FeatureThree games and two coin tosses - Liverpool's epic Cologne clash 60 years ago

By March 24 of 1965, the Reds and the German club were familiar foes. Very familiar.

Their second-round (quarter-final) tie in the European Cup had actually begun some 42 days earlier, when the sides played out a goalless stalemate in Germany.

Another 90 minutes passed by without a mark on the scoresheet during the second leg at Anfield, meaning a replay was required on neutral ground: at Stadion Feyenoord in the Netherlands.

Twenty-two minutes into it, at last the contest got a goal, with Ian St John ideally placed to nudge the ball over the line from yards out when found by Roger Hunt’s pass at the byline.

Perhaps predictably, the floodgates opened and Bill Shankly could begin to dream of a maiden entry to the semi-finals after Hunt doubled Liverpool’s advantage on the night in the 37th minute with a looping header that went over the line via the crossbar.

But Cologne responded in kind and strikes either side of the interval – courtesy of Karl-Heinz Thielen and Johanns Lohr – sent the tie back into deadlock with 48 on the clock.

That parity would hold for the remainder of normal time and throughout an additional half-hour of extra-time.

The use of penalty shootouts to decide matches would not be implemented until 1970, and so the fate of the Reds and Cologne came down to pure chance.

A toss of a coin, in fact.

The specific details vary in retellings of the moment – the tool was a disc of red and white in some versions, a coin with heads and tails in others – but they all end in the same way.

Only after circumstance tried to thwart a winner yet again, mind you.

Liverpool captain Ron Yeats remembered calling tails and watching the coin land stuck on its edge in the turf. The defender detailed: “I said to the referee, ‘Ref, you’re going to have to re-toss the coin.’ And he went, ‘You’re right, Mr Yeats.’

“I thought the German captain was going to hit him. He was going berserk because it was falling over on the heads. He picked it up, up it went again, came down tails.”

The Reds were through to a semi-final against Internazionale as their maiden European campaign continued.

“We were coming off and who is standing there but Bill Shankly,” added Yeats. “I was first off the pitch and he went, ‘Well done, big man. I am proud of you. What did you pick?’

“I said, ‘I picked tails, boss.’ I was waiting for the adulation but he just went, ‘I would have picked tails myself’ and just walked away!”

Those three meetings in the space of six weeks in 1965 remain the only competitive games ever played between the clubs.

Maybe that’s just how it should be.