26-07-1997: Shelbourne (a) 2-1 (HT 1-1) Crowd (7,000)

United opened the scoring after nine minutes when a Gary Kelly header was only partially cleared by Shelbourne's skipper, Mick Neville. The loose ball was picked up by Bruno Ribeirowho picked out Lee Sharpe on the edge of the penalty boxwith a superb pass. Sharpe's first time shot could only be parried by keeper Stephen O'Brien and Lee Bowyer was on hand to slam the ball into an empty net. The home side hit back with a goal in the seventeenth minute, when an innocuous through ball should have caused Nigel Martyn no problems but he raced from his area and his clearance cannoned off Shelbourne attacker Dessie Baker who had a simple chance of steering the loose ball into an empty net from ten yards. It was not until the seventy-fifth minute that Hasselbaink got the Leeds winner after Stephen O'Brien had made several outstanding saves, but Nick Byrne was beaten soon after coming on. Pierre Laurent replaced Gary Kelly at Right Back, Harry Kewell came on for Lucas Radebe at Left Half, Ian Harte replaced Alf-Inge Haaland at Outside Right, Derek Lilley replaced Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, and Rod Wallace came on for Bruno Ribeiro at Inside Left. Shelbourne replaced Outside Left Mark Rutherford by K. O'Brien in the twenty-fourth minute, but ten minutes into the second half they duly replaced him with Golden. Goalkeeper Stephen O'Brien was replaced, after seventy-three minutes, when they brought on former Leeds Junior keeper Nick Byrne and it became a double substitution with Dave Campbell replacing Maddox at Centre Forward. Mark Beeney and David Wetherall remained unused on the Leeds bench. Pat Dempsey of Dublin was the Referee.

Programme, Teamsheets & Shelbourne team photo: Courtesy Mark Ledgard