Saturday 14 October 2017 11:59, UK
For 50 years they’ve been united in their quest for success and divided by the desire to be the more dominant... Greg Whelan looks at the history of the rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United.
Liverpool and Manchester are just 30 miles apart… but they've rarely been good neighbours.
The construction of the Manchester Ship Canal in the 19th Century - to bypass Liverpool's financial control over imports and exports - fuelled the friction between them.
But it's through football that their rivalry found fresh expression.
In the 1960's, Liverpool came to the fore in the fields of music and fashion and its football club would follow suit. The rapid rise of Bill Shankly's side challenged the elite and they overcame United in the 1964 title race.
But after the tragedy of the Munich Air Crash in 1958, United rebuilt a team with the talent to retaliate and their European Cup triumph in 1968 re-established their supremacy.
By the 1970's, Shankly's dream of a dominant Liverpool would be fulfilled, as his successor Bob Paisley oversaw an era of unparalleled success for an English club both domestically and in Europe.
They won 12 league titles between 1973 and 1990. United spent big but were rarely in contention, though their victory over Liverpool in the 1977 FA Cup final did foil their rivals' Treble ambitions.
By the late 1980s it was Manchester's turn to lead the way on the music front, as the Happy Mondays and the Hacienda appeared on the cultural landscape.
And a new leader arrived at Old Trafford in the shape of a Scotsman called Alex Ferguson.
He once said of Liverpool: "They're the barometer of the game. They've won the championship so many times that we have to take that as a measure."
Under Ferguson, United took over where Liverpool left off, dominating the first two decades of the Premier League era. They would even succeed where Liverpool had failed by winning `The Treble' in 1999.
The new millennium gave the rivalry a fresh intensity and Liverpool - inspired by home-grown talent such as Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher - challenged United's supremacy.
They won the Champions League in 2005, but the title eluded Liverpool still - and United took advantage by increasing their tally of league titles to 20, overtaking the Reds in the process.
Now they're both in a fight to reclaim former glories - but that competitive edge shows no sign of abating.
Liverpool v Manchester United is live on Sky Sports Premier League on Saturday lunchtime.
