Anfield matchday guide: what to sort out before kick-off

Where the ground actually is

Anfield is on Anfield Road, Liverpool, L4 0TH — roughly three kilometres north-east of Lime Street in a straight line, wedged into terraced streets on one side and Stanley Park on the other. It holds 61,276 since the Anfield Road end was enlarged.

That location is the single fact that shapes the day. You cannot wander out of a city-centre hotel twenty minutes before kick-off and expect to make it. It is walkable — plenty of people walk it — but budget appreciably more than the straight-line distance suggests, and considerably more than that on the way back, when several thousand other people want the same pavement.

Before you leave the hotel

Four things, and all four are easier to do the night before than on Walton Breck Road.

• Download the ticket. Tickets at Anfield are digital, on a smartphone, and a maximum of four can sit on one device. Get them onto the phone before you travel rather than trusting a signal in a crowd of sixty thousand.
• Charge the phone. It is your ticket and, in a cashless ground, your wallet.
• Leave the bag. Only a handheld bag up to A5 — 148.5 × 210 mm, the size of a small paperback — is allowed in, along with clear LFC Superstore carrier bags holding Superstore purchases. Rucksacks, holdalls and suitcases do not get through. Oversized bags are permitted only for medical equipment, with prior approval. Everything that does get in is searched.
• Empty your pockets early. The club specifically asks supporters to take keys and phones out of their pockets before reaching the turnstile, because every adult now goes through a search.

The club's matchday information does mention a bag-drop facility, and notes that it takes card only. Treat it as a fallback, not a plan — travelling without a bag is faster and always works.

Getting there

Liverpool runs extra services around the fixture. The club lists these as the matchday options:

Check the first and last departures yourself. The stops above are stable; the exact windows are not, and the published times differ between the club's page, the rail operator's page and the bus company's page. Look at the operator on the morning of the match rather than trusting any guide — this one included.

When to arrive, honestly

Turnstiles open two hours before kick-off for general admission, and three hours for hospitality. Because every adult is now searched on entry — a change the club has tied to national venue security rules — it asks supporters to turn up ten minutes earlier than their usual routine.

For a first visit, two hours before kick-off is not over-cautious, it is the point. You want time to walk the outside of the ground, find the Shankly Gates and the Hillsborough memorial, look at the Paisley Gateway, and get into your seat without a queue. None of that is available to somebody arriving at ten to three.

Money inside the ground

Anfield is fully cashless. Bars, kiosks, the food stalls in Paisley Square and on Skerries and Venmore Road, and the Family Park all take cards only.

Chip and pin applies above £30, so know the PIN for the card you bring rather than relying on tapping. The one exception to the cashless rule is merchandise: the LFC Stores still take cash.

Away supporters

Visiting supporters are housed in the lower tier of the Anfield Road end, at the opposite end of the ground from the Kop. It is the same end that was rebuilt and enlarged, and the club's own accessibility information places its visiting-supporter wheelchair bays in blocks AL7 and AL8.

Allocations, entry points and segregation arrangements are set fixture by fixture, and the club you are following will tell you the current ones. Ask them, not a forum post from three seasons ago.

Ground rules that catch visitors out

• No smoking and no vaping anywhere inside the ground. The club is explicit that anyone smoking inside the stadium will be ejected, and that includes electronic cigarettes.
• Persistent standing in seated areas while play is in progress is forbidden and can get you removed. English grounds mean it.
• Alcohol. You cannot bring it in, and under the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985 it is an offence to be in possession of drink in a public area from which the pitch can be seen. That is the law, not a club preference, and it is why you drink in the concourse and not in your seat.
• Flags and banners must fit the club's policy; political statements and national flags are not permitted, and anything over the club's maximum dimensions is refused.
• Your ticket is not transferable and may not be resold without the club's written permission. A touting conviction means a permanent ban.
• Filming. Recording on your phone for yourself is fine; publishing match footage is not.

Getting back into town

Sixty thousand people leave one residential district at the same time. The Soccerbus runs back to Sandhills for 90 minutes after the final whistle, the 927 picks up on St Domingo Road, and the 917 return buses sit on Walton Lane. If you are not in a hurry, the least stressful option is often to stay put for ten minutes, walk a few streets away from the ground, and let the first surge clear.

If you have an evening train to catch, work backwards from it before the match rather than afterwards. This is the part of a first away trip that goes wrong most often, and it goes wrong quietly — not at the turnstile, but on a platform at half past five.

Anfield is one of those grounds people mean to get to for years before they do. Putting it on a list with a date next to it is what turns it from an intention into a trip — and once you have been, the match, the ticket and the distance you travelled all belong on the same record. Start your ground list.

Questions people actually ask

What time do the turnstiles open at Anfield?

Two hours before kick-off for general admission, three hours for hospitality. Add ten minutes to your usual arrival time for the search on entry.

Can I take a bag into Anfield?

Only a handheld bag up to A5 — 148.5 × 210 mm — or a clear LFC Superstore carrier bag containing Superstore purchases. Anything larger is refused unless it is medical equipment approved in advance.

Do I need cash at Anfield?

No, and in most of the ground you cannot use it. Bars, kiosks and street food are cashless. Only the LFC Stores take cash.

Is my ticket a paper one?

No. Tickets are digital and live on a smartphone, up to four per device. Download before you travel.

Can I walk from the city centre?

Yes, and people do — the ground is around 3 km from the centre in a straight line. Allow properly for it, especially afterwards, and treat the matchday buses as the faster option if the weather is doing what Liverpool weather does.

What we checked, and when

The entry rules, search policy, bag size, cashless arrangements and ticket format above come from Liverpool FC's own matchday information, ground regulations and help centre; the capacity figure is the club's; the bus services and pick-up points are the ones the club lists. Kick-off times, bus timetables, away allocations and ground rules are revised between seasons and sometimes between matches. The date at the top of this page is when we last checked — after that, the club's own site is the only version that counts.