The trigger for this story was a post from @StanSP. Over on the random pictures thread he told us about Historic England's new archive of aerial photos, and posted this amazing shot from 1923:
Such a wonderful view of the old place, and if you look closely, all sorts of interesting things become apparent.
First, as you probably noticed, the photo actually shows a match in progress:
What a scene that is - the Main Stand before the 'Wings' were added, and the old Spion Kop looking magnificent,
But is it possible to identify which match it is? Well, the detail on the website says it's from January 1923. We played three home games that month, two in the League, against Barnsley and Notts County, and one in the FA Cup, against Fulham. It's pretty clear that it's the Cup tie we're looking at, given how packed the terraces are, and what looks like a white shirted opposition. You can see the kits in this shot from the Daily Mirror:
The match was a quite an historic occasion. 'Que Sera Sera' was several decades in the future, but this was our first Cup tie with fans dreaming of Wembley. The nation was already obsessed with Cup football, and with the new national stadium set to stage the Final, it just added to the excitement.
Contemporary match reports from that day, January 13th, give a taste of the mood:
Every type of vehicle capable of moving, from horse charas to Ford one-tonners, turned out to convey the hordes of Fulham fans from Leicester Station to the ground. Others walked, and the path across the recreation ground was soon transformed into a sea of mud. Then crowds swarmed down each street in the "Nutteries" while vehicles dumped their passengers before returning for further loads.
Zooming into the photo again you can see, in what looks like a scene from Wacky Races, all those vehicles near the ground, next to the Liberty Building.
The Fulham fans would go home disappointed - we won 4-0, with genius Johnny Duncan getting two. Dreams of Wembley lived on...
But back to that aerial photo. Anything else to notice?
Top right in the original shot is a fine view of the Aylestone Road Cricket Ground, which Leicestershire used between the wars. On the Historic England site you can find another great view of that ground, from four years later:
There's a match in progress here, too. Zoom in and you clearly see the umpires reaching the middle, with the fielding side behind them, and two batsmen walking down the pavilion steps.
Can we identify this occasion? Well, here we are given a precise date - June 10th 1927.
That was the final day of Leicestershire's game v Surrey in the County Championship. It was an exciting time for County. They'd had a wretched thirty years, finishing in the bottom half of the table every year but one. But going into this game they were suddenly second in the table behind Lancashire. The sparse crowd reflects the state of the game on that final day. After Surrey built a large first innings lead we only had six second innings wickets left and were just four runs ahead. If we lost quick wickets it could be all over pretty quickly. In the end, the game was wrapped up by mid-afternoon, Surrey coasting home by 10 wickets.
So the archive gives us a precious insight into two separate sporting occasions from almost 100 years ago - Leicester City v Fulham, 1923. Leicestershire v Surrey, 1927.
And this is where it gets truly remarkable, for there is one man who links the two events.
His name is Andy Ducat.
Have a look at this short video:
You might have spotted some key words there - like 'Fulham' and 'Surrey'.
After lifting the Cup for Villa in 1920, he played for Fulham between 1921 and 1924.
And here are the teams for the FA Cup match at Leicester in 1923:
You can see he was Fulham's number 4 - he was playing right half.
As a cricketer, Ducat played for Surrey for almost twenty five years before retiring in the late 1920s.
And this is the scorecard for their first innings at Leicestershire in 1927:
So he was taking part on both occasions.
Let's look at those photos again. It's impossible, of course, to pick him out in an aerial photo. Unless...
We know from the match report that Leicester were attacking the Kop in the first half, which is almost certainly when the photo was taken, given how early the light would start to fade in mid January. That means Ducat would have been playing on the side furthest from the Main Stand, close to the Popular Side (later the East Stand).
Look at the photo and while the blue shirts of Leicester are difficult to spot against the background, the Fulham players stand out, and are sticking fairly rigidly to their positions in an orthodox 2-3-5 formation. The player circled is in the right half position, and there's a high probability that is our man:
How about the cricket photo? Well, it shows the players entering the field on the last day, so it could be one of three moments:
i) The start of play, with Leicester 150-4 overnight.
ii) The start of the afternoon session, with Leicester 220-9
iii) The start of Surrey's 2nd innings, the target 97.
If it's either of the first two, then Ducat is one of the fielders in the group heading for the middle. If it's the other one, he's sitting in the pavilion, hoping he doesn't have to put his pads on. If he is in that group, then this time it really is impossible to say which one is him. But instead of that, there is a photo from Day 1 of the match, with the Surrey players in almost the same position.
Which one Andy Ducat is I'm not sure, but if I had to choose I'd go for the player with his left hand on his hip near the centre.
So how did the stories finish?
Dreams of Wembley glory would have to wait (for another 98 years). We lost 1-0 at home to Cardiff in the next round.
Leicestershire faded to 5th (though for them that was a massive improvement). They would have to wait almost 50 years to be County Champions.
Meanwhile, the aerial shot of our old ground currently looks like this:
Hopefully we won't have to wait too long before it becomes the kind of place its history deserves.
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