S
Super G Ted'inho
Guest
Still looking mate, never stopped.
The house in question is the only one me and the mrs (nm) have agreed on after looking at at least twenty so far, we didn't even get close to agreeing on anything else
Match Day Thread Europa league R16: Liverpool V Man Utd
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Still looking mate, never stopped.
The house in question is the only one me and the mrs (nm) have agreed on after looking at at least twenty so far, we didn't even get close to agreeing on anything else
Good luck on Thursday. My feeling is that you'll win 1-0 and then squeeze out a draw in the return. Still sense a rematch with Borussia Dortmund in the final. I have felt this way ever since Klopp joined you, and of course it is perfect timing as it is the 50th anniversary of the first meeting between the two clubs. Would be a great final involving two sets of supporters who will try to outdo each other for humour, dress and and variety of chants. The challenge is that you chant in German and Borussia in English!!
We have to be focused and our defence has to be mean and has to concentrate which is the worry.
If we can then get that high intensity like the league games against City we'll have this done in one match but with the nerves and it being Utd I expect it'll be more complicated than that.
Team selection is difficult I'd like to see Origi and Studge not sure how that would work though.
Moreno on the bench please and Flanno in and someone please sort Mata out who always seems to play well against us.
If we can then get that high intensity like the league games against City we'll have this done in one match but with the nerves and it being Utd I expect it'll be more complicated than that.
Team selection is difficult I'd like to see Origi and Studge not sure how that would work though.
Moreno on the bench please and Flanno in and someone please sort Mata out who always seems to play well against us.
S
Super G Ted'inho
Guest
Milner and Mata are guaranteed to play with them both being domestically suspended.
I think Coutinho and Studge definitely starting after being rested at the weekend (granted, Coutinho came off the bench).
I think Coutinho and Studge definitely starting after being rested at the weekend (granted, Coutinho came off the bench).
We don't have a game this weekend either, so no worries about fitness.
I expect another boring game tbh that all hinges on whether utd get an away goal or not
S
Super G Ted'inho
Guest
Estate agent or dealer?
In other news, I have a good chance of a ticket for tomorrow night
Estate agent or dealer?
In other news, I have a good chance of a ticket for tomorrow night
Are you going with Arjen Robben?
Uefa are looking after the interests of man yoo, allowing them to train at home for the away leg and allowing them to not have to stay within 27 miles of their opponents ground.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...stay-Liverpool-ahead-Europa-League-clash.html
Liverpool on the other hand have to stay in Manchester the night before the game at OT.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...stay-Liverpool-ahead-Europa-League-clash.html
Liverpool on the other hand have to stay in Manchester the night before the game at OT.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zghgqty
As the 1914/15 season drew to a close, Manchester United had to beat Liverpool to avoid relegation. The players came to an ungentlemanly agreement.
League football was set to be suspended for the 1915/16 season due to World War One. Footballers, on much lower wages than those today, faced a summer without pay and years in the trenches. Before a game at Easter, players from the two teams met to fix the result: 2-0 in United’s favour with players betting at odds of 8/1. The game saw missed penalties, team-mates arguing and an angry 18,000 crowd. An investigation saw a number of players given life bans, with one later jailed for conspiracy.
As the 1914/15 season drew to a close, Manchester United had to beat Liverpool to avoid relegation. The players came to an ungentlemanly agreement.
League football was set to be suspended for the 1915/16 season due to World War One. Footballers, on much lower wages than those today, faced a summer without pay and years in the trenches. Before a game at Easter, players from the two teams met to fix the result: 2-0 in United’s favour with players betting at odds of 8/1. The game saw missed penalties, team-mates arguing and an angry 18,000 crowd. An investigation saw a number of players given life bans, with one later jailed for conspiracy.
So......if it wasn't for the dishonest players in our team that day the manc club would never have survived, they are very ungrateful for our misplaced benevolence.... ****s!
Uefa are looking after the interests of man yoo, allowing them to train at home for the away leg and allowing them to not have to stay within 27 miles of their opponents ground.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...stay-Liverpool-ahead-Europa-League-clash.html
Liverpool on the other hand have to stay in Manchester the night before the game at OT.
that should be investigated if true.
That is far far far too much of an advantage.
Mweh...let them have it all...I assume our club don't care since we plan to still stay in mancland for the return leg and I can't see UEFA being able to oppose a similar call by us after they gave it to them.
We obviously don't think our team is so bad they have to stay home with their mummy's before a big match....
We obviously don't think our team is so bad they have to stay home with their mummy's before a big match....
Liverpool vs Manchester United: Who really has more European pedigree?
Liverpool have won more European trophies than any other English team
Sponsored by BT
What happened when two entrepreneurs met
Two entrepreneurs transformed a near miss on the road into a business hit with Mirrors That Work
9 MARCH 2016 • 12:39PM
The debate as to who is the bigger club remains as eternal and fierce as their rivalry. Manchester United have dominated the Premier League era but they have not always had it their way; once upon a time Liverpool were Europe’s dominant team.
European/Uefa Cup titles
02468LiverpoolMan UtdMajor European trophies: 3Major European trophies: 8
Powered by Factmint
As the rivals come in to battle for their first ever European meeting on Thursday, with the clubs competing domestically on a level that had – until recent years – been almost unheard of amongst these fallen giants of English football, it is harder than ever to put a marker between the two.
• Liverpool's greatest ever European XI
United have unquestionably had more success in recent years, but Liverpool fans, with five European Cups to United’s three and three Uefa Cups to United’s zilch, will maintain that they are the greater force in Europe.
United struggled through the last round of the competition
Only Real Madrid, with ten, and AC Milan, with seven boast more European Cup or Champions League triumphs than Liverpool, though they have spent five of the last six seasons, and plenty of others in recent years, playing outside the elite – something that perhaps makes their trophy haul even more impressive. There is more to it than that, though.
Record in European competition
TEAM COMPETITION P W D L WIN %
TEAM COMPETITION P W D L WIN %
Liverpool European Cup/Champions League 165 88 39 38 53.3%
Man Utd European Cup/Champions League 251 137 63 51 54.6%
Liverpool Uefa Cup/Europa League 109 56 31 22 51.4%
Man Utd Uefa Cup/Europa League 26 8 10 8 30.8%
The two sides have comparable records in the European Cup (pre Champions League), while United have fared ever so slightly better since the competition’s reincarnation, which coincided with their Premier League success. They haven’t played quite so much Uefa Cup or Europa League football as Liverpool, but typically do poorly in the less celebrated of European tournaments.
United have won only eight out of 26 Uefa Cup or Europa League matches in their history. The only time they have ever progressed more than one round in either competition was in 1984/95, when they beat Gyori of Hungary, PSV and Dundee United to make it through the first threestages but could not make it past Videoton.
Robbie Fowler lifts a trophy United have never won
If they knock Liverpool out it will immediately become their second most successful run in the Uefa Cup or Europa League.
• Van Gaal plays up value of the Europa League
For Liverpool, meanwhile, this tournament has brought them plenty of joy over the years. They last won it in 2000/01 and have won 56 of their 109 matches. United may finally be taking the competition seriously but they still wobbled against lowly Midtjylland and are still lacking confidence. Maybe this is Liverpool’s chance to assert their continental superiority.
Overall European win percentage
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%LiverpoolMan UtdWin percentage: 52.9%
Powered by Factmint
European Cup, Champions League, Uefa Cup, Europa League, Cup Winners Cup, Super Cup
Remarkably, the two most successful clubs in English football have almost identical records in European fixtures. United have won 162 of 311 matches; Liverpool have 164 wins from 310.
There is very little in it indeed, but Liverpool just about have the edge.
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Liverpool have won more European trophies than any other English team
Sponsored by BT
You must log in or register to see images
What happened when two entrepreneurs met
Two entrepreneurs transformed a near miss on the road into a business hit with Mirrors That Work
9 MARCH 2016 • 12:39PM
The debate as to who is the bigger club remains as eternal and fierce as their rivalry. Manchester United have dominated the Premier League era but they have not always had it their way; once upon a time Liverpool were Europe’s dominant team.
European/Uefa Cup titles
02468LiverpoolMan UtdMajor European trophies: 3Major European trophies: 8
Powered by Factmint
As the rivals come in to battle for their first ever European meeting on Thursday, with the clubs competing domestically on a level that had – until recent years – been almost unheard of amongst these fallen giants of English football, it is harder than ever to put a marker between the two.
• Liverpool's greatest ever European XI
United have unquestionably had more success in recent years, but Liverpool fans, with five European Cups to United’s three and three Uefa Cups to United’s zilch, will maintain that they are the greater force in Europe.
You must log in or register to see images
United struggled through the last round of the competition
Only Real Madrid, with ten, and AC Milan, with seven boast more European Cup or Champions League triumphs than Liverpool, though they have spent five of the last six seasons, and plenty of others in recent years, playing outside the elite – something that perhaps makes their trophy haul even more impressive. There is more to it than that, though.
Record in European competition
TEAM COMPETITION P W D L WIN %
TEAM COMPETITION P W D L WIN %
Liverpool European Cup/Champions League 165 88 39 38 53.3%
Man Utd European Cup/Champions League 251 137 63 51 54.6%
Liverpool Uefa Cup/Europa League 109 56 31 22 51.4%
Man Utd Uefa Cup/Europa League 26 8 10 8 30.8%
The two sides have comparable records in the European Cup (pre Champions League), while United have fared ever so slightly better since the competition’s reincarnation, which coincided with their Premier League success. They haven’t played quite so much Uefa Cup or Europa League football as Liverpool, but typically do poorly in the less celebrated of European tournaments.
United have won only eight out of 26 Uefa Cup or Europa League matches in their history. The only time they have ever progressed more than one round in either competition was in 1984/95, when they beat Gyori of Hungary, PSV and Dundee United to make it through the first threestages but could not make it past Videoton.
You must log in or register to see images
Robbie Fowler lifts a trophy United have never won
If they knock Liverpool out it will immediately become their second most successful run in the Uefa Cup or Europa League.
• Van Gaal plays up value of the Europa League
For Liverpool, meanwhile, this tournament has brought them plenty of joy over the years. They last won it in 2000/01 and have won 56 of their 109 matches. United may finally be taking the competition seriously but they still wobbled against lowly Midtjylland and are still lacking confidence. Maybe this is Liverpool’s chance to assert their continental superiority.
Overall European win percentage
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%LiverpoolMan UtdWin percentage: 52.9%
Powered by Factmint
European Cup, Champions League, Uefa Cup, Europa League, Cup Winners Cup, Super Cup
Remarkably, the two most successful clubs in English football have almost identical records in European fixtures. United have won 162 of 311 matches; Liverpool have 164 wins from 310.
There is very little in it indeed, but Liverpool just about have the edge.
Liverpool v Manchester United: a deep-rooted, tribalistic rivalry finally set for Europe
There have been moments of respect, and even kindness, in a 150-year conflict but this is essentially two clubs who detest each other. On Thursday, at Anfield, they meet in Europe for the first time
Gary Neville, a player who came to symbolise the rivalry between Manchester United and Liverpool in modern times, does his best to ignore the Anfield crowd in 2002. Photograph: Darren Walsh/Action Images
Daniel Taylor
@DTguardian
Wednesday 9 March 2016 12.35 GMTLast modified on Wednesday 9 March 201613.27 GMT
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There is an old story about Tony Wilson that probably sums up just how far some of the people who are locked into the Manchester-Liverpool enmity will go in the name of one‑upmanship and, more than anything, the importance that is placed on having the last word.
Wilson certainly had a way of revving it up when the man behind Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub – music mogul, broadcaster, impresario and professional Salfordian – earned his crust presenting Granada Reports, staring into the cameras with a level of self-adoration not often witnessed on regional news programmes and clearly loving the fact his opinions went straight into people’s living rooms.
For every on-air story about Liverpool, there would be a dry little aside, perhaps a roll of the eyes for added effect, or a sigh if it was his duty, as it often was, to report good news from Anfield. Wilson was simply incapable of hiding his allegiance to Manchester United. “He must have alienated potentially half the audience,” his co-presenter, Bob Greaves, once said. “A lot of people thought he was the bees’ knees. But everybody in Liverpool hated him. He would demean Liverpool with every word … every gesture he could. The favourite phrase I used to get whenever I went to Liverpool – as soon as I got off a train or out of my car – was: ‘Hey, Bob, tell that Tony Wilson he’s a ****er.’ I must have had that delivered to me thousands of times. How he got away with it for so long before he was bollocked by the hierarchy I will never know.”
Wilson presented one programme on the eve of Liverpool’s 1978 European Cup final wearing a Club Brugge rosette. It didn’t bring the Belgians any luck and the next day he had to deliver the news that Bob Paisley’s team were the kings of Europe, again. But it is the follow-up story, from 1983, that probably sums up the way the two cities make it their business to score points off one another.
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Liverpool fans taunt Manchester United supporters in January 2006, pointing out the Anfield club have won five European titles. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images
Greaves used to tell it best, starting with the telephone call he received in Granada’s newsroom from a Merseyside police sergeant informing him Wilson’s brand new Jaguar had been found, stolen, in Liverpool. “Tony came in and I said: ‘I’ve had the police on – your car’s in Liverpool.’ So he got the train over to Liverpool, found his car, and three hours later the car was back outside Granada. Then, later that afternoon, I got another call. ‘Sergeant Carruthers here again. Can you tell Mr Wilson his car is still here in Eccersley Avenue?’ The scallies had watched him pick it up, followed him back, stolen it again, driven it back to Liverpool and parked it in exactly the same place. They never damaged it, they just played the game. They inconvenienced him. He’d obviously slagged offLiverpool one too many times. They followed him, they took it back and he had to get it twice in one day. He gave them begrudging respect: ‘Gotta say, man, good scam.’”
More than 30 years on, the dynamics are such now it is not entirely easy to know how much respect will be evident when the two clubs, sixth and seventh in the Premier League, lock horns in the Europa League on Thursday, remembering better times and driven more by the fear of failure, perhaps, than real affection for the competition.
The antipathy is always there. It is unshakeable, tribalistic and so deep‑rooted it must feel like a trick of the mind for older generations that there was once a time when some United players would go to watch Liverpool if they did not have a game of their own. “We’d stand on the Kop,” Paddy Crerand recalls. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched Liverpool behind that goal. The Scousers would have a word with us but it was good humoured.”
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Manchester United’s defender Patrice Evra is shouted at by a Liverpool fan during the 2012 FA Cup fourth round match at Anfield Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Crerand was so close to Bill Shankly he would often be late for Mass because the Liverpool manager used to ring, without fail, at 9am every Sunday, in a way that would never happen between employees of the two clubs now. Crerand played in the United side who won the European Cup in 1968 and the Liverpool Echo toasted the occasion with an enthusiasm that would never be seen on today’s pages. “British football can be proud of the United team who gave their all to give Matt Busby the cup he cherishes above all else,” the newspaper proclaimed. “It’s been a long, long drive for United to reach the top in Europe, no one will begrudge them being the first English club to make it.”
Even then, there are reminders how, in football, nostalgia is the file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. Nobby Stiles, Crerand’s team-mate, tells one story in his autobiography about being hit by a dart. “I went to the touchline and had it removed and at half-time I was given an injection. I can only speculate how bad it would have been if the dart had landed in my eye and not my arm.” He does not name the ground where it happened, explaining that Busby did not want to draw attention to it, but when you turn to Liverpool in the index it gives it away. The first line says: “dart thrown at NS”.
Crerand can remember Paisley offering to bring Liverpool to Old Trafford for his 1975 testimonial, free of charge. The police put a stop to that one – but Crerand speaks of an era that younger fans presumably find alien. “When Liverpool played Leeds in the 1965 FA Cup final, I watched it with Noel Cantwell, Denis Law and Maurice Setters and afterwards we sent a telegram to Bill Shankly congratulating him. That could never happen today.” Liverpool’s players were regulars on the Manchester night scene. “We’d all go out together,” Crerand says. “I couldn’t tell you how many times Ian St John and his wife stayed at my house.”
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Liverpool’s Ian St John scored the winning goal against Leeds in extra time in the 1965 FA Cup final. Manchester United’s players sent Bill Shankly a telegram of congratulation. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
That would never happen today, either. Ron Atkinson described one trip to Anfield as like going into the Vietnam War and, if that sounds melodramatic all these years on, his team had just been attacked with tear gas. It was 1964 whenPhil Chisnall became the last player to transfer between the two clubs and nobody can be sure when, or if, that line of traffic will reopen.
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But there has been cooperation in the past. Did you know English football’s two most successful teams once conspired to fix a match so that United were not relegated? Four players from Liverpool, and three from Manchester, were banned because of the scandal, on Good Friday 1915, a 2-0 victory for United that left the Manchester Football Chronicle correspondent “surprised and disgusted” by the suspicious way a team one point off the bottom had won.
The match-fixing commission found that players from both teams had placed substantial sums on the result. Chelsea were relegated as a direct consequence (though they were eventually allowed back, on appeal, in an extended league) and, incredibly, United were allowed to keep the two points that meant them staying up.
Liverpool and United were also close enough, in their formative years, to put together a joint motion that every team should wear a red home strip and a white away one and, leaping forward to 1971, it tends to be forgotten that Frank O’Farrell’s first “home” match as Busby’s successor took place at Anfield. United had been banned from Old Trafford for two matches because of hooliganism and when they needed an alternative venue the two clubs who offered help were Liverpool and Stoke City.
The history can be confusing for anyone who has swallowed the narrative that the two clubs have detested each other since the year dot but, equally, it is tempting to wonder how many of the current players understand the significance of this fixture in the way some of their predecessors might have.
Between them, there was only one Liverpudlian (Jon Flanagan) and one Mancunian (Marcus Rashford) in their last starting XIs. Steven Gerrard’s involvement in these fixtures juddered to an end when he embedded his studs in Ander Herrera’s ankle last March. Gary Neville is no longer there to crank up hostilities. Both teams have had a makeover since Luis Suárez’s racial abuse of Patrice Evra brought a new wave of toxicity and bad feeling. And the identity of the men in the dugouts makes a difference, too.
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Gerrard is sent off for a stamp on Herrera – brick-by-brick video
Jürgen Klopp already leaves the firm impression he might have You’ll Never Walk Alone as his ringtone and, in terms of the Liverpool-Manchester rivalry, he had a neatly clipped response when he was asked how he would prepare for the Capital One Cup final against Manchester City. “I won’t talk about tactics here,” Liverpool’s manager said. “Even in Manchester they have televisions.”
Yet the potential for conflict has significantly been reduced now that Sir Alex Ferguson is out of the equation, with his ability to stir up a combustible mix, regardless of the letter he sent to supporters before one Anfield trip or the compassion he showed after the Hillsborough tragedy. Ferguson seldom missed a trick to chop down the old enemy, even in retirement judging by one tour night at the Lowry in Salford. “What’s great,” he announced, “is our young fans growing up don’t even remember when Liverpool were successful.”
Ferguson studied the geographical and historical antagonism and used to be a great believer that the hate and loathing had its origins in Manchester building the ship canal that threatened Liverpool’s ocean-going trade. Yet it is not that straightforward in football terms. Not many people realise that Liverpool, then in the Second Division, offered two of their players to help tide United over after the Munich disaster in 1958. Incredibly, United fans also sang “good luck Liverpool”, to the tune of Nice One Cyril, at the end of the 1977 FA Cup final, showing their appreciation as the losing side, with a European Cup final to come four days later, went past on the lap of honour.
And yet, there is evidence that the tensions between the two cities go back more than 150 years. One newspaper clipping unearthed by the football historian and author Gary James comes from the Ashton and Stalybridge Reporter, dated 7 April 1860. The people of Liverpool, it says, “smart under a sense of Manchester’s superiority, they writhe under the impression that Manchester is ahead”, Liverpool is described in the feminine form, with little affection. “She loves no one and no one loves her,” is one line.
One certainty is that Ferguson never forgot the shouts of “**** you” emanating from the home team’s dressing room after a particularly galling defeat at Anfield in April 1992. Losing that day stretched United’s harrowing run without a title to a quarter of a century and a Liverpool supporter approached the young Ryan Giggs outside for his autograph. Giggs wrote his name on a piece of paper – and the fan tore it up in front of his face.
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Manchester United fans in 2009 respond to Liverpool’s 1993 taunt to ‘come back and sing “Ooh-Aah Cantona” when you’ve won 18.’ Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images
The following season, Ferguson pinned a photograph – Dante’s Inferno, he called it – on the dressing-room wall, showing the distraught faces on the bench, and told his players it was there to “make sure it never happens again”. United finally won the league, but Liverpool still led 18-7 in titles and a banner on the Kop set a challenge: “Come back and sing ‘Ooh‑Aah Cantona’ when you’ve won 18.” In 2009, United’s fans returned with their own banner: “You told us to come back when we won 18 – we are back.” This contest, you come to learn, is a war of schadenfreude, hence Robbie Fowler and Gerrard holding up five fingers to signify Liverpool’s superior record, 5‑3, in the European Cup and the warped belief of some that it is part of the culture to mock each other’s tragedies.
“It doesn’t matter if we are playing tiddlywinks,” Ferguson once said, “when we get together you expect sparks to fly.” Nobody, however, could have imagined the first European tie between these two old superpowers would take place in an unloved competition on the Thursday‑night‑Sunday‑afternoon cycle. That, if nothing else, gives these mighty rivals some common ground
There have been moments of respect, and even kindness, in a 150-year conflict but this is essentially two clubs who detest each other. On Thursday, at Anfield, they meet in Europe for the first time
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Gary Neville, a player who came to symbolise the rivalry between Manchester United and Liverpool in modern times, does his best to ignore the Anfield crowd in 2002. Photograph: Darren Walsh/Action Images
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Daniel Taylor
@DTguardian
Wednesday 9 March 2016 12.35 GMTLast modified on Wednesday 9 March 201613.27 GMT
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There is an old story about Tony Wilson that probably sums up just how far some of the people who are locked into the Manchester-Liverpool enmity will go in the name of one‑upmanship and, more than anything, the importance that is placed on having the last word.
Wilson certainly had a way of revving it up when the man behind Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub – music mogul, broadcaster, impresario and professional Salfordian – earned his crust presenting Granada Reports, staring into the cameras with a level of self-adoration not often witnessed on regional news programmes and clearly loving the fact his opinions went straight into people’s living rooms.
For every on-air story about Liverpool, there would be a dry little aside, perhaps a roll of the eyes for added effect, or a sigh if it was his duty, as it often was, to report good news from Anfield. Wilson was simply incapable of hiding his allegiance to Manchester United. “He must have alienated potentially half the audience,” his co-presenter, Bob Greaves, once said. “A lot of people thought he was the bees’ knees. But everybody in Liverpool hated him. He would demean Liverpool with every word … every gesture he could. The favourite phrase I used to get whenever I went to Liverpool – as soon as I got off a train or out of my car – was: ‘Hey, Bob, tell that Tony Wilson he’s a ****er.’ I must have had that delivered to me thousands of times. How he got away with it for so long before he was bollocked by the hierarchy I will never know.”
Wilson presented one programme on the eve of Liverpool’s 1978 European Cup final wearing a Club Brugge rosette. It didn’t bring the Belgians any luck and the next day he had to deliver the news that Bob Paisley’s team were the kings of Europe, again. But it is the follow-up story, from 1983, that probably sums up the way the two cities make it their business to score points off one another.
You must log in or register to see images
FacebookTwitterPinterest
Liverpool fans taunt Manchester United supporters in January 2006, pointing out the Anfield club have won five European titles. Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images
Greaves used to tell it best, starting with the telephone call he received in Granada’s newsroom from a Merseyside police sergeant informing him Wilson’s brand new Jaguar had been found, stolen, in Liverpool. “Tony came in and I said: ‘I’ve had the police on – your car’s in Liverpool.’ So he got the train over to Liverpool, found his car, and three hours later the car was back outside Granada. Then, later that afternoon, I got another call. ‘Sergeant Carruthers here again. Can you tell Mr Wilson his car is still here in Eccersley Avenue?’ The scallies had watched him pick it up, followed him back, stolen it again, driven it back to Liverpool and parked it in exactly the same place. They never damaged it, they just played the game. They inconvenienced him. He’d obviously slagged offLiverpool one too many times. They followed him, they took it back and he had to get it twice in one day. He gave them begrudging respect: ‘Gotta say, man, good scam.’”
More than 30 years on, the dynamics are such now it is not entirely easy to know how much respect will be evident when the two clubs, sixth and seventh in the Premier League, lock horns in the Europa League on Thursday, remembering better times and driven more by the fear of failure, perhaps, than real affection for the competition.
The antipathy is always there. It is unshakeable, tribalistic and so deep‑rooted it must feel like a trick of the mind for older generations that there was once a time when some United players would go to watch Liverpool if they did not have a game of their own. “We’d stand on the Kop,” Paddy Crerand recalls. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched Liverpool behind that goal. The Scousers would have a word with us but it was good humoured.”
You must log in or register to see images
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Manchester United’s defender Patrice Evra is shouted at by a Liverpool fan during the 2012 FA Cup fourth round match at Anfield Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Crerand was so close to Bill Shankly he would often be late for Mass because the Liverpool manager used to ring, without fail, at 9am every Sunday, in a way that would never happen between employees of the two clubs now. Crerand played in the United side who won the European Cup in 1968 and the Liverpool Echo toasted the occasion with an enthusiasm that would never be seen on today’s pages. “British football can be proud of the United team who gave their all to give Matt Busby the cup he cherishes above all else,” the newspaper proclaimed. “It’s been a long, long drive for United to reach the top in Europe, no one will begrudge them being the first English club to make it.”
Even then, there are reminders how, in football, nostalgia is the file that removes the rough edges from the good old days. Nobby Stiles, Crerand’s team-mate, tells one story in his autobiography about being hit by a dart. “I went to the touchline and had it removed and at half-time I was given an injection. I can only speculate how bad it would have been if the dart had landed in my eye and not my arm.” He does not name the ground where it happened, explaining that Busby did not want to draw attention to it, but when you turn to Liverpool in the index it gives it away. The first line says: “dart thrown at NS”.
Crerand can remember Paisley offering to bring Liverpool to Old Trafford for his 1975 testimonial, free of charge. The police put a stop to that one – but Crerand speaks of an era that younger fans presumably find alien. “When Liverpool played Leeds in the 1965 FA Cup final, I watched it with Noel Cantwell, Denis Law and Maurice Setters and afterwards we sent a telegram to Bill Shankly congratulating him. That could never happen today.” Liverpool’s players were regulars on the Manchester night scene. “We’d all go out together,” Crerand says. “I couldn’t tell you how many times Ian St John and his wife stayed at my house.”
You must log in or register to see images
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Liverpool’s Ian St John scored the winning goal against Leeds in extra time in the 1965 FA Cup final. Manchester United’s players sent Bill Shankly a telegram of congratulation. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
That would never happen today, either. Ron Atkinson described one trip to Anfield as like going into the Vietnam War and, if that sounds melodramatic all these years on, his team had just been attacked with tear gas. It was 1964 whenPhil Chisnall became the last player to transfer between the two clubs and nobody can be sure when, or if, that line of traffic will reopen.
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But there has been cooperation in the past. Did you know English football’s two most successful teams once conspired to fix a match so that United were not relegated? Four players from Liverpool, and three from Manchester, were banned because of the scandal, on Good Friday 1915, a 2-0 victory for United that left the Manchester Football Chronicle correspondent “surprised and disgusted” by the suspicious way a team one point off the bottom had won.
The match-fixing commission found that players from both teams had placed substantial sums on the result. Chelsea were relegated as a direct consequence (though they were eventually allowed back, on appeal, in an extended league) and, incredibly, United were allowed to keep the two points that meant them staying up.
Liverpool and United were also close enough, in their formative years, to put together a joint motion that every team should wear a red home strip and a white away one and, leaping forward to 1971, it tends to be forgotten that Frank O’Farrell’s first “home” match as Busby’s successor took place at Anfield. United had been banned from Old Trafford for two matches because of hooliganism and when they needed an alternative venue the two clubs who offered help were Liverpool and Stoke City.
The history can be confusing for anyone who has swallowed the narrative that the two clubs have detested each other since the year dot but, equally, it is tempting to wonder how many of the current players understand the significance of this fixture in the way some of their predecessors might have.
Between them, there was only one Liverpudlian (Jon Flanagan) and one Mancunian (Marcus Rashford) in their last starting XIs. Steven Gerrard’s involvement in these fixtures juddered to an end when he embedded his studs in Ander Herrera’s ankle last March. Gary Neville is no longer there to crank up hostilities. Both teams have had a makeover since Luis Suárez’s racial abuse of Patrice Evra brought a new wave of toxicity and bad feeling. And the identity of the men in the dugouts makes a difference, too.
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Gerrard is sent off for a stamp on Herrera – brick-by-brick video
Jürgen Klopp already leaves the firm impression he might have You’ll Never Walk Alone as his ringtone and, in terms of the Liverpool-Manchester rivalry, he had a neatly clipped response when he was asked how he would prepare for the Capital One Cup final against Manchester City. “I won’t talk about tactics here,” Liverpool’s manager said. “Even in Manchester they have televisions.”
Yet the potential for conflict has significantly been reduced now that Sir Alex Ferguson is out of the equation, with his ability to stir up a combustible mix, regardless of the letter he sent to supporters before one Anfield trip or the compassion he showed after the Hillsborough tragedy. Ferguson seldom missed a trick to chop down the old enemy, even in retirement judging by one tour night at the Lowry in Salford. “What’s great,” he announced, “is our young fans growing up don’t even remember when Liverpool were successful.”
Ferguson studied the geographical and historical antagonism and used to be a great believer that the hate and loathing had its origins in Manchester building the ship canal that threatened Liverpool’s ocean-going trade. Yet it is not that straightforward in football terms. Not many people realise that Liverpool, then in the Second Division, offered two of their players to help tide United over after the Munich disaster in 1958. Incredibly, United fans also sang “good luck Liverpool”, to the tune of Nice One Cyril, at the end of the 1977 FA Cup final, showing their appreciation as the losing side, with a European Cup final to come four days later, went past on the lap of honour.
And yet, there is evidence that the tensions between the two cities go back more than 150 years. One newspaper clipping unearthed by the football historian and author Gary James comes from the Ashton and Stalybridge Reporter, dated 7 April 1860. The people of Liverpool, it says, “smart under a sense of Manchester’s superiority, they writhe under the impression that Manchester is ahead”, Liverpool is described in the feminine form, with little affection. “She loves no one and no one loves her,” is one line.
One certainty is that Ferguson never forgot the shouts of “**** you” emanating from the home team’s dressing room after a particularly galling defeat at Anfield in April 1992. Losing that day stretched United’s harrowing run without a title to a quarter of a century and a Liverpool supporter approached the young Ryan Giggs outside for his autograph. Giggs wrote his name on a piece of paper – and the fan tore it up in front of his face.
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Manchester United fans in 2009 respond to Liverpool’s 1993 taunt to ‘come back and sing “Ooh-Aah Cantona” when you’ve won 18.’ Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images
The following season, Ferguson pinned a photograph – Dante’s Inferno, he called it – on the dressing-room wall, showing the distraught faces on the bench, and told his players it was there to “make sure it never happens again”. United finally won the league, but Liverpool still led 18-7 in titles and a banner on the Kop set a challenge: “Come back and sing ‘Ooh‑Aah Cantona’ when you’ve won 18.” In 2009, United’s fans returned with their own banner: “You told us to come back when we won 18 – we are back.” This contest, you come to learn, is a war of schadenfreude, hence Robbie Fowler and Gerrard holding up five fingers to signify Liverpool’s superior record, 5‑3, in the European Cup and the warped belief of some that it is part of the culture to mock each other’s tragedies.
“It doesn’t matter if we are playing tiddlywinks,” Ferguson once said, “when we get together you expect sparks to fly.” Nobody, however, could have imagined the first European tie between these two old superpowers would take place in an unloved competition on the Thursday‑night‑Sunday‑afternoon cycle. That, if nothing else, gives these mighty rivals some common ground
Completely pointless article. Of course Liverpool are way better in Europe.
They're even about 5 years too late to try the "success in recent years" line. Newsflash Man Utd haven't won the CL since the last decade, same as us, except we threw in a UEFA cup and a Super Cup too.
They're even about 5 years too late to try the "success in recent years" line. Newsflash Man Utd haven't won the CL since the last decade, same as us, except we threw in a UEFA cup and a Super Cup too.
I love the bit about Tony Wilson's car. That wouldn't happen anywhere other than Liverpool