Describe Manchester, the city.
Errr...
It's like a pirate ship full of scurvy dogs, vagabonds and ne'er-do-wells,
and a couple of half-decent football teams every now and again!
And a couple of half-decent bands.
Much the same as Liverpool, really.
Liverpool.
Manchester.
Identity.
Originality.
Industry.
Radicalism.
History.
Music.
Football.
Liverpool the city, if I had to describe it I think I'd just use one word.
Famous.
To us, the centre of the known universe, innit?
Music, fashion, politics.
You can't be coming from Liverpool if you're not involved in one of them.
It had The Beatles, didn't it? And after that it struggled.
It is a prettier city than Manchester.
It's just wasted on you lot, innit?
And the people here, we're different.
Tony Wilson used to say, "We do things differently here".
You can't bull**** when you're in Manchester, you've got to be yourself.
It's working-class,
it's dead cocky,
we basically love ourselves.
Two of the world's greatest cities, 30 miles apart,
so much in common but so much that divides them.
Our little corner of England has probably contributed more to sport,
to culture, to music,
to science, to technology,
to industry than any other corner of the world.
But we don't recognise that in each other.
Ron Atkinson said once, if you go to Anfield it's like going to Vietnam.
You just turn into an animal when you're in the ground,
you just lose your head, it's embarrassing.
If someone filmed you, you'd be going, "That's not me, is it?"
But where did this rivalry start, how has it changed through the years
and why does it keep getting stronger?
300 years ago Liverpool built the first enclosed commercial wet dock in the world.
That's where it all began, I think, for Liverpool, that's where it all went boom.
It speeded up the loading and offloading of the cargos
and it speeded up Liverpool's trade.
This was the second city
of the British Empire,
a thriving port city.
There was that many ships lined up on the Pier Head
people couldn't even see the Mersey beyond it,
and there was people there from the Americas, from Asia,
with these foreign tongues,
who brought so much wealth to Liverpool.
Herman Melville, who wrote Moby Dick,
he likened Liverpool's dock system to the Great Lakes in North America.
They were that huge and that impressive.
At the same time, fuelled by the Industrial Revolution,
Manchester began to boom.
We're a people of doers.
We invented the whole UK textile industry.
Arkwright's Mill, that was
the first industrial building on earth.
And it became known the world over as 'Cottonopolis'.
The hotbed of early labour movements,
Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto for Manchester.
A really radical city; the TUC were founded here, Suffragettes, Peterloo Massacre -
the history is astonishing.
The two cities were even linked by the world's first steam-powered railway.
But in the late 1800s, Manchester began to suffer an economic decline
and things were soon being pointed at the neighbours on the Mersey.
The raw materials that were coming into Manchester had to come into Liverpool,
the biggest port in the country at the time, bigger than London.
It was costing a fortune.
ANDY MITTEN: That was what led to the Manchester Ship Canal being built.
They wanted to bypass Liverpool, the greed of the Liverpool merchants,
building all your grand houses in the centre of Liverpool,
which are still very nice.
Mancunians are very proud of the Ship Canal
and very quick to say that it effectively brought the sea to Manchester.
Xxxxxx you lot off a bit, didn't it?
And that's probably the start of the whole rivalry.
Football was becoming a regular pastime within northern working-class communities.
And one of the many new teams springing up was a certain Newton Heath.
Newton Heath started up in 1878, playing in amongst the cotton mills
and cramped factories of inner-city east Manchester.
For a short time they wore those famous green and gold shirts
and were reasonably successful.
14 years later Liverpool FC were formed, in 1892, wearing blue and white.
While Liverpool were on the up, Newton Heath were on the slide.
In 1894, the year the Ship Canal was opened,
Newton Heath were rock-bottom of the First Division.
To save their skin, they entered into a playoff against the Second Division champions.
Liverpool were the champions of the old second tier,
and it was a one-off game, a playoff,
and Liverpool won 2-0.
That was the first really when we put one over on United,
or Newton Heath as they were called.
By 1902 they became Manchester United,
and by 1909 they moved to Old Trafford.
The first game at Old Trafford was against Liverpool, I forget the score...
I can't remember the score.
Liverpool came to town and beat them 4-3.
They must have been a bit sore about that, they probably owed us one from an early time.
The next notable meeting between the teams would go down in history.
But for the wrong reasons.
On Good Friday 1915, United were facing relegation, and Liverpool came to their aid.
United won 2-0 and avoided the drop,
but later investigations found that players
from both sides had rigged the game.
It was an infamous episode
in the history of both clubs.
Liverpool won two league titles in the 1920s, while United stagnated.
Then, in the wake of the Second World War, the rivalry changed forever.
Matt Busby played about 120 games for Liverpool,
but I think his Liverpool career was disrupted by the war,
and afterwards he was assistant manager to George Kay,
but this opportunity arose at Manchester United to be a manager in his own right,
and he went for it.
Matt Busby wanted to be the Liverpool manager,
but he was only offered a coaching role.
When he left, I think there was a bit of animosity there,
because they usually give them a going away match, or testimonial match,
and it never happened.
And I think if you talk to Liverpool fans of a certain vintage,
they've got an awful lot of respect for Matt Busby.
A full salute for Matt Busby. If you read about him, one of the nicest people,
doesn't matter who you support, you'd never say a bad word about him.
I think - and I'm ashamed to say this -
I was probably 16 when I found out he'd played for Liverpool.
Which is a remarkably late time to know such a fact.
Especially if we consider that, in the 1960s, he was voted by Liverpool fans
to be their captain in their perfect team of the last 100 years.
I've always maintained this to United fans - his heart was in Liverpool.
Under Busby, United continued to blossom.
They won the league in 1956 and 1957.
They had a young team that people tipped to go on and achieve greatness,
But then, disaster struck.
I can remember the moment when I heard about the Munich air disaster.
I think that was the first time I ever saw my father cry.
The city was numb, as it would be if it happened now to any major football club.
It's a terrible thing to happen.
I think Liverpool, like a lot of clubs at the time,
said they'd lend players to United in the aftermath of Munich.
And rightly so.
It was on the front page of the Echo.
That generation of Liverpool fans would have remembered Matt playing for Liverpool,
so to find out he was part of that would have been awful.
The 1960s saw Liverpool and Manchester United competing directly for honours
for the very first time.
Matt Busby's old friend Bill Shankly took over at Liverpool
and hauled them out of the Second Division.
Busby and Shankly were born between 30 miles of each other.
When Shankly first arrived at Liverpool,
it was Matt Busby that kept convincing him not to leave.
In 1963 United won the cup. The following year Liverpool won the league.
In 1965 United won the league and Liverpool won the cup,
in '66 Liverpool won the league,
and then the following year, in '67, United won the league.
So at this time, in a sporting sense, the two clubs are really going up against each other.
There was definitely a competitiveness there between the two teams,
but I think, again, for fans of that generation there wasn't the same edge
I don't think that there was with Leeds.
The rivalry was there, but the hate wasn't there then.
It wasn't there then.
My first away Liverpool match was April 1963.
You could go where you wanted, so we just went into the Kop.
Can you imagine Liverpool fans now
going around the ground and getting involved with Man United,
or they come round to the Kop? Cos that's what they used to do years ago.
All the Liverpool supporters were bothered about - "Can you see the pitch, son?"
You've got this little lad from Higher Openshaw
on the east side of Manchester being looked after by the Kopites.
Just imagine that happening today.
It just wouldn't happen, put it that way!
I used to speak to my dad about it when he was alive,
and he said there was never any rivalry against Liverpool per se.
I remember watching Liverpool against Arsenal 1971, Steve Heighway,
didn't they go 1-0 up, Liverpool?
COMMENTATOR: Still Heighway, dangerous indeed - oh, goal!
We supported Liverpool, because they were nearer to Manchester.
You speak to my old man - "I had time for Liverpool,
"great team, great manager, Bill Shankly."
Loved Roger Hunt, amazingly, what a great player he was.
A real chance for Roger Hunt!
He'd always say, my dad, that the best player he ever saw at Anfield was George Best.
If not the best player that ever lived, he's equal to the best player that ever lived.
Real chance here for Best!
I think I once read that Bill Shankly thought the same.
In 1968 Manchester United found themselves on the cusp of greatness
when they became the first English side to reach a European Cup final.
A feat Liverpool were denied three years earlier by Inter Milan.
I think it caught the imagination of the nation,
because of what had gone on 10 years before.
As kids we didn't really think too much about it,
we just thought Liverpool were a great team
and United had won the European Cup.
We weren't thinking, "They've won the first European Cup",
that wasn't in our mindset, because Celtic had done it.
It was sort of the end of an era, the end of Sir Matt Busby's dynasty.
Because after that United drained away.
Football fan culture was changing.
The gentle mockery of the 1960s terraces was giving way to something entirely different.
Society changed, factor in social issues such as football hooliganism
and the rivalry became very heated.
Huge rivalries between football clubs started when people were more mobile.
When they started to go to away games.
All right, there was a trickle at first,
but then it became a fashion.
Opposition fans started singing on the terraces.
By people singing, that's identification.
♫ We shall not, we shall not be moved! ♫
You can go the match with your mates and stand with them and scream with them.
My first trip to Old Trafford was with my dad in November '72,
and I couldn't understand the level of animosity.
As a youngster you're thinking, "Don't say anything, Dad",
because I knew the danger.
You look at the average attendances,
United and Liverpool were becoming the best two supported teams in England.
With that came animosity.
We were the biggest team of the sixties, then we had no successor to Busby,
so the whole thing fell apart. And then you came in, you were already planning,
with Shankly, so to us there's got to be some resentment, hasn't there?
Shankly delivered the league title, the UEFA Cup and the FA Cup,
then he left.
United's demise, however, was confirmed four months earlier.
They were relegated.
When they went down in '74, obviously we were all laughing about it.
That was a shock. You don't expect teams like Manchester United to get relegated.
It's very hard to believe Manchester United ever played in a lower division.
I think we were also thinking,
"How are they gonna cope with them in the Second Division?"
And suddenly, from nowhere, the Red Army was born.
They came from everywhere.
Wherever you went - Cornwall, Wales or whatever,
the local hard knock would be a United fan, because of their reputation.
One of the first games of the season they had in the Second Division,
all you could describe as Bay City Rollers fans get off the train,
because they were all tartaned up. Liverpool never really adopted that,
so we felt as teenagers, "Oh, my God, have you seen the state of them?"
Manchester United were promoted in 1975,
and the rivalry was about to pick up where it left off.
What looks like the biggest crowd of the season here at Anfield,
for a renewal of old rivalries.
One thing I'd say about United is, they always turned up at Anfield.
Not many teams did.
BARRY DAVIES: The Stretford town have come down the East Lancs Road for the day.
As a kid I was always fascinated by Man United.
The build-up to United coming to Goodison or Anfield,
you'd be building up for two weeks.
You know, the Red Army were coming.
There they are, penned in on the right
with this special dividing wall which has been put here
to divide Manchester United supporters from Liverpool supporters.
What the authorities did for that game,
because they were expecting the tartan hordes to come,
was to put a partition in the Anfield Road. So you could see things were changing.
You had to have the bottle to just go and watch and support your team,
particularly away from home.
Always a bit nervous going to United, and it was vice-versa,
the same for them coming here.
It's on top, man, but good fun.
You have to be on your toes.
With Bob Paisley at the helm, Liverpool were about to dominate in England and abroad,
but one team would prove to be a constant thorn in their side.
The FA Cup final was a big event then.
And my old fella said to me, "We're gonna lose, you know."
"They've won the league, they're in the European Cup final on Wednesday,
"they're gonna beat us, you know."
It was a bit of a dull game but there was six minutes of excitement.
Stuart Pearson scored, he was my hero.
And Pearson!
Jimmy Case scored a great equaliser.
Case, good turn!
Oh, yes!
And then two minutes later Lou Macari shanked a shot
that was going out for a throw-in, never mind a corner,
and rebounded off Jimmy Greenhoff's chest.
Jimmy Greenhoff.
And has it gone in? Macari, is it?
Greenhoff - a Manc goal,
you know what I mean?
You ask anyone, "What's a Manc goal?", and they'll know what you're on about.
Proper Manc goal, that.
I think we only had about three shots on your net, scored two of them.
Great. One of them wasn't even a shot on your net.
Marvellous. It was the irony of it all, you know?
That was quite funny, that made it extra special,
and stopped Liverpool doing the treble.
Only one team can be allowed to do the treble.
Emlyn Hughes climbing up them stairs crying his eyes out,
I had a lump in my throat, I'm thinking, "The treble's gone."
Even all these years later, that was one of the lows.
We got them in the semi-final two years later, in '79,
and they done us again.
Jimmy Greenhoff!
United always seemed to grind out results, even when we were dominating.
It's a goal!
It was their cup final.
Whiteside!
That's the thing they looked forward to.
Colin Gibson scores for Manchester United.
We had this thing - "They're winning all this, but they can't beat us."
But at the end of the day, who's walking around Anfield
at the end of the season with the league trophy?
It's no consolation, is it?
It's Liverpool's fifth championship in 14 seasons.
We'd only just snide the odd FA Cup here and there,
whereas Liverpool were consistently 'boomf-boomf-boomf.'
The rest of the First Division can only marvel at their consistency.
Any Man United fan round my age grew up watching Liverpool win everything.
Whelan's curled it.
Brilliant goal.
Kings of Europe, kings of England, kings of everything.
And we kept feeling like, "We're nearly there, we're nearly there",
cos we had a great team with Ron Atkinson.
On our day we could put on a performance.
There's not too much between the teams.
They've got the knowledge, at this moment in time, of winning games.
Or winning trophies.
And Liverpool Football Club win the marvellous double.
There's a pang of jealousy there when you're watching someone else have what you want.
You covet that success.
McMahon!
Oh, I say, that's got to be one of the best goals of the season, even by Liverpool's standards.
I'm not gonna lie - it killed us.
Going the match in the seventies wasn't just about the footy.
It was about looking good and standing out from the crowd.
But who wore it better - Liverpool or Manchester United?
Who were the true originals?
There's all debates about this, and the Cockneys even want to say they started it,
which, if anybody tells you, is a complete nonsense.
Trust me, I'm of an age where I could remember.
It started in Liverpool, very quickly followed by Manchester.
Manchester had its Perry Boys, Liverpool had its...
What shall we call them - the Scallies.
You've had your Punks,
your Teds, your Mods,
this was another subculture.
If you went to any concert through the eighties, all across Europe,
all the lads doing the tickets and the swag would be Mancs and Scousers.
If you're growing up in Salford,
or in Huyton,
and it's grey and it's dark and it's tower blocks,
if you suddenly transport yourself to Nice
and all these local lads are walking round in bright colours and boat shoes,
you think, "That's a bit different."
So it became this thing, that the lads who saw it transported it back.
In fairness, you probably got the first opening to it by going to Europe with the team,
which we didn't have at that point.
I always put the Charity Shield against United in '77 as when things started to change,
because there was a load of 16/17/18-year-olds with a new look, really.
By '78 I was wearing straight jeans and dressing a bit smarter.
We were changing our hair, wedge haircuts and that.
Round about the '81 cup final Liverpool fans started coming back with all the sportswear,
the different kinds of footwear which you could only get in Europe.
And the great thing was, there was no social media,
so every bit of it was word of mouth.
And that's why it became important at the football.
If you wanted to know what the latest trainees were, or the latest trackie or jacket,
you'd have to go up the Anfield Road or in the Scoreboard [end] or wherever.
Now people can just tap into the internet.
But back then it might have been some lads went to some remote part of Switzerland
and found this label and came back.
We used to do that. You'd get the Scousers coming down - "What's he wearing?!
"What are them trainers?
"Did you see that kid with the little 'tache and the flick hair with them trainers?
"What were they? I've never seen them."
Went to Birmingham once,
Birmingham fans were singing about us looking like Spandau Ballet.
You'd go and play them a year or two later and they're all dressed like you.
West Ham came here in 1985,
diamond golfing jumpers and all this tenniswear.
But by then we'd migrated on to a new look,
which was like lambswool crew-neck jumpers, semi-flared cords.
Dressing like a bloody geography teacher, really!
We're looking at all these Cockneys and they're saying...
COCKNEY ACCENT: "Look at all these scruffs."
And we said, "You haven't got a clue, we don't wear any of that anymore."
The Mancs would always let themselves down, they'd have an earring or...
They'd get something wrong. Not all of them, but...
We're sort of locked in by the river here, they'd spread out to Bury and Rochdale,
so they'd get like a woolyback influence.
In the mid-eighties, Everton became a force.
Merseyside football peaked, the league title alternated between Goodison and Anfield.
But for Liverpool, tragedy lay in wait.
Hillsborough changed everything, didn't it?
I never went to a game for six or seven years after Hillsborough.
It made people step back and take a look at the rivalries.
Do you think 96 fans deserved to go to a football match and all die in the process?
Nobody deserves to go to a football match and die at it.
It's just a game.
I'm gonna take my time over this one.
But when you look back at the disasters -
Munich...
Hillsborough...
Then you go to a match and you hear people singing the songs, which they do sing,
on both sides, not just one side...
..that sickens me.
But when you look around and see the people that are singing it...are grown-ups.
Adults, with children with them.
And those children are the next generation to be singing those songs,
because no-one's told them it's wrong.
I personally think the whole lot of it is wrong.
We'll all have rivalries over football, that's always gonna be there,
and we love it.
But if I had one wish as a football supporter,
passing a message on to Liverpool and on to Manchester United,
if it was possible - "Just do us a favour,
"cut it out and let's enjoy the game and get back to the football."
In 1986, Man United made an appointment
that would change the face of the rivalry forever.
They appointed Alex Ferguson from Aberdeen,
and he had just one thing on his mind.
Knock you off your perch.
"Off their ******* perch, you can print that."
I thought, "What's going on with this fella?" Cos you could never see it.
In '92 we should have won it, and we spewed it right at the end.
It's in there by Walters!
And the whole of Anfield is singing, "Have you ever seen United win the league",
and there's flags there like, "Form is temporary, class is permanent."
Chance here for Hughes - and he's put it away!
They'd never won the league in my lifetime,
so the first moment's always the great moment, isn't it?
You think if you could capture it and bottle it you'd make millions.
You were in a bad period, we didn't really have much around us to threaten us
in those early nineties, to be honest.
I'm almost immune to it now.
When I was growing up they were just a pure winning machine.
Then the worst moment for me is the Cantona goal.
Cantona!
Not only did they end up beating us in a final, but they win the double.
My favourite moment is probably
in 1999 when we beat you in the FA Cup.
You went 1-0 up right at the beginning through Owen,
and then two goals in two minutes won it.
9,000 Liverpool fans here to see it.
That's what makes football wonderful.
And it kind of reflected what happened at the Nou Camp.
TONY CAVENEY: Bayern Munich fans, weren't we?
Munich were in total control, and all I remember - "Don't think that, don't think that",
because it was United.
Tapping, "blow the whistle", know what I mean?
Soon as I started thinking, "These aren't gonna score",
they scored those two late goals.
But then you think, "Imagine being in their end for that kind of game."
The team they had in the nineties seemed arrogant and self-assured
and quality, everything that I'd want from a Liverpool team.
Neville, Giggs, Scholes, Butt, Beckham.
They were all contributing, and it really, really hurt.
Even though United were eating up the trophies, Liverpool never truly went away,
and after a dismal decade that was the 1990s, Kopites had much more to cheer about
at Old Trafford during the early years of the new millennium.
Murphy takes it - oh, it's a great goal!
That first one seemed to trigger a bit of belief.
Murphy! And Murphy has scored for Liverpool.
The second one where Murphy scored the lob,
I think that season we actually finished above Manchester United
for the first time probably in my lifetime.
My best moment was when we won the League Cup in 2003.
In '77 they'd wore red,
then when we actually beat them in '83 we wore red,
and then '96 they wore red.
So I had in my head the week before that final, "Oh, God, I hope we're wearing red."
Beating them in a cup final, you can't really beat that.
I'm a big AC Milan fan from when I was a kid.
D'you know when something traumatic happens and you blank it out your brain?
It's a bit like that.
3-0 up, you think the game's done, you know?
I do remember not thinking it's over, because I'm dead pessimistic.
And I always think Liverpool are gonna win, because I don't want them to.
One of my good pals, he's a Scouser, and he rang me afterwards.
I said, "What the **** are you ringing me for?"
I'll tell you one thing though - I know what it's like.
When you do it, it's the best feeling, cos it's the biggest trophy.
Quite sickened by it, really.
ANDY MITTEN: You had Carragher, Gerrard -
who was the one player I would have loved United to have signed.
The fact that Wayne Rooney, a Scouser,
is one of Manchester United's greatest ever players,
it all adds to the interest.
Alex Ferguson, it felt like, to me, had referees and the media alike in the palm of his hand.
At the time, I couldn't stand the man, and I look back now
and I think you'd have just loved him to be Liverpool's manager.
You've got to take your hat off to him if you know your footy.
And he's held us as the barometer of success that he had to aim for.
There's no doubt he ended up rolling off two or three teams of different generations,
similar to the way Liverpool did in the seventies and eighties.
You've got to respect that.
You had 18 league titles, we had seven,
and we just slowly but very surely, and quite fantastically,
chipped away at that with these great teams.
You think it'll last forever, but nothing lasts forever.
And then when it's gone, you miss it.
Football's cyclical, every team has their time,
yous had yours, then United have had ours,
then the Cockneys have had a little fiddle with it,
now City are having a go and Liverpool are back in the mix.
I can appreciate winning more because I've had to live through and grow up
with Manchester United being totally dominant.
I think Jürgen Klopp's looking and going,
"Right, I'll show that Ferguson, I'll knock him off his perch."
So we've seen 130 years of unprecedented footballing rivalry,
rivalry rooted in a much deeper distrust between two cities.
Two cities with so much that divides them; two cities with so much in common.
Politics, fashion, music, football.
Two football clubs locked in a never-ending rivalry.
There's probably more similarities than both cities would care to let on.
Gary Whelan out the Happy Mondays, he said, "Scousers are just the same as us."
Socially and politically the people are quite the same, know what I mean?
The kids from the likes of Collyhurst and Ancoats and Salford
are just similar, basically, to the kids from Toxteth, Kirkdale, Everton.
We've got great senses of humour, we know what we like, we like what we know,
we're good at the partying, we're good at the music.
The Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays, Oasis, New Order...
Cast, The Lightning Seeds, Space, The Las...
Are Shack from Liverpool? God, didn't even know they're from Liverpool.
10cc, Bee Gees, The Smiths...
The Zutons, the Farm, Echo & The Bunnymen...
The Mersey Beatles, The Bootleg Beatles, The Yellow Submarine Beatles...
They were from Manchester, weren't they? The Beatles.
Four lads from Liverpool who shook the world.
It's The Beatles, innit?
There are very subtle differences - the way you talk, the way you dress.
It's the little differences that make all the difference.
Everything's the same but that one little bit.
You ever meet real Manchester people, you tend you get on.
People say, "I don't like Scousers."
I say, "Why?"
"Don't like Liverpool."
I say, "You ever been?" They say, "Yeah."
I say, "Well, take the football away and they're no different to us."
Yous just talk a bit daft.
If you go and watch this game in Bangkok or Bangalore,
there will be Man United and Liverpool fans in there,
because it's now not just a big football rivalry,
it's the coming together of two big institutions,
and I think the international era and globalisation
has cemented and secured this as the biggest fixture.
I think it's still English football's biggest fixture, definitely.
MANI: It's always United and Liverpool and it always will be.
ANDY MITTEN: I've watched football in over 90 countries,
but the bottom line is, nowhere in the world does football matter as much -
in my opinion - as Manchester and Liverpool.
PETER HOOTON: You want them as rivals, because they're brilliant games.
Listen, I'll tell you something,
if Chelsea were top of the league and City were second,
and you were bottom and we were second bottom,
and Chelsea were playing you on the weekend and we're playing you -
what's the biggest game in the country?
It's Man United-Liverpool.
And I'll tell you why.
There's only two clubs in this country. Only two clubs where it's a religion.
It means something, there's a greater meaning to it.
We had 50 years between us of unbroken dominance,
and all these things - much as we don't like to say it - that we have in common.
Great Scottish managers with vision, about youth, about local players,
about community, about meaning something,
about winning against the odds, winning when you shouldn't win.
I can't explain what it means to me, or what it means to a lot of people.
But it definitely means something.
It's something that you feel, something in your heart.
The two clubs are religions, and there's only two clubs.
Charlton - oh, what a goal!
Souness!
Whelan again!
Gordon Strachan with a chance to equalise...
and does!
Hanging cross... Oh, 3-3!
Cantona is back!
Riise to hit it...
Oh, wow!
Rio Ferdinand!
Mane, lovely, on the chest!