With the Guardian’s unstoppable rise to global dominance** we at Guardian US thought we’d run a series of articles for fans wishing to improve their knowledge of the sports history and storylines, hopefully in a way that doesn’t patronise you to within an inch of your life. A warning: If you’re the kind of person that finds The Blizzard too populist this may not be the series for you.



** Actual dominance may not be global. Or dominant

Liverpool fans are fond of reminding Chelsea supporters, utilising the artistic medium of song, that they “ain’t got no history”. Of course, like most football harangues, this well-worn little ditty is as one-eyed as it gets. Chelsea have as long and grand a back story as anyone else – and much of it is intertwined with Liverpool. Here we go, then! Everyone play nicely!



It’s fair to say that the two clubs took a while to lock horns in a serious manner. Let’s begin just after the second world war, when Liverpool took a pre-season trip to the good ol’ US of A to gorge on meat, veg, malted milks and ice creams, working on the theory that by fattening themselves up, they’d have a season’s worth of energy stored when they got back to ration-book Britain. It worked: they won the league as all their scrawny, tuckered-out rivals faltered along the closing stretch.

They hadn’t been bad when they were running around with pot bellies at the start of the season, either. Notice of their title bid had been served with a spectacular 7-4 victory at Anfield in September 1946 over a Chelsea side who had been tipped for great things themselves, having just signed superstar striker Tommy Lawton. The left winger Billy Liddell – still claimed by those of a certain generation to be Liverpool’s greatest-ever player – was the star of the show. (Chelsea, for the record, had a taste for a spectacular signing even then. As well as landing the aforementioned England star Lawton, they snatched Tommy Walker from Hearts, who had scored 279 times in 253 matches for the Edinburgh side, at a time when Scottish football was high-class and exotic. Yes.)

Chelsea won their first league title in 1955, but by this point Liverpool were in the second division. It would take a while for the pair to go nose-to-nose for the biggest prizes.

The first big clash came in 1965: the FA Cup semi final. Liverpool were reigning league champions with Bill Shankly, while Chelsea were one of the most exciting teams in the land under Tommy Docherty. Three days before the match, Liverpool found themselves in Rotterdam to face Cologne in a European Cup quarter-final replay at neutral Feyenoord’s ground. Liverpool won after extra time, on the toss of a coin. The past truly is another country. After the game, Liverpool captain Ron Yeats and star striker Ian St John were invited out by their fellow Scot Docherty, who just happened to be in town, complete coincidence, for a “few beers”. Shankly, however, caught wind of the Doc’s tactical reconnaissance, and turned up to the impromptu session, marching his players back to the team hotel, but not before giving Docherty what for in the trenchant style.

Shankly had also discovered that Chelsea – top of the league at the time with a team boasting Peter Bonetti, Eddie McCreadie, Ron Harris, Bobby Tambling and Terry Venables, and full to the brim with confidence – had designed a brochure anticipating their appearance in the final. He pinned it up on the dressing-room wall, and ordered his men to “stuff those wee cocky southern buggers”. Liverpool won 2-0 through Peter Thompson and Willie Stevenson, and Chelsea were left wondering what to do with both their brochure and the champagne they’d stored on the team bus for post-match purposes. Liverpool went on to win the FA Cup, while Chelsea stumbled in the league and finished third, though they did win that season’s League Cup. Chelsea would get some revenge a season later, knocking holders Liverpool out of the FA Cup in the third round at Anfield, Peter Osgood their hero.

Chelsea endured some lean times during the 1970s and 1980s, coincidentally Liverpool’s imperial phase. But football’s a great leveller, isn’t it, and clichés don’t exist within a vacuum. In January 1978, Liverpool were the reigning European champions, while Ken Shellito’s Chelsea were a bang-average mid-table concern. The teams met in the cup at Stamford Bridge, and the home side gave Bob Paisley’s team an awful smack in the mouth, running out 4-2 winners. “Bloody pathetic we were,” was the usually softly spoken and avuncular Paisley’s sober analysis. “I’m not taking anything away from Chelsea, mind, but we went out with sawdust in our heads.” Four years later, John Neal had taken over at Chelsea, and was busy attempting to avoid relegation to the old Third Division. Liverpool visited in the cup again, once more as reigning European champs, and once more were sent packing in ignominious style. Chelsea won 2-0, and Paisley – who won six league titles and three European Cups during his nine-year reign as Liverpool boss – never won the cup.

Chelsea couldn’t make it four FA Cup wins in a row in 1986, Ian Rush and Mark Lawrenson sealing a 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge against a side now revived by striking partnership Kerry Dixon and David Speedie, and competing again for the title. Liverpool went on to win the cup that season, and the league too, sealing the championship on the final day at Stamford Bridge, Kenny Dalglish chesting down Jim Beglin’s left-channel chip and gently steering it home, one of the most iconic title-winning goals.

Chelsea weren’t finished with Liverpool in the FA Cup yet, though. And one of their most memorable victories came in the fourth round at Stamford Bridge in 1997. Liverpool, now coached by Roy Evans, were 2-0 up at half time and coasting. Given they’d beaten Chelsea 5-1 at Anfield in the league earlier that season, and were top of the table, it looked all over. Nope! Chelsea boss Ruud Gullit sent veteran striker Mark Hughes on at half time, and he set about Liverpool’s creaky back line in a most ruthless manner. Battering them this way and that, he was the star turn as Chelsea rattled in four second-half goals without reply. It was the first time Liverpool had lost a game from two goals up since Blackburn Rovers did for them this way in 1964. It shattered Evans’ team’s confidence: not only were they knocked out of the cup, their league form also capitulated, and they finished lamely in fourth spot. Chelsea went on to win the cup, their first major trophy in 26 years. This was epochal, the true start of their modern renaissance, though obviously the later arrival of Roman Abramovich didn’t do any harm either.

Sami Hyypia and Didier Drogba do battle in 2006. Photograph: Jon Super/AP

Ah yes, the arrival of Abramovich. The following is possibly apocryphal, but when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. The smiling oligarch was reportedly considering a takeover of either Tottenham Hotspur or Everton in 2003, but plumped for Chelsea instead when they scraped qualification for the following season’s Champions League. They did this, naturally, by beating Liverpool 2-1 at Stamford Bridge. Needless to say, a Liverpool win would have sent them into the competition instead, and changed the entire course of association football forever. No biggie.

Since then, Chelsea have been firmly in the ascendency, and so it won’t take the second coming of Sigmund Freud to work out the genesis of that “history” song the Liverpool fans enjoy so much. Still, Liverpool have given as good as they’ve got in Europe, and the modern relationship between the two clubs is very much based on some astonishing confrontations at the business end of the Champions League.

Chelsea have enjoyed the two most recent victories between the sides in the competition. Liverpool were in the box seat in the 2008 semi, until John Arne Riise’s ludicrous own goal at the end of the first leg at Anfield, a spectacularly misguided diving header when a common-or-garden tap into touch would have sufficed. Rafael Benitez then rather unwisely accused Didier Drogba of diving before the return leg at Stamford Bridge, a match which the affronted striker went out of his way to boss. Chelsea also advanced at Liverpool’s expense a year later after an absurd 4-4 quarter-final second leg in west London. Neither side deserved to lose that particular classic, though Liverpool certainly deserved to come out second best in the tie, having been comprehensively turned over 3-1 at Anfield in the first leg.

Liverpool’s two earlier wins in the competition are arguably more memorable, though. Both came at the semi-final stage, Benitez sitting cross legged on the Anfield turf to watch his side win on penalty kicks in 2007, Luis Garcia scoring the decisive and infamous “ghost goal” at a febrile Anfield in 2005. How Eidur Gudjohnsen didn’t settle that particular match from six yards in the last minute of injury time is beyond all comprehension. It’s one of those misses that both sets of fans will recall with a cold shudder, albeit for different reasons.

Benitez went on to win the Europa League for Chelsea in 2013, much to the delight of the club’s fans, who forgave him absolutely everything.

Huh?

And then in April 2014, a match at Anfield, both teams still in with a chance of the Premier League title, though Liverpool very much had it within their grasp. A draw would almost certainly have done them, but you know what Demba Ba did next. And to this day, Chelsea fans are fond of reminding Liverpool supporters, utilising the artistic medium of song, that “Steve Gerrard slipped on his fucking arse”. Brazen chutzpah, all things considered, given what happened to John Terry that time in Moscow. But of course, like most football harangues, this well-worn little ditty is as one-eyed as it gets. Everyone play nicely this weekend, now!