broke up. Belfast Celtic remained Scott's only stint as coach of a professional football team.

National team

Scott was a total of 31 times goalkeeper in the selection of the Irish Football Association , four times in 1920 still in the All-Ireland selection within the United Kingdom and later 26 times for the Northern Irish team, also competing as Ireland. He made his last game in 1936 at the age of 43 - almost 17 years after his first full international match and two years after his return to Belfast.

Achievements and honors

In 1998 the English Football League honored Scott when they named him to the list of the 100 Legends of the English League.

• English Champion: (Liverpool FC; 2); 1923/24, 1924/25
• Northern Irish Champion (Belfast Celtic; 10); thereof (1) as player-coach 1935/36 and (9) as coach; 1936 / 37–1941 / 42, 1944, 1946/47, 1947/48
• Irish Cup Winner (Belfast Celtic; 1) as a player; 1916/17
• Northern Irish Cup Winner (Belfast Celtic; 6) as coach; 1936/37, 1937/38, 1940/41, 1942/43, 1943/44, 1946/47

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Scott's entry in Northern Ireland's Footballing Greats ( [1] , English ).
2. ^ Portrait of Scott on the website lfchistory.net ( [2] ; English ).
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Portrait of Scott on the Liverpool FC website ( archive link ( Memento of the original from May 25, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; English ). 
4. ↑ Entry about Scott in the history calendar “On this Day” on the UEFA website , uefa.com , as of August 24, 2006 ( [3] ).
5. ↑ List of club records on the Liverpool FC website ( archive link ( memento of the original dated February 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; English ). 
6. ↑ ^{a b} Entry on Scott in the Dictionary of Ulster Biography ; by Kate Newmann and The Institute of Irish Studies - The Queen's University of Belfast ; 1993; ISBN 0853894795 ; ( Archived copy ( memento of the original from March 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , English ). 
7. ^ " Football legends unveiled " and " Legends list in full ", BBC report on their homepage news.bbc.co.uk from August 4, 1998 ( English ).