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Our Five Favourite Mersey Moments...

The Merseyside derby has as much history as any match in football: even Subbuteo decked its players out in red and blue.

From the time that Everton first beat the club who took their place at Anfield, to the time 281,356 spectators watched the clubs meet six times in 1986/87, to the Andrei Kanchelskis brace, to Liverpool's wins in the only FA Cup finals to feature both sides, there have always been talking points.

Too many to mention, in fact, which isn't surprising given that both clubs have been ever-present in the top flight since Liverpool's promotion in 1961. But, ahead of the weekend's clash between Merseyside's finest, here are our favourites from the last 20 years...

March 1988: Everton 1 Liverpool 0
If you think Liverpool are unpopular now, imagine what it was like back when they were good. In March 1988, although Everton were champions, Liverpool had won four out of the previous six league titles (do not adjust your screen: Liverpool really did used to win the league title) and had gone a joint-record 29 games unbeaten from the start of the season. Furthermore, they'd already won two Merseyside derbies that season, thanks to a 2-0 victory at Anfield in the league and a Ray Houghton strike in the FA Cup fifth round.

Everton, meanwhile, were no longer challenging for the title as they had in the previous three seasons; Manchester United and Nottingham Forest would make up an all-red top three. But despite the form of Liverpool newbies Barnes and Beardsley, league top scorer John Aldridge and all the rest, it was journeyman striker Wayne Clark (youngest of five brothers, all professional footballers) who popped up with the goal to inflict one of only two Liverpool defeats that season and, more importantly, stop the Reds going an unprecedented thirty matches unbeaten. Liverpool would go on to win the league, while Clark would be part-exchanged for Mike Newell. But that's the beauty of derby day.

February 1991: Everton 4 Liverpool 4
Perhaps the greatest Merseyside derby ever would never have happened if not for a rather dull one: the epic 4-4 FA Cup clash that everyone remembers as the day Dalglish lost his bottle was actually a replay of a 0-0 draw at Anfield. In one of the most thrilling televised matches ever shown - they were a rarity back then, remember - Ian Rush, John Barnes and Peter Beardsley (twice) put Liverpool ahead four times. And Tony Cottee and Graeme Sharp, who bagged a brace each, brought Everton back onto level terms after each strike.

Liverpool, then champions, ended the match unbeaten in nine derbies but in disbelief that the Toffees had fought back so many times. One week later, in the second replay, Dave Watson scored the only goal to send Everton into the quarter-finals. For Dalglish, who had kept his head through the adaptation from player to player-manager (the only player-manager, by the way, to score in the derby) to manager, and who had helped hold a community together with his dignity and compassion in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster, it was one step too far. He promptly resigned. Liverpool have never won the title since.

September 1999: Liverpool 0 Everton 1
It's now nine years since Everton won at Anfield, but what a match it was. Only two players had been sent off in the derby in the previous 15 years, but while Kevin Campbell's goal made it a Blue day on Merseyside, it was very much a case of seeing red on the pitch. Only 19 players finished the match - Sander Westerveld, Francis Jeffers and Steven Gerrard were all dismissed - and it could quite easily have been less. As early as the 27th minute both Don Hutchison, on Dietmar Hamann, and Michael Owen, on David Weir, had produced challenges that warranted red cards. Owen was booked, Hutchison not even carded.

The full-blooded affair continued, but Mike Riley managed to keep the numbers even until 15 minutes from time. Then Nicky Barmby (Everton at this point) played a ball through to Jeffers. The man who would be Arsene Wenger's greatest mistake was flagged offside, but before he realised, had crashed into Westerveld. The goalkeeper grabbed him by the throat and, after both had waved their handbags, Riley waved the red card twice. He had it out a third time in the closing stages, when Gerrard clattered into Campbell. The match played its part in establishing a fine tradition: more players have now been sent off in the Merseyside derby than in any other Premier League clash.

December 2005 & March 2006: Everton 1 Liverpool 3 and Liverpool 3 Everton 1
Doing the double is relatively rare on Merseyside. Liverpool have done it three times since the turn of the millennium, but only nine times in over a century beforehand. The 2005/06 season, though, saw two 3-1 wins for the Reds and a further four red cards added to the battle records. In December Peter Crouch, Steven Gerrard and Djibril Cisse found the net against nine men at Goodison Park, after Phil Neville and Mikel Arteta were dismissed, and Liverpool walked away 3-1 winners despite a rare James Beattie strike for the home team.

We didn't think the return match would top it. We were wrong. This time the numbers were even; Steven Gerrard's early red was cancelled out by Andy van der Meyde's (debates on which of those players is more of a loss to their team still rage today). But while Everton still had 11 men approaching half-time, one of those men was Phil Neville, who headed into his own net to give the home team the lead. Immediately after half-time it was doubled by a neat Luis Garcia chip, and despite Tim Cahill pulling one back for the visitors, Harry Kewell was on hand to fire home a 25-yard strike in front of the Kop. No, really.

September 2006: Everton 3 Liverpool 0
Everton, then, were well and truly humbled. They hadn't scored three goals in a league derby since the FA Cup-winning year of 1966. The Reds had done it twice the previous season. Luckily for the Blues, there was a mix-up on September 9: Liverpool Football Club were sent to a children's party who thought they'd booked Pepe the Clown and his travelling circus, while the circus...oh, this is a laboured joke, and you get it. 'Utter humiliation' was the verdict of this fine website's match report, as Everton handed out a comprehensive drubbing.

Defending that I'd describe as comical if I wasn't saving that adjective for a couple of sentences later allowed Tim Cahill to open the scoring from a Mikel Arteta cross. Ten minutes later Jamie Carragher and Sami Hyypia were both embarrassed as the former swang a great big air-kick and Andy Johnson skipped between them to beat Jose Reina at his near post. But worse was to follow for the visiting fans. In one of the most hilarious pieces of goalkeeping in Premier League history, Reina parried a Lee Carsley shot up into the air, but realised it was still going in. He rushed back and caught the ball, but, aware that his momentum would carry him into the net, decided the best thing to do would be to throw it up gently for Johnson, like a father teaching his five-year-old son to head a ball. Andy Johnson might not have the height of a five-year-old boy, but that didn't stop him nodding it off Reina and in, leaving the goalkeeper with his hands on his head. I never did use that adjective, did I? Comical.

Adam Fraser