Anyone who has ever watched Liverpool playing in a home game will know all too well that the Reds like to kick towards the Kop in the second-half of a football match. That stand is, of course, where the most passionate of supporters are based, seeing the majority of songs start from there. That has long been the case, which led to the suggestion many years ago that the Kop could ‘suck the ball into the net’.
Whilst that isn’t literally true, it is certainly the case that more than a few teams have come unstuck thanks to late goals scored at that end of the football pitch.
Is that true, though, or does it just feel like it?
Kicking Towards the Kop
Tradition dictates that, should Liverpool win the toss, they will kick towards the Anfield Road End in the first-half of a football match, which will allow them to kick towards the Kop in the second 45. In 1963, a press report on the Reds said, “There’s nothing in football like the Kop. It throbs like some huge factory. Those fans come not only to be entertained, but to entertain.” That sense of the Kop being part of the match rather than just there to observe it is something that has been the case since the days of Bill Shankly, but is it actually true that Liverpool kick that way the majority of the time?
@ftb.trv The atmosphere in the Kop is always something else ❤️🙌🏼 #Anfield #Reds #Liverpool #LFC #Kop #PremierLeague #Groundhopping #Scouser #LiverpoolFC #Stadium #Football #FootballTikTok #futbol ♬ original sound – Football Travel
LFCHistory.net did some research into the matter and discovered we kicked towards the Kop in the first-half 94 times across 219 matches between 1986 and 1995. That works out as 43% of the time, which is in line with the 43% of matches that saw us kick towards the famous stand between 1946 and 1986, in the matches where it was possible to identify the direction of play. That was 202 times in 474 matches. Interestingly, it happened few times in more recent games, with the figures being as follows:
| Season | Games | Times Kicking Toward the Kop | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-2019 | 26 | 4 | 15% |
| 2017-2018 | 27 | 5 | 18% |
| 2016-2017 | 24 | 4 | 16% |
| 2015-2016 | 31 | 5 | 16% |
In fact, going back to the 2005-2006 season revealed that we kicked towards the Kop in the first-half 83 times in 369 matches, which is about 22% of the time. Quite why that is the case is difficult to identify, but it might well have something to do with how the referee has instigated the toss during that time. In the 1975-1976 campaign, the Reds played 28 matches at Anfield and it was an even split of 14 times kicking towards the Kop in the first-half and 14 times kicking towards the Anfield Road End.
Does it Make a Difference?
You can tell from the above table that, in the modern era at least, Liverpool have kicked towards the Kop in the second-half about 85% of the time. If the stand really does boast a mythical ability to be able to influence matches, you would imagine, therefore, that the Reds have won about 85% of their matches during the same time period. Here is how it actually pans out in the Premier League:
| Season | Number of Home Games | Number of Home Wins | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-2019 | 19 | 17 | 89% |
| 2017-2018 | 19 | 12 | 63% |
| 2016-2017 | 19 | 12 | 63% |
| 2015-2016 | 19 | 8 | 42% |
In all, Liverpool played 76 home matches in the Premier League across the four seasons, winning 49 of them. That is the equivalent of around 64% of games. In other words, the Kop isn’t quite the solution to all of the football club’s ills that opposition managers and players might like to suggest.
What About Goals?
The idea of the Kop is that it allows Liverpool to score more goals when shooting towards it than away from it. Does this hold up to any real scrutiny? The answer is: sort of. LFCHistory crunched the numbers and discovered that the Reds had scored 4,675 goals across a specific period of time. Of those goals, 2,461 of them had been scored at the Kop end, whilst 2,214 came when the team was shooting into the Anfield Road End. That is 52.64% of goals scored when attacking one of the most famous grounds in football, with 47.36% of goals coming when we were going the other way.
It is fair to say, therefore, that the Kop gives the Reds a slight advantage, but nowhere near enough of one for some of the moaning that we will often hear from opposition managers and pundits. In a sport in which fine margins can make all of the difference, it makes complete sense for the Reds to want to shoot towards the Kop in a game, given the fact that they are nearly 6% more likely to score when shooting that way. Everyone inside Anfield has a duty to do what they can to encourage us to score no matter which way we’re shooting, though, which is worth bearing in mind.
