EVERTON 20 LIVERPOOL 19

The Reds are champs – but somehow, their rivals have reigned longer

After a brilliant Premier League- winning season, Liverpool have begun their 19th year as reigning champions of England. Only Manchester United have ruled for longer... right? Wrong.

Everton have bagged only nine league titles – four fewer than Arsenal, 10 behind Liverpool, and 11 shy of Manchester United. They last conquered England in 1987. But bizarrely, their history has included 20 years as reigning champions – a record that United only matched thanks to their final title under Fergie.

The Toffees first topped the First Division in 1891, when their home ground was actually Anfield. After their move to Goodison Park – Liverpool were formed to take over the vacant stadium – Everton’s second crown was secured when they pipped Oldham in 1914- 15. The whole campaign was completed, despite the First World War breaking out two months before it had started.

There was no 1915- 16 First Division season: football was suspended and a number of Everton players went to war. Bobby Parker, their 38- goal top scorer, was never the same after returning with a bullet in his back.

The Toffees then participated in a wartime Lancashire league, won by Manchester City in 1916- 17, but Everton officially remained English champions for five years. The First

Division finally returned in August

1919, nine months after war’s end.

Everton finished 16th, as West Brom sealed the title. The Blues were victors twice more in the Dixie Dean era, in 1928 and 1932, then Tommy Lawton was top scorer as they won it again in 1939.

The 1939- 40 campaign did begin, but three games in, Britain declared war on Germany for the second time. Large gatherings were initially banned for fear of Luftwaffe bombings, and the season was voided. With a 50- mile travel limit put in place, a regional Wartime League was established. Everton weren’t regional champions in any of its seven editions, but they were still the reigning kings of England. The First Division got back underway in 1946- 47, 11 months after the end of the war, with Liverpool deposing their local rivals as the best team in England.

The Toffees won the league four more times – in 1963 and 1970, then under Howard Kendall in 1985 and 1987, to rule for a 20th year. They remained unbeaten in European games for a decade after lifting the 1985 Cup Winners’ Cup, too. English clubs were soon banned after Heysel, so Everton couldn’t appear in the European Cup and didn’t play in Europe again until lifting the FA Cup in 1995. If Jurgen Klopp ( left) steers Liverpool to another league crown in 2020- 21, they will finally equal Everton’s record 20- year reign. If their Merseyside foes somehow triumph, expect an asteroid to crush Earth the very next day.