The Merseyside Gundog Club was the brainchild of three men back in 1950. They were Ed Corteen, Jack Corrin and Les Gibson and they were the club’s first chairman, secretary and treasurer, respectively.

It was the wish of its founders that the Merseyside Gundog Club should be truly democratic and it was with this in mind that they adopted a quite revolutionary constitution. They decided that there would be officers but no committee. Instead, the members themselves would run the club at regular, monthly meetings and the affairs of the club continued to be administered in this way for the next 40 years.

In its first year, the Merseyside Gundog Club held five field trials and two shows and despite the demise or the working section in 1951, continued to hold shows, ultimately being awarded championship status by the Kennel Club. The first championship show was held appropriately in Liverpool at Woolton Park in 1986 and was followed by a series of such shows held annually at various venues throughout the region until 1995, when, as a result of restructuring and re-organisation by the Kennel Club, championship status was withdrawn.

In 1990, as a result of the change in status, it was felt that some element of confidentiality should be introduced into the club’s affairs when dealing with
certain matters and the club’s constitution was changed. So we came to the end of an era, with some sadness as far as some members were concerned. In the following year,1991, a sub-committee was formed to restore the working section and an inaugural working test was held in the September of that year. Over the next few years, various tests were held, catering for all the gundog breeds, until the loss of the ground and the re-location of the then field trial secretary forced the scaling down of activities.

Currently the emphasis of the club is on the show scene and two open shows are held each year at Sutton Leisure Centre in St Helens. In keeping with its original constitution, the club continues to strive to meet the requirements of its members and details of services and functions available may be found on the events page.