The Community Shield - or Charity Shield as it used to be known - has always divided opinion.
To some it is little more than a glorified pre-season friendly and acts as an irritating reminder that the ‘phoney war’ as they wait impatiently for the resumption of league football is not quite yet over.
Others see it as a desirable piece of silverware worth of a place in the trophy cabinet and in front of that season’s team photo, as well as a litmus test with just a week to go to see how ready the team is ahead of the resumption of real hostilities.
After all, you generally only get to compete for it as a reward for success the season before which is why FA Cup winners Liverpool will be contesting it against Premier League champions Manchester City this weekend.
There are of course occasions when Shield participants are not there by virtue of lifting silverware the previous May such as the last time the Reds and City did battle for it at Wembley three years ago when, with Guardiola’s men having won the league and FA Cup double, Klopp’s side took part having been Premier League runners-up.
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The hallowed ‘Double’ of top flight league championship and FA Cup has become a more frequent occurrence in the modern game, having only been achieved five times in English football history when Kenny Dalglish’s side won it in the Scot's first season as player-manager in 1986 but seven times to date since then.
It is a rule of thumb these days that the league runners-up take part under such circumstances but a look back over the history of the Shield shows that has not always been the case, with Liverpool’s first involvement as non-trophy winners providing a curious link to the frankly bizarre decision to play this year’s fixture at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium.
Due to the final of the Women’s Euro 2022 being played at Wembley this weekend, an alternative to the national stadium was always going to have to be found but more than a few eyebrows were raised when the Football Association announced at the start of June that the venue would be the Foxes’ 32,312 capacity home, where they have played since 2002 after moving from Filbert Street.
With Liverpool receiving a paltry allocation of 12,055 tickets - having got 29,074 for the equivalent fixture in 2019 - and many supporters having missed out in a ballot, fans have been wondering why a larger venue either in the capital, such as Arsenal or Tottenham’s grounds which both boast capacities in excess of 60,000, or further north - where Villa Park, Old Trafford, St James Park or even the Etihad would have enabled more fans to see the game - could not have been found.
The FA have yet to explain their decision although there have been suggestions Leicester’s status as Community Shield holders following their victory over Manchester City last August was a factor and that the governing body were reluctant to send the two northern clubs to London again after the controversy caused in April by the decision to keep the FA Cup semi-final between the two clubs at Wembley despite long-planned national rail works causing travel difficulties.
Either way, the clash between the country’s pre-eminent sides will be played this Saturday teatime in front of one of the Premier League’s more modest capacities but strangely it will not be the first time Liverpool will have had to travel to the East Midlands for the traditional season curtain-raiser because in August 1971 the Reds faced Leicester on their own Filbert Street ground even though the Foxes were neither First Division champions nor FA Cup winners!
Bill Shankly’s side had played in three consecutive Charity Shields midway through the previous decade - the Reds having only competed in it once before in 1922 when they were beaten 1-0 by Huddersfield Town at Old Trafford - drawing 2-2 with West Ham at Anfield in 1964 after the Scot’s first title in charge as manager and the following year again being held 2-2 this time by Manchester United at Old Trafford following the club’s first ever FA Cup triumph over Leeds United the previous May.
With penalty shoot-outs still a few years away from being established as the preferred method of deciding a drawn match, both clubs held the trophy for six months each but in 1966 Liverpool won it for the first time on a memorable Merseyside occasion. Shankly’s men had months earlier won a second league championship in three seasons and, with Harry Catterick’s Everton having won the FA Cup after a memorable Wembley fightback from two goals down against Sheffield Wednesday, the local rivals did battle at Goodison Park even though the match was usually played back then at the home of the league champions.
Only two weeks earlier, England had won the World Cup following their 4-2 extra time victory over West Germany at Wembley with a side featuring Liverpool forward Roger Hunt and Everton defender Ray Wilson and the pair paraded the trophy around the ground ahead of the match, with the Jules Rimet Trophy along with the two domestic cups sitting proudly atop a table on the pitch beforehand to make Merseyside the epicentre of world football that day. The Blues had just signed another England star in Alan Ball but his presence was unable to deny the Reds victory, Roger Hunt’s ninth minute left-footed strike from 25 yards out being enough to send the Shield to Anfield for the first time.
That would prove to be Shankly’s last trophy in charge for seven years but by the start of the 1970s he had begun to build his second great Liverpool side with new blood like Emlyn Hughes, Steve Heighway, Ray Clemence and Brian Hall coming to the fore and they reached the FA Cup final in May 1971 only to lose 2-1 after extra time to Double winners Arsenal.
The FA soon realised they had a problem however when the Gunners made it clear they would not be participating in the Charity Shield as they had arranged pre-season fixtures against Benfica both in Portugal and at Highbury as well as a game against Feyenoord in Rotterdam. Having already been forced to postpone a match against Benfica that summer after pressure from the home associations who wanted players available for international duty, Arsenal secretary Bob Wall said “That left a nasty taste in the mouth of the Portuguese.”
Now faced with prospect of having to approach other clubs to take part, the FA initially drew a blank as First Division runners-up Leeds United said they were unable to stage the match due to ground alterations at Elland Road and received a similar reply from Liverpool where work was still being completed on Anfield’s new Main Stand, although the Reds did agree to take part in the fixture.
Under the headline ‘Who’ll play the Reds in the Charity Shield’, the ECHO’s Chris James detailed how League Cup winners Tottenham were unavailable as they would be away on tour in Scotland and European Cup Winners Cup winners Chelsea - the current Shield holders after beating Everton at Stamford Bridge the previous August - were likely to be the Reds’ opponents but had not yet confirmed their participation. It was even speculated that if Chelsea were unable to take part, Liverpool could face a Football Association XI or even play Skelmersdale who were the Merseyside winners of the FA Amateur Cup!
Chelsea were ultimately overlooked and the FA eventually decided that Leicester City, newly-promoted back to the top flight after winning the Second Division in 1971, would be Liverpool’s opponents and would host the match at Filbert Street. The Foxes were on the up despite losing manager Frank O’Farrell to Manchester United where he replaced legendary boss and former Liverpool captain Matt Busby who moved upstairs into an overseeing role, with Leyton Orient’s Jimmy Bloomfield taking over and enjoying a successful start to life at Filbert Street.
In front of 25,104 spectators on a sunny August afternoon, the home side started brightly and scored the only goal of the game after a quarter of an hour, when Steve Whitworth prodded home from close range after the Reds defence had failed to clear a cross from the right he had himself delivered.
It was a memorable moment for the 21-year-old local lad being the first goal he had scored for his boyhood club after breaking into the side during the promotion campaign and it was the only one he would manage in an eight-year career at Filbert Street which saw him make over 350 league appearances.
Liverpool had played a strong side featuring the likes of Steve Heighway, John Toshack, Emlyn Hughes, Tommy Smith and Ian Callaghan but rarely looked like drawing level, with the Leicester Mercury commenting afterwards the hosts “might have scored four had it not been for the fine goalkeeping of Clemence” while the Guardian wrote “Liverpool have to ask themselves if they can afford such a defensive system on the faster grounds at the start of the season. Clemence is brave and agile but like that Texas troubleshooter who puts out the big oil fires, he must fail sometimes.”
New Foxes boss Bloomfield highlighted afterwards how he had followed Arsenal’s approach against Liverpool in the previous May’s FA Cup final, saying “I saw Arsenal beat Liverpool and I thought then that if ever a team of mine played them I would know the tactics to adopt. In the final, Liverpool were caught by the long through ball. We planned to take advantage of this – and it worked. I told the players if we could get the square Liverpool defence turning, it would be our best form of attack.”
Bill Shankly however was as always looking at the big picture and, while he had played many of his regular starting XI at Filbert Street, had cannily left out his secret weapon for the season ahead, new signing Kevin Keegan. The 20-year-old had signed for £33,000 from Scunthorpe United weeks before the FA Cup final back in May and, as alluded to in David Peace’s ‘Red Or Dead’, the Scot wanted to keep the effervescent young forward under wraps for as long as possible.
After an impressive showing in the Reds’ traditional final pre-season game between the first team and the reserves at Melwood a few days before the start of league action, Keegan was handed his debut when Liverpool took on Nottingham Forest at Anfield the following Saturday and scored the opener in the Reds’ 3-1 win after only 12 minutes to launch one of the great LFC careers and a new era of success for the club. Only a late and contentious disallowed John Toshack goal at Highbury cost Shankly’s men the league title that season and a year later, the agonising seven-year trophy drought was ended with a league and UEFA Cup double.
The Scot’s pioneering spell at the Anfield helm ended in a glory a year after that with a second FA Cup triumph over Newcastle United at Wembley and, after his shock retirement during the summer, his final game in charge of Liverpool before Bob Paisley took over was the 1974 Charity Shield against Newcastle which in itself was a unique occasion - the first to be played at Wembley, the first to see a sending off (Kevin Keegan and Leeds’ Billy Bremner were both dismissed for fighting) and the first to be decided by a penalty shoot-out (won by Liverpool after a 1-1 draw).
Here are some more ‘curios’ from one of football’s strangest yet most enduring fixtures:
- The Charity Shield evolved from the Sheriff of London Charity Shield which had been introduced in 1898 as a professionals versus amateurs cup and featured the First Division Champions agains the Southern League Champions. Manchester United were the first winners after beating Queens Park Rangers 4-0 after a replay, the only time it has ever gone to a second match.
- The format has varied over the years with the usual format of League Champions versus FA Cup winners first taking place in 1921 when Tottenham Hotspur beat Burnley - notable exceptions include 1950 when the England World Cup team played an FA XI ; 1961 when an FA XI again took part against Spurs who had become the first team that century to win the league and FA Cup double ; 1972 when league champions Derby County and FA Cup winners Leeds United declined to take part with Manchester City (who had finished fourth in the First Division) and Third Division champions Aston Villa stepped in ; and 1973 when it was played between Manchester City (who this time had finished 11th in the First Division!) took on Second Division champions Burnley after the transitional participants - this time, Shankly’s title-winning Liverpool and FA Cup winners Sunderland - again opted out, a decision which led the FA to move it to Wembley the following year to increase the prestige of the competition.
- Despite Liverpool’s 1974 penalty shoot-out success, the Shield reverted back to being shared for six months each between the participating teams in the event of a draw until 1993 when penalties were re-introduced
- Liverpool won the first and last Community Shield matches played at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium while Wembley was being redeveloped between 2001 and 2006 against Man United and Chelsea, winning 2-1 both times
- In 2002, the Charity Commission ruled the Football Association had failed to meet legal obligations under charity law by failing to specify what money for ticket sales went to charity and had delayed payments to nominated charities. The fixture was thereafter renamed the Community Shield with Double winners Arsenal being the first winners of the renamed trophy after a 1-0 victory over Liverpool in Cardiff
- This year will be Liverpool’s 24th appearance in the fixture, having won it outright on 10 occasions and shared it five times, which puts the Reds third in the overall winners' list behind Manchester United who have 21 outright wins/shared titles and Arsenal with 16.
