ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the charitable exploits of an English Premier League football club from its foundations as a moral guide for local people in 19th-century industrial Britain through to its formation of an independent charitable trust 100 years later. It places historical documentary evidence within the social context through which philanthropic endeavours have developed from their liturgical roots to part of the Third Sector in contemporary Britain. Through a discussion of the socio-historical ‘exceptionalism’ of the Liverpool region and the wider context of deindustrialisation, the roots of the case study club's community sport organisation are explored. This is supplemented by primary research with staff involved in the development of Everton FC's Football in the Community programme in the 1980s that was the forerunner to the club's charitable trust, Everton in the Community (EitC). This is all framed by the football club's presentation of itself as a custodian of the game operating for the common good in relation to what Alasdair MacIntyre would understand as football's virtuous tradition.
