As I mentioned precisely a week ago, unless you are running a live blog or newscast, this is not the time to be covering the fortunes of Liverpool Football Club. Yesterday morning alone, there was enough conflicting information to write and subsequently rip up at least 4 pieces of content!
With that in mind, I will wait patiently for every court between Toxteth and Texas to hear its injunction claims, and watch the outgoing Tom Hicks strip himself of the negligible dignity of which he is already bereft. Instead, I turn back the clock and remember my favourite Merseyside Derbies at Goodison Park.
My first memory of a Goodison Derby was March 1982, a 3-1 Liverpool victory, not to be confused with the famous day of Saturday November 6, later that year, immortalised in that most famous of songs, Poor Scouser Tommy. I can still here John Motson’s dulcid tones, worn out on my VHS, with the famous words:
“3 for Rush, 4 for Liverpool, and an awful day for Everton.”
Little did Motty know that it would soon be 4 for Rush and 5 for Liverpool. This was Liverpool in their pomp, majestic against a young side which Howard Kendall would develop over the next few years. Souness and Lee were magnificent in midfield, Dalglish pulled Everton’s centre halves all around Goodison with his clever off the ball runs, and Rushie, well he just did what Rushie did.
Liverpool did not lose a league fixture at Goodison between 1979 and 1985, and the 1985 victory is another that goes down in the annals. Everton were League Champions, and in the wake of Heysel Stadium, Kenny Dalglish was beginning to make subtle changes to Liverpool. One of the new faces was a certain Steve McMahon, already a former captain of Everton, and further reviled at Anfield for turning down a move to Anfield some 2 years earlier.
A 2-0 Liverpool lead courtesy of Dalglish and Rush was nothing unusual, but the horror on the Gladwys Street terrace was evident when none other than McMahon put the Reds 3 up before half-time. To Everton’s credit, they pulled it back to 3-2 in the second half and a few Red hearts fluttered, but Liverpool held on for a famously celebrated victory.
In all fairness, Goodison has been a good hunting ground for Liverpool. Since that 1985 fixture, The Reds have won on 13 of 32 visits across Stanley Park in all football, and 11 of the 25 League Derbies as opposed to only 7 defeats.
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