The Merseyside Derby: Everton vs. Liverpool

The Mersey has been the center of the footballing universe this week, so what better way to cap it off than with one of the world’s greatest derbies?

Liverpool will probably consider anything a victory so long as Tom Hicks & George Gillett are removed from eyesight, but this year’s first edition is taking place in an unfamiliar locale: the bubble around the relegation zone. Everton sits 17th while Liverpool are a notch below, inside the dreaded zone.

So both can probably do a bit of commiserating, an unfamiliar sentiment in derbies. Normally, anyway – the etymology of the Merseyside Derby is the exception to the rule.

The historic stadium which lies at the center of Liverpool’s ownership struggles and futures, the one firmly sewn in the fibers of the club (fibers which were once blue), Anfield, once served as the home to both. A custody battle ‘won’ firmly by Liverpool, so you’d be hardpressed to find a living being who can say “I remember when I went to see Everton play Liverpool at Anfield…and the Toffees were the home team.” (It’s a bit more complicated than two sentences, so follow the link at the bottom for Noel’s post on the subject.)

As former cohabitants, the two weren’t necessarily hateful towards one another; in fact, it was a pleasant derby for many years.

And that’s perhaps what is most interesting about the derby and its – former, at least – status of The Friendly Derby: the very fact that it was friendly, largely based on split loyalties within families, or so we’re told. The well-known childhood loyalties of the men who would come up and live derby glory “on the other side” is put into play, and suddenly the line separating the two isn’t quite as thick.

Wiki’s supplied a sampling, without noting the urban legend that is Jamie Carragher’s Everton tattoo.

Not by any stretch a rarity in world football – you can rest assured there are a number of repressed childhood leanings in Istanbul, Glasgow or Rome – but it’s rarely so vocal, so accepted.

Combine all of this with the well-traveled path of transfers between the two clubs, particularly “back in the day”, and we’re left with a fascinating fixture which has traveled down the road of evolution to where it currently stands today: as a proper, not quite friendly derby.

Noel has a more extensive write up over at the Liverpool Offside on the history of the two clubs with which to whet your appetite til the weekend.

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Category: English Premier League