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It's a pretty impressive sequence - packing all that action into 40 seconds. It's Match Of The Day's new opening titles for their FA Cup highlights programme. Quite a few Leicester references in there too - some obvious, others less so, and a couple that are frankly tenuous. But this is just a bit of fun so let's go: 1) Let's start with someone whose face should really should be on a 'Wanted' poster - for crimes against the world's oldest football competition. When Man U won the treble in 1999 they qualified to play in FIFA's ludicrous 'Club World Championship'. Their trip to Brazil coincided with the third round of the FA Cup - and they decided to withdraw from the competition they were supposed to be defending - without a hint of protest from the authorities. In fact, the FA and Tony Blair's government (who were desperate to please FIFA with their 2006 World Cup bid underway) both backed United's move. We know that the FA Cup no longer has the status it had in the past - and there are many reasons why - but if you want to identity one key moment, it's right there. But anyway, here he is, with a big Leicester City reference behind his right ear among that list of United cup winning years: 2) March 2001 Next another hate figure - Peter Taylor. It was all going so well in his first season in charge at Filbert Street. We beat Liverpool in early March and were third in the Premier League table. The following week we had a seemingly easy FA Quarter Final tie - at home to Wycombe Wanderers. Champions League football, our first FA cup triumph, and years of glory beckoned. Incredible how quickly things can go pear-shaped. This is Roy Essandoh, whose late header gave Wycombe a 2-1 win. We then lost eight in a row in the League, went down the following year and after a financial implosion only narrowly escaped going into complete oblivion. 3) May 2021 From hate figures to - well, we used to love him didn't we? Many years from now we'll have forgotten how it all went wrong, and we'll look back with only fond memories of this fellow and his manager: Maybe. 4) May 1981 And Ricky Villa - has done it! But what has he got to do with Leicester City? Well, a year after his famous goal won the Cup for Spurs, they were drawn against us in the semi-final at Villa Park. The day before the game, Argentina invaded the Falklands, and manager Keith Burkinshaw had to decide whether to play Villa and fellow Argentine Osvaldo Ardiles. In the end Ricky was left out and Ossie played - booed throughout by the Leicester fans. Spurs won that day of course. Come the final against QPR, Ardiles was missing. He'd diplomatically been allowed to join up with the Argentina World Cup squad earlier than he needed to. Ricky Villa wasn't in that squad and could have replaced him in the line-up at Wembley, but with British troops having just landed at San Carlos, Burkinshaw decided to avoid any fuss and left him out. 5) May 1972 Oh no - another hate figure. Allan Clarke was the least popular man in the Leicester City dressing room in the late 60s. After we broke the British transfer record to sign him in 1968 he saw himself as slightly above ordinary mortals like Alan Woollett, Rodney Fern and Andy Lochhead. He played in the 1969 Cup Final as we lost to Manchester City, but we were also relegated that season and he quickly moved on to Leeds, for whom he scored the winner against Arsenal in 1972 with a classic diving header: 6) March 1999 The goal David Ginola scored at Barnsley in Round Five was almost a tribute to Ricky Villa's 1981 dribble. Here he is midway through that slalom run through the Barnsley defence: And the connection? Well, Spurs' next match was five days later - the League Cup Final against Martin O'Neill's Leicester City. Ginola was the big talking point in the build up to the game, but he hardly had a kick. O'Neill asked Rob Ullathorne to stay close to him - and it was similar to the job that Pontus Kaamark did on Juninho two years earlier. No happy ending this time though. 7) April 1923 The first Wembley final. An estimated 200,000 were inside, all semblance of order having broken down as people smashed through the fences to get in. How did our first attempt to get to Wembley end up? You might recall a thread on here a whlle back about the amazing aerial shot of Filbert Street taken during our third round win over Fulham. Well in the next round, we lost at home to Cardiff - legendary centre forward Len Davies with the winner. People were desperate to see this game too - and the pressure on the terraces was so great that thousands jumped over the barriers to take refuge on the pitch. The scene, as portrayed in the Leicester Mail, was a foretaste of Wembley two months later: 8) May 1976 Before Youri's goal in 2021, which FA Cup Final had Leicester City fans enjoyed the most? Not the four Wembley defeats, obviously. It was probably 1976, when Second Division Southampton beat Man U 1-0. That alone was good reason to celebrate, but lifting the cup was old Filbert Street hero Peter Rodrigues: In the background there you can see Prime Minister Jim Callaghan (the last Labour PM before Tony Blair). Callaghan was MP for Cardiff South East, and used to watch Rodrigues in the early 60s when he started his career at Ninian Park. 9) May 1971 Five years before that, another ex-Leicester man went up the 39 steps as captain of the winning side. Frank McLintock began his career at Filbert Street in the late 50s and one of the best passages in his autobiography is where he describes the moments after we lost the 1963 Cup Final (the one that began this thread): My most resonant and abiding memory of our defeat that day is the sound our studs made on the long, concrete tunnel that leads downhill back to the dressing room. After a win there was that rat-a-tat-tat of jubilant players almost skipping their way back. When you lose there’s a slow clack-clack – it sounds like the death march and it haunts you for years afterwards. Wow. That's how much it meant. Well - did I miss anything? Tell me if I did. Here you are - you don't even have to scroll back up: Any other tenuous Leicester connections very welcome.

I reckon it's Gordon Milne, whose autobiography is just out. The title is 'Shankly, My Dad and Me', which is itself instructive. He had an incredibly distinguished career, but it's Shanks who gets top billing. I've been speaking to Gordon this week, and I'll put the results of that interview on here shortly. As a taster for that, here's a brief run through of the highlights of that amazing career as a player and manager. After that, a brief chat with Steve Younger, who helped Gordon write the book. 1) England v Brazil, Wembley 1963. We'll start with his England debut. Let's freeze the action just 12 seconds into the game. Bobby Charlton is in possession wide on the left, and that man with his hands in the air, keen to get his first touch in international football, is Gordon Milne of Liverpool. Bobby decides to give him the ball. Look at what happened next - his first three touches in an England shirt: Had the shot gone in, it would have been the most sensational start to any England career. That was the first England XI chosen by Alf Ramsey. Milne was his type of player - a man who plays for the team, a hard worker (notice how quickly he tried to get back in position when the Brazilian keeper saved that shot), but with the technical ability to perform at the top level. After this impressive debut (it finished 1-1), he became a regular, winning 14 caps in the next year and a half. He must have been dreaming of glory in 1966. But it didn't happen. Players such as Alan Ball and Martin Peters moved ahead of him, and like Paul Gascoigne in 1998, he suffered the heartbreak of being one of those chosen for the pre-tournament squad but left out of the final 22. Is it any consolation that he later enjoyed a more successful managerial career than any of the 22 players Ramsey selected? 2) April 3rd 1974 Alf Ramsey's last game as England manager finishes in a dull goalless draw in Portugal. What should have been vital preparation for the World Cup Finals in West Germany was in the end just a meaningless friendly. We'd been knocked out in the qualifiers by Poland. At the end of the month, Ramsey was sacked. Who would replace him? The bookies had Coventry boss Milne and Ipswich's Bobby Robson as joint favourites to take over (with Clough fancied to take over at Villa Park). It was later revealed that Milne (but not Robson) was indeed on a shortlist drawn up by the FA - along with Leicester City's Jimmy Bloomfield. But when Revie threw his hat in the ring, it was he that the FA turned to, and Milne stayed at Highfield Road. Let's go back and see how his managerial career began, at the start of the 70s: 3) June 5th 1971 It's the Football League's AGM, and Wigan Athletic are waiting to discover their fate. Milne had taken over at the ambitious non-League club a year earlier, and had already enjoyed spectacular success, taking them to the Northern Premier League title. Their dream was to enter the Football League, but there was no automatic promotion then. It all depended on the vote at the AGM. The previous season, Bradford Park Avenue had been the first club voted out in a decade - replaced by Cambridge United, who employed a PR company to devise a slick campaign to gather the necessary votes. This year, Wigan decided to employ the same company. It all went disastrously wrong. They had been promised 35 votes, which would have got them in. But when Len Shipman, Football League President and Chairman of Leicester City, announced the results, there was astonishment from the Wigan party. They received the support of just 14 clubs. What on earth had happened? Prior to the vote, the PR company had arranged for an expensive Parker pen to be presented to representatives of each of the Football League clubs. According to newspaper reports at the time, this backfired spectacularly, taken as a crass gesture, akin to bribery. Gordon Milne was stranded in non-League football. But the following season, success in his other job, manager of the England Youth team, got him his position in the First Division at Coventry (see previous thread about the Wallace/Milne connection). Here he is at the time of his appointment - not the highest quality photo, but it captures a young, suave and successful Gordon, looking for all the world as though he's about to announce his candidacy for Presidency of the United States, 4) March 28th 1964 Gordon had played for three clubs before taking over at Wigan - Preston, Liverpool and Blackpool. When asked about the most memorable games of that career, he would point to Easter 1964, and a key game at Filbert Street. Under Bill Shankly, Liverpool were chasing their first title in almost two decades. Three games in four days, from Good Friday to Easter Monday, would be decisive: Tottenham (a) April 27th Leicester (a) April 28th Tottenham (h) April 30th Tottenham were chasing the title too - they didn''t come this close again until 2015/16. Liverpool got a crucial 2-0 win at White Hart Lane, but Gordon Milne picked up an injury and was doubtful for the game at Filbert Street 24 hours later. Trainer Bob Paisley worked furiously on the injury when they arrived that evening at their hotel in Leicester. Also in the city that evening were Liverpool fans who'd arrived early, desperate not to miss the game. Some of them broke into the ground overnight with tins of red paint, and when the groundsman turned up first thing next morning, he found red goal posts, and LFC graffiti at the back of the Main Stand Enclosure: The graffiti was removed in time for the game, but as the Mercury reported, the goalposts still had a 'pinkish hue'. Milne was declared fit, and he played a key role in Liverpool's 2-0 win that kept them on course. Here he is, centre of shot, celebrating the second goal: Two days later Liverpool completed a perfect Easter, beating Spurs at Anfield to condemn them to decades of also-ran status, and a few days later Liverpool clinched the title to kick off the Reds' dominance of the next 25 years. 5) April 30th 1965 A year later and Liverpool are in the FA Cup Final v Leeds United, looking to break the spell and bring the trophy to Anfield for the very first time. For Milne, it''s a chance to claim the winners' medal that eluded his father Jimmy in 1938 when he missed Preston's triumph due to injury. But incredibly, Gordon suffered the same heartbreak, injured against Chelsea just two weeks before the big game. This photo says everything - taken the day before the final as his teammates get the feel of the Wembley turf. 6) Autumn 1977 Anyone remember Brian Clough's message to Forest fans before a match at the City Ground? This was actually a two-man campaign. A few days later, Gordon Milne made this appeal to Coventry City fans: At Highfield Road two days later, Coventry beat West Ham 1-0 and fans sang 'We are not allowed to swear' (to the tune of 'Bread of Heaven' - you know - the 'we'll support you evermore' melody), and also sang 'you're a bounder, you're a bounder, you're a bounder referee!' and 'What the flip, what the flip, what the flippin hell was that?' And we can't leave Gordon's Coventry years without a quick mention of this notorious moment four seasons later when Clive Allen's shot came back off the stanchion at the back of the net: Wonderful line that from Terry Venables: 'If the ref's saying we've got to hit some particular part of the net to get a goal....' Milne was sympathetic, 'I have no doubt it was a goal', he said. 7) Gordon Milne and Terry Venables, in opposition here too - at the top of this list: What's that stat about? Several bonus points for anyone who can guess the answer before I tell you. The presence of Jock there is a pretty big clue. OK - it's the managers Gary Lineker scored most goals for, whether for club or county. Gordon's glorious first season at Filbert Street was covered recently on here, and there'll be more Leicester talk in the forthcoming interview. For the time being, here's the day he joined the club - saying farewell to players at Coventry, then shaking hands with Terry Shipman (eleven years after the Parker pens incident with father Len). The presence of Tommy English in the top picture is ominous. 8) Besiktas May 1990 Gordon moved to Istanbul just after his 50th birthday, and enjoyed six years of remarkable achievement. Look at the reception the players get on the day they won the title - the first of three in a row under Gordon's guidance. Gordon has god-like status among Besiktas fans, and I hope the book will bolster his legacy in this country - not least among Leicester fans.

Let's imagine Leicester City history as a row of books lined up in order on a shelf - the book of Pearson, the book of Ranieri etc - one for each of the 42 men who've managed the club (some volumes a lot thicker than others). Right in the middle, the book of Wallace sits next to the book of Milne. I'm fascinated by the contrast between these two. It's partly because the years they were in charge - 1978-1982 and 1982-1986, were my formative years as a City fan. And it's partly because each represents a classic managerial archetype - one loud and passionate, demanding that his players play the same way; the other quiet and thoughtful, encouraging a more patient approach (many clubs, as well as the England national team, have often swung back and forth repeatedly between those two poles, each new manager compensating for the perceived inadequacies of the former). Despite their differences, Wallace and Milne have something very important in common - something none of those other 40 Leicester managers can boast. Their fathers each had a long and distinguished career in the game - Jock Wallace Senior and Jimmy Milne. By following either of those father-and-son stories you can trace a history of British football in the twentieth century. But if you place the two stories side by side, it starts to get a bit kaleidoscopic. To describe that in detail would require a volume much thicker than we have room for here. So let's have a rapid-fire review of the highlights. The East Coast of Scotland, 1911 In the early months of 1911, the fathers of two future Leicester City managers arrived. On January 24th 1911, James Low Milne was born in Dundee. On April 13th, John Martin Wallace was born in Edinburgh. Just 62 miles and 79 days separated the two events. But as their lives developed, they would be brought even closer together. Flower of Scotland Both spent their childhoods doing what almost all boys in Scotland did back then - kicking a makeshift football round inner city streets and parks at every opportunity. In the late 1920s, Scotland were arguably the strongest football nation in the world. The team known as the 'Wembley Wizards' had pulled off a sensational 5-1 victory over England, and if they had entered the inaugural World Cup in Uruguay, they might well have won it. As the hosts lifted that trophy in the summer of 1930, Milne and Wallace were both 19, playing in Scottish Junior football (what the English call 'non-League'). James, known as 'Jimmy' to his teammates, was a right half, John, known as 'Jock', was a goalkeeper. Each was still playing in the city of his birth - Milne for Dundee Violet, Wallace for Wallyford Bluebell in Edinburgh. Yes - that's really what the teams were called - both named after flowers. It was a tradition in Scotland. There were many teams called 'bluebell' and 'violet', and others were called 'primrose', and of course 'thistle' (it's very difficult to find a definitive explanation for this - perhaps foxestalk's Scotland correspondent @Vacamion could offer an opinion?) In the following season, those young talents would bloom. Both signed for professional clubs. Jimmy stayed in his home town, joining Dundee United, while Jock left Edinburgh to join the Kirkcaldy-based club Raith Rovers. Now the distance between them halved - they were just 30 miles apart. The proximity was not just geographical. Both clubs were in Scottish Division Two, and on February 14th 1931, their paths crossed for the first time. The match was at Stark's Park, and it finished Raith Rovers 0 Dundee United 0. You can see the team line-ups here: Both would soon be heading for England. Milne signed for Preston North End in October 1932, and the following season Jock joined Blackpool. Despite their long journeys south of the border, they ended up even closer together. Now they were separated by less than twenty Lancashire miles, though Preston were in Division One and Blackpool in Division Two. The next time their paths crossed on the football field, both had become fathers. This is where the biggest difference in the two stories appears. Jock Sr dreamed of playing for Scotland, and he had the same ambition for his son. He made sure his wife was back in Scotland for the birth so he would be eligible (the rules were strict back then). Jimmy Milne also aspired to international honours, but he was happy for his children to be born in England. The significance of that would become apparent three decades later. Jock Wallace Jr was born on September 6th 1935 - in Edinburgh, Gordon Milne on March 29th 1937 - in Preston. Here's the Wallaces: We don't have a similar picture of the Milnes. Not yet anyway. When Gordon's book is released next week there's a good chance we may get one - the title is 'Shankly, My Dad and Me'. 'Shankly' is Bill, of course - he was playing alongside Jimmy Milne in the Preston half back line. They were both in the side that faced Blackpool in October 1938, after the Tangerines had been promoted to the top flight. That was the game when our two main characters appeared not just in the same match, but also in the same cartoon. Preston's goal was scored by Milne himself - past Wallace - a half back doing what the forwards had failed to do - at least that was the angle taken by the Lancashire Evening Post: Like Father, Like Son This is where the screen goes all woozy and we cross-fade to a scene 22 years into the future, with Wallace and Milne on opposing sides again. Wallace is still in goal, Milne is still at right half. Only this is the next generation. It's January 2nd 1960, West Brom v Preston, and the only time Jock Jr and Gordon Milne faced each other on the football field. Jock was 24 but Albion were already the fifth team he'd played for. Gordon was still with his first club - and father Jimmy was still at Preston too. After retiring as a player he had become the club's trainer. West Brom won 4-0 that day, and below are the team line-ups. There they are in exactly the same position as in the game 29 years earlier when their fathers first opposed each other: (Notice also 1950s Leicester hero Derek Hogg at outside left for Albion) The presence of his father as trainer was a major reason Gordon wanted to get away from Deepdale. His dad was an inspiration, and he loved listening to his stories of football back in the day, but he wanted to be independent, and shortly afterwards came the move that really set him up - Bill Shankly signed him for Liverpool. League titles and 14 England caps followed (he narrowly missed out on the 1966 World Cup squad). Jock Wallace Jr's later playing career, by contrast, was a disappointment. He never did win the Scotland cap his father hoped for, and he dropped into lower league football. The two of them then moved into management in the early months of 1970, the stories still running in parallel. In the week his father turned 59, Gordon Milne was appointed player-manager of Wigan Athletic. And in the week his father turned 59, Jock Wallace was appointed assistant manager of Rangers. Jock's official title was 'assistant' but it was one of Glasgow's worst kept secrets that he was really in charge of the first team, with Willie Waddell more of a 'general manager'. The most stunning coincidence in the story came next. Gordon's progress with Wigan was quickly noted by the Football Association, and in 1971 he was appointed manager of the England Youth Team (while continuing as Wigan boss). In May 1972 he tasted real success. With 18 year old Brian Little in the squad, England won the European Youth Championships, the tournament the press confusingly called 'the Little World Cup'. It received a lot of media coverage in those days: They won the trophy by beating West Germany 2-0 in the Final at the Nou Camp in Barcelona, and as Milne celebrated with his squad, another group of players from the UK arrived in the city. The European Cup Winners Cup Final was due to be played at the same venue two days later - between Dynamo Moscow and Rangers. The Gers won 3- 2 - the greatest triumph of Jock's managerial career. It remains the club's only European trophy: So Gordon Milne and Jock Wallace both led teams to victory in an international tournament for the first and only time - two days apart, in the same Catalonian stadium. Those triumphs didn't go unrecognised. The following month, Gordon Milne made the massive leap from Northern Premier League to First Division - he was appointed team manager at Coventry City. And Rangers acknowledged the reality of the situation at Ibrox - changing Jock's official job title to 'Manager'. The rest we can summarise quickly. The family dramas had run in parallel across two generations, and now the two sons followed each other at Filbert Street. Wallace was appointed Leicester boss in 1978, and he took us up to the First Division two years later - where Gordon Milne's Coventry City were waiting (separated by less than thirty miles again). The Sky Blues did the double over us that season, 1980/81 - so it was Milne 2 Wallace 0 in the managerial stakes. Had those results been reversed, we would have stayed up and Coventry would have gone down. A year later the book of Wallace closed, and the book of Milne began... There ends the dash through 75 years. We've barely scratched the surface. Jock Wallace's own career was featured on here in some detail last year. Gordon Milne deserves the same treatment, for the tale is just as dramatic. That's coming very soon - hopefully coinciding with the publication of his book next week.