1989 FA Cup Final: Liverpool 3-2 Everton

The footage

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1989

The match report

Liverpool's fourth FA Cup was won on an afternoon when the result could not be the only story. Five weeks had passed since the abandoned semi-final at Hillsborough. Liverpool and Everton arrived together from a city in mourning, both sets of players wore black armbands and Gerry Marsden led Wembley in You'll Never Walk Alone. Liverpool's own archive remembers an atmosphere of Scouse solidarity rather than ordinary derby hostility; the BBC account likewise describes supporters of both clubs sitting and singing together. The match mattered, but the shared act of remembrance gave it its meaning.[1][14][8]

Once play began, the opening was anything but ceremonial. Everton won an immediate corner and Steve McMahon cleared after Steve Nicol misjudged Kevin Sheedy's delivery. Liverpool answered with a move as quick as it was precise. Peter Beardsley took the ball from Sheedy, Nicol drove it forward and McMahon's touch sent John Aldridge clear. Aldridge scored in the fourth minute, a release after his penalty miss in the previous year's final and his first Liverpool goal against Everton. Liverpool had seized control with their first sustained attack.[15][2][13]

The lead should have grown. John Barnes supplied Aldridge with a flying header that went narrowly wide, then headed Ray Houghton's cross into Southall's hands. Beardsley was sent through soon after the interval and Southall blocked with his legs. Liverpool's midfield, driven by Ronnie Whelan and McMahon, kept recovering the ball, while the contemporary Sunday Times report judged Everton's final pass consistently poor. Yet Southall kept the contest within one moment of changing, and Liverpool began to manage the margin rather than finish the game.[15][6]

Colin Harvey changed its shape by replacing Paul Bracewell with Stuart McCall. Pat Nevin, Everton's clearest route around Liverpool, increasingly attacked the tiring Steve Staunton. In the final minute Nevin worked the ball into the danger area, Dave Watson's effort was pushed away by Bruce Grobbelaar and McCall drove in the loose ball. Everton had found an equaliser with their last attack of normal time. Dalglish then sent Barry Venison on for Staunton, a change the contemporary press thought had been delayed until the damage was done.[15][5][6]

Extra time became a contest between the substitutes. Ian Rush, already introduced for Aldridge, spun onto Nicol's delivery and drove Liverpool ahead again. McCall answered with the finest Everton finish of the afternoon, controlling Hansen's wayward header and volleying into the corner from the edge of the area. The second parity lasted only moments. Barnes crossed from the left and Rush angled a header beyond Southall. Everton had recovered twice, but there was no third recovery, and Liverpool held a three-to-two lead to the end.[1][5][15]

The sequence created an extraordinary statistical shape. Aldridge was the only starter to score; McCall and Rush came from the benches and supplied the remaining four goals. The Football Association records McCall as the first substitute to score twice in an FA Cup final, with Rush matching him before extra time was over. This was not simply a late flurry. It was a final redirected by both managers' changes, with Harvey's first alteration rescuing Everton twice and Dalglish's first producing both Liverpool goals after normal time.[11][8][1]

For Dalglish, the cup could not be detached from the weeks before it. A later Liverpool interview records him choosing this victory as the most poignant highlight of his career because it displayed a club and a city holding together after Hillsborough. Colin Harvey's immediate response was equally revealing: his concern was that both teams had played and the crowd had watched in the right spirit. Liverpool's victory belonged to one side, but the testimony around it describes an afternoon that both halves of Merseyside had carried.[3][5][4]

There was little time for Liverpool to absorb it. The Sunday Times called this the club's sixth fixture in seventeen days and warned that the extra half-hour might damage a league challenge still alive. Six days later Arsenal won at Anfield and took the championship in the final match. Everton, meanwhile, had now lost two Wembley finals in the space of three weeks, the other an extra-time Full Members' Cup defeat by Nottingham Forest. The FA Cup was therefore both a cathartic peak and one part of an exhausting end to a season transformed by disaster.[15][17][9]

How the match unfolded

1. before kick-offLiverpool and Everton wear black armbands, the crowd observes a silence for those killed at Hillsborough and Gerry Marsden leads Wembley in You'll Never Walk Alone.[1][13][8]
2. 4'Peter Beardsley wins the ball from Kevin Sheedy, Steve Nicol sends it forward and Steve McMahon's touch releases John Aldridge, who finishes beyond Neville Southall for Liverpool's early lead.[15][1][8]
3. 59'Everton introduce Stuart McCall for Paul Bracewell. LFCHistory's elapsed-minute log labels the change 58.[8][6][15]
4. 73'Kenny Dalglish sends Ian Rush on for Aldridge. The conventional match table gives 73; LFCHistory's elapsed-minute log gives 72.[8][6][16]
5. 78'Everton make their second change, Ian Wilson replacing Kevin Sheedy. The contemporary and elapsed-minute tables label it 77.[8][6][15]
6. 89'Pat Nevin attacks Liverpool's tiring left side and Dave Watson's effort is pushed loose by Bruce Grobbelaar. McCall drives in the rebound to force extra time.[15][1][5]
7. 91'Barry Venison replaces the exhausted Steve Staunton as extra time begins.[8][6][15]
8. 95'Rush controls Steve Nicol's ball, spins and shoots past Southall to restore Liverpool's lead. LFCHistory labels the goal 94 on its elapsed-minute clock.[8][6][1]
9. 102'McCall controls Alan Hansen's misdirected header and volleys past Grobbelaar from the edge of the area for his second equaliser.[8][6][5]
10. 104'John Barnes crosses from the left and Rush angles a header beyond Southall for the winning goal. LFCHistory's elapsed-minute log labels it 103.[8][6][1]
11. after extra timeLiverpool win 3-2. Contemporary reporting records pitch incursions after the goals and says Liverpool were unable to complete a lap of honour.[16][1][5]

Match facts

Date

Saturday 20 May 1989

Venue

Wembley Stadium, London

Attendance

82,80082,800 is printed by the contemporary Sunday Times match table and the Liverpool, Everton and 11v11 match archives. RSSSF alone gives 82,500, so that minority figure is retained in uncertainties rather than silently discarded.[15][8][5][10]

Referee

Joe Worrall (Cheshire)[8][6][15]

Scorers

John Aldridge 4'
Stuart McCall 89'
Ian Rush 95'
Stuart McCall 102'
Ian Rush 104'[1][5][8]

Half-time

1-0

Competition

1988-89 FA Cup

Where they played

Both sides as they lined up. Choose any player to read what they did in this final.

Select a shirt for that player's note.

Route to the final

Line-ups

Trivia and detail

• Liverpool's first three ties in the competition were all away from home: Carlisle United, Millwall and Hull City.[1][7]
• Everton's last three wins on the route were all by the only goal, against Barnsley, Wimbledon and Norwich City.[9]
• Kenny Dalglish stressed that the winners were larger than the Wembley team: thirteen Liverpool players collected cup-final medals on the day, while twenty-three players had contributed during the campaign.[16]
• The Everton Encyclopedia describes this as the club's eleventh Wembley appearance in five years.[5]
• Ian Rush had also scored twice against Everton in the 1986 FA Cup final. His second brace against the same opponents gave him four goals across the two Merseyside finals.[1][13]
• The contemporary Sunday Times report credited Rush's winning header with taking him to twenty-one goals in Merseyside derbies, ahead of the nineteen it attributed to Dixie Dean.[15]
• Neville Southall did not initially climb the Wembley steps with his team-mates because he was so upset by the defeat; the contemporary Daily Mirror reported that officials gave him his runners-up medal later.[16]
• The FA's history of red-versus-blue finals records that Everton's loss here was the third in a sequence of final defeats, after Manchester United in 1985 and Liverpool in 1986.[12]
• Liverpool's official route summary lists John Aldridge as the club's leading FA Cup scorer that season with six; Barnes, McMahon and Rush each had three, and Beardsley had two.[1]

How well do you know the 1989 final?

Five questions. Every answer is sourced from the material on this page.

1. Who scored Liverpool's opening goal?

   John AldridgeIan RushJohn BarnesSteve McMahon
   Answer

   John Aldridge. McMahon's touch sent Aldridge clear and he beat Neville Southall in the fourth minute.[15][1]

2. Which Everton substitute equalised twice?

   Stuart McCallIan WilsonPaul BracewellPat Nevin
   Answer

   Stuart McCall. McCall replaced Bracewell and scored both Everton goals, one at the end of normal time and one in extra time.[11][5]

3. Who captained Liverpool at Wembley?

   Ronnie WhelanAlan HansenKenny DalglishJohn Barnes
   Answer

   Ronnie Whelan. The match sheets identify Whelan as captain from central midfield.[6][8]

4. Who crossed for Ian Rush's winning header?

   John BarnesSteve NicolRay HoughtonPeter Beardsley
   Answer

   John Barnes. Barnes delivered from the left and Rush angled the ball past Southall.[1][2]

5. How was the final decided?

   After extra timeIn a replayOn penaltiesIn normal time
   Answer

   After extra time. McCall's late equaliser made it 1-1 after normal time, before three more goals in the added half-hour.[8][6]

What is not settled

Honesty matters more than tidiness. These details are contested or unrecorded, and we have not guessed at them:

• Goal and substitution minute labels differ by source and clock convention. The record uses the conventional 95 and 104 for Ian Rush, against 94 and 103 in LFCHistory's elapsed-minute log. Stuart McCall's second is 102 in 11v11 and LFCHistory but 101 in a contemporary Sunday Times table.
• The attendance is 82,800 in the contemporary Sunday Times match table, LFCHistory, 11v11 and the Everton Encyclopedia. RSSSF alone prints 82,500. The majority figure is used and the conflict is retained.
• The precise form of the silence is reported differently. Most later match accounts place it before kick-off, while one first-person spectator account recalls an interruption during it. The record claims only that Wembley observed a silence, not its exact length.
• Liverpool's shape is reconstructed as 4-4-1-1 from the named roles, with Peter Beardsley behind John Aldridge. The contemporary Sunday Times table prints 4-4-2 and Transfermarkt also offers 4-4-1-1. Everton's 4-4-2 is consistently described.
• The death toll known on the day was 95. It rose later as two more people died from their injuries; modern official and BBC accounts therefore use 97. The page does not retrofit the modern total into quotations or contemporary reporting.
• No free photograph taken at the final was located on Wikimedia Commons. Every proposed image is explicitly captioned as a later portrait, a nearby-period stadium view or a later memorial photograph.
• Official Liverpool highlights were confirmed by YouTube oEmbed but have not yet passed the project's browser playback and rightsholder ledger, so the record remains video state none.

How we know

Every claim on this page is tied to a numbered source below. These are the contemporary records behind it, each one fetched and matched word for word before publication rather than taken on trust:

• Official club retrospective, 12 May 2022; match narrative, route and Dalglish reaction · Liverpool FC
• Official club retrospective, 21 October 2017 · Liverpool FC
• Official club interview, 9 August 2017; lines on the 1989 final and Hillsborough · Liverpool FC
• First-person account by Everton supporter Ian Collins, including memories of the final · Liverpool FC
• Match record, Everton XI, attendance, narrative and Colin Harvey reaction · Everton Encyclopedia
• FA history of cup substitutes; McCall and Rush in the 1988-89 final · The Football Association
• FA historian David Barber on Everton's sequence of final defeats · The Football Association
• BBC archive highlights synopsis, 15 January 2015 · BBC Sport
• Reports published after the final, including match table, lineups, attendance and narrative · The Times and The Sunday Times, archived by LFChistory.net
• Contemporary final reaction, Dalglish interview and Wembley aftermath · Daily Mirror, archived by LFChistory.net
• Official club retrospective on the league decider at Anfield, 26 May 1989 · Arsenal FC

Where a primary record and a modern account disagree, we show both rather than choosing the tidier number.

Sources

1. The FA Cup final where football was secondary · Liverpool FC
2. Beating Everton at Wembley in 1989 · Liverpool FC
3. Kenny Dalglish: What does LFC mean to me? Everything · Liverpool FC
4. Hillsborough: An Evertonian perspective · Liverpool FC
5. Everton v Liverpool, 1988-89 · Everton Encyclopedia
6. Everton, 20 May 1989 · LFChistory.net
7. Liverpool in the FA Cup - season by season · LFChistory.net
8. Liverpool v Everton, 20 May 1989 · 11v11
9. Everton's record in 1988-89 · Everton Results
10. England - FA Cup Finals 1946-2000 · RSSSF
11. Who will benefit from Emirates FA Cup quarter-final rule change? · The Football Association
12. Classic Reds v Blue FA Cup Finals · The Football Association
13. FA Cup archive: Liverpool v Everton, 1989 final · BBC Sport
14. The FA Cup's 50 Greatest Moments - A city united · BBC Sport
15. Times and Sunday Times reports: Liverpool 3 Everton 2 · The Times and The Sunday Times, archived by LFChistory.net
16. Daily Mirror, Monday 22 May 1989, page 31 · Daily Mirror, archived by LFChistory.net
17. Rocky Seven - Anfield 1989 · Arsenal FC

Elsewhere in the encyclopedia

These two clubs have met in a final before

• 1986 Liverpool 3-1 Everton

Other finals involving these clubs

• 1971 Liverpool: Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool
• 1985 Everton: Everton 0-1 Manchester United
• 1988 Liverpool: Wimbledon 1-0 Liverpool
• 1992 Liverpool: Liverpool 2-0 Sunderland
• 1995 Everton: Everton 1-0 Manchester United
• 1996 Liverpool: Liverpool 0-1 Manchester United

Other finals at Wembley Stadium

• 1923 Bolton Wanderers 2-0 West Ham United
• 1953 Blackpool 4-3 Bolton Wanderers
• 1971 Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool
• 1973 Sunderland 1-0 Leeds United
• 1979 Arsenal 3-2 Manchester United
• 1985 Everton 0-1 Manchester United

Elsewhere on WhatChan