It was the night Tommy Smith got away with kicking a referee and the game that Liverpool have waited 43 years to avenge.

Tomorrow Liverpool return to the San Siro for the first time since the infamous European Cup semi-final when the Anfield club suffered what many consider a terrible injustice.

The defeat by Inter Milan in 1965 has had the whiff of scandal around it ever since and been subject to accusations of bribery that have never gone away.

Tommy Smith, the former Liverpool centre back and one of the toughest footballers of his generation, played that night and remembers the game well. Smith was so upset with a string of questionable decisions from Jose Maria Ortiz de Mendibil, the Spanish referee, he chased him from the field.

Inter won that second leg 3-0 and stopped Liverpool reaching their first-ever European Cup final, the Merseyside club having triumphed in the first leg at Anfield 3-1.

There was an investigation into allegations that the referee was bribed but nothing was proved. Smith, however, is still angry about two hugely contentious goals awarded to Inter and an apparently good one that Liverpool had disallowed.

"We were very new to Europe and we didn't know what to expect," he said. "We were met by a very volatile crowd as we got off the plane, and then we were put in a hotel 50 yards from a church with a big bell that went off every hour.

"We didn't get much sleep the night before the game. When we got to the ground, the changing rooms didn't even have proper toilets, just a hole in the ground."

"We started okay, holding our own for 20 minutes, then they were awarded a free-kick 20 yards out. To this day I can still see the referee holding his arm up to signal an indirect free kick. Next thing we knew their left-half, Mario Corso, pops up and chips the ball straight past Tommy Lawrence [the Liverpool goalkeeper].

"I'm not saying any of the Inter players were on the fiddle, but the fact is the ball didn't touch anyone and the referee was adamant it was a goal. We remonstrated with him but he just ran back to the centre circle saying 'goal, goal, goal'.

"Their second was just as bad, if not worse. Lawrence had the ball in his hands and as he bounced it to kick it clear, Joaquin Peiro crept in from behind him to nick the ball and roll it into the net.

"I remember being with the England squad in Belfast when George Best did the same to Gordon Banks, and the goal was disallowed. But not in Milan. So we are 2-0 down and 3-3 on aggregate. Ian St John then scores and there's nothing wrong with it, but the referee chalks it off for offside. At this point I'm starting to think there's no way we are going to win this tie.

"Giacinto Facchetti scored a great goal, their third and the winner. But it was what had gone on before that riled me. I was only 20 at the time and to be robbed of a place in the European Cup final by a referee like that made me so angry. Needless to say, I had a few words with him [Ortiz de Mendibil] afterwards, but he didn't want to know. He didn't even break his stride as I followed him off the pitch."

Brian Glanville, now of The Sunday Times, was sufficiently dismayed by Ortiz de Mendibil's decisions to launch an investigation into corruption in Italian and European football after the game.

Nobody was found to have done anything wrong, but the decisions made that night still rankle. For Smith, victory in the San Siro tomorrow for Rafael Benitez's side will help to lay some of the resentment to rest.