David Fairclough transformed a goalless Merseyside derby with an 88th-minute solo goal at Anfield on 3 April 1976. The nineteen-year-old substitute's run and finish gave Liverpool a 1–0 victory over Everton and two important points in a closely contested championship race.
The match began at eleven in the morning on Grand National day, with 54,632 spectators inside Anfield. Bob Paisley started with Kevin Keegan and John Toshack in his side, leaving Fairclough to wait on the bench. Neither team scored before the interval, and the deadlock continued into the second half.
Paisley introduced Fairclough for Toshack in the 64th minute. Everton had already made a change of their own, bringing Roger Kenyon on for Ken McNaught at half-time. The winning intervention would come not from a carefully constructed move involving several Liverpool players, but from Fairclough taking possession and carrying the attack himself.
An Everton throw near halfway supplied his opportunity. Fairclough won the ball and drove towards goal, evading defenders as he advanced into the right side of the penalty area. He finished with a low shot past Dai Davies towards the Anfield Road end. From an apparently unpromising position, Liverpool's substitute had produced the only goal of the game.
Fairclough later described the run as instinctive: having won possession, his immediate response was to beat the next blue shirt in front of him. His account offered no elaborate plan, simply the directness of a young forward comfortable taking the ball either way.
There was still time for Phil Neal to miss a penalty, but Liverpool did not require another goal. Fairclough's strike was his fourth in three appearances, extending an extraordinary spell for a player still establishing himself in the senior side.
Liverpool finished the day's programme second, two points behind Queens Park Rangers with a game in hand. The title remained undecided. At Anfield, though, a derby which had stayed level almost to the end had been settled by one teenager's run from halfway.