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The Hercules Affair

As athletic activity re-started after the First World War, there is much mention in the club Minute Book of amalgamations, but not until September 1921 does a definite proposal emerge. The Hercules Athletic Club was an amalgamation of Wirral AC , West Cheshire Harriers, Wallasey AC, Liverpool Boundary, Knotty Ash AC and possibly others. How this new club was supposed to work is unclear as the Wirral minute book continues to report meetings and the election of officers of the Wirral branch of Hercules AC. What is clear is that after some initial enthusiasm, Hercules failed in its prime aim to produce stronger teams. Regular complaints begin to appear in the minutes about how Hercules was being run and its failure to select and field representative teams, though what role, if any, Wirral members were playing in the organisation is not mentioned. By 1923, the Wirral branch had had enough and the Annual General Meeting on Sept 23rd voted to withdraw. After this, Hercules seems to have folded, taking with it into history the club's progenitors, West Cheshire Harriers.

Following the Hercules debacle, Wirral A C invited Charles Ledsom, himself a successful athlete with West Cheshire Harriers in the 1890s, to become Club President. He accepted and held the post for over 20 years, in which time the club established its own headquarters at Rose Cottage in Holm Lane and produced a National Cross Country Champion in Sam Dodd (1934).