Liverpool: The Rock "n" Goal tour that combines Anfield with the Beatles Our tour started at Anfield. We were told by our guide, Alan Gerr, that in 1884 a club called St Domingo's (which became Everton a year later) started playing at the venue, owned by businessman John Houlding. Everton fell out with Houlding and relocated to Goodison Park, forcing him to start a new club in 1892, named Liverpool. They won the first of their 18 League titles in 1900-01. After the War, we learnt, the club fell on hard times. Then demagogue Shankly restored their reputation, leading them to league titles in 1963-64 and 1965-66. Bob Paisley, Kenny Dalglish and Joe Fagan were among the club's other great managers, guiding them, over the next 25 years, to a host of league and European Cup finals. The ideas that fuelled Liverpool's success at that time came out of the Boot Room, a small area where the manager and his assistants would sit and drink tea and whisky, and discuss tactics and personnel. By all accounts it was musty and smelt of mud; it had a rickety old table, plastic chairs and a tatty carpet. It was the embodiment of the coaching staff's - and club's - simple, grounded approach to the game: identify and sign the best players, train hard, play hard, keep possession and love the ball. Then came the Premier League, formed by the top clubs to take advantage of the lucrative television deal being offered by the recently formed Sky Television, and in 1993 the Boot Room was demolished to make way for a bigger media area. Liverpool fans say it is no coincidence that the club has not won the league since. We sat in the media room and were treated to a highly amusing series of impressions from impressionist Darren Farley (who sometimes joins these tours) of Rafael Benítez, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher. Youngsters will love this if is on duty the day you go. A new Boot Room was reintroduced under Benítez in 2008, and we saw it on our tour. It's next door to the cosy, intimate changing room. Sitting next to the shirts of the first team, arranged in order from goalkeeper Pepe Reina's, through the defence, midfield and attack, culminating in young winger Raheem Sterling's top, was one of the tour's highlights. Although we weren't allowed to try on the shirts, we could handle them and have our photograph taken with them. Being allowed to touch the famous This is Anfield sign as we walked out on to the pitch was another thrill and a sit-down in the world-famous stand, The Kop, brought the tour to a close. Gerry and the Pacemakers" "You'll Never Walk Alone" is played before every game, and your tour guide will press a button to play it around the stadium. After hearing the highly entertaining talk by Alan Gerr, and looking around the club museum, which contains the European Cup that Liverpool were allowed to keep after winning it five times, even a non-LFC fan could appreciate why the club are so desperate to stay at - and expand - their historic ground, rather than move to a purpose-built facility. The same sense of history can be enjoyed at the Beatles Story. The museum takes you on a chronological journey as you pass through lovingly recreated, atmospheric rooms, beginning with the band's formation as the Quarrymen at school. You then learn how their musical education continued in the clubs of Liverpool (the Casbah Coffee Club and the more famous Cavern), during the period known as the 'Merseybeat," after the music paper that chronicled the bands and concerts of the time. There is a jukebox loaded with seven-inch vinyl records, and a wall of a record shop stacked high with singles - alien sights for anybody aged 30 or under, no doubt. The tour then recreates the seedy venues of Hamburg. We learn about the tragic deaths of bass player Stu Sutcliffe and manager Brian Epstein, and how drummer Pete Best was unceremoniously replaced by Ringo Starr. Then it's on to Beatlemania, when hordes of screaming females greeted the Beatles" every public appearance, their conquest of the States and the meeting with Elvis Presley, and their divergence into drugs, spiritualism, psychedelia and musical experimentation. Exhibits show how they divested their clean-cut, mopped-hair images to skirt with controversy, talking about the Vietnam War and religion (Lennon said, "We're more popular than Jesus now," which led to a backlash in the States). Then Epstein's death was the beginning of the end as the band fell out and eventually split up, developing solo careers in and out of the music industry. A commentary track narrated by John Lennon's sister, Julia, is particularly informative, explaining how Lennon and Paul McCartney became so close, bound together by the loss of their mothers in their teenage years. The Rock 'n" Goal tour attractions are each worth visiting in their own right; but coupled together they make for a superb day's entertainment - and no one is suggesting you do not go to Everton's Goodison Park the next day. Tickets for the joint tour are available at www.rockngoaltour.com and cost £26.50 for adults, £17.50 for under 16s, students and senior citizens.