This summer LFC will play Roma at Fenway Park. it won't be our first game in Boston.................

1964 AMERICA AND CANADA TOUR

LIVERPOOL’S last three league games of 1963/64 yielded just a single point. That came from a 2-2 draw at West Brom, which was sandwiched, between 3-1 defeats at Birmingham and Stoke.

It was irrelevant, the league title had already been secured by mid-April courtesy of a 5-0 win over Arsenal. Maybe the players were already thinking about their holidays from that point onwards, or maybe they were looking ahead to an end of season trip to the other side of the Atlantic.

They were on their way to America and Canada for a ten-game tour that would span nearly six weeks.

While the clashes of Mods and Rockers around seaside resorts in the UK were making headlines, 17 players, Chairman TV Williams and the majority of the coaching staff jetted off to New York aboard a BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) flight.

Manager Bill Shankly and Joe Fagan weren’t amongst the party. Instead they remained at home, occupying themselves by watching the Liverpool Senior Cup final between the reds’ reserves and Southport and then travelling to Scotland to view more football.

When the squad landed on the east coast of America the first item on their schedule was sightseeing in New York. Their time on the banks of the river Hudson took in a visit to the World Fair before journeying on to Boston for their opening game.

An 8-1 win, against the Metros, was quickly followed by a return to New York a few days later where the All Stars were also overran in a 7-1 rout. With news of those victories reaching Merseyside Shankly was asked if he’d made the right decision in not going. “Without any doubt,” he replied.

Such baseball like scorelines caught the attention of the American media who quickly dubbed the free-scoring tourists ‘the red devils’.

Previous LFC visits to the same shores had taken place in 1946, 1948 and ’53. No defeats were suffered on any of those trips and with 15 goals registered inside 180 minutes of the ’64 venture it looked like that record would remain intact for a long time.

A game against St. Louis’s Catholic Youth Council All Stars on May 13 appeared to present little threat to the unbeaten run which stretched to 33 games. However, only a Willie Stevenson strike four minutes from the end prevented an embarrassing 1-0 reversal.

By then skipper Ron Yeats had been reduced to the role of observer, and interviewee.

“Yeats’ right leg is in a plaster cast from the thigh to the ankle to rest a pulled tendon,” trainer Ruben Bennett commented. He was kept involved though, as his non-playing role meant curious radio and TV stations regularly quizzed him on the reigning English champions.

His roommate made sure he wasn’t missed in the next outing as Mexican side Monterrey were defeated 3-0, Ian St. John netting a hat-trick.

After that comfortable win, LFC vs German opposition seemed to become the main theme of the tour, in more ways than one.

Hamburg Sport Verein, the club that Kevin Keegan would join in 1977, were next on the itinerary and became the first side to defeat the Anfielders in 35 outings on North American soil.

Back to back clashes with another German team, Meiderich Duisburg, followed. The first of those ended in a 4-1 victory, which the Daily Post described as ‘Just too easy for Liverpool’. 7,000 fans - 2,000 more than the attendance at England’s 10-0 defeat of the USA in New York on the same night - cheered the victors off at the final whistle.

Perhaps that reaction gave the Germans extra motivation when the sides reconvened at Soldier Field in Chicago two days later and played out a scoreless 90 minutes.

A welcome break from familiar opposition followed. Instead the San Franciscan Select side faced Shankly’s team. They were demolished; Alf Arrowsmith scoring five, St. John getting a quartet, Stevenson netting a brace and Ronnie Moran, Alf A’Court and Bobby Graham all finding the net once.

With Tommy Lawrence absent through a foot injury picked up in training Trevor Roberts was the redundant Liverpool net-minder. His opposite number, Zig Ottoboni, the Select’s keeper in the second half, was singled out as their best player despite conceding half a dozen times.

Meanwhile, in the UK there were also smiles from Kopites as Chairman TV Williams was presented with the League championship trophy in London.

Upon arriving in Vancouver the happy demeanour of the travelling reds quickly disappeared though as relations, by now hostile, with Meiderich were resumed one last time. There were even reports of tension in a pre-game lunch attended by representatives of the clubs.

St. John and Manfred Mueller were both shown red cards after clashing in the first half, with the German appearing to lose their personal bout, as he needed to be helped from the pitch following the altercation.

On the sidelines coaching staff from each bench repeatedly entered into heated arguments. By that stage of the trip Shankly had arrived for a week with the squad and later recalled there was “no keeping up with Meiderich’s tricks”, accusing them of violating pre-match agreements on the number of substitutions allowed and of trying to deflate the ball.

When some football was actually played the goals arrived just after the red cards.

Arrowsmith lobbed the keeper to make it 1-0 before the returning Lawrence could only parry a shot to Meinz Versteeg who levelled matters. The 19,600 spectators in the stands obviously didn’t approve of what they were watching and a chorus of boos clearly displayed their displeasure.

Later St. John explained: “The Germans had been after me all the game, kicking and hacking. This was our third meeting and the rivalry was building up all the time.

“The mistake was in playing them so often in such a short space of time. They knew they could not beat us by playing football and their sole object was to try to prevent us playing it.

“I had been in no sort of trouble throughout the tour until this incident and for me it cast a shadow on what had been a wonderfully happy time.”

Thankfully St. John was in the spotlight for the correct reasons when the tour concluded with a second game in Vancouver, against the local All Stars.

Playing in a deep-lying role he was the main reason for a comfortable 2-0 win. Skipper Yeats, still unavailable through injury, used the time on the west coast of Canada to visit his mother-in-law.

With 10 games completed the reds’ record read: 6 wins, 3 draws and 1 defeat. During those outings they’d netted 40 goals and conceded 7.

Vice Chairman S.C. Reakes was asked to sum up the trip and he had only praise for the hosts.

“The US officials pressed us to return there in 1966 but with the World Cup in England I said I thought that would be impracticable,” he revealed. “Manchester United have been asked to go next year, with Wolves standing by in case United cannot accept.

“For my part, I would have no hesitation in recommending if circumstances permit that we should go again in 1967.

“The invitations were embarrassing, for it frequently happened we had to turn down several in favour of another, but there was nothing we could do about it.”

Prior to departing for the UK Alf Arrowsmith had a suitcase taken from his room while he slept. By the time the team landed back on more familiar ground on Saturday June 13th he seemed to have gotten over the loss. “It made my passage through the customs a very simple affair,” he joked. “I was left almost with only the things I stood up in.”

On the same day on the other side of the world 4,000 delirious fans greeted the Beatles arrival in Adelaide.

In contrast, just one supporter was on hand to see LFC land at Manchester Airport. 45-year-old Bill Strange of Wavertree had waved his wife Irene off on her holiday before waiting around for an hour to see the LFC squad.

Shankly, who had returned to Liverpool earlier than the rest of party, was also in the arrivals hall to meet his weary troops.

“They are coming home from tour and that’s all. There is nothing special in it, everyone knows about it,” he said. ENDS

This article first appeared in the LFC Magazine in July 2011.