Liverpool's History

Liverpool Football Club's History
The first Liverpool Football Club founded in 1857 actually played a code similar to rugby union. They are consider to be one of the oldest rugby clubs in the world and merged with another team to from Liverpool St Helens F.C. They are however completely unrelated to the modern Liverpool F.C. and should not be confused.

Everton were founded 1878 and played at Anfield from 1884. In 1891 John Houlding, the leaseholder of Anfield, purchased the ground outright. Rent increased from £100 in 1884 to £250 by 1890. The Everton members decided to leave Anfield and moved to Goodison Park. With just three players remaining, John Houlding was left with an empty ground and no team to play in it. He therefore decided to form his own football club and on 15 March 1892, Liverpool Football Club was born. John McKenna was appointed director, and went to Scotland and where he signed thirteen professionals for the new club. The team was labelled "the team of the Macs" - with eight of the thirteen Scottish signings having a "Mc" prefix.

An ambitious application to join the Football League was rejected. After a 7-1 home friendly match victory on 1 September 1892 against Rotherham Town, Liverpool kicked off life in the Lancashire League with an 8-0 win at Anfield against Higher Walton. Malcolm McVean scored the first competitive goal. Ending the first season as champions and beating Everton 1-0 in the first Merseyside derby, the 1893 Liverpool Senior Cup final at Bootle F.C., Liverpool were elected to the Football League alongside Woolwich Arsenal.

McVean scored the club’s first league goal in a 2-0 win over Middlesbrough Ironopolis and ended the season unbeaten and Second Division Champions, winning a test match 2-0 against Newton Heath (soon to be renamed Manchester United) and promotion to the First Division.

Upon the arrival of manager Tom Watson, a 3-time-championship-winner at Sunderland, the strip changed from blue and white quarters to the famous red and white, and in 1901 Scottish international Alex Raisbeck was the first Liverpool captain to collect the Football League championship. League champions again in 1906, when Everton also won the FA Cup, the ground capacity was increased with the building of a huge cinder bank behind the south end goal. It was christened the Spion Kop after a Boer War battle of 1900 when over 300 men of the Lancashire Regiment died, many from Liverpool.

Liverpool played their first FA Cup final, the last at Crystal Palace, and the first attended by the reigning monarch, George V, losing 0-1 to Burnley in 1914. However, the club were also involved in the 1915 British football betting scandal, one of the earliest match-fixing scandals which saw four Liverpool players banned, although the bans were rescinded in 1919. Liverpool soon bounced back; in 1921-2 and again in 1922-3, captained by England full-back Ephraim Longworth, Liverpool were champions. In 1946-7, the first season after the Second World War, Liverpool were surprise League champions. In 1950 the club lost its second FA Cup final, 0-2 to Arsenal at Wembley.

The Bill Shankly Era (1959-1974)
(Honours won: UEFA Cup (1973), Football League Championship (1964, 1966, 1973), FA Cup (1965, 1974))

In January 1959 Liverpool were knocked out of the FA Cup by non-League Worcester City. By November manager Phil Taylor had resigned. Bill Shankly became Liverpool manager in December 1959 and over the next 15 years he transformed them into one of the top club sides in Europe. Within a year he had released twenty four players. Fellow Scots Ian St John and Ron Yeats were signed from Motherwell and Dundee United respectively. Striker Roger Hunt, winger Ian Callaghan and full back Gerry Byrne also established themselves in the team. By the beginning of 1961-62 Shankly had assembled the nucleus of the new team. That season, Shankly's third season as manager, they duly won the Second Division championship by eight points and were promoted to the top flight where they have remained ever since, never finishing below eighth in the league.

In 1964, Liverpool lifted the League Championship. It was also the year in which the team adopted its now famous all red strip. They failed to retain the championship trophy the following season but compensation came in the form of a first-ever FA Cup (a 2-1 Final win over Leeds United). Their first ever European Cup campaign ended at the semi-final stage against Inter Milan. In a tie still remembered on Merseyside, Liverpool won the first leg 3-1 only to lose the second leg 3-0, going out 4-3 on aggregate.

The following year Liverpool regained the championship. They also reached the European Cup Winners Cup Final - losing 2-1 to Borussia Dortmund. By now Shankly was one of the most highly rated managers in the game and his squad contained some of the finest players in England. Despite this success Shankly was already planning further signings. Future internationals Emlyn Hughes, Ray Clemence and Kevin Keegan were signed from clubs in the lower divisions as the 60s team was gradually dismantled.

Liverpool won their first European trophy in 1973 in the UEFA Cup, as well as winning another league title that season. The UEFA Cup Final appeared over after the first leg with Liverpool 3-0 winners. However, German team Borussia Moenchengladbach fought back in the second leg to win 2-0, giving Liverpool a narrow 3-2 aggregate victory.

They won the FA Cup again a year later with a convincing 3-0 final win over Newcastle United. Shankly stunned the footballing world soon afterwards by announcing his retirement. The club's players and fans tried to persuade him to carry on, and a local factory even threatened to go on strike. Shankly ignored these pleas and joined the club's fans on The Kop as a spectator, while he handed over his managerial duties to Bob Paisley.

The Bob Paisley Era (1974-1983)
(Honours won: UEFA European Cup (1977, 1978, 1981), UEFA Cup (1976), Football League Championship (1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983), Football League Cup (1981, 1982, 1983))

Shankly's 55-year-old assistant Bob Paisley, was promoted to the position of manager for the 1974-75 season after failing to persuade his predecessor to carry on. Paisley was manager of Liverpool from 1974 until 1983, and during those nine years he became one of the most successful managers ever to take charge of an English club. His one and only season without winning a trophy was his first, 1974-75. His second season brought the first of six league titles. In 1977 the championship was retained and the team won the European Cup for the first time in its history. The final in Rome was won 3-1 over old foes Borussia Moenchengladbach in what was Kevin Keegan's final game for the club. The European Cup was retained the following year with a 1-0 win in the final against FC Bruges. The goal was created by future captain Graeme Souness and scored by Keegan's replacement Kenny Dalglish.

1978-79 was a record breaking year as the league title was won with 68 points and only 16 goals conceded in 42 matches. The following season brought another league title. Paisley's third and last European Cup victory came in 1981 with a 1-0 victory in the final over Real Madrid. The unexpected scorer of the winning goal was defender Alan Kennedy. The only domestic trophy to previously elude them, the League Cup, was also won that season with another defender, Alan Hansen, grabbing the winning goal.

A defeat to Manchester City on Boxing Day 1981 saw Liverpool drop to eleventh place but a string of victories brought the title back to Anfield. The League Cup was also retained. The emerging star of that campaign was Welsh striker Ian Rush. It was more of the same the following year with both the league championship and League Cup being retained. Of Liverpool's eight league defeats that year, five were recorded after the title was already won. Eventually, the league was won by eleven points.

The big question for fans at the conclusion of that season was who would replace Bob Paisley. Before retiring he won a total of twenty-one trophies, including three European Cups, a UEFA Cup, six league titles and three consecutive League Cups during his spell as manager. Under Paisley, a new era of stars emerged. They included Graeme Souness, Ian Rush, Alan Hansen and Kenny Dalglish.

The Joe Fagan Era (1983-1985)
(Honours won: UEFA European Cup (1984), Football League Championship (1984), Football League Cup (1984))

Veteran coach Joe Fagan moved up to the manager's seat, aged 63, upon Paisley's retirement, and his first season at the helm saw Liverpool become the first English club to win three major trophies in a single season - the league title, the League Cup and the European Cup.

He remained in charge for just two seasons before handing in his retirement, but his first season (1983-84) saw Liverpool set some of the most impressive records in English football. They won their fourth successive League Cup and their third successive League Championship as well as winning the European Cup for the fourth time in eight seasons, thanks to the efforts of Fagan and his high quality squad which was mostly made up of players from the Bob Paisley era. A significant breakthrough star in the Liverpool team was young striker Ian Rush, who had been signed from Chester in 1980 and after a couple of seasons in the reserves had broken into the first team and established himself as a prolific goalscorer.

In Fagan's second and final season as manager, Liverpool lost out on the league title to local rivals Everton - with four matches to spare. They reached the European Cup final to face Italian champions Juventus at the decrepit Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium. Before kick-off, a violent rampage by Liverpool supporters resulted in the death of 39 people who were crushed to death when a wall collapsed. The shockwaves from this reverberated round European football and lead to UEFA banning all English teams from European competitions until 1990.
Fagan retired after the Heysel Disaster and handed over the reins to former Liverpool striker Kenny Dalglish, who was given the role of player-manager. He died at the age of 80 in July 2001 after a long illness.

The Kenny Dalglish Era (1985-1991)
(Honours won: Football League Championship (1986, 1988, 1990), FA Cup (1986, 1989) - None of Dalglish's Liverpool sides were eligible for European competition)

Fagan handed over the reins to striker Kenny Dalglish, who had established himself as a world class player and now wanted to prove himself as a manager. His first season in charge as Liverpool's first player-manager - 1985-86 - could not have been better, as the Reds fought off competition from Everton, West Ham United and Manchester United to win the league title. They also beat neighbours Everton 3-1 in the F.A Cup final to become only the third team to win the league championship/F.A Cup double in the twentieth century. Dalglish was still a top striker despite his advancing years, and his partnership with Ian Rush was the most prolific in the English league. 1986-87 was trophyless as Liverpool finished league runners-up to Everton and lost to Arsenal in the League Cup final. Pundits were predicting further disappointment for the following season when star striker Ian Rush was sold to Juventus in a £3.2 million deal.

Rush's £750,000 successor John Aldridge silenced the critics by topping the club's goalscoring charts in the 1987-88 season and inspiring the Reds to another championship success - Liverpool won the First Division Championship by nine points from runners-up Manchester United and suffered just two league defeats all season. New winger John Barnes was credited with the Player of the Year Award. The downside of the season was a shock 1-0 defeat at the hands of Wimbledon in the F.A Cup final. Liverpool had by this stage been one of the world's strongest clubs for more than twenty years. Wimbledon, meanwhile, had been First Division members for just two seasons and had only joined the league eleven years earlier.

Ian Rush returned to Liverpool for the 1988-89 season, after an unsuccessful spell at Juventus. Liverpool came close to repeating the double once more in 1988-89. They lifted the FA Cup with another victory over Everton in the final, but the league title slipped out of their grasp in the last minute of their last game of the season. At home to Arsenal, Michael Thomas, who later joined Liverpool, scored at the death to give the league title to the visitors - while the two teams ended the season with the same number of points and an identical goal difference, the Gunners had scored more goals.

In any case, the season was overshadowed by the Hillsborough disaster, which had struck the club in the FA Cup semi-final. On 15 April 1989, when Liverpool were playing Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final, hundreds of Liverpool fans were crushed against perimeter fencing. Ninety-four fans died that day and a ninety-fifth fan died in hospital from his injuries four days later. A ninety-sixth fan died nearly four years later never having regained consciousness. The Taylor Report later ruled that the main reasons for the disaster were overcrowding due to a failure of police control.

In 1989-90, Dalglish guided Liverpool to their third league title in five seasons. Although the 5 year ban on English clubs in European competition was lifted for the following season, Liverpool had to serve an extra year and were unable to compete in the 1990-91 European Cup.

On February 22, 1991, with Liverpool halfway through a two-horse race with Arsenal for the league title and the day after an epic 4-4 FA Cup clash with Everton (a game which saw their rivals come back from a goal down 4 times), Kenny Dalglish dropped a bombshell by handing in his resignation as manager, claiming he could no longer cope with the pressure of managing the club. First-team coach Ronnie Moran took charge of team affairs for several weeks before Graeme Souness was named as the club's new manager. By that stage, Liverpool were slipping behind in the title race and finished runners-up to Arsenal who completed the season with just one defeat from 38 games.