By Tony Attwood
For the north-west centric media it was a non-event, a north London charity shield. Arsenal had won the First Division for the second time in three years, and Tottenham had won the cup, beating Forest in the final.
The fact that Arsenal had only lost one match all season in 1990/1 was a bit of an embarrassment and that they had won the league after having two points deducted by the Football League was even more of an embarrassment.
Worse, Arsenal and Tottenham had dominated the semi-final headlines playing each other the previous April at Wembley. Tottenham won 3-1. So the FA Charity Shield had to be endured and buried amidst the usual newspaper nonsense as to who would win the league next time around.
65,483 turned up and saw Alan Smith get the ball in the net early on, but it was ruled out for offside. At the other end Seaman was showing that the summer had not faded his ability.
Pat van den Hauwe and David Rocastle fought a personal war after van den Hauwe obviously elbowed Rocastle, got away with it and David showed van den H what he thought of that. Rocastle was booked, vdH got nothing, and so encouraged went on a spree, and was only finally booked for an awful challenge (attack might be a better word) Dixon.
Not in the game was Anders Limpar who was injured playing for Sweden. Steve Bould also missed out, although I don’t remember (and now can’t find out) why, and interestingly (looking back) David Hillier got a game. He was seen as a man for the future.
Seaman
Dixon Adams O’Leary Winterburn
Hillier Rocastle Davis Merson
Smith Campbell
Elsewhere….
The books…
- Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
- Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
- The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal FC: crowd behaviour at the early matches
————
- Untold Arsenal
- Referee Decisions – just what are the refs up to this season?
Tony,
What was the result?
Still waiting for the score!
Nicky
It was 0-0 and it was played on 10 August 1991.
Just go to Andy Kelly’s site: http://stats.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/aftlu.htm for any result.
@Mark A.,
Thanks for that and the link.