Top 10 Merseyside Derby Scorers

7 Jack Parkinson

Liverpool

It seems inconceivable to the modern observer, but Liverpool were the Merseyside club to suffer from an Anfield hoodoo in years gone by. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Everton went 20 consecutive derbies unbeaten at the home of their main rivals. Jack Parkinson was Liverpool’s prolific centre-forward throughout this period yet could never once fire his way to a home win against Everton.

Parkinson did enjoy some success at Goodison Park. The jet-heeled striker nabbed an 85th-minute winner to decide a helter-skelter contest in October 1909, sliding the ball beyond Billy Scott to snatch the first of just three derby victories throughout his career.

6 Jimmy Settle

Everton

Everton’s Jimmy Settle had made 12 derby appearances and scored seven goals in the fixture before suffering his first defeat to Liverpool. Despite chiefly operating as a cunning creator, skulking around the final third with a slight frame and sharp eye, Settle proved to be prolific in the biggest game of each season.

The Toffees were the dominant force on Merseyside at the turn of the 20th century and Settle was in the thick of the action when his side proved their supremacy in January 1902. Everton’s superiority on a filthy afternoon at Goodison Park was obvious throughout, but Settle stamped the result into the history books with a pair of goals in the final two minutes to make it 4-0. Across the subsequent 120 years, Everton have only recorded two larger derby wins.

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5 ​​​​​Harry Chambers

Liverpool

Almost every tale about Harry Chambers depicts Liverpool’s bandy-legged forward from the inter-war years with an unwavering grin. ‘Smiler’, as he was invariably known, must have rivalled the Cheshire Cat after rattling in three goals during a 5-1 stomping of Everton in October 1922 – the first Merseyside derby hat-trick ever scored by a Liverpool player.

Chambers could have added even more goals to his impressive derby haul of eight had it not been for the First World War. The left-footed forward had only joined the club a matter of months before organised league football was halted in 1915 due to the global conflict. Chambers didn’t waste any time upon the sport’s resumption.

4 Steven Gerrard

Liverpool

When Steven Gerrard emerged as an all-action blend of grace and gusto at Liverpool, some amateur sleuths from the blue half of Stanley Park dug up an incriminating picture of the midfielder decked in a full Everton kit as a seven-year-old. The image had not been doctored, but it was orchestrated by his Evertonian uncle – much to the chagrin of Gerrard’s Liverpool-supporting father.

Despite growing up as a Red, Gerrard happily posed in blue before grasping the importance his dad and the rest of Merseyside placed on the rivalry. “Disowning me must have crossed his mind,” Gerrard later reflected. Liverpool’s iconic skipper made it up to his father by becoming just the second player since World War II to hit double digits for derby goals.

3 Alex Young

Everton

Alex ‘Sandy’ Young has a muddied legacy. Routinely described as “sombre” and “good-natured”, “pugnacious” and “pleasant”, the Scottish centre-forward conjured a wide range of reactions during his playing days. Everton’s fans certainly held him in high regard, staging protests when his contract was not renewed in 1911 and holding a memorial service in his honour 40 years after he passed away.

Liverpool would have been pleased to see the back of Young, who became the first player to ever score a hat-trick in a Merseyside derby. The weaving dribbler accounted for four goals in a 5-2 rout at Goodison Park in April 1904. Young immigrated to Australia in retirement, delivering a tragic conclusion to his conflicting story when he was convicted of manslaughter after shooting his brother.

2 Dixie Dean

Everton

Everton’s legendary striker Dixie Dean was prolific against every team he faced, but he always had a little extra saved up for the club’s Merseyside rivals. Scarcely 18 months after suffering life-threatening injuries in a motorcycle accident, a 20-year-old Dean plundered a hat-trick at Anfield in February 1928 to equal Ted Harper’s top-flight scoring record of 43 goals in a season.

The aerial artist finished the campaign with a staggering 60 – a figure which no other player has come close to surpassing. Dean would go on to score another hat-trick at Anfield three years later. Everton’s all-time top scorer tragically passed away after watching a Merseyside derby in March 1980, suffering a heart attack in the stands of Goodison Park minutes after the final whistle blew. Dean’s daughter Barbara painted it as a fitting conclusion to a remarkable life. “We say he stage-managed the whole thing,” she revealed. “Knowing him, he would have to go out in style.”

1 Ian Rush

Liverpool

Ian Rush’s rise as Liverpool’s greatest goalscorer of all time was far from preordained. Yet to break into the first team, the impatient striker stormed into Bob Paisley’s office demanding a transfer during his second season at the Merseyside giants. After a sharp exchange of words, Rush left the meeting muttering: “I’ll show you I can score goals.” Everton felt his wrath more than any other club.

The boyhood Everton fan came up against the Toffees during two FA Cup finals when both clubs were at their peak in the 1980s. Everton took the lead in the 1986 showpiece before Rush struck a second-half brace to complete a league and cup double. Liverpool lined up without their talismanic forward three years later before Rush emerged from the bench to score twice in extra time and decide another dramatic derby. Everton’s Pat Nevin half-joked that calling upon Rush was “almost like cheating”.