Those present at Anfield on that heady night in the mid 1960s, claim that the Inter Milan clash was the greatest
night of European football the famous ground has ever staged. Still on a high from the club's first ever victorious
F.A. Cup campaign, completed days earlier against Leeds United, Liverpool tore into the Italians from the first whistle.
Before the game started, Shankly ordered two players who would not be playing in the game, Gerry Byrne who had suffered
a broken collar bone in that F.A. Cup Final, and Gordon Milne, to parade around Anfield with the F.A. Cup. This whipped
the crowd into a frenzy and both teams emerged onto the pitch to a wall of sound. Within 4 minutes of the kick off,
the Kop had roared Liverpool into the lead against the clearly shanken Italian champions.
It was Roger Hunt who put them ahead, after Ian Callaghan had taken a Geoff Strong pass and crossed from the wing
for the England man to score in typical fashion. The joy was short lived however, and Mazzola equalised for Milan after
10 minutes.
Ian Callaghan takes up the story ...
'Even when Mazzola equalised I was still confident this was to be our night, and after 34 minutes I scored the most
treasured goal of my career. What made it all the more rewarding was that it came from a free kick plan we had been
practising for some time. It worked like a dream. We got the opportunity to make it work when Peter Thompson was fouled
a few yards outside the penalty area. Willie Stevenson and I lined up, then I dummied to shoot, ran over the ball and
kept on running as Willie stroked it through to Roger Hunt, who sidefooted it to me - and I hit it into the net.'
As the ball hit the back of the net, the Kop went berserk. They started singing 'Go back to Italy' to the tune of 'Santa
Lucia'. Five minutes before half time, Chris Lawler shot home from the edge of the box only for the referee to
inexplicably disallow the effort because another player was offside.
Callaghan again ...
'To this day I have never been able to understand that decision, and even though Ian St John did put us 3-1 ahead in the
75th minute, after Tommy Smith and myself had set up a chance for Roger Hunt, whose shot crashed against the keeper and
rebounded for Ian to slot home, that decision did, in the final reckoning, crush our chances of a place in the European
Cup Final, which at that time, no British club had reached.'
Shankly later commented that this was the greatest match he had ever seen. It was the unofficial world club championship,
but sadly, Liverpool were to go down 3:0 in the second leg after falling victim to another bout of dubious refereeing. It
was to prove only a hiccup along the way to future European glories.
|
