I can't remember with any real clarity but I suppose it was when I was about twelve and the Reds were still trying to struggle out of the old Second Division. As there were no league derbies in those days, Everton - the Mersey Millionaires, riding high at the top of the first - there was a competition called the Liverpool Senior Cup or some such nonsense, contested by The Reds, Everton, Southport and Tranmere. Tranmere and Southport would invariably quickly get eliminated leaving Liverpool and Everton to contest the final.
The game I recall as my first derby took place one sunlit spring evening at Goodison Park. I remember walking round the back of Bullens Road with my mates and seeing some guy trying to sell rosettes. You never see them now, do you, except on horses, but back then they were all the rage. These rosettes, though, had a photo of Ronnie Moran in the centre and we all just fell about laughing wondering who would want a picture of Ronnie, out of all of our team, stuck to their lapels. Sadly, we might have jeered as we walked by, at the bloke trying to offload the stuff.
Liverpool won the trophy - 1-0 - and of course, Ronnie scored the only goal with a left footed thunderbolt from way outside the area. It stuck in the top stanchion of the net. Everton simply couldn't equalise, Jim Furnell played a blinder that night in our goal.
Of course, post match, we set off looking for that guy again eager to snap up the rosettes with the photo of our new hero on, but the feller had cleared off home. Either he'd sold up or more probably, packed up, not realising he was sitting on a little goldmine.
