Liverpool FC, Wembley and the League Cup Final

A Look at the History of the Record Winners of this Trophy.

This Sunday, March 16th 2025, when Liverpool take on Newcastle United at Wembley in the Carabao Cup Final, they do so as record holders for both the number of wins in this tournament (ten, hopefully soon eleven) and the number of final appearances (now 15).

Looking back at that redcord, it’s hard to imagine quite how lightly the tournament was regarded by the club at first, and most certainly by its supporters, who airily dismissed it as the ‘Mickey Mouse Cup’. It was a bit beneath us, maybe even a touch embarrassing to get too excited over it. Even being in it along with all the other hopeful deadbeats was a bit demeaning…

After entering the inaugural Cup in 1960/61, we didn’t even bother entering it again for another seven years. In truth we didn’t really used to take this tournament very seriously back then. We still don't really. The supporters, that is. Maybe the players and managers do – a trophy’s a trophy after all, and playing at Wembley – well, it’s special isn’t it? Apparently.

But we Kopites always felt we had bigger fish to fry, and more often than not, we did. We had the League title, our proverbial bread and butter, to challenge for most seasons, and as often as not the European Cup. The League Cup was strictly fourth out of four as far as competitions went - an easier stance to maintain when it’s quite feasible that you’ll win one of the other three, but less so if you’re not. The older you get, the more you realise you need to learn to take your triumphs whenever and however you can.

To this day, it is often still regarded by the fans of some Premier League clubs, certainly including Liverpool and pretty much any club that’s invovled in the Champions League) as the poor relation to the other major trophies available - or at least it was until, somewhere in deepest Europe, the Europa Conference League was concocted in a shady backstreet laboratory …

Maybe the League Cup’s constant changes of name, as a succession of sponsors came and went, haven’t help make it a more comfortable and cosy part of our football calendars like the FA Cup. For a start it doesn’t have the FA Cup’s long history, having a 69 year start on its junior cousin, and doesn’t have quite the same cache as the FA Cup, albeit a diminished and diminishing cache.

Having started as just the League Cup - no non-league entrants like the FA Cup - it has been the Littlewoods Cup, the Milk Cup and the Coca-Cola Cup, before soft drinks were replaced by beers of highly questionable quality when Worthington and Carling muscled in. Now we're back with another soft drink, Carabao. It often gets called the EFL Cup too, but in this article I’m just sticking with League Cup as a generic term. That’s what it was when we first entered it back in 1960, and when we reached our first final in 1978 (which we lost), when it was still too plain to attract a sponsor, even one as mundane sounding as ‘Milk.’

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