DERBY DAYS: Liverpool v EvertonFollowing Monday night's league match the focus now turns to Sunday's FA Cup clash in the passionate derby that divides families, writes Damian Cullen

DO OPPOSING supporters have to loath each other for a rivalry to stand up to scrutiny and take its place with some of the most passionate derby games in the world? Apparently not.

Next Sunday will witness the third meeting of Liverpool FC and Everton FC this season, with Everton’s home game against their neighbours last September resulting in their third home defeat in three league games. To add insult to injury, Tim Cahill – Everton’s saviour on Monday night – was sent off late in the game, while Torres’s two goals gave Liverpool their best start to a Premier League season.

The match was, perhaps, indicative of why the rivalry between the clubs has, in general, maintained its reputation as the ‘Friendly Derby’ during the Premiership years.

While Liverpool have concentrated on the top of the Premiership table, Everton have regularly flirted with relegation, especially in the first 10 years of the Premiership. Only once at the end of the Premiership season have Everton enjoyed a higher position than their neighbours.

At the end of the 2004/05 season, the club – despite conceding more goals than they scored – finished fourth, one position and three points ahead of Liverpool. While the clubs have generally maintained friendly relations off the field, passions have often got the better of the players on it. In their 19 derby meetings since 2000, a total of 12 players have been sent off.

The breakdown has not been split evenly – with nine red cards being shown to Everton players: Thomas Gravesen, David Weir, Gary Naysmith, Phil Neville (twice), Mikel Arteta, Andy van der Meyde, Tony Hibbert and Tim Cahill and three, Igor Biscan, Milan Baros and Steven Gerrard, to Liverpool. Liverpool point to the statistics as evidence of the tactics employed by their rivals. Everton point to the same statistics as evidence of the favouritism afforded ‘bigger’ English clubs such as Liverpool.

In cities where there are two big clubs, and one huge rivalry, the origins of the clubs are often rooted in geographical divisions, religious differences, cultural contrasts etc. However, perhaps the most obvious reason the rivalry between Liverpool and Everton has gained and maintained such a positive reputation has been the Merseyside Derby has none of those distinctions.

In fact, Everton played at Anfield before Liverpool did. And Liverpool FC originally wanted to call themselves Everton Athletic.

Everton played at Anfield until John Houlding bought the lease in 1891 and insisted on a 150 per cent rise in annual rent to £250. The club refused and moved less than a mile away to Goodison Park. The following year, Houlding founded Liverpool FC, but only after the English Football Association refused a proposal to keep the term ‘Everton’ in the new club’s name.

A rivalry was born, but one that had its origins in something more akin to family members falling out than two tribes colliding. However, as often happens with any great rivalry, who fired the first shots is disputed.

Liverpool beat Everton 1-0 in the 1893 Liverpool Senior Cup final – a competition that still exists, though Liverpool, Everton and Tranmere Rovers usually enter their reserve teams. However, Everton aficionados believe as this was merely an amateur encounter the first true meeting was the following year, when Everton won their league clash 3-0.

The record attendances are reserved for the handful of meetings at Wembley, which all gained 100,000 spectators, though special mention must be given to the 1967 FA Cup fifth-round meeting, when more than 64,000 fans packed Goodison Park, with another 40,000 watching a giant screen at Anfield. The youngest member of England’s World Cup winning team the previous year, Everton midfielder Alan Ball, scored the only goal of the game.

In fact, the clubs have reserved most of their greatest games for the FA Cup. They have met twice in the final of the competition, both times in the late 1980s and both won by Liverpool. But the 1991 FA Cup fifth-round replay at Goodison Park is regarded by many as the most memorable meeting of the city rivals.

After a goalless draw at Anfield, the game exploded into life three days later with Liverpool, who were busy chasing Arsenal in the league race, leading four times during the game – Peter Beardsley (two), Ian Rush and John Barnes all scoring for the visitors – but Everton refused to surrender and Graeme Sharp, and Tony Cottee each hit the back of the net twice.

It was all too much for Kenny Dalglish, who resigned soon after and Everton claimed the second replay thanks to a Dave Watson strike. Sunday’s derby clash at Anfield will be the first FA Cup meeting between the sides since 1991. While many local derbies are about the bragging rights in work on a Monday morning, Liverpool versus Everton can be even more intimate than that – it’s about the bragging rights between family members and close friends.

While the derby may not have to carry the usual religious, cultural or political baggage that often accompanies a city derby, this meeting is none the worse for it. It is more than just the Mersey that splits the city of Liverpool.

FA Cup – Fourth Round

Sunday, Anfield, kick-off – 4pm

Live on Setanta Sports 1