No. 87 – The 1974 Charity Shield

The 10th of August has seen many memorable events in the Liverpool archives, on this day in 1977 King Kenny Dalglish arrived, in 1990 Ian Rush scored a hat-trick as we beat Swedish side Landskrona BoIS 6-3 in a pre-season friendly, Arthur Shepherd left Anfield on this day in 1949 to sign for New Brighton while Cyril Gilhespy signed from Sunderland on this day in 1921…..

However, Number 88 in the Days We’ll Remember all our Lives countdown brings us back to Saturday, 10th of August in 1974 – The 1974 FA Charity Shield. The seasons curtain raiser was held at Wembley and was fiercely contested between Leeds United and Liverpool. Liverpool had been crowned the FA Cup Winners while Leeds United had won the Championship that season.

The 1974 Charity Shield will be remembered for a number of reasons…. It was the first Charity Shield match ever to be shown on television and also the very first Charity Shield game to be played at Wembley, unfortunately this was also to be the very last time Bill Shankly would lead his much beloved Reds out. Bill Shankly had announced his retirement after Liverpool won the FA Cup earlier that year and Bob Paisley took over as manager, but it was Shankly who led Liverpool out at Wembley.

Leeds and Liverpool witnessed some bitter battles down the years, but it is doubtful whether there had ever been an angrier encounter than there was that day. The match disintegrated into a series of niggling fouls and ill-tempered clashes. However, within 15 minutes of the second half came an incident never to be forgotten as Kevin Keegan and Billy Bremner became the first British players to be sent off at Wembley.

Throughout the second half, Keegan was continuously being fouled and it was only a matter of time before a confrontation exploded. Leeds, finally goading the little Liverpool man into hot headed retaliation clashed in the Leeds area with Bremner, with the referee, Bob Matthewson, sending both players off….

Sent off, both players threw their shirts to the ground as they left the field, an image that went around the world and brought condemnation. Following the game, both players were heavily fined, £500 each which was allot in those days and both players were banned for 11 matches.

The match ended 1-1, Phil Boersma had opened the scoring in the 20th minute, but Trevor Cherry grabbed an equaliser for Leeds with a well headed goal in the 70th minute.The match went to penalties. Alec Lindsay, Emlyn Hughes, Brian Hall, Tommy Smith and Peter Cormack all made no mistake with their penalties which meant the shoot out went to sudden death. Up next for Leeds came their goalkeeper David Harvey to take their next penalty, Harvey missed and it was Ian Callaghan who smashed home the winner for the Reds.

The 1974 Charity Shield became the last trophy Bill Shankly ever won as Liverpool manager

Leeds United : Harvey, Reaney, McQueen, Hunter, Cherry; Lorimer, Bremner, Giles, E Gray, Clarke (McKenzie), Jordan

Liverpool : Clemence, Smith, Thompson, Hughes, Lindsay; Heighway, Cormack, Hall, Callaghan, Keegan, Boersma