text: Both Robert Izatt and John Weir were Scottish players (formerly from Third Lanark) also signed by Bootle. Weir was a Scotland international, having just been capped that year. Much to the annoyance of Bootle, both players moved on from the club shortly after signing and moved on to Everton, who at the time were Bootle's main rivals in Merseyside.
  The club was found guilty by the FA but the punishment was lenient – they had that same season closed Anfield for a month when Everton similarly paid players – and Bootle escaped with a mere caution. The new Everton players John Weir and Robert Izatt - alongside Everton's other Scotch Professors of Dick, Watson, Goudie, Cassidy, and Murray - were all deemed as professional players and had their registrations suspended.
  The payment of Watson, Anderson, Calderwood and others at the club also explains the investigations of the local Bootle newspaper into the club's finances. Around the start of the 1887–88 season, The Bootle Times was asking questions into the club's finances, trying to work out who was getting what. It also, in passing, takes a dig at Bootle F.C.'s reliance on Scottish players by its phrasing of 'own local club, if indeed we may call it that', hinting that the newspaper suspected the payments made to the club's Scottish players were indeed where the club's financial surplus went. The payments to Scotch Professors around Merseyside would have been common knowledge.
  The Saturday 1 October 1887 edition noted: