kushiro

Good interview. This passage really stands out: “There was a vital relegation battle against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. Jock had put the teamsheet up and if you took me out, the average age was about 19 or 20. He’d selected young lads like Everton Carr and Neville Hamilton. “So I went to see him and said: ‘Gaffer, we’re fighting for our lives here. Surely you’ve got to go with experience rather than the young lads!’ He just turned to me and said: ‘Well Mark, it doesn’t matter what division we’re in next year, whether it’s the second or the third, these are the lads who’ll be playing.’ “I thought: ‘Gee! He has such a great belief in what he is doing.’ We drew the game 2-2 even though we were down to 10 men because I think Everton Carr got sent off. “In the end, we came through that and stayed up and, the next season, Jock’s approach obviously paid dividends because we won the Second Division title.”

Interesting that he skirts over the downside of that World Cup. In his book, he opened up about how miserable he was: I would walk the streets of South Korea, later Japan, and go into shops and buy DVDs. I was lonely, isolated. Most days the squad would get together and go to a local mosque. Most of the team are Muslim. I’m not a Muslim. My memories of that World Cup are me in a hotel room by myself, curtains closed, lying on my bed, watching another film. My biggest regret was that I never learned Turkish.

This is a pretty cool way to follow the full story:

Sure is. Mid to late 1940s before the Main Stand roof was repaired.

Likelihood is the photo was taken a month after the shop opened, in October 1991, when Blur played the Uni. When HMV opened in September, Kenny Thomas was the minor celeb they invited to the ceremony.

Interesting that he had to fly straight off for a WCQ against Mexico after we won the League Cup at Hillsborough. And even more interesting what happened to him in the first minute of that game:

That's OK, mate. The bits you attached were perfect. What was your research about the vote?

Thanks a lot. Two things from that Sheff Wed programme would be very useful .There should be a Jon Holmes column, and also, any reports on the 'Fosse or City'supporters ballot.

Time to get the begging bowl out again. I mentioned above that I had to get rid of all my old progammes and fanzines when I moved to Japan. I'm still trying to finish this book about Jon Holmes and the history of Leicester, and there are a couple of things that would really help. I need: 1) The programmes for the latter part of the 2002/03 season - especially the home game v Sheffield Wednesday in March. 2) Fox fanzine from March to June that season. If anyone has these and is willing to make a few scans I would be eternally grateful. PM me if you can help. Thanks.

What was the first record you ever bought? Mine was in December 1976, the month the Sex Pistols released Anarchy In the UK. But my first record wasn't that. It was Neil Sedaka's Make Your Own Sunshine, bought in Boots on Bell Street in Wigston. I used to tell that story as a form of self-deprecation. As the excitement of punk kicked off, I was busy listening to a washed up middle of the road singer-songwriter from the States. But as I got older I realised that I hadn't made such a bad choice after all. Sedaka was a very good songwriter, whose back cataloge you can spend ages on youtube exploring. One of his best was Love Will Keep Us Together, a title Ian Curtis reworked for a track that's become a staple of football crowds. Sedaka died yesterday, aged 86. One of his very best was an American number one from 1975 that didn't even make the charts in the UK. Bad Blood featured stunning but uncredited backing vocals from Elton John, and it's a track with a bite in the music and the lyrics. Here's a fairly poor quality recording of a great performance, and a better quality version of the same song.: Just listening to Make Your Own Sunshine again now, and it has a very 'When You're Smiling' feel - 'before you walk in the sun, you've gotta laugh in the rain'. I've just looked if he ever played in Leicester and he did so twice in the seventies - at Baileys in 1973 and the De Mont in 1975. Any memories?

Jon Holmes is at the heart of it. Originally, I simply wanted to tell his story, and I began speaking to him a couple of years ago about his journey from supporter to chairman. Heartbreak in 1963 as a 12 year-old boy when the Ice Kings were on course for the double but ended up with nothing. Setting up a sports agency and having Peter Shilton, Gary Lineker and David Gower as his main clients. On to 2002 when he and Gary led the consortium that rescued the club from the brink of oblivion, and then 2016 when he saw the Premier League trophy lifted, surrounded by members of that Ice Kings team, who he had invited to the match. It’s a great tale, but then he started telling me about his family history, and that’s when it got even more interesting. Jon really is one of our own – his roots are in Leicester, going back several generations, and his ancestors led equally interesting lives. Their stories are right at the heart of this city’s story, and when you see the whole picture, you see that however dramatic 2015/16 was, it was just part of a larger drama, stretching right back to the birth of the club in the 1880s. It’s taking a while to finish the writing, as the story needs to be told properly. No details yet of a publication schedule, but watch this space.

Thanks for asking, I still look in here regularly but haven't had time to post much recently. Working on a book at the mo.

Nice subtle reference to our early days.