Iconic images: The Kop’s last stand
Throughout LFC's 125th anniversary year, Liverpoolfc.com will retrace the club's history through the striking images that plot a fascinating journey.
Fifteenth in the series is a photo that marks the end of an era at Anfield.
It is the summer of 1906, and Liverpool’s board of directors have just seen Tom Watson lead the club to its second First Division title.
In response, the hierarchy decided that Anfield required an upgrade.
A new bank able to accommodate thousands of supporters was constructed at the ground’s Walton Breck Road end - a bank that, in a moment of creative inspiration, the Liverpool Echo’s Ernest Edwards labelled the ‘Spion Kop’.
For nearly 90 years thereafter, the Spion Kop would come to define Anfield.
But in the wake of Hillsborough and the safety requirements detailed in the Taylor Report, the original Spion Kop had to be modernised. Safe seating would replace swaying standing.
On April 30, 1994, an era came to an end.
The Reds’ home game against Norwich City marked the final match to be played in front of the old Kop.
Before kick-off, the likes of Kenny Dalglish, Billy Liddell and Ian Callaghan were welcomed onto the pitch, with Joe Fagan accompanying Nessie Shankly and Jessie Paisley - the widows of the club’s managerial giants - as the Kop reacted with a deafening reception.
That Norwich won 1-0 - thanks to a superb goal from Jeremy Goss that was sportingly applauded by the Kop - mattered little.
This was the Kop’s last stand, and the Kopites there made sure the occasion did not go to waste.
“Just imagine what they would have been like today if we had been challenging for the championship,” Liverpool boss Roy Evans said about the atmosphere afterwards.
“It was a taste for some of the younger players of what this crowd is like. I think they are the best crowd in the world. It was about the Kop today and all our fans, and I thought they were magnificent. It’s a pity we weren’t in the same class.”
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