Arsenal play Tottenham in the charity shield, 10 August 1991

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…

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