City 0 Manchester United 1
Charity Shield played at Maine Road
24th October 1956
Attendance 30,495
scorer Violet(75)
Ref J Clough
City Savage, Leivers, Little, Revie, Ewing, Paul, Fagan, Hayes, Johnstone, Dyson, Clarke
.
United Wood, Foulkes, Byrne, Colman, Jones, Edwards, Berry, Whelan, Taylor, Viollet, Pegg – sub Gaskell(37)
.
The teams as published in the match day programme
.
.
from BOBBY JOHNSTONE, THE PASSING OF AN AGE by John Leigh
United, who were technically The home team, offered to play the match at Maine Road given that Old Trafford was still without floodlights. City played well, although United won 1-0 in spite of goalkeeping difficulties. United’s goalkeeper Wood was injured early in the game, and for a short spell he was replaced in goals by Duncan Edwards, at least until Gaskill, the young United ‘keeper who was aged just 15, could be summoned from the stands. All of this was in the days before substitutes were allowed, of course, which one might suppose is taking ‘charity’ rather too far, yet the evening’s biggest mystery surrounded Bobby’s [Johnstone] ‘goal’ which was disallowed. Eyewitnesses saw Bobby, who was positioned around the edge of the penalty area, back heeling the ball into the net, on the volley, and direct from the corner kick!
…The next night The Manchester Evening Chronicle lead writer said “I thought that City deserved some reward for their storming finish, in which Johnstone was most unfortunate to have what looked like a perfect goal disallowed.
United, who were technically The home team, offered to play the match at Maine Road given that Old Trafford was still without floodlights. City played well, although United won 1-0 in spite of goalkeeping difficulties. United’s goalkeeper Wood was injured early in the game, and for a short spell he was replaced in goals by Duncan Edwards, at least until Gaskill, the young United ‘keeper who was aged just 15, could be summoned from the stands. All of this was in the days before substitutes were allowed, of course, which one might suppose is taking ‘charity’ rather too far, yet the evening’s biggest mystery surrounded Bobby’s [Johnstone] ‘goal’ which was disallowed. Eyewitnesses saw Bobby, who was positioned around the edge of the penalty area, back heeling the ball into the net, on the volley, and direct from the corner kick!
…The next night The Manchester Evening Chronicle lead writer said “I thought that City deserved some reward for their storming finish, in which Johnstone was most unfortunate to have what looked like a perfect goal disallowed.