Saturday afternoon sees the latest Man United vs Man City match up in the FA Community Shield, the traditional curtain raiser to the new season.
It’s a last opportunity for managers to take a reasonably good look at their starting XIs and see if there are still any last-minute tweaks to be made before the big kick-off.
The reality is that all it is, is nothing more or less than a pre-season friendly for whom the profits go to charity, and that meaning has been lost according to Stan Collymore.
Community Shield has lost its meaning
“This weekend sees the return of the Community Shield, a traditional pre-season friendly that I’m a big fan of,” he said to CaughtOffside for his exclusive column.
“I do think that it absolutely shouldn’t be counted as a trophy, however.
“I think we need to tell the likes of Pep Guardiola that this isn’t something that he can count as one of his trophy wins. It’s not about Pep vs Klopp or Pep vs ten Hag either, because we’ve already had that narrative on any number of previous occasions.
“It was originally called the Charity Shield, and the money raised from the game was given to good causes. It still is. So we should promote that angle way more than we do currently.
“This year’s partner is MIND, and there’s a whole four or five days leading up to it where players, instead of talking about the inane rivalry of Man United against Manchester City, should be highlighting the charity and the issues they face etc.
“Let’s be perfectly honest, it’s the last meaningless friendly before the big kick-off, so moving forward, let’s get back to what the Community Shield is all about. Charity.”
Some fifty years ago, back in 1974, Liverpool’s Kevin Keegan was poleaxed by a right hook from Leeds United’s Johnny Giles in what was then known as the Charity Shield, but that’s about the most intense thing to have occurred in the fixture.
It’s supposed to be a game in which players can ease themselves through 90 minutes without picking up any injuries.
With supporters seemingly looking for any chance for one-upmanship, it’s seen the Community Shield evidently take on a more ‘competitive’ feel, and that’s completely missing the purpose of the game.
There are so many other opportunities for the clubs that compete in the Community Shield to go at it hammer and tongs too, so as Collymore suggests, perhaps now is the right time to rediscover the true meaning behind this curtain raiser.
