By LFC Vancouver member Steven Speed, 10 September 06.

There has been a lot of talk recently about derbies no longer having as much importance as the past & the fact that the derby games don’t mean as much as games against Chel$ki or Man Utd. But for me the rivalry with Everton will always be the most important one and that’s true for the majority of the people on Merseyside where ‘Reds’ and ‘Blues’ work alongside each other every day & family members are often split with support for both teams. My dad has 5 brothers and 2 of them are Evertonians & the other 3 are Kopites, try telling them that the derby doesn’t mean as much as the more glamorous fixtures. Watching the first derby of the season got me reminiscing about some of my own derby memories.

I was born in Fazakerley, Liverpool in December 1977, so my first ‘proper’ football memories don’t go back further than the mid 1980’s. .

The first football moment I remember clearly is of Graeme Sharp’s long range effort at Anfield in Everton’s 1 – 0 victory in 1984. I was fully aware of football well before this game & I was aware of there being 2 big teams on Merseyside but it wasn’t until this particular game that I fully understood the rivalry between the 2 clubs. The goal particularly stays in my mind because it won that years 'Goal Of The Season' on the BBC & it was shown on television a lot at the time. I still remember John Motson’s commentary “the Evertonians have gone beserk”. I remember at the time I was confused because prior to that I had thought Liverpool were the best team just because of my dad’s devotion & afterwards I wasn’t sure if Everton were better or not. I was still a bit young to realize that Liverpool genuinely were the best team in Europe at that time. .

I don’t remember much else from the 83/84 season, about the only other memory I have is of the Everton V Watford FA Cup Final & I don’t know why but for some reason I do not remember anything about the European Cup Final against Roma. .

I don’t remember too much about the 84/85 season except for a few diving headers by Andy Gray that I used to try copying with my mates. But the 85/86 season was when I really became obsessed. That was a tremendous season & contained a few very memorable derbies for different reasons. I remember the first league game against Everton was quite early in the season & I remember seeing the highlights my dad taped for me off ITV on the Saturday night. It was a classic game with Kenny Dalglish scoring a long range goal within about the first 20 seconds of kick off. Ian Rush scored 2 to give Liverpool a 3 – 0 lead at half time. Gary Lineker & Sharp pulled 2 back in the second half for Everton but the game finished 3 – 2. The next league game came at a very crucial stage if the season when it looked like Everton were running away with the title. Everton won 2 – 0 at Anfield thanks to a rare Kevin Ratcliffe goal & one from Lineker. I remember afterwards everyone I knew had basically conceded that the title race was over. Of course we all know what happened next as Everton collapsed & Liverpool went on an unbeaten run to snatch the title, going top near the end when Everton lost to Oxford United.

This set up the first ever all Merseyside FA Cup Final. . A massive game in which Liverpool were going for their first ever ‘double’ & Everton were looking for revenge for the league. Anybody who lived in Liverpool at the time will know just how truly massive this game really was. I remember the day before at school, the day was devoted to the game & we all wore Liverpool or Everton colours to school, we had a special assembly where we sang ‘Abide With Me’ & then we had a Liverpool V Everton game of our own on the school field in the afternoon. The day of the game there were many areas that had ‘street parties’ including where my family lived in Bootle. Decorating tables were laid out along the street & filled with buffet food & there were streamers & flags hanging from the lampposts & people had posters & flags in their windows. An absolutely brilliant day & something I think could only ever have happened in Liverpool. I still think that was the best FA Cup Final ever & I don’t even think the 2006 final can better it, apart from the fact it was Liverpool V Everton when both teams were the best in England it really was a tremendously exciting game played at a great tempo. It had plenty of goals & memorable moments such as the Bruce Grobbelaar save from Sharp’s header & the little row he had with Jim Beglin. .

The next big derby moment came at Goodison Park in the 1987/88 season when ‘Toffees’ striker Wayne Clarke scored the only goal to end Liverpool’s 29 game unbeaten streak. That result still annoys me as that team really deserved to break the record held by Leeds Utd. Some of the football we played that season was breathtaking as Barnes, Beardsley & Aldridge & the lads just tore the First Division apart. .

The 1989 FA Cup Final was a very special game after Hillsborough. The city deserved another all Merseyside final as both teams players & fans came together united in grief & support for each other. The city deserved a tremendous game and that’s exactly what they got as both teams fought to the bitter end with Everton’s Stuart McCall equalizing in the dying seconds before Ian Rush on as a substitute finally won the trophy for Liverpool in extra time after McCall had again scored a second equaliser. The memorable image I remember from this game was the sight of Everton goalkeeper, Neville Southall, sitting alone in the goal for quite some time after the game ended. .

Everybody remembers the classic 4-4 draw in the FA Cup in 1991, unfortunately this amazing game was overshadowed by the resignation of Kenny Dalglish almost immediately afterwards. I remember it was the half term holidays from school & I was in my friends house when the announcement came. At first I thought it was either a lie or a rumour, but when I saw my dad’s face when he got home from work that night I knew it was true. .

The first derby game I actually attended in person was on the 31st August 1991. I stood on The Kop and watched us win 3 – 1. Interestingly enough the Everton goalscorer that day was none other than Peter Beardsley, I still can’t believe that Souness let him leave. I remember the Everton fans were really positive before the game because Howard Kendall had just returned as manager and there was a feeling he would bring the glory days back. However Liverpool were brilliant that day & Everton had no chance. It was a terrific experience being on The Kop for a derby game & the banter and atmosphere were terrific, I remember a blow up doll in an Everton shirt being thrown around the crowd! .

There weren’t too many derbies in the 90’s that one could exactly call ‘classics’, although there was certainly plenty of explosive moments at times. A couple that come instantly to my mind are Bruce Grobbelaar shoving Steve McManaman in the face and Sander Westerweld & Francis Jeffers having a punch up. .

Who can forget Robbie Fowler pretending to snort the goal line in answer to those cocaine rumours heavily doing the rounds at the time. Fowler loves to wind up the Everton fans and he did it again when he scored at Goodison Park for Man City and he ran down the touchline patting his head (as in ‘smackhead’). .

A great derby moment occurred in 2001 when Gary McAllister scored that last second free kick to win the game 3 – 2. That goal was special to me for 2 reasons, the first is that it set us on the road to ‘the treble’ and also because it mended a friendship. I had fallen out with my best friend 2 weeks before the game but after the match I sent him a text because we couldn’t not discuss that goal & so we made friends just so we could share our joy. I watched that game with my dad in a neighbors house, these people were all ‘Bluenoses’ so it gave us an extra thrill to celebrate & rub it into their faces when the ball flew in to the back of the net. That was a great night. .

Life would be pretty boring if we didn’t have this fixture to create banter during the build up and then the Monday morning wind ups at work after the game. For me Liverpool V Everton is the game I look forward to most every season and I’m sure there are plenty who will agree with me. .

What do you think? Give Ste your comments at stespeed [at] lfcvancouver.com.

By LFC Vancouver member Paul Gill, 10 September 06.

well, it's 6AM as I type this, about 24 hours after the Merseyside Derby. Can't sleep as the nightmarish images from the day before won't let me rest, even my 2 month old daughter can sense all isn't right in the world and has had a fussy night...

It was simply amazing to see that result happen, but in a way it was coming. There was a bit of a gut feeling about this (as Ste said to me in an email the day before) as we'd been battering Everscum for fun for years now. It was getting to be comedy, like the way those Bluenoses cheered Gerrard's sending off last season in the home leg of the derby like they'd won the League...only for us to completely outplay them (yet again). It'd been years since they'd had theirs and if there was ever a time for them to get us, perhaps it was on the wall to happen now. It's a derby after all, and there was always the feeling that they were going to get theirs someday, similar to Man City's run of decent results against Man Ure. Sorry about mentioning Man Ure to prove a point, I don't like thinking of them either.

A Carragher under questionable fitness was put in the starting lineup, as was Xabi Alonso who hasn't been his superhuman self since starring for Spain in the World Cup (he had to have been MOTM in a couple of those games, he bossed the midfield) and in fact had a bit of a nightmare for Spain midweek. A current defensive weakness is Aurelio who is still finding his feet in the Premier League. Aurelio has a sweet left foot but is getting positionally caught out at times by the pace of the English game as well as getting used to his new teammates...Zamora's cross/fluke goal and some other suspect moments in our defence were times you could point at Aurelio not shutting his man down or simply being caught out.

Despite all of this, Carra and Xabi started in the derby and Aurelio lined up at left back, and Agger (had Iceland's Eidur Gudjohnssen in his back pocket in midweek) was on the bench. I looked at our starting 11 and saw a good lineup, though I was wondering about if Alonso should be rested and Agger should continue...but Carra lives for the derby games, being a local lad and all.

Fowler and Crouch upfront wasn't exactly offering scintillating pace but Everscum don't have much of that either and the Toffees usually have 10 men behind the ball against us as well so I could see the logic in not needing Bellamy, Pennant or Gonzalez against these, that's for sure. So with Carra, Fowler and Gerrard in the starting 11 we had 3 scousers intent on continuing the trend on Blues chasing Red shadows.

You likely saw the game, I can't imagine anyone missing a Derby game that was on basic cable TV. You saw us batter them from the kickoff, saw the 2 penalties missed, saw Alonso get fouled as the ball went to their right...Aurelio out of position? That s**thouse Cahill's wide open and our defence is AWOL? 1-0, bluesh*te. We continue to attack, but Carradonna finally makes a mistake but why now? 2-0, Everscum.

Half-time, and our game dipped after that. We didn't up the tempo and were frustrated at the mass of Blue shirts defending for their lives...the chances were going inches wide. We had some soft free-kicks going our way admittedly, and I'm not sure about the handball either. Too many shots from out of the box because the box had 8 bodies in it where we simply weren't lining up the close range shots. Statistically speaking, we score way more goals outside of the 18 yard box than other sides (I think we were top of the league for that last season) but when the game is as ugly as this you sometimes need to get the ugly tap-ins. Horseface (now at Madrid) has made a career of this. But with those big ugly Bluesh*te players piled in the penalty box, that through-ball wasn't going to happen as easily plus the crosses weren't there either.

Alonso and Carragher (our spine) weren't at the races, we weren't getting the luck despite dominating posession, we just ran out of ideas with about 15 minutes left. Good thing Reina got his error out of his system when the game was lost anyway, though the final result looks sickening. Maybe not to the fans who selected Everscum players in their fantasy football lineups...who the hell can benefit from our rivals scoring and winning games? Makes no sense to me, I'm always sad seeing our rivals win a game or even score a goal. Rather lose the fantasy football, myself, but each to their own. Anyway.

The pathetic Everscum fans were a couple of goals up against their rival so what do they do? They spend the whole match booing us instead of chanting and cheering on their team. Sad, the friendly rivalry of the Derby's gone down the toilet with Everton's fortunes as they're just twisted and bitter now. Remember the '86 cup final, hearing the "Merseyside" chant? That was great.

The media will sharpen their sensationalist knives...the Sportsnet clowns along with the media are saying we were "pummelled" and "battered"...did they watch the game? We weren't great but for at least an hour were the better team. Some knee-jerk fans will scream idiotic stupidity as well.

This loss feels similar to last season's 4-1 loss to Chel$ki. It will hopefully be a wake up call to sort out that defence. Amazing that last season's defensive steel is this season's headless chickens back there. The derby was screaming out for Didi too, but sadly he's not with us anymore.

It's the one fixture that means anything to Everscum these days, how they've slipped since Howard Kendall's era is amazing. We'll surely be smiling broader grins than them come the end of the season, but until then we've got to cheer on the boys and hope for the scalp of Chel$ki at home for the first time in years and years.

What do you think? Fire us a reply and we'll get it to Paul.

By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 12 September 06.

This past week’s two games could easily be described as “away day blues” on Saturday, and followed by “far away so close (to scoring)” on Tuesday. It wasn’t a week with much to cheer about, but we’ve had these kinds of disappointing weeks before. The only thing to do is put it all behind us and get ready for our second big test of the season next Sunday at Chel$ki. That’s only going to be our fourth Premier League match so far this season, and already we will have played three away and only one at home, with two of those away matches being among the toughest four or five that we can expect before next May.

On Merseyside, D-day comes at least twice a year. That is, where D is for derby. The emotions that surround these twice-a-season cross-town matches are unmatched anywhere else in the world. Just take a look in the stands and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Among the crowd you’ll see alternating ones, twos, and threes in Red and blue. This is one unique place where the “fierce” rivals do not have to be kept separated by fences or police lines. Families all over Merseyside (including mine) are split between Red and blue and a derby is as much a family outing as it is a contest of football. Of course, that isn’t to say that we don’t worry about winning at these family outings. Bragging rights are there for the taking, and every one of us wants to be on the side that can laugh at and ridicule the other. In some ways, winning against Everton is just like winning against your brother. You know that the rivalry is not as serious as you would have each other believe, but you can also be sure that you desperately want to win.

There’s no doubt that Liverpool have had the much better record on Merseyside, if not in all of Europe, over the last 15 to 20 years. During that time we’ve picked up a long list of trophies, while Everton have won one FA Cup (1995). For all of that superiority, if Everton were only allowed to win one game all season, which one do you think it would be? No matter how good our season might be and how bad theirs might be, the blue side of Merseyside will always talk about the ones that came out in their favour. The most recent episode of the Red versus blue saga took place this past Saturday, and unfortunately for us turned out to be one of those occasions where we are the ones to be laughed at and ridiculed. You could say that it was not just D for derby, but also D for disaster.

The first disaster for us came about with the confirmation that LSPH would not be opening up at 4:30 am to let us watch this one. That would have been an ideal opportunity to get everyone together and to officially sign people up as members of LFC Vancouver. We did find an alternative venue (thanks again to Ste) but that unfortunately had to be cancelled due to staff problems at their place. After looking into several possible alternatives to the alternative, we finally gave up and decided to announce that there would be no live venue, but we would be meeting at LSPH later in the morning to watch a tape of the match, and of course we would also be ready to sign up members at that time. After the disaster of the match, there were only about seven of us that were there. Three had not seen the game earlier, the rest of us unfortunately had. The comment from those three was “how could you possibly watch that twice?” I have to admit that if I hadn’t been committed to being there, I probably wouldn’t have bothered either.

What can you say about a match like that? It’s easy to blame Graham (three card trick) Poll, but we have to take the criticism (not to mention the abuse) that we just stank. We started off fine, put together some good passes, controlled the play with plenty of possession, and had a few shots on goal that on another day might have gone in. But then we made some serious defensive errors and that’s what cost us. For their first goal, how the hell could we leave two blues in the centre of the box totally unmarked? If that isn’t tempting fate then I don’t know what is. That was really the turning point of the match. If we hadn’t conceded that one, I’m sure we would have gone on to win easily. But we didn’t, and then we gave away another one through more simple mistakes. For the second goal, it was a case of letting Andy Johnson have too much freedom in the danger area. Following that, we had lots of possession and lots of chances just as we had earlier. It wasn’t too far-fetched to believe that we could come out for the second half and turn the game around in our favour. That looked less likely as Everton soaked up the pressure and the clock ticked on. Substitutions didn’t help all that much, even though Kuyt, Riise and Pennant all made a contribution after coming on. It looked more and more like this just wasn’t going to be our day and that we were about to lose with an embarrassing 2-0 defeat. But it got worse. First of all, Riise went down after a tackle and re-injured his ankle that has kept him on the sidelines since our opening match at Sheffield United. With ten men and not much time left, there was no way that we were going to salvage anything from this one. And then it got even worse than that with a figurative insult being added to a literal injury. A speculative shot on goal from Carsley was fumbled by Reina, who then tossed the ball away from goal in a panic to prevent himself carrying it into his own net, where it landed easily for Johnson to nod in his second and Everton’s third. Amazingly, that was the blues’ biggest home victory over us in almost 100 years. Let’s hope that it’s at least that long before the next one.

The 3-0 score is misleading as it doesn’t show that we were well in control of the game for the most part and while we looked the better side for long stretches, we just couldn’t score and then were punished severely when we committed the few defensive errors. For what it’s worth, and I really hate to say this, I think Rafa got this one wrong. I realise that he favours the rotation system where players will be rested for some games if not fully fit, or just not selected if the opposition dictates the team that appears on the day. But, with several players coming back from international duty, and ones such as Carragher and Riise coming back from injury, why put those players in while leaving some of the others out? I fully expected to see Fowler start because of his experience in derbies, and I expected to see Bellamy alongside him with Crouch available on the bench. After that, I imagined it would be obvious to have Pennant on the right side, possibly Zenden on the left, Sissoko and Gerrard in the centre, with a back four of Finnan, Hyypia, Agger, and Aurelio. That would avoid the injuries and give (to me at least) the best possible “Premier” line-up to start. Options on the bench would then be Gonzalez, Alonso, Garcia and Crouch (as well as Dudek of course). That would also allow for selection of the best “European” squad for the upcoming Champions League match at PSV Eindhoven a couple of days later. But who am I to criticise Rafa? I disliked the zonal marking system he brought in, among other changes, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and see how it all worked out. The result as you know was that we had the most clean sheets in the League last season, as well as the second best goals against. For that reason I’m willing to let Rafa have the time to convince me that the rotation system, and his choices of players, is the right way to go when seen in hindsight at the end of the season. Let’s hope so, and that the victory over us is one of the few things that the blues can brag about compared to how our season ends.

It’s always best to go into a Champions League match on the back of a win. That’s especially true when it’s an away match. Our opening group phase match at PSV Eindhoven was not one that we wanted to face after such a disappointing loss to our good(ison) neighbours. But that’s the reality that we have to deal with from time to time and so we pick up the pieces, try to put it behind us and concentrate on the new task at hand. Remember back to 2004 when we lost to the blues in December and then went on to end the season with a European Cup? What did we care then about a loss earlier in the season?

The shock in this one also came at the start of the match. I fully expected to see Kuyt in the starting line-up, and wasn’t surprised to see Zenden somewhere in there as well. Bellamy teamed up with Kuyt after being rested against the blues, and Reina kept his place in goal in spite of his lack of sharpness and errors on Saturday. That was not so unexpected as Rafa had already commented that he had confidence in Pepe and expected a confident performance in return. But, after that, it was certainly a surprise to see Gerrard, Alonso, Garcia, Hyypia, and Crouch all on the bench with Agger in the centre with Carragher, Zenden and Sissoko in the centre, and Warnock and Pennant on the wings. I was sure that we’d be fine and that the players on the bench would be able to come in and make a difference if needed.

This was by no means a classic, but we had a few scares as we continued to let attacking players have too much room to move and too much time to cause havoc in our defence. One shot skimmed over the crossbar, while a few others were high and wide or easily picked off by Pepe in goal. His confidence looked like it had indeed returned and I can’t say that he put a foot (or a hand) wrong. Meanwhile, Bellamy and Kuyt were teaming up well and playing each other into spaces, cutting through and creating some good scoring opportunities. Once again, as this one went on, it looked as if we would never score. Surely it’s time to bring on one or two subs and see if we can change the game around and get the one goal that should be enough to give us all three points. Sissoko was taken off in favour of Alonso, followed by Gerrard replacing Bellamy. Earlier in the match, Aurelio and Warnock had traded places on the left allowing more forward movement, especially for Kuyt to chase the balls played down that side. Finally, Gonzalez came on to replace Aurelio, although it didn’t seem to turn the game in any decisive way. The one chance that had us all leaping into the air was the volley by Gerrard, from the right side of the area that looked for sure to be on its way into the lower left corner. “Technical difficulties” with the transmission caused the picture to freeze for a moment before we realised that the ball had struck the post and rebounded clear. That was just about that, and we simply played out the remaining time accepting that we would be leaving with a 0-0 result.

Some may say that a 0-0 result is just not good enough for a team of our supposed calibre. I would disagree very strongly with that sentiment, and point out that if we can get a point from each of our away matches and three points from each of our home fixtures, then we should find ourselves in first place in the group in December, ready to move on to the second round. Another point that didn’t occur to me until later in the day was that here we are feeling disappointed with a 0-0 draw, when it happens to be the first clean sheet of the season. If you include the two leg series against Maccabi Haifa, then that’s the first in seven games.

Another plus from this one is that we played most of the match with Gerrard, Alonso, Hyypia, and others on the bench meaning that they should be well rested and well prepared for Sunday’s big test at Stamford Bridge. This is the one that we must be ready for, with Rafa being able to select any of the players that he wants without the worry of who might be fatigued from recent matches. Speaking of strange starting line-ups, the last time that I was so surprised at the omission of players such as Gerrard and Alonso was for the Community Shield. We know who we played against on that day and we know what the result was. It may be that the rotation system is already working, just that we haven’t come to appreciate it yet. Let’s hope so because we need all the help we can get and all the advantages that we can possibly have in our favour this coming Sunday against the dreaded Moronio’s Chel$ki. Sometimes a harsh loss such as we suffered on Saturday is actually a good experience if it can give the team a kick to get them out of any sense of complacency. It’s happened before and it could just happen again. Just think back to last season’s slow start and the 4-1 loss to Chel$ki in October, and then think about what happened for the rest of last season. If this loss was the turning point of our current season, then we should have a lot to cheer about very soon.

What do you think? Give Keith your comments at Keith [at] lfcvancouver.com.