In May 2025, law firm Hill Dickinson was announced as the official naming rights partner for Everton’s new stadium on Bramley-Moore Dock. Since then, the stadium is officially known as Hill Dickinson Stadium. Hill Dickinson already had a link to Everton when in 2010, it acquired another law firm called Cuff Roberts, which was co-founded by Will Cuff, who was, among other things, the secretary of the Blues from 1901 to 1918 and then chairman from 1922 to 1938. But there’s another – and more obscure – connection between Everton and Hill Dickinson, courtesy of a trialist from Birkenhead.

In 1913, Will Cuff interviewed a goalkeeper from Wirral-based club Claughton St Mark’s called Herbert Peever. Peever had also played in goal for Northern Nomads, and featured for his work team as well. In 1914, he was reported to have played right-back, rather than his usual position of goalkeeper, for Hill, Dickinson & Co., where he worked as a law clerk, against Weightman, Pedder & Co.

Peever had his chance to impress by playing for the reserves in a Central League match against Stockport County Reserves at Goodison Park on 29th November 1913.

Everton Reserves: Herbert Peever, Jack Page, William Stalker, Sam Challinor, Louis Weller, Fred Kirby, Sam Chedgzoy, James Brannick, Tim Curtin, Lance Johnston, Harry Brennan

Everton Reserves won the match 5-2, thanks to a hat-trick from James Brannick plus goals from Lance Johnson and Tim Curtin, with James Burtenshaw and William Ashmole scoring the consolation goals for Stockport. Very little was written about his performance: in the Everton and Liverpool joint programme for the first team’s match against Sheffield United, it said, “In the rear ranks, Kirby and the new custodian, Peever, showed to advantage,” while the Birkenhead News said Peever “appeared to have done well at Everton.”

Despite that, his performance was not considered good enough for him to join the Blues, but he still had another chance to wear Everton colours at Goodison Park. He was in goal for the reserves again, this time for a friendly against a West Monmouthshire League XI in April 1914, with the Blues winning 4-1.

It was one game in an eventful April for Peever. The week before, he played for Northern Nomads against Bishop Auckland in the FA Amateur Cup final at Elland Road. Unfortunately, he was on the losing team when Bishop Auckland’s Fred Kirby (not the same Fred Kirby who played with Peever against Stockport County Reserves) scored the only goal of the game in the second half. Despite the loss, Sporting Life praised Peever’s performance:

Defence was the Nomads’ strongest department, and they had alone to thank their goalkeeper, Peever, that they were not defeated by a more decisive margin.

The week after the reserves friendly, Peever played for Tranmere Rovers in a friendly against Birmingham City Reserves. Tranmere won 4-3 and despite conceding 3 goals, Tranmere appeared to have been impressed enough to sign Peever for the 1914/15 season.

Following the suspension of competitive football due to the First World War, Peever joined the 1st Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment and served in France from November 1915 before being discharged from the Army in March 1919. He was one of six brothers who fought in the First World War.

 

After he was discharged, he returned to becoming a clerk at Hill Dickinson.

1921 Census

While he does not appear to have continued his career in football post-war, it looks like he was still willing to play for the Hill Dickinson team, at least according to this match report in 1927:

Herbert Peever may have had an extremely brief Everton career but he may have made Everton history by possibly being the only person to play for an Everton team at the club’s predecessor stadium Goodison Park and work for the company the new stadium is named after.