"The fourth of Eighteen (1922-23)" by Steve Horton

 

Liverpool had been top of the league all season and went into this fixture four points clear of Sunderland, with each side having three games left to play. Our goal average was such that a win over Huddersfield would virtually guarantee us the title, but nothing was being taken for granted. The Terriers had had knocked us out of the FA Cup and we hadn't won any of our last four games.

 

50,000 crammed into Anfield and witnessed a nervy first half, but there were cheers when the half time scoreboards announced that Sunderland were losing 2-0 at Burnley.  Things still didn't go quite to plan when Brown gave the visitors the lead soon after the restart and we didn't equalise until the 77th minute when Harry Chambers scored with an emphatic header.

 

There were no further goals and fans were left with a tense wait to see if Sunderland had got back into their game. When news came through that they had lost 2-0 there were joyous celebrations as there was no way we could be caught, even on goal average. 

 

Captain Don McKinlay said that even though we had been champions the season before, it had been even harder to win, as more teams raised their games against us.  Celebrating fans had even more reason to be cheerful, as a recent budget cut had knocked a penny off the price of beer.