The Friendly Derby

With the Merseyside Derby approaching its 248th edition, I thought it would be interesting to take a brief stroll through the history of one of sport's most storied rivalries.

The Merseyside Derby is often called football’s most unusual rivalry - not just because Anfield and Goodison Park sit less than a mile apart. It is unusual because it was never born of strangers or enemies. It began as a family dispute—and, in many ways, it has remained one ever since.

Origins and the Split

In the late nineteenth century, there was only one great football club in Liverpool. Everton FC, founded in 1878, were pioneers of the professional game. For nearly a decade, they played at Anfield, a ground owned by club chairman John Houlding. Over time, politics, personality, and money—forces that have split families before—began to pull the club apart.

Houlding, a brewer and Conservative, clashed with board members aligned with the temperance movement who were uneasy about his increasing control. When disputes over rent and governance escalated, Everton made a decision that would reshape English football. In 1892, they left Anfield, crossed Stanley Park, and built Goodison Park.

Houlding was left with an empty stadium and wounded pride. His response was swift and enduring. He founded Liverpool Football Club to occupy Anfield. Two years later, on an October afternoon in 1894, Everton and Liverpool met competitively for the first time. Everton won 3–0, but the scoreline mattered less than what the fixture represented: a city now permanently divided, yet still bound by shared roots.

A Rivalry of Affection

From the outset, the rivalry took on a different tone from others in England. Liverpool was not split by class, religion, or neighborhood; it was split by affection. Families contained Reds and Blues in equal measure. Fans often sat side by side, and for decades, there was little interest in forced segregation. The Merseyside Derby came to be known as The Friendly Derby, a label that puzzled outsiders but felt entirely natural within the city.

On the pitch, however, friendliness never meant restraint. Early twentieth-century derbies were bruising, emotional affairs played before enormous crowds. Dominance shifted back and forth, and the fixture produced moments of genuine chaos, including the highest-scoring derby of all—a 7–4 Liverpool victory in 1933. Still, even at its fiercest, the rivalry felt less like hatred than competition within a shared identity.

The Golden Era(s)

That dynamic reached its clearest form during two peaks—the late 1960s and the mid-1980s—when both clubs were dominant simultaneously. Bill Shankly transformed Liverpool into a modern force driven by collective belief, while Everton responded with technical brilliance and local pride.

In the 1980s, these parallel rises became unmistakable. Liverpool conquered England and Europe; Everton, under Howard Kendall, matched them stride for stride with league titles and continental success. Merseyside was no longer arguing about supremacy within the city - it was asserting supremacy over everyone else.

Cup finals from that era remain iconic. At Wembley in 1984 and again in 1986, supporters mixed freely, chanting “Merseyside” rather than trading abuse. It was rivalry without dehumanization.

Solidarity and the Modern Era

Then came Hillsborough. In April 1989, catastrophe struck Liverpool supporters, but its shockwaves consumed the entire city. Everton fans stood shoulder to shoulder with their rivals in grief. Scarves of both colors - red and blue - were intertwined across Stanley Park. The derby paused, humbled by reality. When it returned, it carried a weight it had never known before.

The Premier League era gradually changed the texture of the fixture. Football became faster and less forgiving. While the derby remained friendly off the pitch, it grew sharper on it, accumulating red cards at a rate unmatched in England. 

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More than 130 years after that first meeting, the Merseyside Derby remains football’s longest-running top-flight rivalry. More than that, it remains its most human. It is rivalry without exile, passion without annihilation. It survives because it is shared—across parks, across families, and across generations.

That is why it has always been called The Friendly Derby. Not because it lacks edge, but because beneath every challenge, chant, and celebration lies a simple truth: one city, endlessly arguing with itself.  YNWA.