Liverpool FC would never have existed if Everton FC (the tenant at Anfield Road) hadn’t left the stadium in 1892, forcing the owner to find another club. Liverpool FC have accrued the second best set of honors in English football after Manchester United. The club has won six Champions League/European Cups, more than any other English club, three UEFA Cups, four UEFA Super Cups (both also English records), one FIFA Club World Cup, eighteen League titles, seven FA Cups, a record eight League Cups, fifteen FA Community shields and one Football League Super Cup. But alongside the sporting glory and effervescent support, the club’s history has also been marked by two tragedies: the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985, with 39 people (mostly Italians and Juventus fans) dying, and the Hillsborough distaster in 1989, where 96 Liverpool supporters died in a crush against perimeter fencing. The word “kop” was started by the Liverpool fans whose historic base was one of the terraces at Anfield, dubbed Spion Kop in 1906. The name comes from a hill in Natal (South Africa), scene of a battle in the Boer War, where many British soldiers from Liverpool met their deaths in January 1900. Liverpool original Kop had a capacity of 28.000 (standing), but this was reduced to 12.000 (seated) in 1994. Liverpool has long-standing rivalries with Manchester United and Everton. The city’s symbol of the liver bird was adopted as the club’s badge in 1901, although it was not incorporated into the kit until 1955. In 1992, to commemorate the centennial of the club, a new badge was commissioned including a representation of the Shankly Gates. The next year twin flames were added at either side, symbolic of the Hillsborough memorial outside Anfield, where an eternal flame burns in memory of those who died in the Hillsborough disaster. In 2012, Warrior Sports’ first Liverpool kit removed the shield and gates, returning the badge to what adorned Liverpool shirts in the 1970s. The flames were moved back to the back collar of the shirt, surrounding the number 96 for the number who died at Hillsborough.
