How considerate of the Premier League's fixture computer to arrange a Merseyside derby as a signal that international breaks are now finished for the calendar year and proper club competition can recommence. Club football in this country does not come more keenly contested than meetings between Everton and Liverpool which, as every headline writer knows, is the oldest continuous local rivalry in the current top flight, with an unbroken sequence dating back to 1962, and the most inflammable, with more sendings off than any other Premier League fixture.

There might be bigger derbies around the world, in bigger cities and with wider religious or political overtones, but the Merseyside version has all the fraternal toxicity of a family argument, which in essence is what it is.

The two clubs used to be one club, they have never represented different areas of the city or attempted to appeal to separate audiences and, when Everton moved out of Anfield, leaving their former landlord to try to form a new team in a hurry to fill an empty stadium, he originally attempted to keep the Everton name until a legal ruling came down in favour of the team now relocated to Goodison Park.

Had John Houlding succeeded, and he might have done, Everton could have been the ones looking for a snappy new name, such as Liverpool, and a handy emblem to go with it, like the liver bird. Imagine that. Then again, as Everton had the city to themselves for their first 14 years of existence, they could easily have adopted the liver bird in the first place, instead of waiting half a century to come up with a more obscure local symbol in the form of Prince Rupert's Tower, a romantic title for what was actually a bridewell or police lock-up where nuisance drunks were coralled to spend the night.

So keenly anticipated is the Merseyside derby that for the last 10 years, alone in the Premier League, it has been governed by special rules. The first fixture will now always be at Goodison and the second, after Christmas, at Anfield. This prevents supporters having to wait more than a year for what they always used to consider their most important home fixture and avoids the situation that cropped up 50 years ago, whereby Goodison Park did not see a derby game during the whole of 1963.

This has happened at various times over the years – there were three derbies during 1987, for instance, and none of them at Goodison, whereas in 1997 there was no meeting of the two teams at Anfield – but in 1963 the Merseyside derby was only just back on the First Division agenda after a gap of 11 years.

People tend to think the rivalry has been more or less continuous, give or take the odd short break when Liverpool were in the Second Division, though in fact it was Everton's relegation in 1951 that set up a hiatus that lasted over a decade.

Everton spent three years in the Second Division, then as they came up passed Liverpool on the way down. Liverpool stayed down for eight seasons, yet largely due to the shrewd recruitment of Bill Shankly in 1959, when they came up they were up for good.

Not everyone realised the significance of the 1962 meeting at Goodison at the time, though 73,000 people were in attendance to watch a 2-2 draw, and while Match of the Day (1964) was still in the Saturday night future, BBC cameras were present to give the rest of the nation its first ever taste of the battle for Scouse supremacy as long as viewers did not mind waiting until after the Billy Cotton Band Show.

Liverpool was about to project itself massively on to an unsuspecting world, Billy Cotton included. In September 1962, the month the derby returned, the Beatles were in London recording Love Me Do, with Brian Epstein undecided about whether to release the single with Ringo Starr's contribution or use a previous version with a session drummer.

The groundbreaking police series Z Cars had already hit television screens and was proving popular, though Everton would not adopt its theme tune until a year later. Returning to the football, in Harry Catterick and Shankly the Merseyside clubs had managers in place who would contest the rest of the 60s with notable success. Everton would end up with the league title in 1963, win the FA Cup in 1966 and round off the decade with another championship when the Ball, Kendall and Harvey triumvirate finished nine points ahead of Leeds in 1970. Shankly led Liverpool to league titles in 1964 and 1966, no mean feat after so long in the Second Division, though he personally seemed to regard winning the club's first ever FA Cup in 1965 as the greatest triumph.

A few trophyless years followed until Shankly delivered another title in 1973 and another FA Cup in 1974 before retiring, though Catterick had already stepped down due to ill health. While honours were just about even in the 60s, there was no question which manager left the more solid foundations for the future. The energetic force behind Liverpool always seemed a little more proactive and forward-thinking than his painfully introvert and publicity-shy Everton counterpart. In many respects the pair were complete opposites, adding more spice to derby occasions.

Shankly loved his side being on television and played the press like a musical instrument. Catterick banned television cameras for as long as he possibly could, fighting an almost lone battle against the obvious advantages of football going out to a national audience. On occasion he also misinformed local journalists about his transfer intentions and even tried to keep his team news out of the papers. It was hardly his fault if he could not match Shankly's bravado. Few could or ever will. Pre-Shankly, Everton were the big noise on Merseyside, the class act, the high spenders, the school of science. After Shankly, Howard Kendall's fine work in the 80s notwithstanding, they were always playing catch-up.

To prevent a high proportion of Merseyside reaching for the green ink it could be mentioned at this point that Everton's attempts to catch up were hindered by the post-Heysel ban in 1985, when as champions they were denied entry into the European Cup as a result of events involving Liverpool supporters in May of that year, but it is always unwise to reopen ancient family disputes.

Back in 1962 the only bitter Blues to be found at Goodison would have been the ones drinking Higsons (interestingly, Bob Paisley has suggested bitterness resided with the Reds when he started out on Merseyside), and, although the BBC's grainy footage does not focus extensively on the crowd, it is a reasonably safe bet that red and blue scarves could be found in extremely close proximity (though a difficult matter to test with black and white pictures).

What is most striking about the footage is not the distinctive old Park End or the giant letters along the touchline where half-time scores would be relayed to the crowd via a prehistoric system of numbered slates relating to a key in the match programme, but the extent to which the teams resemble each other. Liverpool are still wearing white shorts and v-neck shirts, Everton have gone for the slightly more modern round neck shirt, but in monochrome the easiest way to differentiate the sides is by the enormous white badge on the Liverpool jerseys.

Roger Hunt scored a last-minute equaliser to save a point for the Reds.

Liverpool under Shankly always had a penchant for leaving it late, though as with Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson, that was probably due less to luck than to working hard and sticking at it. Johnny Morrissey had put Everton 2-1 up with his first goal for the club, three weeks after Catterick paid Liverpool £10,000 for his services in a deal Shankly knew nothing about and would never have sanctioned.

Everton had what appeared to be a perfectly good goal by Roy Vernon disallowed in the first minute by a referee who had his back to the incident when the Liverpool goalkeeper Jim Furnell lost control of the ball, while Ronnie Moran swore Morrissey's shot had not crossed the line and should never have counted. Derby business as usual, in other words, intact after an 11-year break.

Hunt's goal prevented Everton going top of the table. It would not matter come the end of the season when Everton would be crowned champions, but no one knew that at the time. "The game was hard, exciting, noisy and tense – but no classic," Leslie Edwards wrote in the Liverpool Echo, defining a template for almost every derby in the years to come.

Roberto Martínez, ever the optimist, is under the impression Saturday's game might be a treat, "a real football celebration", but he is new to the occasion. After 51 unbroken years, or 119 years if you take the long view back to the original split, most people on Merseyside are aware that while many derbies are remembered for many different reasons – line sniffing, handbag presenting, comedy diving, classic own-goals and Clive Thomas among them – quality football has rarely taken centre stage. Martínez is a believer, though, and so is Brendan Rodgers, so you never know. There is always a first time.