History of the Merseyside Derby
Wed, Dec 01.21
The Merseyside Derby is the longest running top-flight derby having been played continuously since the 1962/63 season, with the first meeting taking place back in 1894.
The Club’s are connected more closely than most rivals, with Liverpool forming when John Houlding broke away from the Everton board and founded the new club on Merseyside.
The Merseyside Derby was known as the ‘friendly derby’ with it not tending to be as fiery as other derby’s, violence was quite rare between the two sets of supporter’s with many families being split between the two clubs.
Everton held the lead in Derby wins for nearly 100 years winning the majority of the early matches. Everton’s superiority on Merseyside lasted until the 1980s in which Liverpool dominated England, winning 7 League titles. Since then, Liverpool has remained as the leading club on Merseyside, with current standings having Liverpool on 95 wins, Everton 67 and 76 draws.
In recent times the Derby hasn’t been so ‘friendly’ with the match holding the record for the most amount of red cards and becoming increasingly physical on the pitch. In 1999 there were 3 red cards dished out when Francis Jeffers & Sander Westerveld came to blows and Gerrard also saw red for a horrible challenge with Everton grinding out a 1-0 lead.
Stevie G also saw red again in 2006, and then there was chaos in 2007 which saw Everton go down to 9 men after Tony Hibbert brought down Gerrard in the box and then a Phil Neville handball on the goal-line saw Dirk Kuyt slot a late winner from the spot.
Last season we saw the best and worst of the Merseyside derby, with a thrilling 2-2 draw between the two sides in the first fixture, which also saw Jordan Pickford put one of the world’s best in van Dijk out for 7 months. Everton went on to break a 21 match winless streak against the reds, with a 2-0 win at Anfield last season making it the first time the Toffees had won at Anfield since that famous match in 1999.
Rafa Benitez was in charge of the red side of Merseyside in that chaotic 2007 match and comes into this match 14 years later under massive amounts of pressure, except this time he’s a blue. Having gone 7 games without a win and being a Liverpool cub legend, Evertonian’s are running out of patience.
Could this be Rafa's last match in charge of Everton? Let us know your thoughts
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