Liverpool played their first match on 1 September 1892, a pre-season friendly match against Rotherham Town, which they won 7-1. The team Liverpool fielded against Rotherham was composed entirely of players that Manager John McKenna had recruited during a scouting trip to Scotland. In those days, players who came from Scotland to play in England were known as Scotch Professors.

Scottish footballer Malcolm McVean scored Liverpool's first ever goal in the pre-season match against Rotherham Town, and when Liverpool was admitted to the Football League a year later, it was McVean who scored their first ever goal in the League, in a 2-0 win over Middlesbrough Ironopolis on 2 September 1893.

The team changed from red shirts and white shorts to an all-red home kit in 1964 which has been used ever since.

Anfield, built in 1884 on land adjacent to Stanley Park, has been the home of Liverpool F.C. since their formation in 1892. The stadium has four stands: the Spion Kop, the Main Stand, the Sir Kenny Dalglish Stand and the Anfield Road End.

During the 1994-95 season Robbie Fowler was a constant member of the Liverpool side, playing in all of their 57 competitive matches, including the victory in the 1995 League Cup final, and a match against Arsenal in which he scored what was then the Premier League's second-fastest hat-trick ever, in four minutes and 33 seconds.

The song "You'll Never Walk Alone", originally from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel and later recorded by Liverpool musicians Gerry and the Pacemakers, is the club's anthem and has been sung by the Anfield crowd since the early 1960s. The song's title adorns the top of the Shankly Gates, which were unveiled on 2 August 1982 in memory of former manager Bill Shankly.

Ian Rush played for Liverpool from 1980-1987 and 1988-1996. He is the club's all-time leading goalscorer, having scored a total of 346 goals in all competitions at the club.

In 1906 the banked stand at one end of Anfield was formally renamed the Spion Kop after a hill in KwaZulu-Natal. The hill was the site of the Battle of Spion Kop in the Second Boer War, where over 300 men of the Lancashire Regiment died, many of them from Liverpool. Today, Liverpool fans often refer to themselves as Kopites, a reference to the fans who once stood, and now sit, on the Kop at Anfield.

Liverpool's longest-established rivalry is with fellow Liverpool team Everton, against whom they contest the Merseyside derby. The rivalry stems from Liverpool's formation and the dispute with Everton officials and the then owners of Anfield. Since the mid-1980s, the rivalry has intensified both on and off the field, and the Merseyside derby has had more players sent off than any other Premier League game. It has been referred to as "the most ill-disciplined and explosive fixture in the Premier League."

The Liverpool fans' adoration for "Digger" (he was nicknamed after the character Digger Barnes in the American soap opera Dallas) was emphasised when he finished in the top 5 of the poll 100 Players Who Shook The Kop which was conducted by the official Liverpool Football Club web site in the summer of 2006. A year later, FourFourTwo magazine named him Liverpool's best all time player.