I love this thread.
I've gone for one from the 1970s, one from '80s and one from '90s.
The 1970s was Boxing Day 1978, Manchester United 0 Liverpool 3. It's one of the most accomplished Liverpool victories I've ever seen and possibly the only United-Liverpool encounter (bar maybe the Beardsley hat-trick match) where our dominance was total. Absolutely total. We played them off the park. I particularly remember the match because I think it was probably the last time I went to the footy with my dad before he died. We were at our Uncle Stanley's house for a big family Xmas get together in a place called Grasscroft near Oldham and it was one of those impromptu decisions that football fans used to do on Boxing Day - "Let's go to the football". Dad was a Huddersfield fan and Uncle Stan didn't really follow the game. I was already a battle-hardened Red by '78. We chose Old Trafford.
This was the great Liverpool side that some people are now remembering again because of the present great run. Souness was in midfield, Kenny up front and Hansen was in his first full season, alongside Hughes and Thompson at the back. But the star of the show that day was Fairclough.
Davy Fairclough was always my player. I loved him. I know he was a bit hit and miss but I hardly remember a game where he didn't do something amazing. I'd seen him score two sensational goals at Anfield on consecutive (I think) Grand National mornings at Anfield - one against Leeds and the late winner against Everton. I'd already seen him score what turned out to be the most famous goal in the history of football v St Etienne 12 months or so before. I'd been at the evening kick off at Maine Road in '76 when he scored two late individualistic goals to beat Man City and set up the title-deciding fixture at Molyneux. But the goal he scored this day at Old Trafford beats the lot in my mind. It was deep into the second half and the game was probably already won, but Fairclough picked up the ball near the half way line and set off towards the goal. We were in the paddock beneath what was then a newish cantilevered stand and I can still hear the Man United fans shouting, with increasing hysteria, "Chop him down, Chop him down!" But David Fairclough became David Hemery, hurdling one wild challenge after another - probably both Greenhoff boys had a hack at him - until he'd worked his way into the box. And then, in a homage to his own effort v Les Verts, Davy just slotted past whoever the onrushing keeper was. It was utterly breathtaking. Dad was always a man of the glorious understatement. He nodded a couple of times and said "That weren't bad."
The last fifteen minutes or so were played out with Liverpool just passing the ball between themselves and the United mob chasing shadows. Or angels really. Our superiority was ridiculous.
I know Fairclough's star began to fade soon afterwards. Or rather we got Ian Rush, who was almost flawless as a centre forward. But he remains a gigantic part of our history for all sorts of reasons. And the epitome of the street footballer who refused to compromise and, occasionally and memorably, leaves his street-footballing imprint on a succession of great matches. Thank you Davy Fairclough.
The 80s game, I've written about before on RAWK, and that is the 5-0 demolition of Notts Forest, the second best team in the land. I was there that balmy evening, on the Spion Kop - with 'Dr Abismo', who used to post a fair bit on this site and who is still a mad Red. I know that for the rest of my days no football match will give me greater pleasure than that one. It was art. And better than art because it was art being made. We were there in Leonardo's studio as he faced a blank canvass and, 90 minutes later, stood back to say "I'm gonna call her Mona Lisa". It's tempting when faced by a myth - and Liverpool 5 Forest 0 has assumed the status of a myth - to say that hindsight has made it what it has become. We've all probably seen, or heard of, the Tom Finney interview on the BBC where the greatest English footballer of all time said it was the greatest football match he'd ever seen. But I remember at half time, when we were just 2-0 up, Kopites turning to one another in awe and saying "what are we watching?" You knew this was football from the future being played, as it was being played. And it was a privilege to be there - in the true sense of the word ("What on earth had we done to deserve it?").
Even now, when I see the goals on video, I can see it's great stuff but I also know that they don't quite capture the full magic of the occasion. That's literally so in the case of our last (I think?) goal. I was right above Johnny Barnes when he got the ball from a quick short corner and he did something so bewildering with the ball that even the cameraman missed it before whipping the thing in for the goal. I love the fact that only us there, in the stadium, will ever see that. Something true and beautiful wasn't captured for posterity. It belongs entirely to the elect who saw it live.
In the 90s my game to remember was the famous 4-3 v Newcastle. The first one. I didn't sleep that night. I got back to London about 4 in the morning and it was impossible to stop talking about what we'd just seen. In the end I had breakfast in Smithfield, talked about the game some more, and went to work without even one wink, let alone 40.
That was the contest that broke both us and the Geordies of course and let Man United in through the middle to win the Title. Everything had been left on the pitch, by both sides. I read John Scales today, in the Observer, saying how that was his greatest memory as a footballer. I'm not surprised. It was an unreal game played in an unreal atmosphere. I was on the Kop again, seated by now of course, and it was the first time that you sensed that an all-seated Anfield might still be able to generate the noise and decibels of the 1970s Anfield. Which of course it has, on certain special occasions.
The thing I remember most about the game was, oddly enough, fear. The brilliance of Ginola and Asprilla in the first half, when the Geordies were attacking the Kop, was something to behold. It looked like they could score at will. You watched them weaving triangles in deeply contested areas and you thought "We don't have players like that. No one does." So, to see us fight our way back into the game, and then seize it, with our own mesmerising interpretation of the beautiful game, was like experiencing the resurrection. I saw Liverpool play the best football that had ever been played in that last 25 minutes. They'd been forced to by a brilliant Newcastle. But they'd also chosen to because they'd chosen to win and not surrender. It was not just footy at its best, but sport at its best. You do something amazing, we'll do something amazinger.
Why Roy Evans's Liverpool couldn't go on and keep playing the best football that had ever been played is by now a well-worn theme. Evans himself was too soft, or too kind. The defence was no good. The goalie was too addicted to video games. The maestros up front enjoyed their football too much, and the lifestyles that came with it, so that they couldn't knuckle down the way the less talented young group did down the East Lancs road etc etc. I still regret that. But the 4-3 v Newcastle is one hell of a spoonful of sugar too.
And to think we did it all over again, the following season.
I saw that one in a London pub.
