Charity Community Shield

The FA Community Shield is English football's traditional curtain-raiser, contested each August by the reigning league champions and the FA Cup holders. First played in 1908 as the FA Charity Shield, it has produced replays, shared trophies, penalty shoot-outs and one 12-goal afternoon across more than a century of season openers.

The 2026 edition brings the fixture back to Cardiff for the first time in 20 years. Premier League champions Arsenal meet FA Cup winners Manchester City at the Principality Stadium, with Enzo Maresca taking charge of his first competitive match since replacing Pep Guardiola at the Etihad.

• 1908First Charity Shield played
• 21Manchester United wins, the most
• 2002Renamed the Community Shield
• 44Editions staged at Wembley

Every FA Charity and Community Shield result, 1908 to 2026

The table below lists every Charity Shield and Community Shield match since 1908, with winners, runners-up, scorers, scorelines and venues. Shared titles, replays and penalty shoot-outs are all recorded, along with the wartime seasons when the fixture was not staged.

What is the FA Community Shield?

The Community Shield is a one-off match played a week or so before the new season starts, between the reigning champions of England's top division and the winners of the FA Cup. When one club has done the Double, the runner-up in one of those competitions takes the vacant place to try to become the next charity shield winners.

It began life as a charity fundraiser and has kept that purpose. Proceeds go to good causes through the FA, which is why the trophy carries the Charity, and now Community, name rather than being framed as a title race. Most record books treat it as a secondary honour rather than a major trophy, though the clubs themselves rarely turn down the chance to start a season with silverware.

The format is deliberately simple. There is no extra time: since 1993 a drawn match has gone straight to penalties, and before then the two clubs simply shared the Shield for six months each.

The 2026 Community Shield: Arsenal v Manchester City in Cardiff

Arsenal qualified as 2025-26 Premier League champions, a title Mikel Arteta's side sealed with 85 points and a game to spare. It was Arsenal's fourth Premier League crown and their first since the unbeaten side of 2003-04, ending a 22-year wait. Manchester City qualified as FA Cup holders after beating Chelsea 1-0 in the final.

The venue is the headline. Wembley was already booked for a run of concerts, so the FA moved the fixture to the Principality Stadium, which staged the Shield six times between 2001 and 2006 while the national stadium was being rebuilt. The 2026 match is the seventh Cardiff edition and the first since Liverpool beat Chelsea there in 2006.

From Charity Shield to Community Shield

The early years, 1908 to 1913

The first Charity Shield was played at Stamford Bridge in 1908 between Football League champions Manchester United and Southern League champions Queens Park Rangers. The tie finished 1-1 and needed a replay, which United won 4-0 with a Sandy Turnbull hat-trick. In 1911 United returned to beat Swindon Town 8-4, still the highest-scoring match in the competition's history.

Professionals against Amateurs

For much of the 1910s and 1920s the fixture was not a club match at all. Representative sides took over, with a Professionals XI meeting an Amateurs XI on six occasions between 1913 and 1929. The Professionals won four of them. In 1950 the format shifted again for one year, when an England World Cup XI beat an FA Canadian Touring Team 4-2.

Wembley and the modern era

The Shield moved to Wembley in 1974, when Liverpool beat Leeds United on penalties in a match remembered for Kevin Keegan and Billy Bremner being sent off. That fixture established the format supporters recognise today: champions against cup winners, at the national stadium, on the weekend before the league starts. The FA renamed the competition the Community Shield in 2002.

Which club has won the most Community Shields?

Manchester United lead the all-time list with 21 wins, three of which were shared. Arsenal are second on 17 and Liverpool third on 16, a top three that has been settled since the 1990s. The full breakdown of every club's record, including runners-up, is on our Charity Shield order of merit page.

Community Shield venues

Wembley has hosted 44 editions in total, 27 at the old Empire Stadium from 1974 and 17 at the rebuilt ground since 2007. Before 1974 the match was usually staged at the home ground of one of the competing clubs, which is why Stamford Bridge, Highbury, White Hart Lane and Old Trafford all appear repeatedly in the early records.

Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, now the Principality Stadium, covered the Wembley rebuild between 2001 and 2006 and returns in 2026. Two one-off venues break the pattern: Villa Park in 2012 and the King Power Stadium in 2022, both used when Wembley was unavailable.

Records and oddities

Manchester United's 8-4 win over Swindon Town in 1911 remains the highest-scoring Shield match. Dixie Dean scored four for Everton against Newcastle United in 1932, in a 5-3 win. The trophy has been shared 11 times, most recently by Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur after a goalless draw in 1991.

The competition also has a habit of producing first-time winners. Crystal Palace lifted the Shield for the first time in 2025, beating Liverpool 3-2 on penalties after a 2-2 draw, having also won the FA Cup for the first time a few months earlier. Brighton and Hove Albion, Huddersfield Town and Cardiff City all appear on the roll of honour with a single win apiece.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about the Community Shield, its history and the 2026 fixture are answered below.

Explore more English football history

• Charity Shield order of meritEvery club's Shield record, wins and runners-up
• Every FA Cup final, 1872 to 2026Winners, scorelines, venues and records
• Premier League winners by yearEvery champion since 1992-93