Steven Kelly: Football is the dividing line that cannot be crossed between Liverpool and Manchester

Liverpool and Manchester, two Lancashire cities that love their music and art, yet forever split by an ugly rivalry characterised by vicious baiting, envy, and ‘class treachery’. Steven Kelly got tired of a toxic relationship a long time ago

Merchandise and plenty of goading for sale prior to last January’s Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester United at Anfield. People on the outside never knew just how unpleasant it got. Photo: Michael Regan/Getty

For my dad it was Everton. It was always Everton.

There was just something about those eight years in the Second Division, between 1954 and 1962, when he was in his twenties, which absolutely scarred him for life. In the portable TV age he would be banished to the bedroom while mum watched Dallas or some such rubbish, and you could hear him laughing at an Everton defeat upstairs. I mean, even I wasn’t that bitter. These were full, raucous yucks.