The X-Rated Challenges That Stopped Us Winning The Cup

Recently discovered footage is casting new light on Leicester City history. Like the release of sensitive government files under the 30 year rule, online videos are revealing the truth about what really happened. Let's look at the semi-final and final of the FA Cup in 1961:

1) FA Cup Semi-Final, March 18th 1961. Leicester 0 Sheffield United 0 at Elland Road.  

Gordon Wills, our outside left, played most of the game as a hobbling invalid. Why? In Of Fossils and Foxes, it refers only to him 'receiving a severe knock'. What does this mean? Well now we know. Uploaded this week is footage of the match that tells us. In the first half, Sheffield United's Gerry Summers committed an atrocious foul  - one that not only left Wills hobbling for the rest of the game,  but ruled him out for the rest of the season, including the Cup Final v Spurs.

Look at the incident at 3.24 (it's set to play just before the key moment). Then pause it and look at it again, as if it were Monday Night Football analyzing a horror tackle, so you can see how bad it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44XSNdZ1icc&t=3m20s

Summers, as many will recall, later joined the Leicester coaching staff, an assistant to Gordon Milne in the early 80s. Did anyone ask him about the tackle then? In Of Fossils and Foxes, there is a brief summary of Summers' career, but the tackle is not mentioned. I wonder how it was reported in the press back in 1961.  In the programme for the semi-final it describes Summers as 'sharp in the tackle'. Hmmm.

Well, Sheff Utd missed their chance - they couldn't beat our 10 men, and we won in a second replay. Matt Gillies reorganized the forward line without Wills, giving Albert Cheesebrough Wills' number 11 shirt and bringing in Ken Keyworth.  

2) FA Cup Final, May 6th  1961. Spurs 2 Leicester 0.

It's commonly known that Len Chalmers' injury in the first half after a tackle by Les Allen once again left Leicester with only 10 fit players. I'm not sure if the detail has been well documented, but if you look at the full match, (which is available online but, judging from the number of views, rarely seen)  you get a good idea of the build up to the incident:

The key passage of action is from 17.45 to 23.35 in the video.

These are the moments that stand out:

a) Jimmy Walsh's tackle on  Cliff Jones (17.45 on the video). 

Leicester's captain makes a pretty awful high challenge on Spurs' Cliff Jones (there is a very good slow motion replay at 18.28). The first thing that struck me was how similar this was to a famous challenge from another Spurs Cup Final - Paul Gascoigne's outrageous lunge into Garry Parker's chest in the opening minutes of the game.

Walsh's challenge doesn't have the same venom as Gazza's, but it does leave Jones winded, and the Spurs' players wound up.

b)  Albert Cheesebrough's challenge on Peter Baker. This is just after play restarts, at 19.40 in the video, and once again the Spurs trainer comes on. You can't see what happened so clearly in the video but if you look at different footage of the final (taken from the other side), you can see it doesn't look like a dangerous challenge at all, or even a foul.

Still, that's the trainer on twice in two minutes, and maybe Spurs were starting to think of dishing out a bit of rough stuff themselves. 

c) Les Allen's frustration.

At 21.03 on the original video, just seconds after the referee has restarted play with a drop ball again, Frank McLintock seems to brush the leg of Spurs' Bobby Smith, and Smith goes down. Look at the Spurs player on the edge of the centre circle - it's Les Allen. He wheels round towards the ref in apparent frustration, perhaps appealing for him to start protecting his teammates (it was a totally innocuous challenge, and McLintock may not even have made contact with Smith, but maybe Allen thinks 'this is the third incident in quick succession'). If you were making a case for the prosecution, you'd be citing Allen's body language here as key evidence proving intent in the incident that followed seconds later...

d) Allen's challenge on Len Chalmers

Seconds later, Allen makes the challenge that puts Len Chalmers out of the Final with more than three quarters of the game still to play. It's difficult to see how much he takes the ball - it comes out behind Chalmers as though Allen did make pretty good contact with it, but that doesn't excuse the follow through - maybe it's best described as a classic over the top tackle. 

So they are the two X-rated tackles, without which history may have been very different.  We win the final and deprive Spurs of the double.  McLintock, who would leave for Arsenal frustrated with Leicester's 'lack of ambition', is content with a major trophy and stays at Filbert Street, erasing Arsenal's double from history...