THE 101st COMMUNITY SHIELD

The 2023 FA Community Shield will be the 101st PLAYING OF THE MATCH, an annual football match played between the winners of the previous season's Premier League and FA Cup competitions. It will take place at Wembley Stadium on 6 August 2023. As Manchester Citywon both the 2022-3 Premier Leaguer and the 2022-3 FA Cup (that is "Doing the Double"), their opponents will be the Premier League runners-up, Arsenal. (deemed to be a greatwer effort that being runners- up in the Cup). The match will be televised live on ITV today.

6 August 2023

16:00 BST

Arsenal	v	Manchester City

Wembley Stadium, London

Referee: Stuart Attwell (Birmingham)

The match was initially planned to kick-off at 17:30 BST, however this was met with criticism from Manchester City fans who complained about its possible disruption to travelling to the match. Therefore, The FA moved kick-off to 16:00 instead on the same day.

Liverpool were the defending champions, but they did not qualify for this edition, having failed to win either the Premier League or FA Cup.

A match known as The Sheriff of London Charity Shield, was competed for annually for 10 seasons from 1898. The pre-season match became known as the FA Charity Shield, then the Community Shield. Today the two "best teams" in the Premier/Football League compete in this curtain raiser; Liverpool and Manchester City.

Originally, the competing TWO teams, were the best amateur side of the period - which was usually the Corinthian Football Club - and a top professional side- played in 1898 Sheffield United. 

On March 5th 1904, a fund raising match was contested between The Corinthians and the side that had won the FA Cup, the previous season, Bury FC. 

The match was played at the Queen's Club, London, which was Corinthians home ground and better known now as a tennis venue. Bury fielded ten of the side who had beaten Derby County 6-0 in the Cup Final (link here is that I am doing to watch Derby County play Oxford United in the Sky Bet League One this afternoon!). 6-0 is still a record winning margin which has not been bettered in an FA Cup Final. 

In less than 10 minutes of the game, Bury were leading 2-0 but then the amateurs started to play with 'wonderful dash' and the Corinthians were 4-2 up at the break and won the match 10-3. Amazing! The Corinthians, of course, have, historically, given their name to the present Non-League club, Corinthian Casuals. 

• 1898 Corinthian 0–0 Sheffield United (match replayed and drawn 1–1, shared)
• 1899 Aston Villa 0–0 Queen's Park (shared)
• 1900 Corinthian 2–1 Aston Villa
• 1901 Aston Villa 1–0 Corinthian
• 1902 Tottenham Hotspur 5–2 Corinthian
• 1903 Sunderland 3–0 Corinthian
• 1904 Corinthian 10–3 Bury
• 1905 The Wednesday 2–1 Corinthian
• 1906 Liverpool (below) 5–1 Corinthian
• 
• 1907 Newcastle United 5–2 Corinthian

The new format was to have the Football League First Division (as it was then) Champions play the Southern League Champions-an imp'ortant league then. The first match was played in 1908 between Manchester United (the First Division champions) and Queen Park Rangers (the Southern League champions), a match drawn 1–1, so the game was replayed when Manchester United won 4–0. This is the only Charity Shield game to go to a replay. Both games were played at Stamford Bridge. 

Things changed after 1907 and proceeds from the annual game were distributed to hospitals and charities. The fixture which began in 1908, was the predecessor to the FA Charity Shield, today the FA Community Shield. After 1908 the trophy was revived on seven occasions in the twentieth century to raise funds for grassroots football causes in matches played between London-based sides. 

Fundraising matches:

• 1931 Arsenal 5–3 Corinthian
• 1932 Arsenal 9–2 Corinthian
• 1934 Tottenham Hotspur 7–4 Corinthian
• 1964 Arsenal 7–0 Corinthian Casuals
• 1965 Arsenal 5–2 Corinthian Casuals
• 1966 Watford 7–0 Corinthian Casuals
• 1983 Watford 6–1 Corinthian Casuals