kushiro

I should have made more of that. In fact, you've prompted me to go back and edit section 9. Thanks.

Something not mentioned in the article was that if you had to choose one figure in the Premier League era whose memory is cherished by fans as much as Vichai, then it would be Jack Walker. You can imagine a double tifo at Ewood - Jack at one end, Vichai at the other. (wouldn't work at the King Power though with the away fans in the corner). Wonder when we'll be there again?

8) So we're going to be presented with the trophy tomorrow. Here's a quiz question. What were the two occasons when the FA Cup was displayed at Leicester's last home game of the season. There was 2021 - when we lost 4-2 to Spurs a week after beating Chelsea in the Final, with 8,000 allowed into the King Power. The other one? It was in 1928, when two days after winning the trophy at Wembley, Blackburn Rovers rounded off their season on Monday evening at Filbert Street. They brought the cup with them and it sat on display in front of the Main Stand. Blackburn had reached Wembley by beating Arsenal 1-0 in the semi-final - at Filbert Street. On that Monday, Leicester beat Blackburn 6-0 to finish third in the table - our best ever. It's just about possible that someone in the crowd that day lived to see us lift the trophy 93 years later.

Certainly the last to do so. Wanderers did it before them.

Just had a look to see how Ted Harper got on against Leicester in that record-breaking scoring season. We'd just been promoted, and ended up 17th in the table, so I expected Harper to have bagged a few of his 43 against us. Surprise, surprise. The results were: Blackburn 0 Leicester 0 - the only club to stop Rovers scoring at Ewood all season Leicester 2 Blackburn 1 - and it was Tommy Mitchell who got their goal. It's possible that Leicester were the only side that season against whom Harper played twice and didn't score.

Wow! Please tell me more. Are they still City fans?

This is a great article by Scott Summer at 4000 Holes, looking back at that Le Tissier goal: Interesting points there about the applause from Rovers fans for Le Tissier's goal, and the claim that it was the best ever at Ewood. There was a thread on here recently, wasn't there:

More to come, starting with a personal story: 7) May 5th 2001 Leicester 4 Tottenham 2. This was after nine straight defeats. After Wycombe beat us in the Cup we seemed to give up. On the beach from the middle of March. Peter Taylor's fault, or the players' fault? For this final home game of the season I wasn't on the beach - I was on the roof. I've posted this before but it's one of my favourites: I made an appeal a few years back for information about who those three are. No luck at the time. Any ideas?

I've been writing a few pieces for the forums of our opponents recently, and I haven't put links on here as I wasn't sure anyone would be interested. But I realised they might work as an alternative version of the 'Meet Our Visitors' page in the club programme (I presume they stil exist - haven't bought a programme for so long) so I'm going to reproduce the one for Blackburn here. I wrote this for the website of the 4000 Holes fanzine. It's one of the oldest and from what I've seen one of the best fanzines around. This is where it was posted, and the full piece is below: I usually write historical pieces about Leicester City, but it’s fun to spread the net a bit wider and cover other teams too. With Rovers coming to the King Power on Saturday, I’d like to present an outsider’s view of a few stand-out moments in the club’s history. You might find the selections a little biased towards the distant past, but please comment and tell me what you think. I’ll present it as a top ten: 10) Forget Haaland. What About Harper vs Halliday? No-one knows when the phrase ‘fill yer boots’ originated, but my money would be on 1925, when the laws of the game changed. The FA decided that an attacker would now only be offside if he was in front of the last defender when the ball was played. At that time the record for most goals in a season in Division One was 38, shared by Bert Freeman and Joe Smith. But early in 1925/26 it was clear that the record was under threat. In the first four games, Dave Halliday scored TEN for Sunderland as they roared to the top of the League. At the other end of the table were Blackburn Rovers, who started with three straight defeats, and looked like they might be relegated for the first time ever. That prompted Rovers manager Jack Carr to make a change in the forward line. He brought in Ted Harper at number nine for the trip to Newcastle United. Harper responded by scoring five in an astonishing 7-1 victory. When Sunderland came to Ewood Park two weeks later, Harper scored twice as Rovers won 3-2 to continue their climb up the table. Harper now had nine, just one behind Halliday. The following week Harper got a hat-trick as Rovers beat Cardiff 6-2. He now had twelve in just five games, while Halliday scored twice as Sunderland beat Spurs. The goal-machines were level on a dozen apiece. And so it continued. The two of them went head-to-head for the whole season, the race capturing fans’ imagination just as much as the battle for trophies. The crucial day was April 10th. With three games to play, Halliday had 38 and needed just one more to break the record. Harper was one behind on 37. At Highbury, Sunderland won 2-1, but Halliday was sent off, and left the field without adding to his tally. Meanwhile at Ewood Park, Rovers hammered Manchester United 7-0, with Harper unstoppable. He helped himself to four, taking his total into the 40s, where no striker had ever been before. He finished on 43, and Halliday was stuck on 38. It’s a largely forgotten story, thanks to the exploits of George Camsell and Dixie Dean in subsequent years. But in the mid-twenties, Rovers fans could justifiably claim that they had by far the greatest goal scorer the world had ever seen. 9) They’ll Never Do It In The Top Flight There’s nothing quite as thrilling as a late surge to promotion. And there may never have been a surge quite like Blackburn’s in 1958. On March 22nd, Rovers lost 2-1 to Bolton in the FA Cup Semi-Final at Maine Road. It was a shattering defeat, but they had no time to feel sorry for themselves. They had to pull themselves together for the promotion race. This was the top of Division Two (no play-offs then, of course): Just two days after the semi-final, Rovers hosted Bristol City at Ewood Park and somehow had the energy for a crushing 5-0 victory. That was the first game in a blistering sequence in which Johnny Carey’s team scored 5, 3, 5, 5, 3, 3, 4, 1 and 4. Thirty-three goals in nine games climaxing with a famous all-or-nothing victory at Charlton. After a decade away, Rovers were back at the top level. The forward line was Douglas, Dobing, Johnston, Vernon, MacLeod. And that climax to the season took Rovers into the top flight with their confidence at Scotland 1978 levels (that was when MacLeod told everyone his team were going to win the World Cup). Sceptics doubted whether that attacking force would be as effective against First Division defences, and when the fixture list came out, Rovers were given a tough opener – at Newcastle. The game must have brought back sweet memories for Ted Harper, then in the last of his 58 years. Three decades after that 7-1 win at St James Park, Rovers came away with another stunning victory – this time by five goals to one. Two days later, Harper's old rival was at Ewood Park. Dave Halliday was now manager of Leicester City, and they were the visitors for the first top flight game in Blackburn since 1948. After that win at Newastle, there must have been a great sense of anticipation, and Rovers didn't let the fans down. Leicester were beaten 5-0. The following Saturday, Bill Nicholson's Tottenham came to Ewood and incredibly, they got the same treatment - hammered 5-0. There can’t have been many moments in the club’s history when fans were dancing in the streets quite as joyously as that weekend, Rovers sitting proudly at the top of the League with the ridiculous goal average of 15.00. It’s another moment largely erased from history due to subsequent events. But dreams that don’t come true are just as real as those that do. And the hopes of recapturing former glories that Rovers fans cherished at the start of that season shouldn’t be forgotten. 8) Liverpool, Leeds or Birmingham – I Don’t Care Leicester v Blackburn might be called ‘The Upstarts Derby’ – the only teams to break the monopoly of the big clubs in the Premier League era. Unlike Rovers though, Leicester can’t look back on a distant past when they were a member of the elite. On only one occasion has Leicester been chosen to stage an FA Cup Semi-Final*. That was back in 1928 – and it was a historic day for Rovers too. They faced Arsenal at Filbert Street, and came away with a narrow victory thanks to Jack Roscamp’s goal. At Wembley, Rovers won 3-1 against Huddersfield, their sixth FA Cup win to go with two League titles. They were truly giants of the game. But what followed was nearly 70 years of hurt without a major trophy, and those who enjoy a bit of wallowing in self-pity might appreciate this piece of trivia. The community singing at Wembley in 1928 kicked off with Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty, the song which opens the Smiths’ classic album The Queen Is Dead: *Filbert Street also staged a replayed FA Cup Semi-Final in 1962. Ewood Park has staged five, plus one replay, the last being in 1947. 7) The Five-Second Final It’s one of the best-known stories in North-West football. Dave Whelan’s leg fracture in the 1960 Cup Final leaves Rovers with just ten men, and Wolves run out comfortable 3-0 winners before being booed off the field for their boring tactics. But the key moment in that match was arguably straight after the kick-off. Derek Dougan, two-goal hero of the semi-final and future Filbert Street favourite, went into the game less than fully fit. He’d injured a muscle in his thigh the week before the final at Birmingham, but he convinced manager Dally Duncan he was OK. Just five seconds into the game, a Wolves player came straight through Dougan and aggravated the injury. Dougan, barely half-fit now, spent the whole game in the pocket of Wolves’ captain Bill Slater, the man who’d just picked up the Footballer of the Year award. You can see Dougan spin round as he feels the force of that challenge: 6) Club or Country? Rovers’ manager at the time of that 1928 FA Cup win was Bob Crompton, a name that most Blackburn fans will know, and one that ought to be known more widely. His record of 41 England caps stood for nearly half a century until Billy Wright surpassed it. He was a full back, and the story of the last of those caps is fascinating. On the morning of April 4th 1914, Rovers were six points clear at the top of the League, seemingly cruising to the title. But that day the team in second place, Bolton Wanderers, were the visitors to Ewood Park. They also had a game in hand. If they could win, the race would be wide open. It seems unbelievable now, but Rovers went into this crucial game without Crompton due to an international call-up. He was on duty for England at Hampden Park. Back then, and in fact right up to the 1960s, internationals were often scheduled on the same day as a League programme, and country generally took precedence over club. It wasn’t only Rovers that were affected. Bolton lost two players - Joe Smith of England and Alex Donaldson of Scotland. The Scots won 3-1 at Hampden, with Crompton and Smith combining to set up England’s goal. As a disappointed Bob came off the field, he’d have been anxious about the result at Ewood. Bolton were 2-1 up at one stage, but two second half goals saw Blackburn take the points. Six days later, a point at Newcastle sealed Rovers’ second title in three years, with three games to spare. Coming later is another 3-2 win that preceded title celebrations. 5) Jimmy Brown – Rovers Legend If you've never read Arnold Bennett's book The Card, then you've been missing out. It's a fantastic, comic novel with a climax that features some of the best and most authentic writing about football in English literature (not that there's much competition). In that final section there’s a reference to a famous moment in Rovers history: Every reader will remember with a thrill the match in which the immortal Jimmy Brown, on the last occasion when he captained Blackburn Rovers, dribbled the ball himself down the length of the field, scored a goal, and went home with the English Cup under his arm. Callear intended to imitate the feat. He went on, and good luck seemed to float over him like a cherub. Finally he shot; a wild, high shot; but there was an adverse wind which dragged the ball down, swept it round, and blew it into the net. Brown’s goal came in the Cup Final replay at the Racecourse Ground, Derby in 1886, when Rovers won 2-0 to complete a hat-trick of triumphs. He did indeed retire shortly afterwards, but came back briefly two years later to play in the first season of the Football League. If you have eight hours to spare, you could do worse than listen to the whole of the The Card, read by the wonderful Andy Minter: 4) Throwing It All Away On Leicester City forums recently, after the club had allowed a 14-point gap over the third placed team to be gradually eaten away, there was a lot of talk about whether any other club had ever collapsed so spectacularly. One instance mentioned was Blackburn Rovers in 1991/92. It’s the opposite of the late-season surge mentioned earlier. For Kenny Dalglish, it was the first time in 25 years as player and manager that he had experienced anything resembling a slump. They missed out on automatic promotion, but then came the play-offs, with Leicester involved too. It was a great story, and you can read about it in some detail here: 3) Slow Starters in a Season of Tragedy That play-off triumph came four decades after Jack Walker had witnessed one of the most traumatic days in the history of the club. He was there when Rovers fan William Hargreaves died and nearly 200 were injured after a game at Bury as a footbridge over the railway at Knowsley Street station collapsed on to the line 20 feet below. It’s another story that is surprisingly little known outside Lancashire. That was a remarkable season for Rovers. After nine games they had just two points. A drop into Division Three beckoned. They were still bottom in November, but that didn’t stop full back Bill Eckersley retaining his place in the England side. He was chosen to partner Alf Ramsey for England against Austria at Wembley. It was then that Rovers’ form completely turned around. Throughout the winter of 1952 they were one of the best teams in the country, winning fifteen games out of nineteen in League and Cup, which saw them pull clear of relegation danger and reach the Quarter-Finals of the FA Cup. The game at Bury which preceded the bridge collapse was right in the middle of that run, Rovers winning 2-0. In that quarter-final Rovers beat Burnley 3-1 at Ewood Park, and it was only after a semi-final replay at Elland Road that they lost to eventual winners Newcastle United. This is a wonderful clip. Perhaps one of you can manage what I couldn’t and identify the Rovers player who misses a great chance just before United’s winner: 2) The Football Association Backs Down Jack Walker was delighted to be part of that very first Premier League season back in 1992/93. He was in favour of the project, unlike Bill Fox, Blackburn chairman and Football League president, who died just before the new era began. He was against any break-up of the football family. More than 100 years earlier, in October 1884, there was nearly an even bigger schism in the game. 14 northern clubs met at the Bay Horse Hotel in Blackburn to discuss breaking away from the FA over their stance on professionalism. The threat was real, and would have meant all those clubs pulling out of the FA Cup. This was just after the first of Rovers’ hat-trick of Cup wins, so history could have been very different. Thankfully, the FA saw sense, allowing players to be paid from the following season. Without that compromise, the Association game – soccer – might have gone the way of rugby, split into north and south, professional and amateur, losing the unity that allowed it to grow so spectacularly in the coming decades to become the world’s favourite sport. 1) The Beautiful Game We finish with 1994/95, the season when everyone apart from Man U fans (and some in Preston and Burnley) were cheering Rovers over the finish line. Allow me to introduce that season with a personal reminiscence. I had fallen out of love with football in 1994. I was actually living just south of Blackburn at the time, but even though Rovers were top of the League, I couldn’t be bothered going to watch them, even against Leicester. Then, one Saturday afternoon in December, Rovers had a home fixture against Southampton, and for some reason, at about 4 o’clock, I thought ‘I wonder if they still allow you in free for the last fifteen minutes, like in the old days?’ It was a freezing early winter afternoon, but I decided to take a stroll down to Ewood Park. At about 4.30, I got to the ground and peered through the gap between the Darwen End and the Jack Walker Stand and saw Alan Shearer let go a shot with his right foot. I couldn’t see the goal itself, but the noise told me instantly what had happened. Shearer then ran straight towards me, his arms (yes, both of them) raised in celebration. It was a revelatory moment, like he was beckoning me into the ground. I couldn’t see any way in, so I walked round to the other end, and reached the Blackburn End just as a steward pulled open one of those huge exit gates, allowing me, for the first time in a long time, to walk into a football ground. I quickly found a seat just to the right of the goal, and asked what the score was. ‘We’re three one up’, someone said. The next moment, Matt Le Tissier weaved a magic circle in the middle of the park, then let fly a gorgeous, looping 35 yarder - a shot I might have caught had its trajectory not been interrupted by the top corner of Tim Flowers’ net. This was more than revelatory. It was utterly mind-blowing. People talk about being struck by a metaphorical bolt of lightning. This was like a message from the Footballing Gods (or should I say 'Le God') reminding me just how beautiful this game is. Even today I wonder whether I’ve twisted the facts of the story. It just seems too good to be true. But if I check online it says ‘Shearer 74, Le Tissier 77’, confirming the timeline. Just after Le Tissier’s goal, he was through one-on-one and looked certain to equalize, but Flowers made a crucial save, and Rovers held on to win 3-2. That turned out to be very important come the spring. Had Rovers not won the League, it could have been United five times in a row in the nineties, and that might have turned everyone off football forever. For me, the passion was rekindled, to such an extent that I now find myself writing long historical features about clubs I don't even support. Here are those moments from December 10th 1994: Well, I hope you enjoyed that, and please tell me if I’ve made any factual or contextual howlers.

The perfect script for tomorrow would be a thumping victory to reach 100 points, with Jamie Vardy hitting a hat-trick, inspired by the sight of a tifo stretching half way round the ground. But if it doesn't turn out like that no-one's going to be that bothered. We're not quite 'on the beach', but the pressure is off and the players can relax. Don't take your eyes off the action, though. It's often in fixtures like this that the most remarkabke things happen. Here's a quick run through of some of those moments. 1) Sous Les Paves, La Plage We start, appropriately enough, on the beach. 'Soue Les Paves, La Plage' was one of the slogans of 'Les Evenements' in Paris in May 1968 - 'under the paving stones, the beach'. It was a utopian vision of urban landscape returned to nature, but those ripped up paving stones came in handy for other purposes. As France teetered on the brink of revolution in early May, there were remarkably similar scenes on the streets of Leicester. But here the motivation wasn't political. The slum clearance programme around the Royal Infirmary was at its height, and as those old terraced houses were demolished, the debris lay all around. Bricks, planks of wood filled with nails, lumps of concrete. On Saturday May 4th, Leicester City were at home to Nottingham Forest. We were 10th, Forest were 14th, so in League terms, it was a meaningless end-of-season game. But of course, Leicester - Forest is never meaningless. This is how one local resident remembered that afternoon: I was really frightened. Nottingham Forest were coming to play, and people were saying 'There's going to be trouble'. My dad says ‘No there’s not'. They’d just knocked down Clarendon St and Raglan St. I said ‘Well I’m not stopping, there’s going to be trouble’. I went to see my Auntie Pat. As I came out there’s this huge mob coming down New Bridge Street, right across the road they were, and they were picking sticks and bricks up off the debris. And there was trouble ‘cos all the shop windows got broken didn’t they, and that’s the first time I remember any vandalism down there’. That's from the wonderful oral history book, Walnut Street. The trouble continued at the ground. According to the Mercury, 'The Forest mobs were in first, and took the Kopites pitch on the terraces under the Double Decker Stand'. The inevitable ruck followed and there were dozens of arrests. One of those who ended up in court was a 21 year old from Wigston, whose name I'll omit. According to a police officer giving evidence, he'd shouted, 'Come on Koppites, give 'em some stick!'. Not quite the authentic voice of the terraces, is it? More like something you'd see in a speech bubble in Tiger and Scorcher. But who knows, maybe he really did say those words. The defendant claimed he was only trying to encourage the team, shouting 'Give us an L!', which at least sounds plausible. The Mercury also carried reports of trouble at the station, quoting the manageress of the buffet on Platform 2. She said Forest fans had 'sat on the floor, slopped tea on the tables and spilled sugar'. They really should bring back the birch, if only to sweep those surfaces. 2) Let 'Em Get Four Then Shut Up Shop On the last day of the 1923/24 season, we had absolutely nothing to play for. But it was very different for opponents Derby County. They needed to beat us 5-0 at the Baseball Ground to move above Bury into second place and clinch promotion. It also started so well for the Rams. They were two up in twenty minutes, and the half-time score was 3-0. When the fourth went in, the Bury fans who had traveled down from Lancashire were 'feeling blue'. But amid desperate scenes at the end, Derby couldn't manage that fifth goal. They would stay down for another season. 'Tough luck, chaps', said the Leicester players as they shook hands with their opponents at the end, trying their best to conceal the smirks. 3) The 'Lowest Gate Ever' May 7th 1921. Stockport County v Leicester City - so meaningless that only 13 people turned up to watch it. Or at least that's the story you would read in footy annuals in the 1970s. Of course, it couldn't possibly have been only 13. Stockport's ground had been closed by the FA after fans attacked a referee, and this game was the second act in a double-header at Old Trafford. After Man U beat Derby 3-0 in the first game, Stockport and Leicester drew 0-0. Only 13 people paid to get in between the two matches, but over a thousand stayed after the United game to see more action. I wonder how many away fans were there? 4) The Ghost of White Hart Lane April 26th 1964. Leicester City 0 Tottenham 1 - the last game of the season, the only highlight a sublime moment from John White: With everyone else expecting him to pass, he let go a tremendous drive from the edge of the penalty area and it zoomed past Gordon Banks’. White had so nearly joined Leicester instead of Spurs, and if he had, his life would have been very different. That goal at Filbert Street was the last he would ever score. Two months later, he was playing golf at Crews Hill near London when he was struck by lightning and killed. The book 'The Ghost of White Hart Lane' is highly recommended. 5) We'll Never Play You Again ...is a chant that Leicester fans sing tongue in cheek. We are the ultimate yo-yo club, and tomorrow's game will not be our last ever in the second tier. But we can be a little more confident that our Legaue One game at Crewe Alexandra on May 2nd 2009 was our last ever at that level. We went into the game at Gresty Road having already clinched the title, and we strolled to a 3-0 victory. What's interesting about that game is what might have happened, had events that season turned out differently. Four months earlier, a 20 year old Stocksbridge Park Steels striker called Jamie Vardy was looking for a move to a Football League club. Crewe Alexandra were in a relegation fight in League One, their plight not helped by a recent defeat at the King Power Stadium. Crewe scouts had been watching Vardy, and in January he came to Gresty Road for a trial. Gary Marrow, Steels boss, came down to see how he was getting on, and told Jamie he thought he was making a good impression. But Vardy wasn't enjoying himself: There were two lads staying in digs with me, so I asked what we did for dinner. They said they were making pasta. I didn't fancy that. I went round the corner and found a MacDonalds. I wasn't going to try and be something I'm not. He wasn't offered a contract, and he went back to Stocksbridge. So we never got to see an end of season drama in which Vardy scores a last minute goal to keep Crewe up before celebrating provocatively in front of the Leicester fans. Shame really. Back in the real world, Crewe's defeat that day confirmed their drop into the fourth tier. 6) A Million Strides - and A Single Peck If professional footballers occasionally treat the last game of the season as a bit of a lark, that's not something that could ever be said of Alan Birchenall. His charity run was a feature of our final home game for about 40 years. Apologies to the great man, but depsite all those hard yards, he will probably be remembered for this moment more than any other. In the last game of the 1974/75 season we traveled to Bramall Lane. Tony Currie scored a thirty-yarder past Mark Wallington, we lost 4-0, and of course... There's more coming soon.

Great badges of English Football: 1) Lincoln City The Imps: 2) Leicester City:

Great old BBC video just appeared online. You might recognize the trophy at the end.

Still putting off the 2021 Charity Shield.

The games that clinched the title: 1925 Leicester City 4 Stockport County 0 (clinches the club's first trophy) 1937 Leicester City 4 Tottenham 1 1954 Oldham 0 Everton 4 (if they'd scored two more they'd have overtaken us on goal average) 1957 Orient 1 Leicester City 5 1971 Bristol City 0 Leicester City 1 1980 Orient 0 Leicester City 1 2014 Bolton Wanderers 0 Leicester City 1 2024 Preston 0 Leicester City 3

I've put all the places together on one map and - bingo! - it actually works as a trail through the city, with Deepdale top right: The oblique lines are the places mentioned above: The circles are the former Football League Headquarters:

This has been updated over on The Fosse Way, including the helpful comments from @Free Falling Foxes @SuperMike and @The Fox Covert https://www.thefosseway.net/viewpoint/leicester-city-british-policeman-preston-connection

It looks like we're going to make history on Monday night. And there's no better place to do so than Preston. This is for those of you heading northwards tomorrow. If you arrive early, you'll have the chance to follow the Leicester History Trail around the streets of the city. It's not something you'll find on any official tourist guide, but it's what I'm calling it here. For a football fan, and a Leicester fan, Preston is full of historical landmarks. Let's take a look at them: 1) Preston Guild Hall Gary Lineker's debut for Leicester was on New Year's Day 1979 in a 2-0 win over Oldham at Filbert Street. He didn't have a great game, and Jock Wallace didn't pick him again until April - for a trip to Preston. Deepdale was the first away ground he played at. It was a disaster. City crashed 4-0, their third defeat in four days over Easter, leaving them perilously close to a drop into Division Three. Thankfully we lost only one of the last five and stayed up. Lineker, as you know, was best mates with Willie Thorne. Gary was best man at Willie's wedding in the spring of 1985, a ceremony held on a Wednesday because Gary was somehow always busy on Saturdays. Six months later Willie was on the verge of the greatest triumph of his career. Over the weekend of November 30th and December 1st, he faced Steve Davis in the final of the UK Championships at the Guild Hall in Preston (a place you'll pass on the walk from the Station to Deepdale). Gary wanted to be there to watch him. There was a slight problem. Everton had an away game down at Southampton on Saturday, so he wouldn't even make it for the evening session. But despite being 250 miles apart, they were both enjoying themselves. Just as Lineker was putting Everton ahead at The Dell, Willie was compiling a break of 112 to give him an early advantage at Preston. Everton went on to win 3-2, and Willie finished the day 8-6 up against the World Number One. On Sunday, Gary made the short trip from Liverpool to Preston to see if Willie could see it through. He won the first four frames of the day to lead 12-6. At the end of the afternoon session it was 13-8, and he needed just three more frames for victory. Then came the key moment. In the first frame of the evening session, Willie was clearing the colours to go 14-8 ahead when he missed an easy blue. 'It's a ball I would have sunk 99 times out of 100', he said, 'But I had a brainstorm'. Davis said, 'I was just sitting in my chair, waiting for the crowd to applaud as Willie cleared the table. If he had won that frame, it would have finished 16-8 to him'. Davis took that crucial frame to make it 13-9, and slowly clawed back the deficit. He won it 16-14 , and as he lifted the second most prestigious trophy in the game, there were actually boos from the crowd inside the Guild Hall. 'People don't like someone who looks arrogant and wins all the time', Davis said. 'The more they boo me, the harder I get'. Abuse from the crowd was something Gary Lineker was getting used to that season - from Liverpool fans at least. They had a special chant for him - suggesting that he and Willie Thorne were more than just friends. It wouldn't have bothered Gary - and he had a pretty emphatic answer anyway. When Everton went to Anfield that season, he scored in front of the Kop to seal a 2-0 victory. Shortly after that came World Cup glory and the move to Barcelona. It wasn't quite the same for Willie Thorne. After that collapse in Preston, he never won another big title in his career. 2) If you stand outside the main entrance to the Guild Hall and look across the road you'll see Preston Crown Court. It was here in 1895 that one of the most sensational trials in the history of English football took place. We need a bit of background first. I'm not sure yet whether, if we win at Preston, we'll be presented with the trophy after the game. Perhaps it'll be held over until the Blackburn game. Either way, Jamie Vardy looks like getting his hands on that historic piece of silverware pretty soon. It's the trophy that used to be presented to the true Champions of England - the winners of the First Division. That is, until the Premier League was set up in 1992. That trophy was the idea of Mr. William Sudell, manager of Preston North End in the early days of the Football League. Preston were champions in the first two seasons, and Sudell thought the best team in the land ought to receive some tangible recognition of their success. The Football League agreed, and so from the following season, 1890/91, the champions received that beautiful trophy. Preston came very close to a third title on the trot, but Everton pipped them on the line - and so became the first team to receive the pot. Preston kept trying and trying - but they were fated never to win the League again. Quite an irony. Sudell was desperate to get his hands on what he may have considered 'his' trophy, and went to extraordinary lengths to do so. In 1895 it became clear just what he'd been up to. He was the manager of the John Goodair cotton mills, and in that position, huge quantities of cash passed through his hands. Sudell embezzled large amounts of that money to pay for expensive signings for Preston North End, and to cover their wages. Sudell appeared at Preston Quarterly Sessions on April 10th 1895. In court, 'he appeared to feel his position most keenly, keeping his face hidden in his hands'. He was charged with embezzling over 5,000 pounds - a huge sum at the time, ten years before the first four figure transfer fee. The prosecution said 'No doubt the prisoner will call witnesses to his character. But they are all good characters until they are found out'. He was found guilty, handed a three -year jail term, and was 'greatly affected by the evidently unexpected severity of the sentence'. 3) A quiz question: In his career with Leicester, Everton, Barcelona, Spurs, Nagoya Grampus Eight and England, which manager did Gary Lineker play most games for? The answer is Gordon Milne. And he is the subject of two fascinating locations very close to Deepdale. The first is the tennis courts on Moor Park, just over the road from the ground. It was there, in the mid-1950s, that Milne was enjoying a knock-about with teammate David Kerry. Gordon takes up the story: We were playing tennis one night - two young footballers so we think we’re the bees’ knees, poncing around. We saw these two girls playing on another court, and as you do, we were having a look and saying ‘They look alright!’ and their names were Edith and Barbara. It led to two weddings. David and Barbara were still together until a few years ago when he sadly passed away. You can see the courts here: And top right on that map, between the ground and the church, is another key location in the Milne story. His father Jimmy was a Preston player, and Gordon was brought up in a house owned by the club. In a similar house on the opposite side of the road lived his teammate Bill Shankly. When Gordon was just a toddler, Shankly used to play with him in the street. Jimmy later told Gordon that Shankly would look out of his front room window to check when the young lad came out to play, so he could rush out and join him. The Milne house is marked on the map below. It's 6, Lowthorpe Road, with Shankly's house directly opposite: Two decades after those kickabouts in the street, Shankly signed Gordon for Liverpool, and together they helped the Reds to lift Sudell's trophy - the one that, all being well, we'll be lifting shortly: 4) Heading For The Last Round-Up Of all these places, Fishergate, the main street in the centre of Preston, would be my personal choice for a blue plaque, though that's down to a fascination I have with chants and songs of bygone eras. It's incredibly difficult to find details of what fans used to sing on the terraces in pre-war days. But we know that there was vocal backing, because newspaper reports quite often make reference to it. What is so frustrating is that those reports very rarely tell us details of what was being sung. One exception was March 3rd 1934, when Leicester City traveled to Preston and did somethig they'd never done before - win an FA Cup Quarter-Final. Arthur Chandler, aged 38, hooked in the winning goal and Leicester fans could be seen celebrating all the way back to Preston Station. The Lancashire Evening Post's reporter told us how, on Fishergate near the station, he heard fans singing: Get along Leicester City, get along Leicester City, get along Leicester City, get along. I'm heading for the last round-up. The Last Round-Up was the big hit of the year, and the line 'heading for the last round-up' could easily be taken as a 'Journey to Wembley' reference. That interpretation quickly caught on, and led to headlines like this: The real lyrics are: Get along little doggie, get along little doggie, get along little doggie, get along I'n heading for the last round-up It seems to have become our song that year, for two reasons. a) Of the four clubs in the semi-finals, we were the only one that had never reached that stage before. Cup fever in Leicester was greater than anywhere else. b) The words 'little doggie' can be so easily changed to 'Leicester City'. So, the places covered so far form a trail from the station to Deepdale. But there is an alternative route to the ground which takes in a whole different set of locations. 5) Seven Different Places - All In Preston It so nearly happened. When the Football League were looking to find new headquarters in the late 1950s, they had their eyes on a place in Leicester. But the move fell through (I haven't been able to establish exactly which place they were after). They ended up instead in Lytham St. Annes. From 1902 to 1959, the home of the greatest League in the world was Preston. Not always at the same place, mind. You can see on this map the SEVEN different locations, with Deepdale visible top right: They are, in chronological order: Notice how you can't see a white circle on a white background! They're all pretty much in a line on that map, aren't they? With Deepdale at the end. And if any of you follow that route, perhaps you could check something out for me. For despite the Football League being one of the truly great ideas of Victorian Britain - one that has spread round the world, and led to the current situaiton in which the Premier League is the most popular sports league on the planet - as far as I know, there is not a single blue plaque at any of those seven locations. In Preston you can see such plaques for Dick Kerr's Ladies Team, and for Arthur Wharton, the first black player in the Football League, both of which are fully merited. But for the League itself? Nothing. How bizarre. There are two additional places to mention, and you'll see both of these at the ground itself. Make sure you have a look at the Tom Finney statue, based on this famous photo: It was taken at Stamford Bridge on August 25th 1956, in a game Preston lost 1-0. That was the game in which manager Jimmy Milne asked Finney to switch to centre-forward, a move that had huge repurcussions. It was from that central striking position that Finney led Preston on a glorious charge up the table that so nearly brought Sudell's trophy to Deepdale for the first time. In the end they couldn't quite overhaul the Busby Babes. The other thing to appreciate is the ground itself - best viewed from over the road on the park. The story behind the modern Deepdale is fascinating. It started in the unlikely surroundings of a Manchester-based design consultancy, where lifelong Preston fan and graphics designer Ben Casey had been studying the 1990 World Cup stadiums in Italy. Frustrated by what he considered to be the dull designs being carried out post-Taylor report by most British clubs, he idly started sketching his own ideas of how Deepdale might be developed, based on the stunning Luigi Ferraris Stadium in Genoa. Casey then learned that Preston had not drawn up any of their own plans, and so humbly presented his. (from Simon Inglis, Football Grounds of Great Britain). This is the Luigi Ferraris: I wish I could be there tomorrow night. I'd love it if you could take a few selfies at some of these places and put them on here.

I think we might have another example.

Upson Downes is now part of Everton heritage: (slight misunderstanding though - he wasn't a ball boy)

Cheers. I put it on the Everton forum: Jesus Christ, That's.... | GrandOldTeam

It's amazing how often it happens. Researching the history of this club you unearth a little gem that leaves you shouting 'Eureka!' Or something even stronger. It's a poster on the Bentley's Roof forum called 'Upson Downes' that I have to thank for this one. Last week he was remembering a game at Everton in the sixties when Stanley Matthews was playing for Stoke, and he got hit by a ball which flew into the crowd. That ball went: right into my face. My head was knocked right back and it felt like my nose had broke and flattened like a boxer's and hurt like hell, my eyes were watering and I was mortified the blokes would think I was crying. Wet mud was spattered over my face. All the blokes around were saying "****n'ell lad dat muster'urt!" and the like, patting me on the head. I'll never forget it! Like so many of the wonderful old anecdotes posted on these forums, it leaves you wanting to find out more. The first thought was, 'Can I put a date on that game?' Stoke were promoted back to the top flight in 1963, but Matthews played only ten games for them after that before he retired. Could one of those have been at Goodison? The only candidate was Saturday November 23rd 1963, Everton 2 Stoke City 0. I had a look at the archives and - bingo: After missing several games with injury, Stanley was back. He was now 48, but he was still such a draw that his presence would lead to banner headlines like that, and add thousands to the gate. But before we come to the match, we need to look at the build-up in more detail. At Everton's previous two home games, it wasn't events on the pitch that made the headlines. Against Spurs, visiting keeper Bill Brown told the press that a dart had been thrown from behind the goal at the Gwladys Street end. Then against Blackburn Rovers, Everton's Tony Kay was sent off, and after the game, as the Echo reported, 'Several thousand irate fans gathered outside the ground chanting 'We want the referee'. The club, fearing the FA's response, decided to take preemptive measures. They closed off a seciton of terracing behind each goal in the hope of thwarting the missile throwers. - an unprecedented step in English football. This was the bizarre scene at the Gwladys Street end: A credulous Echo reporter stated that 'the barriers will not prevent people throwing missiles, but any missile thrown will have lost its impetus by the time it arrives'. Hmmm. I don't know about you but even from that distance, I'd still fancy my chances with a rotten tomato or a threepenny bit. So the stage was set. The grand old gentelman of English football would grace a Merseyside pitch for the final time, to a backdrop of ugly anti-hooligan steel scaffolding. Truly the end of one era, and the onset of another. Then, on the Friday afternoon came the real shocker. News broke that JFK had been shot in Dallas. His death was marked across the country the following day. As Stanley Matthews lined up with his teammates at Goodison for a minute's silence, one Everton fan shouted 'Long live Khrushchev', and just to prove what a free country we live in, he was hurriedly ushered out of the ground. Then came an urgent announcement. Everton had overlooked one key thing. What would happen if the match ball went behind the goal into that steel maze? They had to make an appeal for the club's young amateur players to assemble behind each goal and act as ball boys. When the game kicked off, all eyes were on Stanley, and he was not letting anyone down: He was struggling to link up with his fellow forwards though, and it was Everton who went in front with a Tony Kay 20-yarder. At half-time the PA announcer took a break from playing Beatles records and gave an old classic a spin - 'Don't Fence Me In'. The crowd quickly got the joke and started singing along. In the second half Derek Temple added a second and Everton ran out comfortable 2-0 winners. There were no further off the field incidents, and Everton chairman John Moores could congratulate himself on his splendid new crowd control idea. This is how the Gwladys Street end looked during the game: In the Echo on Monday, the cartoonist focused on the obvious themes. This was Stanley: And this was the ball boy in the barrier: But it was the final panel of the cartoon that had me rubbing my eyes in disbelief. It seems that a young boy in the crowd, right behind one of those barriers, had been hit in the face by the ball and left in some distress: The caption reads: 'The barriers were voted a great success, but the incident when Vernon's shot scudded into the crowd appears to have been overlooked'. And the speech bubble says, 'We'll report it to the Dart Players Association - someone kicked a football at him!' Surely not. It couldn't be, could it? Let's have a closer look at that poor face: And recall the description of the incident: My head was knocked right back and it felt like my nose had broke and flattened like a boxer's and hurt like hell, my eyes were watering and I was mortified the blokes would think I was crying. Wet mud was spattered over my face. All the blokes around were saying "****n'ell lad dat muster'urt!" A perfect description of the cartoon. Now in his recollection, it was Stanley Matthews who kicked the ball at him, not Roy Vernon, but given the daze he was in you can expect a little mixing up of the details. There is only one conclusion we can sensibly reach. To borrow that famous line from The Bourne Ultimatum: Jesus Christ. That's Upson Downes.

This seems a long time ago. Who could have imagined, in those rosy days of last summer, that Enzo would lead us into an abyss so deep that we are no longer able to break the all-time points record for the second tier? I posted a link to this on the Albion forum yesterday, and it triggered a fair bit of comment about Brian Little. Here's two examples; I genuinely don't think there is an Albion fan anywhere that didn't recognise Enzo was a very special talent and far superior to anything we had in those years. Yet somehow, football genius Brian Little rarely played him. I saw most of his games for us and he was a special player. He was one of those rare players that, despite his age, in the first few touches of the ball you just knew you were witnessing a very gifted footballer. You just know instantly just to enjoy them as they aren't going to be with you long. He was that good. I'm only sad I didn't see more of him as his time coincided with the utterly appalling manager that was Brian Little who preferred the older pro's who offered nothing. Townsend being prime example. Not really worth ploughing through the other comments, but if you're interested: https://wbaunofficial.org.uk/showthread.php?tid=33378

Here's a surprise though. It seems the young Enzo hadn't quite mastered the passing arts when he was a teenager. A while after that Palace game, Brian Little had taken over at Albion, and he wasn't impressed by Enzo's attitude. After losing at Tranmere, the headline in the paper was 'Fed-up Little blasts Enzo'. He said: 'We had really simple situaitons where a little passing and a little thought could have given us a goal. Enzo especially has had great possession. Each week, people tell me he's a great player, but he has a lot to learn. We got into some very good positions where a simple pass or a lifting of the head might have got us something'.