FeatureA Monday night in Iceland: Liverpool's first European match, 60 years ago today

Bill Shankly’s side had qualified for a maiden crack at the European Cup having won the 1963-64 First Division title after being promoted back to England’s top flight just two years earlier.

They had more than merited their shot at the silver, too. Forty-two matches in that successful league campaign had yielded 26 victories and 92 goals for the resurgent Reds, who finished four points clear at the summit.

More than 70 years after the club’s formation, there would be one more obstacle before Liverpool could enter the European Cup proper, however.

Which is why, on August 17, 1964, Shankly’s side were running out at Laugardalsvollur stadium for the first leg of a preliminary round meeting with Knattspyrnufelag Reykjavikur.

The Reds’ European adventure was fewer than three minutes old when Scottish forward Gordon Wallace grabbed himself a slice of club history.

He, with some fortune, dispatched a close-range finish past the home goalkeeper: Liverpool’s first European goal and first of what would be five unanswered on the evening.

“From all of six yards, I battered it in! No, I didn’t… I mishit it actually!” Wallace told Liverpoolfc.com with a laugh. “The goalkeeper was on one side of the goal and really I should have gone for the space on the other side.

“But he anticipated what he thought I was going to do and he went that way, and the ball went in between him and the post.

“I’ve got to say it was [a mishit] in all honesty… I shouldn’t really admit that!”

The visitors’ dominance over hosts KR was not reflected in the half-time scoreline, which remained 1-0, but they would press home that advantage beyond the break.

Roger Hunt made it 2-0 a minute after the restart, while Phil Chisnall and Wallace found the net in quick succession just before the hour mark.

An emphatic result was sealed two minutes from the end when Hunt produced what reporter Horace Yates described as “a terrific rocket shot from 35 yards” that “gave the goalkeeper no sort of chance”.

Wallace recalled of the occasion: “It was something new for Liverpool to go there. It was a marvellous experience, going to a beautiful country, absolutely lovely country.

“One of my memories is on the flight over there, the pilot said to us, ‘If you look down now, a volcano is erupting.’ The view was just amazing, the volcano erupting, it was something I’ll never forget.

“And, of course, at the game we did quite well there. They were an amateur team in a way, we were professionals and they were amateur so we were expected to win.

“As the game progressed, it happened very quickly and I was very fortunate. As most ex-players say: it’s not about the individual, it’s about the other 10 players and team, you’re all part of it.”

It was a comfortable and pleasing start to a new frontier for Shankly’s men, who immediately gained the admiration of the home side for the manner of their football.

“After the match, several of the Icelandic players readily conceded that Liverpool were the finest team they have met,” detailed Yates.

“Others, with longer memories, bracketed Liverpool with the West German national side and Moscow Dynamo as the most powerful football combination ever to visit the island.”