David Ashworth

David George Ashworth was a well-known Football League referee before going into management. He was Assistant-Secretary at his local club, Rossendale, before his first managerial appointment with Oldham Athletic in 1906, shortly after the club had moved to Boundary Park. At that time the Latics were playing in the Lancashire Combination but they soon gained Football League status replacing Burslem Port Vale who resigned at the end of the 1906/07 season. Ashworth led Oldham to a creditable third place finish in their inaugural season as a League club and it took only a further two years before they achieved promotion to the top division as runners-up to Manchester City. Apart from narrowly escaping relegation in 1912, they were as high as fourth in the 1913/14 season, towards the end of which Ashworth left to join Stockport County.

Ashworth agreed to become Liverpool’s manager in December 1919. Results had been poor under manager George Patterson in the period before he was appointed. A run of 11 matches between the end of September and early December had brought just two victories, but the second half of the season was much more stable and the club eventually finished in fourth spot. Pipe-smoking Ashworth bought only one player of sufficient quality in Fred Hopkin but he had inherited classy footballers like Elisha Scott and Ephraim Longworth who had already been at Anfield for several years. Another fourth place finish followed in 1921 before the blend of old and new took Liverpool to their third League Championship a year later with a convincing six-point margin separating them from runners-up Tottenham. Liverpool were to retain the Championship a year later but surprisingly and controversially the man who had led them to their previous success was not there by the time the title was secured. Just five days before Liverpool were due to play Oldham, at home and away Ashworth astoundingly announced his resignation but he was still in charge of the team over the holidays when Liverpool won both their games against Oldham on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Ashworth returned for his second spell of manager at Oldham on 30 December. Few could understand why on earth Ashworth had decided to leave a team in first place with almost twice as many points as Oldham in twenty-first position out of a League of 22 teams. Ashworth had evidently moved for family reasons as he wanted to live with his wife and daughter, who were both invalids, in their home in Stockport that was only 11 miles away from Oldham compared to 43 miles from Liverpool. For the record Oldham got relegated in the 1922/23 season.

Ashworth fared no better after leaving Oldham for a second time in July 1924. He lasted less than a year and a half at Manchester City before being dismissed and suffered the same fate after a similarly brief spell with Walsall. By the outbreak of war in 1939, Ashworth was living in the Fylde, described as a clerk and scout in the employ of a football club. He managed two Welsh clubs; Caernarfon and Llanelli, before returning to the English game as a scout for Blackpool, the town in which he died on 22 March 1947, aged 79. David Ashworth rightly takes his place in Liverpool Football Club’s Hall of Fame as a man who led them to the League Championship. We can only wonder what more he might have achieved at Anfield if it had not been for his return to Oldham.