No one gets that worked up about the Charity Shield. This isn’t a controversial take. It’s fun, people do watch it, and it’s a nice prelude to the season. But we all know the Charity Shield (or rather the Community Shield, as they call it now) is basically a glorified preseason friendly. It’s the part of the performance when the orchestra tunes their instruments. It’s a primer. It lets us all take a moment to be glad for the new season. “Thank God the football’s back.” We can enjoy that fact before the anxieties of club football take over in earnest the following weekend.
Which is, I think, what makes the Charity Shield matches where stuff happens so memorable. We don’t expect it to be A Thing. And when it is, it’s something we talk about for years afterward.
This week, we look back at the 1974 Charity Shield. Yeah. You know what I’m talking about.