Bill Shankly's final Liverpool league match was not the Wembley victory which so often stands as the closing image of his reign. Four days after the FA Cup final, there was still a First Division fixture to fulfil at Tottenham Hotspur. It finished 1–1.
The match at White Hart Lane on 8 May 1974 also gave a young defender his first appearance. Max Thompson, just 17, came into the side in place of John Toshack. The other ten starters had all played in the 3–0 defeat of Newcastle United at Wembley.
Thompson became the youngest player then known to have represented Liverpool's first team. His selection gave the evening a lasting significance quite separate from the managerial farewell which it would become only in retrospect.
For the first hour, neither side scored. Chris McGrath then put Tottenham ahead, but Steve Heighway quickly brought Liverpool level. A scorer in the cup final, Heighway supplied the goal which ensured that the league season ended with a point rather than a defeat.
Liverpool finished second with 57 points, five behind champions Leeds United and nine ahead of Derby County. The title had already been settled; this was the completion of their programme, not a final-day championship decider.
Nor was Shankly's retirement public knowledge. Its announcement would come in July, with Bob Paisley chosen as his successor later that month. The Tottenham fixture therefore acquired its place in the club's history afterwards: the last league side Shankly selected, containing an apprentice making his senior debut alongside ten newly crowned cup winners.
For Thompson, it was the beginning of a much shorter Liverpool first-team career. His only other competitive appearance would come as a substitute against Real Sociedad in the UEFA Cup in 1975. Yet the record set on his debut endured until Jack Robinson's appearance at Hull City in 2010.
An end-of-season draw had brought together two very different milestones: a teenager's first match and the final league entry in Shankly's Liverpool record.