Everton's last game outside the top flight - a huge day for Leicester City

[kushiro]

Every report of Everton's win over Chelsea on Sunday mentioned the noise. 'Chelsea v 40,000 Evertonians' was one headline.

 

If they do go down, thoughts will go back to their last season outside the top flight - and especially to the climax of the season, when that Evertonian passion was the big story.

 

This was the table before their final game, on Thursday April 29th 1954. Just two clubs were promoted at that time, and Everton needed to win to clinch promotion. They were playing at Oldham, who were propping up the table, their relegation long since confirmed. If Everton could win 6-0, they would not only go up, but leapfrog Leicester at the top on goal average, depriving City of the Division Two title.

 

Leicester had won their final game five days earlier, 3-1 at Brentford, taking them back to the top flight for the first time in 15 years. The only issue left was whether they would go up as champions.

 

Oldham knew the invasion was coming. They'd put tar on top of walls around the ground to stop people climbing over and getting in free. Estimates of the number of Everton fans at the game range from 25,000 to 35,000. Estimates of the number who didn't get in range from 3,000 to 7,000. No-one knows how many got in free - the only thing certain was that Oldham's preparations were totally inadequate.

 

This was the scene:

 

Fans either didn't care about getting a bit of tar on their clothes, or had devised a simple way to prevent it. Using a copy of that night's Liverpool Echo seemed to be the most popular method:

 

 

The game itself was interrupted by hundreds of fans being guided across the pitch by police to less packed areas of terracing. 

 

Everton's players responded to the roars of their fans, and quickly took the lead. Within half an hour they were three up. Ten minutes before half time it was four, and they still had almost an hour to get the fifth and sixth that would take them above Leicester.

 

Then Oldham changed their formation, and an Everton player was injured, leaving them with 10 fit men. The second half was a non-event, and the game finished 4-0.

 

How would Leicester fans have heard the news? Probably on the late news on BBC TV or radio. No doubt many phoned the Leicester Mercury or Leicester Evening Mail (a practice so common at the time that the papers would publish notices telling people not to do it). Many wouldn't have found out until seeing the papers in the morning. 

 

The support of the Everton fans was acknowledged in one Liverpool paper with this cartoon:

 

Which gives us a chance to recognize that it wasn't only Everton fans giving their team fantastic backing that season.

 

In the Leicester Evening Mail's 'Promotion Souvenir', captain Matt Gillies paid tribute to 'our fine supporters':

 

It was grand to realise we had at last brought them what they longed for - First Division football. My word, I will never be able to praise them too highly. They have made nearly every away ground a home from home for us.

 

When the Leicester team arrived back at London Road station after that win at Brentford, this was the scene:

 

 

 

The following Monday, Leicester were presented with the Division Two Shield:

 

 

You can't see it so clearly there, so let's get a better look at the magnificent object that we lifted four times between the 1920s and 1950s:

 

 

 

The arrow indicates the 1953/54 champions. 

 

Oh - and you're probably wondering what on earth 'Beckett's Buckets' are. Well, they were the concrete flower beds placed along the middle of roads in the city after the war:

 

 

 

 

 

[lcfcfem]

Love this.  I have loads and loads of Bernies scrap books with cuttings from newspapers throughout the 50s onwards.  They are a bit dishevelled but I was thinking of taking pictures and collating them somewhere.  Maybe an online platform.  Any ideas how? Thanks

[kushiro]

13 minutes ago, lcfcfem said:

Love this.  I have loads and loads of Bernies scrap books with cuttings from newspapers throughout the 50s onwards.  They are a bit dishevelled but I was thinking of taking pictures and collating them somewhere.  Maybe an online platform.  Any ideas how? Thanks

If you can scan them and forward them to me I will give them the full care they deserve and curate them and hopefully sort out a place on this forum where they can be accessed by everyone. Perhaps in collaboration with @Mark, who's been helping me with the articles section.

 

I'd love to place Bernie's experiences within the club's history of the 1950s and 1960s, providing commentaries and putting his stuff alongside other appropriate materials.

Edited 2 May 2022 by kushiro

[lcfcfem]

Still going through his stuff we acquired from auction. Simon, my friend, had mainly hundreds of programmes. I have scrap books and photo albums. I set up a FB Bernie Henson support group a few years back and I have posted some bits on there. Can’t seem to add any on here as saying too large. Any help would be gratefully appreciated. Thank you

[kushiro]

More on that win at Brentford that clinched promotion for us in 1954.

 

It was a big turning point in the life of a 20 year old inside forward called Jimmy Bloomfield. He was brought back into the Brentford side for that final game of the season, and from match reports he seemed to be one of the main reasons why Leicester had such a tough fight that day, before eventually winning 3-1. 

 

Were Arsenal scouts watching that day at Griffin Park? Before the start of the next season he moved to Highbury.

 

Here's the match report from that game:

 

 

 

 

 

This is the Daily Mirror from three months later. Look who else was after him:

 

 

 

Edited 2 May 2022 by kushiro

[Out Foxed]

20 police to deal with 10,000 people

 

times have changed

[ceredigion]

I was very disappointed to read in the newspaper clipping (the Mercury presumably) that Clifford Brown and Gordon Hinton had been arrested for stealing butter, lard, tea leaves, sugar and table jellies from the Evington Co-op. I hope they've learned their lesson by now and are ready to be released and to re-enter society. To those people who imagine that the 50s was some kind of golden age when you could leave your doors unlocked and safely walk the streets at night, let Brown and Hinton be a lesson to you.