The 1915 Gambling Scandal

A look back at a forgotten historical event in football

The 1915 Gambling Scandal

Here in the United States, even the most casual baseball fan knows something about the famous Black Sox scandal of 1919.

But did you know about a similar scandal that impacted football near the end of the 1914-15 season?

This season, of course, was the last season to be played to its completion before 1919. And, on April 2nd, a struggling Manchester United side hosted Liverpool for a game that seems otherwise unremarkable.

From Football Express (Liverpool), April 3, 1915, page 2

From The Manchester Courier, April 3, 1915, page 2

From The Manchester Courier, April 3, 1915, page 2

It’s not really surprising that this match didn’t gather a lot of attention. Manchester United were in serious danger of relegation, and Liverpool weren’t far behind:

Contemporary newspapers — including sporting newspapers — were so filled with war coverage that the football stories were squeezed and condensed to the absolute minimum.

Now, it’s pretty clear that an inquiry into this match gradually developed, though it’s not really clear to me when it started. Unlike the famous Black Sox Scandal, which involved baseball’s championship and attracted headlines for months, this scandal seems to have been lost in the sea of war news.

I did find this mention in a Liverpool newspaper in early November 1915:

From Liverpool Echo, November 6, 1915, page 4

The next snippet I could find was a very abbreviated part of a paragraph in the same paper a few weeks later:

From Liverpool Echo, November 23, 1915, page 6

Now, Wikipedia reports that the Football Association’s decision came down on December 27, 1915. This resulted in 7 players being suspended for life. However, the newspapers indicate that the decision may have come a bit earlier:

From The Newcastle Daily Journal, December 24, 1915, page 11

A brief search on newspapers.com indicates that papers all around the English speaking world were this decision on Christmas Eve. Articles appeared in newspapers as far away as British Columbia, Canada — which strikes me as quite a feat for 1915.

From The Daily Province, December 24, 1915, page 12

In the end, all players involved except for Enoch West had their bans lifted in 1919 in recognition of their wartime service. West protested his innocence vehemently, but his suspension lasted until 1945 — the longest in the history of the Football League.

This Western Front Association article includes numerous photos and original documents for those interested in this somewhat obscure scandal.