Winning the derby is still massive – Duncan McKenzie

Oct 17 2007 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

DUNCAN McKENZIE insists that Merseyside derbies still have the old magic.

The former Everton forward was never on the winning side against Liverpool, missing out most notoriously in the controversial 1977 FA Cup semi-final.

And Andy King’s winner in November 1978, that ended a seven-year wait for a derby victory, came two months after McKenzie had left for Chelsea.

But the 57-year-old remains a staunch Evertonian and has as much enthusiasm and anticipation for the fixture this week as he did in his playing career.

“It’s been smashing in recent times,” said McKenzie, still a Goodison Park regular.

“Last year we had the famous 3-0 victory and when we went to Anfield for the second game Liverpool were much more in the ascendancy but we got a draw out of it.

“It prompted the famous ‘small club’ line from Rafa, which I think was definitely meant. He felt incredibly under pressure from those two results – and to be honest I was delighted about that.

“It proves the derby is still massively important to the fans and everything else is forgotten.”

McKenzie does accept, however, that the changing nature of football since the 1970s makes the encounter a somewhat tamer affair.

And it’s perhaps unfortunate for the former Nottingham Forest and Leeds United man that he happened to be around at the same time as the fiercest derby warlord of them all – Tommy Smith.

“We used to get really het up,” McKenzie said. “Mick Lyons use to head the ceiling before we went out and that was how the locally-born players used to get.

“Then for the first 25 minutes there was not any attempt to play football by either side.

“It was ‘if you come anywhere near me you’re going to get kicked up in the air’. That was the way it was.

“When I played for Everton a lot of it was billed around Tommy Smith and myself. We were both after-dinner speakers, I was on the radio, he had a newspaper column and there was a little bit of humour, albeit vitriolic.

“He’d sort me out on the Friday night then I’d get him back on the Sunday.

“The one advantage I had over Smithy was I was quicker than him. So when it came to violence I could always run away from it, jump over Minis, things like that.”

While both sides have an equal desperation to win, McKenzie reckons the three points will be just as treasured this weekend following some indifferent form on both sides of Stanley Park but he thinks a second successive Goodison defeat will hurt Liverpool more than the reverse result will damage their hosts.

McKenzie added: “On the whole it’s not been brilliant for Everton. We lost at Newcastle and Villa and at home to Manchester United and the only thing they have had to boost them is the result in the Ukraine.

“But Liverpool have been beaten at home by Marseille, which was a mega-shock, then they got a draw in the dying moments against Tottenham when they looked like losing.

“I don’t think they look at it as a positive, they see it as two points lost and three dropped in Europe.

“So on Saturday it’s doubly important for both teams. But imagine Liverpool losing – it would be a massive, massive blow for them, much more so than if Everton lose. And it would be great for our bragging rights come Monday morning.”