Liverpool Trivia
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48 free Liverpool trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free Liverpool trivia questions with answers. Liverpool is two subjects in one: a great Atlantic port city and one of the most decorated football clubs in the world, and this quiz gives each about half the questions. The city half covers King John's 1207 charter, the Liver Birds and their legend, the fireproof Albert Dock, the first inter-city railway, the two cathedrals on Hope Street, the Cavern Club, the Grand National at Aintree and the loss of UNESCO status in 2021. The football half runs from John Houlding's founding of the club in 1892 through Shankly, Paisley and Dalglish to Istanbul, Madrid, Klopp's title and the Merseyside derby. Easy questions ask which river the city stands on or who sings the anthem played before every home game; harder ones want the sculptor of the Liver Birds, the horse that won the 1967 National at 100/1, and how many times the Beatles played the Cavern. It suits pub quiz nights, Reds and Blues alike, and anyone who has walked the Pier Head. Every answer has been checked against the relevant Wikipedia articles on the city, its buildings and the club, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Whose letters patent of 1207 founded the borough of Liverpool?
King John
King John. His letters patent advertised a brand-new borough and invited settlers to take up plots there, with the trading privileges of a port as the lure.
Q 02Which peninsula faces Liverpool across the Mersey estuary?
The Wirral
The Wirral. Its Birkenhead Park so impressed the visiting American Frederick Law Olmsted in 1850 that it helped inspire his design for New York's Central Park.
Q 03The nickname 'Scouser' for a Liverpool native comes from what?
A stew eaten by sailors
A stew eaten by sailors. Scouse is short for lobscouse, a ship's dish of meat and hard biscuit that caught on in the port and gave its people their nickname.
Q 04Liverpool hosted the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of which country?
Ukraine
Ukraine. Kalush Orchestra won the 2022 contest, but Russia's invasion made hosting at home impossible, so the BBC staged the show in Liverpool instead.
Q 05The Liver Bird on Liverpool's coat of arms is normally depicted as which real bird?
A cormorant
The Liver Bird is shown as a cormorant carrying a sprig of laver seaweed in its beak, a visual pun on the city's name; the original medieval seal bird was probably an eagle.
Q 06According to local legend, what happens if the two Liver Birds mate and fly away?
The city would cease to exist
The city would cease to exist, in that telling, which is why the pair face away from each other; another story has them chained down to stop them leaving.
Q 07The Royal Liver Building is one of the Pier Head's Three what?
Graces
The Three Graces. They stand on the site of George's Dock, filled in around 1900; the dock board built first, swapping offices scattered across the city for one grand waterfront home.
Q 08Liverpool's Albert Dock warehouses of 1846 were built without which common structural material?
Wood
Wood. Building only in cast iron, brick and stone made them the world's first non-combustible warehouses, a fireproof and secure home for cargo.
Q 09Which national art gallery opened a northern branch in Liverpool's Albert Dock in 1988?
Tate
Tate. The 'Tate of the North' took over a disused dock warehouse, in the city where sugar magnate Henry Tate had started out as a grocer's apprentice.
Q 10Which Liverpool MP was killed by a locomotive on the opening day of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway?
William Huskisson
William Huskisson, MP for Liverpool, was struck by a locomotive on 15 September 1830 after stepping down to greet the Duke of Wellington; he became the first widely reported railway passenger fatality.
Q 11Which locomotive won the 1829 Rainhill Trials to haul trains on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway?
Rocket
Rocket, built by Robert Stephenson and Company, was the only one of the five engines that turned up to complete the course, winning the £500 prize and the contract.
Q 12Which architect of Liverpool's Anglican cathedral also designed Britain's red telephone box?
Giles Gilbert Scott
Giles Gilbert Scott won the cathedral competition at 22, when his only built design was a pipe rack; picking a Catholic for an Anglican cathedral raised eyebrows too.
Q 13Which record does Liverpool's Anglican cathedral hold?
Longest cathedral in the world
Q 21Which future Beatles manager first saw them at the Cavern in November 1961?
Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein, who ran his family's NEMS record store, watched a lunchtime set and offered to manage them; within a year he had smartened up their image and won them a recording contract.
Q 22Liverpool is home to Europe's oldest community of people from which country?
China
China. Sailors hired by Alfred Holt's Blue Funnel Line began settling in the city in the 1860s, and the arch over Nelson Street was built in Shanghai and assembled in 2000.
Q 23What kind of giant mechanical creature was La Princesse, which roamed Liverpool's streets in 2008?
A spider
A spider. Built by the French company La Machine, she first appeared clinging to a derelict tower block on Lime Street, and ended her tour of the city in the Queensway road tunnel.
Longest cathedral in the world, at about 189 metres with its Lady Chapel; building began in 1904 and took 74 years, so its architect never saw it finished.
Q 14What is the local nickname of Liverpool's Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral?
Paddy's Wigwam
Paddy's Wigwam stands on the crypt of a far grander cathedral by Edwin Lutyens, abandoned as costs soared in wartime; its dome would have been wider than St Peter's in Rome.
Q 15Which street links Liverpool's Anglican and Catholic cathedrals?
Hope Street
Hope Street. The fitting name is a coincidence: it honours William Hope, a merchant whose house stood there long before either cathedral was built.
Q 16Which body stripped Liverpool's waterfront of a prized heritage listing in 2021?
UNESCO
UNESCO deleted the waterfront from its World Heritage List, saying new developments, Everton's stadium among them, had badly damaged it; only two sites had ever been delisted before.
Q 17Which Liverpool-based shipping company operated the Titanic?
White Star Line
White Star Line ran its fleet from Albion House on James Street, so Titanic was registered in Liverpool even though she sailed from Southampton.
Q 18Which horse won the Grand National at Aintree in 1973, 1974 and 1977?
Red Rum
Red Rum was trained on the sands at Southport by car dealer Ginger McCain, and is buried beside the Aintree winning post.
Q 19What let 100/1 outsider Foinavon win the 1967 Grand National?
A pile-up
A pile-up stopped his rivals at the 23rd fence; Foinavon was so far behind that jockey John Buckingham could steer round the chaos, and the fence now bears the horse's name.
Q 20When the Cavern Club opened on Mathew Street in 1957, what kind of music was it for?
Jazz
Jazz. Owner Alan Sytner modelled it on a Paris cellar club and banned rock and roll, famously passing John Lennon a note mid-set telling him to cut it out.
Q 24Who opened Liverpool's Capital of Culture year from a rooftop?
Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr played on the roof of St George's Hall to open Liverpool's 2008 year as European Capital of Culture, a title won ahead of rival bids from Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Oxford and Newcastle-Gateshead.
Q 25Who ran the earliest known ferry across the Mersey, rowing passengers over from Birkenhead?
Benedictine monks
Benedictine monks from Birkenhead Priory rowed travellers across for a small fare and sheltered them when the weather was too rough to cross; a royal charter later confirmed the right.
Q 26Which brewer and Anfield landowner founded Liverpool FC in 1892 after Everton left the ground?
John Houlding
John Houlding was left with an empty ground when Everton walked out in a row over rent, so he formed a new club to fill it; the FA would not let him keep the Everton name.
Q 27Liverpool's first team, which beat Rotherham 7-1 in 1892, was made up entirely of players from where?
Scotland
Scotland. The club's first manager signed the whole side on a scouting trip north, and so many surnames began with Mc that it became known as the 'team of Macs'.
Q 28Anfield's Kop stand is named after a hill in which country?
South Africa
Spion Kop is a hill in South Africa where Lancashire regiments suffered heavy losses in a January 1900 Boer War battle; the Anfield terrace took the name in 1906.
Q 29Which club did Bill Shankly leave to become Liverpool manager in December 1959?
Huddersfield Town
Huddersfield Town, where he had handed a 16-year-old Denis Law his debut; within a month at Anfield he had listed 24 players he wanted gone, and all had left inside a year.
Q 30Before becoming Liverpool manager in 1974, Bob Paisley had served the club in which backroom role?
Physiotherapist
Physiotherapist. Paisley was self-taught and was said to diagnose an injury just by looking at a player; he took the manager's job reluctantly, then won three European Cups.