On August 6th, Arsenal and Manchester City do battle at Wembley in a game that is referred to as the ‘season’s curtain-raiser’ as routinely as its actual name, the Community Shield.
Come five-to-four a full-house, half red, half blue, will be eagerly anticipating the start of another long and demanding campaign that each fan-base desperately hope ends with silverware, but what they’ll initially be treated to across 90 leisurely minutes is a game largely determined by fitness levels.
Impactful players will be subbed off on the hour-mark regardless of how impactful they’re being while tackles will carry most, but not all, of their usual vigour.
This is not an ideal fixture to indulge in the live betting markets as there is very little chance of an actual, proper game of football breaking out.
And come the final whistle, one team will lift an octagonal silver shield and their supporters will claim it as a meaningful trophy. The losers meanwhile will shrug, feign complete disinterest and write off the fixture as a ‘glorified friendly’.
This appears to be the Community Shield’s fate in the modern era, which is a sad development because back in the day it carried significantly more weight.
Before the Champions League over-populated big teams’ schedules with big games, and when life was simpler with three terrestrial television channels, the then-called Charity Shield was a cherished event, one that meant something to win.
It is not rose-tinted nostalgia to suggest either that the matches themselves were better, often memorable.
There was Tottenham’s Pat Jennings throwing the football betting into confusion by scoring at Old Trafford from a hoofed goal-kick in 1967. There was Kevin Keegan and Billy Bremner brawling in the Seventies, both players skulking to an early bath back when red cards were as rare as hen’s teeth. There was Eric Cantona scoring a hat-trick as Leeds got the better of Liverpool in a seven-goal thriller as the Premier League epoch began.
For a great many years the season’s curtain-raiser stood on its own two feet, possessing special moments in its illustrious canon.
Can the same be said of today? Does anyone recall who won it two years ago? Even last year is a stretch.
There are legitimate reasons for the game’s diminishment, reasons that are no fault of its own, namely the modern trend for glamorous pre-season competitions resulting in us no longer feeling a frisson of excitement at seeing our favourite players return to action after a summer hiatus.
Having its kick-off time often messed around is also a consideration. This years’ time-slot of half five on a Sunday was deemed so inconvenient for the northern contingent City fans boycotted until it was moved forward.
Yet it also has to be said that the Community Shield has always been given a fair chance to survive and thrive, always given the preceding weekend of a Premier League season, with only Championship and lower league fixtures to compete against.
And still its importance and appeal has dwindled. Still, it has become an irrelevance to some, a curio to others, and mere hollow bragging rights for the victors.
Has it become a ‘glorified friendly’? In truth it’s a push to suggest there is even anything glorified about it these days. And that is a real shame.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*
