The night Arsenal were outgunned at Bramall Lane by Kendall's Blades

The date of January 17, 1996 – 20 years ago yesterday – was right up there with an Australian called Carl Veart stooping to head home the only goal of Sheffield United’s third-round replay with Bruce Rioch’s Arsenal at Bramall Lane into the net past Rotherham-born goalkeeper David Seaman.

After a quiet opening to his tenure as Blades boss after replacing Dave Bassett in December 1995, Kendall – who won the trophy at Everton in 1984 – helped to truly ingratiate himself with Unitedites by orchestrating a cup upset that knocked out the favourites.

On the success Kendall said: “That was one of the best Cup moments of my career.

“We showed quality. We denied international players and we could have scored more goals.”

And on Veart, Kendall, whose side booked a fourth-round tie with another venerable footballing institution in Aston Villa, said: “I’ve only played him once, in my first game here, and I was very disappointed with him.

“But I felt tonight it was right to give him another opportunity. He was a revelation.”

Kendall had recorded five draws in his opening salvos at the Blades helm, one of which was a creditable 1-1 draw in their third-round tie at Highbury – with Dane Whitehouse’s 78th-minute strike cancelling out Ian Wright’s opener eight minutes earlier. David Platt and Dennis Bergkamp missed the first outing in London, but returned for the replay. But they could do nothing to prevent the Gunners from suffering a sobering exit, with the tie settled on 68 minutes.

Whitehouse had posed problems aplenty down the Blades left and forced Lee Dixon to draw upon all of his experience before bowing out with injury on the hour mark, forcing a centre-half in Andy Linighan to enter the fray on the right-hand side of defence.

Sheffield-born Whitehouse cashed in, cutting inside and outside of Linighan to leave him trailing in his wake before delivering a cross which was dispatched by Veart, who headed past Seaman to send the home fans into raptures.

Veart’s goal was a climax to a match that promised much, but largely failed to ignite with the Gunners looking well below par and increasingly as the night wore on, ripe for the taking.

David White provided the Gunners with their first scare on 23 minutes when he blasted a shot against the woodwork following Chris Short’s pass.

Arsenal’s difficult night got a whole load worse when Veart was on target and despite pushing for an equaliser, it never came.

Their best moment arrived when Wright’s left-foot shot hit the post six minutes from the end, but it was United’s night. The post-match view of Gunners boss Rioch? ‘Very disappointing.’ Not if you were a Unitedite...

Sheffield United: Kelly; Short, Vonk, Tuttle, Nilsen; Ward, Cowans, Patterson, Whitehouse (Hodges, 84); White, Veart. Unused substitutes: Heath, Tracey (gk).

Arsenal: Seaman; Dixon (Linighan 59), Adams, Keown, McGowan; Merson, Platt, Jensen (Clarke 84), Helder; Wright, Bergkamp. Unused substitutes: Dickov.

Referee: P Durkin (Dorset).