Arsenal will watch on with envy as Liverpool contest the Community Shield – coming full circle from the mood of their team 50 years ago.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta is a keen advocate of the annual curtain-raiser, having used it to defend his trophy record last season.
Arteta was keen to add the Community Shield to his silverware count after a journalist overlooked it during a December press conference.
The Arsenal manager instantly corrected one reporter who said a trophy would be Arteta’s second since his 2020 FA Cup win.
“The charity shield as well twice, no? So it’s three,” he said. “We need more, we want more, and we want the big ones, that’s for sure.”
The Community Shield has long been an opinion divider in England, as it doesn’t have the prestige of other European Super Cups.
Arteta may have cause to blame one of his predecessors as Arsenal manager, Bertie Mee, for that, after a decision he made in the 1970s.
Mee’s place in the club’s history books is absolute, having led the Gunners to their first Double win in 1971.
The Englishman also played his part in the revamp of the Community Shield following his decision not to be involved in it.
Having become only the second club in the 20th century to win the double, Arsenal booked their spot in the Shield that summer.
However, the north Londoners instead played a series of friendlies, home and away, against Benfica and on the day faced Feyenoord.
Arsenal had already cancelled a match with Portuguese giants Benfica earlier in August 1971, under pressure from the home associations wanting their players available for the home internationals.
What happened in the 1971 Charity Shield?
“That left a nasty taste in the mouth,” said Bob Wall, Arsenal’s then-secretary, as reported by legendary Guardian writer Albert Barham.
As such, the rescheduled fixtures clashed with the Community Shield, with the reigning champions also booking a trip to the Netherlands.
In their place, Liverpool, who’d lost the 1971 FA Cup final to Arsenal months earlier, were drafted in as one-half of the curtain-raiser.
Leicester, the Second Division champions, were their surprise opponents – with their old Filbert Street used to host.
An even greater surprise was served up for the 25,104 in attendance when Foxes legend Steve Whitworth scored the only goal in a 1-0 win.
Remarkably, it was the only time the defender found himself on the scoresheet for Leicester across 353 games in a nine-year spell.
“I didn’t even realise that as the years went by,” he told the Guardian in 2016. “It wasn’t something that ever got mentioned.”
“Everything was just easy peasy,” Whitworth added. “I got in the team, had a great season, played in the Charity Shield, scored the goal – it all seemed like life was supposed to be, really.
“I was so bloody naive in those days. You’re just free and do what you want, and it’s only later when people start picking faults in you.
“Later on, I became far more disciplined and start thinking maybe a bit too much about the team, where you should be on the pitch and so on, instead of just bombing forwards, which is how I got into the team in the first place.”
Community Shield rule change
Meanwhile, Arsenal, who ironically lost their friendly in Rotterdam 1-0, briefly started an unwanted trend in Community Shield history.
The following two editions of the competitions also saw the champions and FA Cup winners fail to participate.
This led Ted Croker, the FA Secretary, to relocate the then Charity Shield to Wembley and make participation from the Champions and FA Cup winners mandatory.
Arsenal did make a habit of being included in the next huge revamp in 2002, becoming the first ‘Community Shield’ winners – with Liverpool, again, suffering a 1-0 defeat.