Martyn Kelly recalls wishing he had a stool to stand on, just like the other children in the stadium, so he could see better. The very first official penalty shootout in football history was something he didn’t want to miss behind a crowd of taller spectators.
On a warm evening, August 5, 1970, at Boothferry Park in Hull, a star-filled Manchester United squad finished extra time tied 1-1 with second-tier Hull City in a cup match. Just six weeks earlier, football’s lawmakers had decided to replace the old coin-toss method for determining winners. Instead, they opted for a system where five players from each team would take a penalty kick from 11 yards, with only the goalkeeper to beat.
“Blimey,” thought Kelly, then an 11-year-old Hull City supporter. “It’s George Best, one of the greatest players ever. He’s going to take the first penalty in the world’s first penalty shootout.” That moment was truly worth watching.
No one yet realized that this new way of resolving tied matches would become a nerve-wracking experience that some fans, players, and managers can barely bear to watch.
Before this innovation, cup or knockout matches that ended in draws were settled by replays, drawing lots, or flipping coins. At the 1968 European Championship, Italy advanced to the final after correctly guessing heads or tails following a 0-0 draw against the Soviet Union. The final against Yugoslavia then ended 1-1, and Italy eventually won 2-0 two days later in a replay.
For those frustrated with the existing tie-breaking methods, the breaking point came four months later. When Israel’s captain pulled a slip of paper reading “no” from a large sombrero hat, determining his team had lost their 1968 Olympic quarter-final to Bulgaria after a 1-1 draw, officials within Israel’s football governing body were furious.
Israeli Football Association official Yosef Dagan insisted there must be a fairer way to decide such crucial moments—one that relied more on skill and less on luck. Dagan and Michael Almog, who later became the Israel FA chief, developed the idea of a penalty shootout and submitted an official proposal to FIFA in 1969. It was published in the governing body’s official magazine.
In the letter, Almog proposed “to stop this way of deciding the winner by drawing lots, an immoral and even cruel system for the losing team and not honourable for the winner.” He called for a shootout of five penalties per side. If still tied after that, it would continue until one team missed and the other scored.
The suggestion sparked heavy debate before being adopted by football’s lawmakers, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), at its AGM in Inverness on June 27, 1970.
Aside from drawing lots, coin tosses, and replays, other methods had been used over the years to settle draws, including sharing titles or counting corners. Some domestic and minor competitions had even experimented with versions of penalty shootouts.
When BBC Sport asked FIFA to confirm whether the Watney Cup shootout was the first official penalty shootout, world football’s governing body replied that it does not have “any records confirming or denying the claim.” However, the National Football Museum does refer to it as the first shootout in England.
Various competitions, including full rounds of the FA Cup until two seasons ago, continued to use replays. It was not until the 1990-91 season that the FA Cup introduced penalties for matches level after extra time in a replay.
Following the IFAB decision in 1970, it did not take long for the first opportunity to arise for a penalty shootout to decide a professional football match. Would the success of that inaugural shootout set the stage for the drama that has since become a fixture of the sport?
