Liverpool vs Everton Tickets

Posted by David Whitley May 24, 2007

I am a child of the 80s, and when I was growing up, the two dominant clubs in English football were city rivals Liverpool and Everton. Before the dawn of the Premier League, Manchester United were in a prolonged slump, and Chelsea were just a bunch of fancy dans who flattered to deceive.

Therefore the biggest clash of the season was the Merseyside Derby - Liverpool vs Everton. Tickets were always in demand for this game, and it would almost inevitably be the main game on Match of the Day (or The Big Match when the coverage rights went to ITV).

The Merseyside Derby at Anfield or Goodison Park just doesn’t seem the same these days, with Liverpool in the Big Four with Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal, and Everton back in the chasing pack. The game seems to have a decreased significance, and there are a few reasons why it is no longer the hot ticket it once was.

The first, most obvious one, is that the two sides are no longer the big cheeses at the top of the table – Liverpool’s rivalry has switched towards Manchester United somewhat.

The second one could be to do with ticket prices – a lot of working class fans are now being priced out of the games, and this working class fanbase is usually where the most vociferous and passionate supporters comes from.

A third possible reason is that it doesn’t mean quite as much to the players. In the 70s and 80s, most players on the sides were English (or at least British), and many of them had grown up in Liverpool. It was truly a local event then, rather than a global one, and this may have played a significant part in it diminishing as a spectacle.