On This Day – 8th August
Champions Leeds United and FA Cup winners Liverpool played out a memorable seven goal thriller in the Charity Shield on this day back in 1992.
With a week to go until the first games of the new Premier League, a hat-trick from Frenchman Eric Cantona gave Leeds a 4-3 victory over Graeme Souness’s Liverpool side.
Leeds opened the scoring on 26 minutes after midfielder David Batty set Rodney Wallace free down the left. Bruce Grobbelaar thought about coming out to narrow the angle but decided not to at the last minute as Wallace dribbled in to the box.
The winger looked up and cut the ball back for Eric Cantona who fired past Grobbelaar into the back of the net.
Liverpool equalised on 35 minutes through their record goalscorer Ian Rush. A short corner was played in to Ronny Rosenthal who chipped a cross to the far post and Ian Rush headed home from a couple of yards out.
England defender Tony Dorigo then scored a deflected free-kick from 25 yards out in the 43rd minute to give Leeds the lead at half-time.
Dean Saunders latched onto a loose ball midway through the second half to level the scores. The Welsh striker had taken the ball down the left wing before setting up Mark Walters, who had a shot that was blocked by a Leeds defender.
Saunders was the quickest to react and hammered the ball past John Lukic in the Leeds goal.
Cantona put Leeds ahead with his second of the game after 78 minutes, hitting a shot with the outside of his right boot after Liverpool failed to clear from a Gary McAllister free-kick. He completed his hat-trick with a simple header ten minutes later, as Bruce Grobbelaar came off his line, missed the flight of the ball and left Cantona with the easy job of heading into an empty net!
There was still enough time for one more goal and it came a minute after Cantona’s third. It was a real comedy of errors as first John Lukic failed to punch a corner clear and the ball fell to Liverpool’s Mark Wright.
Wright controlled the ball before firing a low shot at the bottom corner. Leeds’ midfielder Gordon Strachan was guarding the near post and whilst holding the post, tried and failed to control the ball before accidentally knocking the ball over his own goal-line.
Both clubs would go on and have poor seasons. Liverpool finished in sixth place in the table and Leeds unbelievably finished in 17th place, missing out on relegation by two points! They only won one away game all season.
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