| Event | 1990–91 Football League Cup | ||||||
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| Date | 21 April 1991 | ||||||
| Venue | Wembley Stadium, London | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Nigel Pearson (Sheffield Wednesday) | ||||||
| Referee | Ray Lewis (Surrey) | ||||||
| Attendance | 77,612 | ||||||
| Weather | Cloudy 16 °C (61 °F) | ||||||
←1990 1992 → | |||||||
The1991 Football League Cup Final was afootball match played on 21 April 1991 betweenManchester United andSheffield Wednesday. It was the first of two years that theFootball League Cup competition in English football was sponsored byRumbelows.[1]
Leading up to the final Wednesday beatChelsea 5-1 in the semi-final, United beatingLeeds United 3–1.
Despite the previous season'sFA Cup winners, Manchester United (led by Ferguson), being favourites to lift the trophy,Second Division side Sheffield Wednesday won the match 1–0, the winning goal scored byJohn Sheridan, giving the Owls their firstLeague Cup title in a season when they also won promotion back to the top flight on their first attempt after being relegated the season before. The match is regarded as one of the most memorable League Cup finals of all time.[2][3]
As of 2025, it is the last time a team from outside the top flight won the League Cup or any major English domestic trophy.
The trophy was presented to Wednesday skipperNigel Pearson by Rumbelows employee of the year Tracy Bateman.[4][5] Pearson was also named man of the match.[6]
TheFootball League Cup is a cup competition open to clubs inThe Football League. It is played on a knockout basis with the first, second and semi-final rounds being contested over atwo-legged tie, rounds three to five are settled on the day withreplays and possiblyextra time required to determine the winner. As clubs in the top two divisions of The Football League, both teams entered the competition in the second round.
Manchester United's second-round tie saw them drawn againstFourth DivisionHalifax Town; they won the first leg atThe Shay 3–1, with goals fromClayton Blackmore,Brian McClair andNeil Webb, beforeViv Anderson andSteve Bruce gave them a 2–1 win atOld Trafford and a 5–2 aggregate victory. Anderson, who was by now rarely used in the United first team, went on to be sold to Sheffield Wednesday three months later, his appearance for United in the early stages of the competition making him ineligible for Wednesday's matches and denying him the chance to add to the two League Cup medals he had won withNottingham Forest and a later medal in the competition won withArsenal.
They were then drawn against rivals and reigning First Division championsLiverpool in the third round, whereMark Hughes andLee Sharpe joined Bruce on the score sheet in a 3–1 home win. In the fourth round, a 19-year-old Sharpe scored a hat-trick in addition to goals from Blackmore, Hughes andDanny Wallace to give United a 6–2 away win overArsenal, who would go on to win the First Division title that season, just over a month after the two teams had been involved in a mass brawl during a 1–0 Arsenal win at Old Trafford that saw both teams deducted points.
In the fifth round, United were held to a 1–1 draw away toSouthampton, Hughes scoring their only goal; Hughes was again the only United player on the score sheet in the replay a week later, scoring a hat-trick in a 3–2 win that put them into the semi-finals. Southampton strikerAlan Shearer, who within months was reported to be transfer target for Manchester United, scoring all of Southampton's goals during the two cup clashes with United.
Goals from McClair and Sharpe gave United a 2–1 win in the first leg of the semi-final at home toLeeds United, and Sharpe scored again in the second leg – his sixth League Cup goal of the season – as United won 1–0, and 3–1 on aggregate, to put them into their second League Cup final.
Sheffield Wednesday, whose last major honour had been the FA Cup in 1935, were fresh from relegation to the Second Division when they were drawn againstThird DivisionBrentford in the second round, winning 2–1 in each of the two legs to put them into the third round. There they met fellowSecond Division sideSwindon Town, who held them to a goalless draw atHillsborough, before succumbing to a 1–0 defeat at theCounty Ground in the replay a week later. Wednesday required another replay in the fourth round, after they played out another draw at home toDerby County, but beat them 2–1 at theBaseball Ground two weeks later.
The quarter-final saw Wednesday drawn away toCoventry City, where a 1–0 victory for Wednesday ended any hopes that Coventry's new player-managerTerry Butcher might have had of beginning his managerial career with silverware. Their semi-final opponents wereChelsea. The first leg of the semi-final was played atStamford Bridge, where goals fromPeter Shirtliff andDavid Hirst gave them a 2–0 win, beforeNigel Pearson,Danny Wilson andPaul Williams gave them a 3–1 win in the second leg at Hillsborough to put them into the final, 5–1 on aggregate. It was Wednesday's first Wembley cup final in 25 years.
          Manchester United |     Sheffield Wednesday |
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Man of the Match Linesmen
Reserve official
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The broadcast of this League Cup final caused controversy inYorkshire, where instead of showing the post-match celebrations (asLondon Weekend Television did),Yorkshire Television decided to cut the broadcast short to show a programme titledWar of the Monster Trucks. People from Sheffield often cite this event as a demonstration of the station's bias towardsWest Yorkshire,Leeds and above allLeeds United.[3] The incident inspired the name of the Sheffield WednesdayfanzineWar of the Monster Trucks.[8]
