The Liverpool FC Forum > The History Board - 1892 to 1994

The "Ruby Red" Anniversary

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Andy-oh-six:
Great memories. A bit before my time though ;)

European nights are still (even in this age) special and Anfield is the home of such experiences of excitement, passion and if you're still in short trousers, bemusment!

speker:

--- Quote --- Now if there is anyone from 1964 Garston reading this, you will remember the smell of the tanning yards. It's sickly humming smell was unbelievable, but do you remember the smell of the nit shampoo? I lay odds yer pulling a face now just like I am.
 
--- End quote ---

And never forget the omni-present pong eminating from the gasworks. Ahhh the memories all come flooding back. Garston in the sixties, so long ago now , it was far from being paradise   but I wouldn't have missed it for the world  :)

nige:
great read as ever Woolly.
I'd heard that Reykjavik were trying to arrange something for pre-season v. LFC to commemorate 40years, and I was so disappointed when nothing came of it that I popped over to Iceland anyway this summer (like you do *) and took the Shankly flag to the CL qualifier  between KR Reykjavik v. shelbourne. Their club secretary was really helpful & Mr. shankly took pride of place under the scoreboard while I got a free seat in the Director's Box.

Anyway the next day I was standing in the park watching an Icelandic  second division game through some railings (the way you do) when a bloke walking his dog stopped and asked me the score. We got talking and I told him about why I'd come to the match the day  before .... and the first thing he said was ..
"ah, Liverpool ! Peter Thompson ! I was at that match .....Peter Thompson destroyed us. we didn't see foreign teams in those days and he was something like we had never seen before...."

* In fact I was going there anyway for a walking holiday !  :)

Redordead:
Another cracking post, I always enjoy reading them, any plans for a book a-la Evo?

Dickie Sam Cratchet:
Karl,

I hope you dont mind if I post these threads from the Liverpool section here?

Posted by Zappa.

The great adventure had begun with the first leg in Iceland which had taken place nearly a month earlier. (Oddly tucked in between the Charity Shield draw at Anfield with West Ham (The game in which Bobby Moore broke up and coming star striker Alfie Arrowsmith’s leg and virtually ended his career; freak accident) and the start of the league season)

A mere 10,000 people turned out to watch the Reds crush the Icelandic team 5-0.

Very few LFC fans saw the Reykjavik away match; very few would have been able to afford the then difficult trip. European away’s were the stuff of dreams for most.

So what about the home game?

Monday September 14 1964 7-30pm

Team
Tommy Lawrence, Gerry Byrne, Ronnie Moran, Gordon Milne, Ron Yeats, Willie Stevenson, Ian Callaghan, Roger Hunt, Ian St John, Bobby Graham, Alan A’Court

Bobby Graham replaced an injured Gordon Wallace, who had up to this point been an ever-present in the early season team.

An odd fact about these games at the start of the 64-65 season concerns Gordon Wallace, for a short time, he was the man. He started the season with a bang, one in the Charity Shield, two against Reykjavik; two more against Arsenal in a 3-2 opening day win and then his career virtually ended, unable to compete with the likes of Bobby Graham and Geoff Strong, he hung around until 1967 but never got back into the side after 1965.

In those days, Anfield could accommodate around 55,000.

The job done in the first round, the fair weather fans stayed away in their droves [Funny enough, they would re-emerge when there were tickets to be had.. grrrr, nothing changes}, only 32,597 could be bothered turning out for this bit of history.
As the average age of the people on the Kop would be around 30, and this was 40 years ago, most of the faithful who turned out that night would be 70+ years of age now and some of course are no longer with us.

I was one of them aged 15, with my mates on the Kop.

We knew that the Icelandic side were part-timers, we also knew that they had a few Icelandic international players; but these were the days when for England to beat the likes of Iceland by anything less than 5-0 would have been seen as a failure

The teams came out to the normal rapturous applause, and the reds set about business.

Gerry Byrne scored in the 13th minute with a screamer of a shot into the Anfield Road goal from about 30 yards out and we were on our way.

Lesser teams would have lay down and surrendered, Reykjavik didn’t; they battled on. Gamely and fairly they chased shadows and we started to feel sorry for them.

These players were honest and trying hard to compete but it was almost “Boys versus Men” stuff.

On 23 minutes Ian St John scored a second with his right foot.

And in one of those magic Kop moments that happened spontaneously, we pretended to turn on our own team. We cheered everything the plucky Reykjavik players did, every touch of the ball.

And then we started booing the reds. Ron Yeats in particular kept turning around to the Kop with a huge bemused smile on his face. Must’ve been strange for him to be on the end of the Kop’s “anger”.

The minnows tried to respond to this unexpected support, and they lifted their game a little.

In the 35th minute the minnows strung together a couple of neat quick moves and Gunnar Felixson scored a good goal for the Icelanders in the Kop-end.

A huge cheer 2-1 went up from the Kop; the part-timers might be out but they were going out heads held high and making their presence felt.

After the break, it all went a bit pear shaped, “Our” (For we had adopted them by now) part-timers began to tire; Sir Roger scored on 50 minutes to give the score line a bit more respectability for the lucky reds.

Bobby Graham headed the fourth in the 65th minute and then two minutes later one of my all time favourites Willie Stevenson grabbed the fifth goal.

St John completed the rout in the 75th minute. 6-1 on the night, 11-1 on aggregate.

And the Liverpool team formed a guard of honour and clapped the plucky part-timers off the field.

We cheered and clapped them all, our adopted part-timers, our formidable reds, then ran out into the night dreaming about scoring goals for the reds as we conquered Europe. I doubt that any of us could have named much more than perhaps 12 foreign teams back then.

The great European adventure had now really begun because we’d seen it and it had begun well.

Exhilarated we ran all the way down to Hawthorn Road Kirkdale to jump the 57A bus back to Netherton (School in the morning)
=================

What a season that was; so many highs and lows


The Beatles and the Stones traded number 1 hits all year.. Can’t buy me love- It’s all over now- A Hard days night- Little Red Rooster- I feel fine.
At the time of the Reykjavik match the Kinks with You Really got me was #1

We entered the year as champions,

We got slaughtered 4-0 by Everton with them fielding I think 7 “reserves”; unknown kids like Kendal and Harvey who became Toffees legends in the years that followed.

We challenged for a bit but faltered and finished 7th

Shankly’s heroes found three new faces becoming permanent members of the first team; three all-time greats, and what would they cost today?
Tommy Smith, debut in 1963 but established himself this year;
The “Ghost” Chris Lawler probably LFC’s all-time highest scorer as a full-back and as far as I remember he never ever took a penalty;
And the first “utility” player I ever remember, Geoff Strong who should have been knighted for his headed goal against Celtic in the following years Cup Winners Cup Semi)


The Liver Birds flew, and at last we won the FA Cup. We left the year as FA Cup winners and because this was our very first one, it was ample compensation for losing our league title. No it was worth much more than the league title to us!

At the end, we should have made it into the European Cup final at the first attempt losing in very controversial circumstances in the semis against Inter in Milan…but that as they say is another tale.

© VWA 2004-08-21

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