This coming Wednesday evening, Liverpool are scheduled to welcome an opponent to Anfield who haven’t set foot through the door in some 45 years.
That team is Red Star Belgrade (or Crvena Zvezda, if you’d prefer), who have played at the Reds’ home only once before in their history, on 6th November, 1973.
The occasion was a European Cup second round second-legger, which saw the fearsome Yugoslavian side arrive with a 2-1 advantage carried over from the first bout in Belgrade a fortnight previous.
Here’s a beautifully atmospheric, floodlit image of Kevin Keegan competing with Red Star defender Peter Krivokuka…
Brrr. You can almost feel the autumnal chill in the air.
Anyway, Red Star duly repeated the exact same feat at Anfield, with goals from Slobodan Yankovic and Vladislav Bogicevic earning the away side a 4-2 aggregate win, a standing ovation from the stunned Kop and a quarter-final tie against Atletico Madrid.
The brutes even made the Scouse kids cry…
There are several similarly intriguing photos of the match nestled in the Getty archives but sadly they are all squirrelled away behind the pay wall.
We’re afraid you’ll have to make do with this picture of the Red Star pennant presented as a gift to Liverpool manager Bill Shankly before the aforementioned match.
Nice.