Wembley, 1 May 1965. Deep into the FA Cup final against Leeds United, the Liverpool end sang a Broadway show tune, and the BBC's Kenneth Wolstenholme called it “Liverpool's signature tune”. Ian St John's goal won it 2-1 after extra time. The Liverpool anthem has belonged to the Kop ever since.
| Song | You'll Never Walk Alone |
| Written by | Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) |
| From | The musical Carousel, 1945 |
| Famous version | Gerry and the Pacemakers, Parlophone, 1963 |
| UK chart | Number one for four weeks in November 1963 |
| Adopted by Liverpool | 1963, on the Kop at Anfield |
| Other clubs | Celtic, Borussia Dortmund, FC Twente, Feyenoord and more |
From Broadway to the Mersey
Nobody in Liverpool wrote it. In the second act of Carousel, Nettie Fowler sings it to comfort her cousin Julie Jordan, whose husband Billy Bigelow has stabbed himself after a botched robbery and died in her arms, and it returns at the graduation that closes the show.
Sinatra recorded it. So did Doris Day and Shirley Bassey.
Then Gerry Marsden got hold of it. Gerry and the Pacemakers recorded their version on 2 July 1963. The Official Charts Company lists its first chart week as 16 October that year, and it spent four weeks at number one from 6 November. That made three chart toppers from the band's first three singles.
How the Kop made it the Liverpool anthem
Anfield had a DJ before most grounds did. He played the top ten before kick-off, and the Kop sang along.
FourFourTwo traces the moment to a home game against West Bromwich Albion on 19 October 1963, just after the single climbed into the top ten, a match Liverpool won 1-0 in front of 43,099 according to the 11v11 records, although nobody can prove that was the first afternoon the crowd joined in. When the record later slipped out of the top ten, fans chanted “Where's our song?” until it came back.
Bill Shankly was an early convert. Former defender Tommy Smith has said Marsden played him a copy on a pre-season coach trip that summer. On the eve of the 1965 final, Shankly picked it as his last record on Desert Island Discs.
“Gerry my son, I have given you a football team and you have given us a song,” Shankly told Marsden, as the singer recalled it.
Wembley sealed it. The title now sits above the Shankly Gates.
Hillsborough, Gerry Marsden and the Kop today
Then came 15 April 1989. After Hillsborough the song carried a weight no pop single was built for, and Liverpool's announcement for the 31st anniversary memorial at Anfield in 2020 said the service would close with its singing. Andrew Devine, injured that day, died in July 2021. A coroner confirmed him as the 97th victim.
Marsden died aged 78 in early January 2021. His friend Pete Price said it followed an infection in his heart.
“It's not a song you just sing for singing's sake, it's definitely got a meaning,” Kenny Dalglish, who managed the club through Hillsborough, said in Liverpool's tribute.
The scarves still go up before every home game. In April 2020 Marsden had recorded a fresh version with a video thanking NHS staff, the same month Michael Ball and Captain Tom Moore took their own recording to number one for NHS Charities Together.
Who else sings it
Celtic got there quickly. Their supporters picked it up after the 1966 Cup Winners' Cup semi-final at Anfield.
Dortmund came later. Liverpool's official site tells how a local band, Pur Harmony, recorded a cover in 1996 and handed it to stadium announcer Norbert Dickel, and frontman Matthias Kartner says the Yellow Wall preferred it to the Pacemakers.
FC Twente's link runs through Anfield's announcer, George Sephton. At the Diekman Stadion's last match on 22 April 1998, a 3-1 win over Heerenveen, he gave the club his original vinyl copy, as This Is Anfield reported. Feyenoord fans sing the Lee Towers recording. Mainz, 1860 Munich, Club Brugge and FC Tokyo supporters use it too.
Football songs travel, as our pieces on the Manchester United anthem and the official World Cup songs show.
Where to hear the original Liverpool anthem audio
This page once offered an MP3. Not any more.
GoalBall Live does not host or link to downloads of the song, which is a copyrighted recording. The version the Kop adopted is the 1963 Gerry and the Pacemakers single on Parlophone, now part of Warner Music Group, and you can stream it legally on Spotify or Deezer, where it sits on compilations such as A's, B's & EP's and At Abbey Road. Check the track details first. Some collections carry a later re-recorded take, not the 1963 original.
Want the stage version instead? Look for a Carousel cast recording, and for another anthem story see our guide to the Champions League anthem.
This article was most recently revised and updated 5 hours ago
