Five Liverpool players scored against Newcastle at Anfield on 18 March 1972. The goalkeeper’s contribution also mattered.
Chris Lawler opened the scoring, Kevin Keegan and John Toshack made it 3–0 before half-time, and Emlyn Hughes and Steve Heighway added further goals after the interval. The result was Liverpool’s biggest home league win of the 1971–72 season.
Yet the score alone leaves out part of the game. The Liverpool Echo’s account, preserved in LFChistory’s match record, praised Ray Clemence’s saves and argued that Newcastle had deserved goals. This was a convincing margin built with help from the goalkeeper as well as the five scorers.
The match also became attached to a story about the newly installed “This Is Anfield” sign. In Ian St John’s later recollection, Malcolm Macdonald joked about it in the tunnel before kick-off. Bill Shankly heard him and, after the win, went to Newcastle’s dressing room to deliver a pointed reminder.
That remembered exchange gave the result an enduring anecdote. The football offers a more substantial reason to retain the match: Liverpool scored through players from different parts of the side, while Clemence prevented Newcastle’s opportunities from changing the outcome.
A 5–0 score can encourage an easy description of ninety minutes in which one team did everything and the other offered nothing. The contemporary report resists that interpretation. Liverpool’s finishing produced the decisive margin; keeping the clean sheet required work too.
For an archive, both belong in the account. This was an emphatic victory and a memorable afternoon at Anfield, without needing to turn it into a match in which Newcastle never threatened.