Iconic Moments in Football No.48
This week’s ‘Iconic Moment’ comes from the 1967 Charity Shield between champions Manchester United and FA Cup winners Tottenham Hotspur.
The match was played at United’s home ground Old Trafford as it was another seven years before the season’s curtain-raiser was played at Wembley.
Pat Jennings scored the second goal of the game with a drop kick at the Stretford End of the ground. The ball bounced between the centre circle and United’s penalty area before going over Manchester United’s goalkeeper Alec Stepney and into the back of the net.
Such a thing had never been seen before. The 54,106 crowd were stunned and so was the BBC’s commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme. If you watch the video below, it takes him over ten seconds to fully realise quite hat has happened before his eyes!
Goals scored by goalkeepers are far more frequent now but back in 1967 it was simply unheard of. One of the main reasons was that balls were much heavier, meaning that they couldn’t be kicked as far.
United made their way back into the game and the match eventually finished 3-3. Despite Bobby Charlton scoring a couple of wonderful goals, the match will only be remembered for one thing and that was Jennings’ goal.
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