Discover more about our Community Shield history | Feature | News

Having been crowned Premier League champions, we can claim more silverware when we compete against FA Cup holders Manchester City for the Community Shield in Cardiff.

It is a competition we have a lot of history in, stemming back to 1930 when we made our first appearance and got our hands on the silverware.

Ahead of our meeting with City, we’ve pored through the record books to dig out some interesting facts about our time in the competition, as well as its history:

• The game evolved from the “Sheriff of London Shield” fixture that had been played annually since 1898 between the leading professional and amateur clubs that year to raise money for hospitals and other charities.
• The first Charity Shield fixture was in 1908, when the professional Football League champions Manchester United beat the amateur Southern League champions Queens Park Rangers. The first time it was tweaked to be league champions v FA winners was in 1921.
• The 124 clubs who competed in the FA Cup the previous season (from the first round onwards) all get a cut of the ticket and programme sales from each fixture, and other revenue generated on the day goes to the FA’s charity partners.

• The name was changed in 2002 to the Community Shield to reflect that the funds raised are distributed to community initiatives and charities across the UK. We were the first winners of the newly named competition after beating Liverpool 1-0 in Cardiff.
• This will be our 25th appearance in the Charity/Community Shield, and only Manchester United have featured in the game more often on 31 occasions.
• Our 17 wins are the second most in the competition’s history, behind Manchester United who have 21.

• One of our wins was actually a “shared” Shield, which ironically came against Tottenham Hotspur back in 1991 in a goalless game, and is the only all-north London derby final to date. In the days before penalty shootouts determined a winner, if the game ended in a draw then the teams kept the trophy for six months each.
• We are looking for our third victory in the competition at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. The rebuilt Wembley is the venue where we have won the Shield more often than any other, triumphing on five occasions, but we have also won it four times at Highbury, three times at the old Wembley, and also at Villa Park, Goodison Park and Stamford Bridge. No team has won the trophy in more different locations than the seven stadiums we have tasted success in.
• In 1971, as double winners, we turned down the opportunity to play in the Shield having previously agreed to play some European friendlies. After a number of other teams did the same in the preceding years, in 1974 the game was given more prestige by moving to Wembley, and the current format was created.

• Since the establishment of the Premier League in 1992, only eight clubs that won the Shield proceeded to become league champions in the same season, the last being Manchester City in 2018/19.
• We appeared in seven of the nine times the competition was held in the 1930s, winning five times during the decade.

• We have faced Manchester City three times before in the final, and boast an 8-1 aggregate scoreline. We ran out 4-0 victors in 1934 at Highbury when Ralph Birkett, Ted Drake and Cliff Bastin all found the net, while eight decades later strikes from Santi Cazorla, Aaron Ramsey and Olivier Giroud saw us beat City at Wembley. Our last appearance and win came in 2023 when Leandro Trossard’s late equaliser led to us winning on penalties.
• Our top scorers in Shield matches are Ralph Birkett and Ted Drake with three goals each. Cliff Bastin, Reg Lewis and Doug Lishman all netted twice, while in more recent times, Gilberto Silva is the last player to have scored more than once for us in the competition.

OUR COMMUNITY SHIELD RECORD

1930/31: beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1
1931/32: beat West Bromwich Albion 1-0
1933/34: beat Everton 3-0
1934/35: beat Manchester City 4-0
1935/36: beaten by Sheffield Wednesday 1-0
1936/37: beaten by Sunderland 1-2
1938/39: beat Preston North End 2-1
1948/49: beat Manchester United 4-3
1953/54: beat Blackpool 3-1
1979/80: beaten by Liverpool 1-3
1989/90: beaten by Liverpool 0-1
1991/92: drew with Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 (shared)
1993/94: beaten by Manchester United on pens (aet: after 1-1)
1998/99: beat Manchester United 3-0
1999/00: beat Manchester United 2-1
2002/03: beat Liverpool 1-0
2003/04: beaten by Manchester United on pens (aet: after 1-1)
2004/05: beat Manchester United 3-1
2005/06: beaten by Chelsea 1-2
2014/15: beat Manchester City 3-0
2015/16: beat Chelsea 1-0
2017/18: beat Chelsea 4-1 on pens (aet: after 1-1)
2020/21: beat Liverpool 5-4 on pens (after 1-1)
2023/24: beat Manchester City 4-1 on pens (aet: after 1-1)