18th August

Rafa’s got his Dirk Kuyt
2006 - Dirk Kuyt signed from Feyenoord for £9m, with then Chairman David Moores having to lend the club the money for the transfer. He proved a willing worker, notching 71 times in 285 outings, including our consolation in the Champions League Final in Athens in 2007 and five derby strikes. He helped the club to claim the Carling Cup and reach the FA Cup Final in his final season before moving on to Fenerbahçe SK for €1m in June 2012.

Rushie returns
1988 - Ian Rush re-signed for the reds from Juventus for a club record £2.8m, having only spent one season with the Turin giants. In his second spell at Anfield, he struck 139 times in 329 games, winning a further League title, two FA Cups, League Cup and FA Charity Shield this time around.
1986 - Steve Staunton signed from Dundalk for £20,000. He bagged six goals in ninety appearances in his first spell at Anfield, joining Aston Villa for £1.1m after five years with the reds.

Happy birthdays
1988 - Centre-half Jack Hobbs was born in Portsmouth, signing officially with the reds in a £750,000 deal from Lincoln City on his seventeenth birthday. He featured in the first team on five occasions but was sold to Leicester City in April 2009 having helped them to claim the League One title while on loan.
1965 - Former reserves striker John Durnin was born in Bootle. He failed to make the break-through at Anfield, making only two League Cup appearances and one in the Mercantile Credit Centenary Trophy before his departure to Oxford United for £225,000 in February 1989. His most recent appearance at Anfield came as he scored the only goal of the Replay 86 game in aid of the Marina Dalglish Appeal in May 2006.

1931 - Centre-half Dick White was born. He signed from his hometown club Sc***horpe United in November 1955 and was reds captain until the arrival of Ron Yeats, making 217 appearances and winning a Second Division title medal in his time at Anfield, scoring just once. He moved on to Doncaster Rovers in May 1962.
1935 - His sometime team-mate, Scottish inside-forward Jimmy Harrower, was born in Alva. He signed from Hibernian for £11,000 in January 1958 and bagged 22 goals in 105 reds games, moving on to Newcastle United in March 1961. On the same day, Northern Irish forward Sam English was born in Coleraine. He signed from Rangers for £8,000 in August 1933, netting 26 times in fifty games before joining Queen Of The South in July 1935.
1980 – Recruiter Mark Burchill was born. He played for a host of clubs in Scotland and England, also winning six senior caps for Scotland. He joined the reds in the summer of 2024, having worked with new Sporting Director Richard Hughes at Bournemouth.

Wembley disappointment
We have twice played in the FA Charity Shield at Wembley on this day.
1984 - Bruce Grobbelaar scored an own goal to hand the trophy to our neighbours from across Stanley Park, with new signing Paul Walsh making his reds debut.
1990 - John Barnes equalised from the spot in our 1-1 draw with Manchester United, with the trophy therefore being shared. Clayton Blackmore had netted for United on the stroke of half time.

Double League debuts
2001 - Pegguy Arphexad and John Arne Riise both made their League debuts in our 2-1 defeat of West Ham United at Anfield, which came thanks to a Michael Owen brace. Robbie Fowler sat out the game in the Main Stand, following a training-ground bust-up with Assistant Manager Phil Thompson. Markus Babbel had to be withdrawn at half-time, as he was beginning to suffer the effects of Guillain-Barré syndrome, unbeknownst to us all. Paolo di Canio netted for the Hammers between Owen’s strikes.
2002 - Riise netted the only goal of the game as we kicked off our Premiership campaign at Aston Villa, with Peter Enckleman then saving a Michael Owen penalty.

Starting in goal
1956 - Keeper Tommy Younger made his reds debut but could not prevent us losing 3-2 to Huddersfield Town at Anfield as Phil Taylor took charge of the reds for the first time. Billy Liddell nabbed both our goals, with one coming from the spot. Future red Dave Hickson was amongst the scorers for the Terriers, with Ron Simpson and Willie Davie also on target.
2010 – Keeper Brad Jones signed from Middlesbrough for £2.3m. He only played 27 senior reds games before being released in June 2015, although one of these was our victorious FA Cup Semi-final derby at Wembley in April 2012.

Welcome Wata
2023 – Japanese midfielder Wataru Endō signed from VfB Stuttgart for a reported €19m. He bagged two goals in 43 games in his first season with the reds, already helping us to claim the League Cup. On the same day, keeper Luke Hewitson joined Stalybridge Celtic on loan.

Reds on the move
2000 - Dominic Matteo was sold to Leeds United for £4m. He had scored twice in 155 appearances for the reds and quit Elland Road in July 2004 to rejoin Graeme Souness at Blackburn Rovers.
1999 - Robbie Keane joined Coventry City from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £6m, after twelve strikes in 34 outings for the Sky Blues.
1997 - Peter Beardsley signed for Bolton Wanderers from Newcastle United for £450,000. He netted twice in 21 appearances for the Trotters, before moving on again to Fulham.

2009 – Reserves centre-half Mikel San José re-joined Athletic de Bilbao on loan, signing on again permanently the following May after three goals in thirty outings that season.
2011 - Djimi Traoré joined Olympique de Marseille, playing twenty times in his one season there. On the same day, forward Nabil El Zhar was released by the reds after scoring just once in 32 first-team outings.
2014 – Portuguese centre-half Tiago Ilori joined Girondins de Bordeaux on loan, netting once in fifteen games for the French side.
2016 – Ex-red John Arne Riise came out of retirement to sign for Indian Super League side Chennaiyin, scoring once in ten appearances.
2019 – Mario Balotelli signed for his hometown club Brescia, going on to score five times in nineteen outings that season.
2020 – Left-back Adam Lewis joined Amiens SC on loan, playing nine times before joining Plymouth Argyle on a temporary basis the following January.

A losing start
2012 – Joe Allen made his reds bow as we lost 3-0 at West Bromwich Albion in our opening League game of the season. We fell behind to a Zoltán Gera wonder-goal just before half time, with Pepe Reina saving a Shane Long spot-kick on the hour mark with Daniel Agger dismissed for a foul on Long. However, the Baggies were awarded a second penalty when Martin Škrtel was also judged to have brought down Long in the box, which Peter Odemwingie converted. Future Blue Romelu Lukaku completed the scoring with the first of his five past us to date.

Other League fixtures
1951 - We lost 2-0 to Portsmouth at Anfield, with full-back Steve Parr making his reds bow, their most recent win in L4.
1962 - Winger Kevin Lewis netted as Blackpool left Anfield having won 2-1 in another season opener, with a seventeen-year-old Alan Ball debuting for the visitors. Ray Charnley struck the first of his eight goals against the reds, with Des Horne also on target.
1993 - We won 3-1 at Queens Park Rangers, with Steve Nicol nabbing his 46th and last reds goal. Nigel Clough and Ian Rush were also on target. Ray Wilkins bagged the home side’s consolation.

Irish friendlies
1979 - We beat a Football League Of Ireland side 2-0 at Dalymount Park, thanks to strikes from Alan Hansen and Terry McDermott. This game was arranged as construction work at Molineux meant that our opening League fixture scheduled for this day had to be postponed.
1986 - We beat an Irish International XI 2-1 in Cork, with Jan Mølby netting a penalty and Kevin MacDonald also on the scoresheet. Future red Ray Houghton scored for the Irish. The game was originally supposed to have taken place in 1985 as part of Cork’s 800th birthday celebrations but had to be re-arranged following the post-Heysel ban on where the reds could play in Europe.

Nando on target
1999 - Fernando Morientes scored past his future clubmate Jerzy Dudek as Spain beat Poland 2-1 in a friendly in Warsaw. On the same day, Vegard Heggem won his eleventh cap as Norway beat Lithuania 1-0 in a friendly in Oslo. Øyvind Leonhardsen also played, winning his 62nd cap, and first as a Tottenham Hotspur player, just twelve days after leaving Anfield. Meanwhile, Alex Manninger made his senior bow in Austria’s goalless draw in Sweden, with fellow future reds Igor Bišcan and Bolo Zenden also in friendly action.
2007 – Future reds loanee Victor Moses scored for England Under-17’s as they drew 1-1 with North Korea in a World Championship Finals group game in South Korea.

A good and bad day
2010 – Slovakian centre-half Martin Škrtel signed a new contract to tie him to the reds until 2014, although he later extended this. He notched eighteen goals in 320 games in total, including one in our Carling Cup win at Wembley in February 2012, moving on to Fenerbahçe SK for £5.5m in July 2016. On the same day, new signing Joe Cole was found guilty of speeding. Meanwhile, future red James Milner signed for Manchester City from Aston Villa for £26m plus Stephen Ireland, going on to score eighteen times in 201 outings, helping them to claim two League titles and FA Community Shield.

More international friendlies
2004 - Michael Owen netted as he won his 61st England cap, and first as a Real Madrid player, as they beat Ukraine 3-0 at St. James’ Park, with Andriy Voronin making his first appearance while with Bayer 04 Leverkusen for the losing side. Jamie Carragher, Steven Gerrard, ex-red David James and future red Glen Johnson also featured. Fernando Morientes nabbed his final goal while with Real Madrid as Spain beat Venezuela 3-2 in Gran Canaria. Xabi Alonso won his last cap while with Real Sociedad in the first game managed by Luis Aragonés, with another future red Fernando Torres also featuring. Future red Jan Kromkamp made his senior international debut as the Netherlands drew 2-2 in Sweden, with future reds coach John Heitinga also playing.

Djibril Cissé won his first cap as a reds player, and seventeenth in all, as France were held to a 1-1 draw by Bosnia-Herzegovina in Rennes. Also in action were Milan Baroš, Salif Diao, Jerzy Dudek, Steve Finnan, Stéphane Henchoz, Sami Hyypiä, John Arne Riise, future reds Yossi Benayoun, Christian Poulsen, Maxi Rodríguez and Kolo Touré, and ex-red Jari Litmanen. Meanwhile, ex-reds Paul Jones and Gareth Roberts and future red Craig Bellamy all played in the first international meeting of Latvia and Wales that ended in a 2-0 win for the Welsh in Riga. Bellamy scored, his last goal for his country while with Newcastle United, excluding his loan spell at Celtic.
1998 – Alex Manninger played for Austria Under-21’s in their 2-2 friendly draw with France in Amstetten, while fellow future red Frode Kippe played for Norway at the same level in their 2-1 defeat of Romania in Skien.
2017 – Bobby Duncan featured as England Under-17’s beat Turkey 3-2 at St. George’s Park, with ex-Academy Manager Steve Cooper in charge.

Youngsters starting out
1993 - Future red Sami Hyypiä played his first European game as Myllykosken Pallo-47 lost 3-1 at Valur in the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
2001 - Florent Sinama-Pongolle made his League debut for Le Havre AC in their goalless draw with Nîmes Olympique at the Stade des Costières.

2004 – Future reds reserves forward Ramon Calliste won his first cap for Wales Under-21’s as they were held to a goalless friendly draw in Latvia. Meanwhile, Raul Meireles played in the Olympics Finals for Portugal as they lost 4-2 to Costa Rica in Heraklion, with two off his team-mates seeing red.
2019 – Oakley Cannonier won his only cap for England Under-16’s with clubmate Isaac Mabaya also debuting in their 2-0 friendly defeat of Denmark at St. George’s Park.