Published: 08:44, 19 October 2025 | Updated: 08:44, 19 October 2025

At Anfield this week they have been handing out league championship medals to ex-players who – because of old rules – weren’t deemed to have played enough games at the time.

It was quite a line up. Two of them – Terry McDermott and Alan Kennedy – have both scored goals in European Cup finals for Liverpool. Others – like David Fairclough and Jan Molby – are buried deep in the club’s folklore for different reasons.

Nevertheless, down the East Lancs Road (though it’s quicker to take the M62 these days) at Manchester United they would once have laughed at this. A faded football club handing to medals to doyens of the 1970s and 1980s. Is a storied past all that you have got?

It’s worth remembering that when Liverpool’s current owners FSG bought the club in 2010, Liverpool were in the bottom three of the Premier League, hadn’t been English champions for two decades and had an annual income of just half their great rivals.

Indeed, it was to take another ten...