ON THIS DAY

An unsavoury incident at a Premier League fixture at Newcastle's St James' Park resulted in two hefty suspensions. Newcastle's Papiss Cissé and Manchester United's Jonny Evans were found to have spat at each other late in the first half. The incident was missed by the match officials - and the club officials - but was caught by the TV cameras. It was concluded that had the incident been seen by the match officials they would have been sent off and so an appearance before an FA Disciplinary Panel followed just two days later. Johnny Evans received the statutory six match ban for the offence while Papiss Cissé received a seven match ban as he had been in disciplinary trouble earlier in the season. Manchester United won the match 1-0.

T hree-times FIFA World Player of the Year Ronaldo made his competitive debut for Brazilian side Corinthians as a sub after thirteen months out of the game following surgery for a career-threatening knee injury. He survived the 20 minutes he played against Itumbiara without a problem only to end up with a badly bruised and swollen right eye after being hit by a microphone when an after-match media scrum surrounded him while attempting to get an interview.

David Beckham was on the books of Manchester United from 1992 to 2003 but it wasn't United who he played his first League match for. Before he had played in the Premier League for Manchester United 19-year-old Beckham was loaned out to Preston North End to gain first team experience and on Saturday March 4th 1995 made his League debut in his first outing for them. That debut came against Doncaster Rovers in a Division 3 - now League 2 - fixture at Deepdale - he came on as a sub and scored direct from a corner kick in the 2-2 draw. He played in all 5 matches North End played in March scoring one more goal in that unbeaten run which also saw him pick up a £50 first team bonus in each fixture. On his return to Old Trafford United's next match saw him make his Premier League debut - at home against Leeds - and there was no stopping him from then on. And I think his bonuses were then generally more than £50 a match!

A 43,804 Old Trafford crowd witnessed Manchester United thrash Ipswich Town 9-0 which is still the equal highest score in the Premier League. Andy Cole scored 5, Mark Hughes a couple with one each from Roy Keane and Paul Ince.

After previously being decided over two legs the first League Cup Final to be played at Wembley saw a major upset with a Third Division side winning a Wembley final for the first time. In front of a 97,952 crowd goals from Roger Morgan, Rodney Marsh and Mark Lazarus saw Third Division Queens Park Rangers pull back from 2-0 down to beat holders West Bromwich Albion 3-2. Part of the revamp of the League Cup was to see the winners gaining a place in Europe in the Fairs Cup but QPR missed out on that as the place only went to the winners if they were a top flight club. Still, QPR's consolation was that in addition to the cup final success they walked away with the Division 3 title and would only spend a season in the Second Division before they did become a top flight side for the first time in their history.

A new kit design was unveiled at Highbury with Arsenal changing from their then traditional all-red shirts to the now familiar red shirts with white sleeves. Manager Herbert Chapman - who was known as a great innovator - ordered the change as he considered that the new strip would make it easier for his players to pick each other out on the pitch. That logic didn't seem to work straight away. The previous Saturday in their last match in the old strip Arsenal had beaten Blackburn 8-0 at Highbury but in their first match in the new strip - also at Highbury - Arsenal lost 1-0 to Liverpool!