Why Liverpool’s Historic 134-Year Record Is at Risk of Ending

“It’s always this little plus if they come from Liverpool. If I have two players, same quality, but one speaks proper English and the other one speaks Scouse, the Scouser is in! That’s why we are Liverpool.”
Jürgen Klopp, 2018

Liverpool is a proud city that considers itself unique within the British Isles, running to a slightly different beat than anywhere else. Pioneer psychologist Carl Jung, from Switzerland, wrote in 1927 after a particularly vivid dream that Liverpool is the “pool of life, it makes to live.”

That pride bleeds into Liverpool FC, which has plenty of reason to believe it is the most successful English club in history—tied with Manchester United for league titles (20), but by far the best in the European Cup thanks to six triumphs.

Every soccer club ideally wants its team filled with homegrown players, ones who have grown up locally. In 1967, Celtic were crowned European champions with a team in which every single player was born within a 30-mile radius of the club’s home stadium. That is an extreme example, but Liverpool possess their own record, which has seen a ‘Scouser’—the enduring term for people from the city region—play in every season since the Reds formed in 1892.

Legendary managers have become adopted Liverpudlians, with Bill Shankly hailing from Scotland and Bob Paisley born and raised in England’s north east. But there has always been a stream of ‘Scouse’ running through the playing squad—sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, but constant.

It’s slightly different to Manchester United’s record of naming an academy graduate in every matchday squad since 1937. For that feat, players can come from anywhere but it is defined by every match rather than season-by-season. The Liverpool streak is longer, now at 134 years.

But it is in trouble. In recent years, Curtis Jones has been the ‘Scouse’ lifeblood of Liverpool. The midfielder, who made 49 appearances last season, has become the third Englishman to join Inter this summer in a $41 million (£30 million) deal.

Jones played 228 times for Liverpool, debuting in January 2019, representing the city throughout most of that time alongside Trent Alexander-Arnold until last summer.

Liverpool’s First Matchday Squad of 2026–27 Includes No Scousers

The Reds to take on Newcastle in our season opener ✊ #NEWLIV
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) August 23, 2026

The only other Liverpool-born player besides Jones to feature for the first team last season was Jayden Danns, who played 15 minutes in a Carabao Cup tie against Southampton.

The young forward made the bench on one other occasion—in the first round of the Champions League—and didn’t come close to playing in the Premier League. Turning 21 this season and yet to make a genuine first-team breakthrough, his prospects of playing are worsening. His name was unsurprisingly absent from the 20-player roster named for Sunday’s Premier League opener against Newcastle United.

Other academy graduates like Rio Ngumoha (London), Trey Nyoni (Reading), James McConnell (Newcastle) and Lewis Koumas (Chester) are named in the squad, but hail from other parts of England.

Fifth-choice goalkeeper Harvey Davies is from Liverpool but has never made a senior appearance and is unlikely to any time soon. Many other academy prospects just below the current first team are from surrounding places like Wrexham, Warrington and Preston and so don’t count towards the ‘Scouser’ record even if they have been nurtured by Liverpool most of their young lives.

If there is anyone who will understand the importance of such a record, it is Andoni Iraola. The new manager made 510 appearances for Athletic Club during his own career, the club from Bilbao which adheres to a strict policy that only allows Basque players to represent it.

If Iraola can find a way to protect Liverpool’s ‘Scouser’ record and keep it going, surely he will.

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