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THE GREAT MATCH AT GOODISON-PARK

A HUNDRED AND 21 years ago today - Merseyside was in a state of high excitement.

The first ever meeting between Everton and Liverpool took place at Goodison Park - just two years after the dramatic split which saw Everton quit Anfield and a new club formed in the city called Liverpool.

The first ever Merseyside derby (although nowhere was the word ‘derby’ used on this occasion) attracted a then record crowd for a Football League match. It collected record gate receipts for a Football league match of £1,026 - and produced the kind of intense atmosphere which hasn't dimmed since.

Some observers expected a match “of the most vigorous, not to say violent” kind.

It turned out to be intense, but happily without the anticipated violence, while according to the Liverpool Evening Express the huge gate produced “a sight well worth coming a great distance to see, and will rarely be seen again.”

Everton won the match 3-0 and excerpts from the match report are republished below.

But a Mr John Humprheys of Bangor penned a letter to the North Wales Chronicle a few days after the historic match, pointing out that he was impartial, saw the game “through absolutely uncoloured spectacles” and witnessed it from the Press Box at the invitation of Everton secretary John Molyneux.

His observations were interesting.

“Of course, as everyone who takes an interest in football, even in North Wales, knows, the rivalry between the two sets of supporters of the teams concerned has been from the beginning of the most rabid character,” he wrote.

“As a result of this, the match was generally expected to be of the most vigorous, not to say violent, kind, and was looked forward to with extraordinary enthusiasm in Liverpool.

“Between no other club and Everton (not even excepting Sunderland) could such a feeling as that which exists between Everton and Liverpool be aroused.

“Judging from what I saw on Goodison Road ground on Saturday, I have not the slightest doubt that every man of the Liverpool team was strung up to such a state of determination to win, to beat Everton, as cannot again be aroused against any other team.

“Liverpool was practically playing for life, just as Bootle had done some years ago, with this tremendous difference, that behind Liverpool lies almost as strong a directorate as that behind Everton, while the team itself, man for man, and as a whole, is miles ahead of any team Bootle ever had.”

On the day it wasn’t enough to beat their closest rivals.

Everton won 3-0 to record their eighth successive win from the start of the 1894/95 season.

The defeat took Liverpool’s record to four draws and five defeats.

"No chance"

But Mr Humphreys’ suggestion that the Reds would have “no chance” against their “mighty rivals” in the Anfield rematch a month later was misguided - Liverpool converting an 87th minute Jimmy Ross penalty to claim a 2-2 draw.

On that original Goodison clash Mr Humphreys added: “Taking the play all through I must express the opinion that Liverpool played a better game all through than did Everton.

“It was not Everton’s defence that saved them from a defeat but the miraculously bad shooting of the Liverpool forwards. This was no doubt due to the tremendous excitement they were labouring under, and no doubt the excitement had a lot of effect on the Everton men.

“I met Jimmy Ross after the match, and he said, and evidently meant it, that his men will beat Everton when the return match is played at Anfield.

“I doubt it. Everton, despite what I have just written, is a better team than Liverpool, and I can hardly believe that at any following match the Anfielders will or can ever again develop such a tremendous amount of steam as they did last Saturday, and unless they do, they stand no chance against their mighty rivals.”

That first ever staging of the derby match at Anfield attracted a gate of 30,000.

But the first League gathering at Goodison Park saw 44,000 crammed in and created unprecedented scenes as crowds swarmed from the city centre to Walton.

The Liverpool Evening Express reported: “The League match at Goodison Park on Saturday afternoon between Everton and Liverpool attracted a vaster crowd than was anticipated even by the most sanguine supporter of either clubs.

“The announcement in the “Sporting Express,” which was published before the receipts were actually known, turned out to be a perfectly correct.

“The amount of money taken at the “gates” was £1,026, and the attendance, including, of course, ticket-holders, and free admissions, exceeded 44,000.

“For League matches this furnishes the record in regard both to attendance and receipts. The previous best in the matter of money was credited to the famous match between Sunderland and Preston North End, but on that occasion the price of admission were raised, whereas on Saturday there was no increase in the charge, as for the attendance, nothing approaching it has ever been known in the history of the Football League.”

A crowd like no other

Little like it had ever been seen in the city either.

The Express’ correspondent reported: “I never saw such a crowd. As early as one o’clock all streets, for miles around, leading to Goodison Park began to be thronged with men, women, and boys, all tramping to one place.

“As far away as the Pier Head every tramcar was loaded with excited intending spectators of the game, and these, together with a heterogeneous assemblage of omnibuses, wagonettes, drays, pony carts, hansom cabs, fourwheelers, and every imaginable description of wheeled vehicle, formed a huge procession stretching (to take one route alone) from the bottom of Scotland Road right up to the ground.

“Such was the throng of traffic that paying 3s 6d for a cab brought one no quicker to the scene of battle than threepence paid for a ride on a tramcar.

“The numerous entrances to Goodison Park were packed with throngs of eager applicants for admission, and the click of the turnstiles was for hours incessant.

“In the enclosure itself the spectacle was simply astounding.

“In a comparatively small space were packed (without, however, any approach to inconvenience, so ample is the accommodation of this magnificent playing ground) 44,000 people, the movement of whose faces as each individual turned momentarily this way or that, reminded of of the multitudinous ripples on the surface of the sea, while the hum, or rather roar, of their conversation was like the sound of the same sea restlessly dashing on its shores.

“It was a sight well worth coming a great distance to see, and will rarely be seen again.”

On the pitch Tom McInnes headed Everton into a 10th minute lead and Alex Latta made it two shortly before the hour.

John Bell made the game safe 10 minutes from time “breasting into the net.”

One of the greatest rivalries in football was up and running - and hasn’t stopped since.