When Liverpool reached the 1965 FA Cup final, a couple of days before the Wembley showpiece, Reds captain Ron Yeats received a phone call from Buckingham Palace.
The Queen would present the trophy to the winners of the game between Liverpool and Leeds United, and palace intermediaries had called, to brief both skippers on the protocol for the occasion.
They made it clear that should his side win the trophy, Yeats must not speak to the Queen until she had addressed him first. The towering defender was also told to respond, if appropriate, with only a “Yes Ma’am” and “No Ma’am.”
After a tense final which went to a gruelling 120 minutes after extra time with no substitutes - and with Liverpool defender Gerry Byrne playing much of the game with a broken collarbone - Ian St John decided the trophy with a late, late winner for the Merseyside club.
Yeats proudly climbed the 39 steps to the Royal Box to receive the trophy, pausing just before he met the Queen to wipe his hands dirtied from a game played in driving rain…a gesture which would be echoed by England’s World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore when he received the trophy from the Queen in exactly the same spot a year later.
As the 6ft 2in defender, described as a “colossus” by his manager Bill Shankly who once invited reporters to “walk around him”, bent in to speak to the smiling monarch, she shook his hand as he took the trophy, and said sweetly: “You must be exhausted!”
Beaming from ear to ear, the player born in Aberdeen paused for a second and replied with typical Scottish candour: “I’m absolutely knackered!”
Quick as a flash, and still with the sweet smile, the Queen retorted: “I’ll bet you are…!” before releasing the captain’s hand, allowing him to turn and raise the trophy aloft towards the emotional Liverpool support, as the club won the competition for the very first time.
This weekend, the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror celebrate the life of Her Majesty the Queen with a commemorative special filled with all the key moments from Britain’s longest reigning monarch. Be sure to pick up your copy of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror to get both pullouts.
