May 28th - a Date With Destiny

[kushiro]

Those 'On This Day' features you often see churned out in the football media are always, I feel, a bit one-dimensional. Usually just a chronological run through of games played on the same day, with no real context or connection to wider events. 

 

Here on foxestalk you'll always find something which I hope is of greater interest - relating events on the field to broader trends within the game and in society at large. 

 

For May 28th,  those 'On This Day' features would never get off the ground in the first place, as for Leicester City that date is a completely blank page  - we have never in our 139 year history played a senior fixture on this day (It is, in fact, the earliest date in the calendar year where that is the case).

 

Off the field, however, it's a different matter. It's been a pretty momentous date, for both the club and the city.

 

So here's another fast and furious selection from the wonderful ongoing drama that is life in the city of Leicester.

 

 

1) May 28th 1645

 

While neither the King Power nor Filbert Street have ever staged a football match on this date before, it was on that same patch of ground that a very different kind of battle took place - way back on May 28th 1645 - the day that the English Civil War arrived at Leicester.  

 

The Royalist army of Charles I approached from the south along the riverbank and stopped about a mile from the the town. It was from there,  where today we find Walnut Street, that they bombarded the Parliamentary forces who were defending the town behind the walls at the Newarke.

 

Those defences held out, but when Royalist reinforcements attacked from the north, they broke through (with Richard III observing events from beneath the old friary).

 

Unlike other battles in Leicestershire history, this one has never been re-enacted on the original site. It would be a bit tricky though, wouldn't it, with that area now being a heavily populated zone close to the city centre. That minor problem, though, didn't stop City and Forest fans having a good go in 1968. They even got the location correct, though the weapons involved were a bit different.

 

In the Civil War it was musket shots and mortar shells flying across the south Leicester skies. In 1968 it was house bricks, that had been conveniently left lying around in huge quantities thanks to the slum clearance project in the old streets behind the Infirmary. 

 

Those violent scenes caused a huge rumpus, with blanket coverage in the Mercury and full page condemnation in the club's next programme. 

 

 

2)  May 28th 1928

 

It was on this day that Mr. Jules Rimet's idea of a competition for all the footballing nations of the world was adopted by FIFA, with Uruguay chosen as the site of the first tournament. 

 

Almost a century later, the event had become such a commercial monster that FIFA allowed Qatar to hold the event in the middle of the European season. This unprecedented interruption threw a huge spoke in the Leicester wheels. We'd taken twelve points out of fifteen heading into the World Cup, and James Maddison was looking world class. 

 

After the tournament it all went pear-shaped, particularly for Maddison, who seemed to have left his mojo somehwere in the Middle East.

 

So there you have it - it's all Jules Rimet's fault.

 

 

3)  May 28th 1975

 

Bayern Munich 2 Leeds United 0 in the European Cup Final.  If they go down today, you can be sure United fans will blast out a defiant rendition of 'Champions of Europe' along the way (they think they were robbed, and indeed they were - but they totally forfeited the moral high ground in the opening minutes of that match when Terry Yorath's candidate for 'worst challenge of all time' put Bayern's Bjorn Andersson out of the game).

 

What on earth has this got to do with Leicester?

 

Well, it was a landmark day in the history of kit manufacture. Wigston company Admiral provided the shirts for Leeds to wear, and for the first time, their prominent logo was beamed into the homes of millions watching on TV across Europe.  Cue celebratory articles in the Leicester Mercury, and the explosion of the replica shirt market.

 

 

4)  May 28th 1980 / 1994 / 2005

 

Leicester, Leeds or Everton? Never before has there been a battle like today between that trio. The closest historical parallel is the three way tug-of war in 1998 over the ownership of Martin O'Neill. In the summer and autumn of that year, Martin was this close to quitting Filbert Street, first for Goodison then Elland Road. 

 

Thanks to the combined efforts of the boardroom and the City fans, we managed to keep him at the club for another two years.

 

If you've read his recently published autobiography you'll be familiar with the highlights of his career - and while Leicester have never played on May 28th, for O'Neilll that date crops up repeatedly like a lucky square in a board game - one that says 'Go straight to the VIP box and collect a trophy'.  The key moments were (in reverse order) -

 

i)  May 28th 2005. Celtic 1 Dundee United 0 in the Scottish Cup Final - his last ever game as Celtic boss before he quit to take care of his wife. 

ii)  May 28th 1994.  Wycombe beat Preston in the play-off final, taking them into Division 1 (attracting the attention of Norwich - and Leicester). 

iii)  May 28th 1980.  His greatest moment as a player, in Madrid (we can quickly gloss over the details).

 

 

 

5)  May 28th 1929.

 

The first ever traffic lights in the city of Leicester started operating at the junciton of Fosse Road North and Hinckley Road - right next to the house where a group of young lads sat down in 1884 and decided to form a club called Leicester Fosse. Council officials had got the idea by visiting a certain Yorkshire city which had pioneered the use of 'automated traffic control' -  it was, of course, Leeds.

 

 

6) May 28th 1940

 

A landmark day in football and in war, with events at Filbert Street mirroring the state of battle in Flanders in a striking way.

 

It was on this morning that Belgian forces surrendered to the Nazis, leaving hundreds of thousands of Allied troops surrounded at Dunkirk. It was the darkest hour of the whole conflict. This is what Churchill said in the Commons that afternoon:

 

The situation of the British and French armies, now engaged in a most severe battle and beset on three sides and from the air, is evidently extremely grave. The House must prepare itself for hard and heavy tidings. Nothing which may happen in this battle can in any way relieve us of our duty to defend the world cause to which we have bound ourselves. Nor should it destroy confidence in our powers to make our way, as on former occasions in our history, through disaster and grief, to the ultimate defeat of our enemy (loud cheers).

 

On the same day, the future of Leicester City suddenly looked equally perilous. The FA handed down a truly draconian sentence on the club - banning nine of the club's directors after discovering illegal payments dating back several years. We also received a massive fine, and the whole future of the club was in doubt.

 

Just two directors remained, Len Shipman and Alf Pallett, considered innocent as they had only recently joined the board. 

 

At the same time the PM was speaking of the 'grave' situation in the Commons, Pallett was using exactly the same word to describe City's plight. And Shipman's words about the fight ahead also had a Churchillian ring:

 

The club is now faced with a most difficult task. We shall carry on and make every effort to lift the club back to the position it should occupy in the world of football.

 

Thankfully, things turned out OK on both fronts. Otherwise we might today be watching Borussia Leiẞter play SV West Häm.

 

It was a close run thing, though, on both counts. On the football front, in the following five years German planes bombed Filbert Street,  then, in an unconnected incident, a fire destroyed half the main stand., and finally the City Council threatened to end the club's lease on the ground and hand the land over to the Electricity Board.

 

The moral is, of course, that we've been through far worse crises than relegation and come through on the other side.

 

 

Well, there's a few more juicy episodes I could add, but for now I'll leave it at that. 

 

Edited 28 May 2023 by kushiro

[Izzy]

19 minutes ago, kushiro said:

For May 28th,  those 'On This Day' features would never get off the ground in the first place, as for Leicester City that date is a completely blank page  - we have never in our 139 year history played a senior fixture on this day 

That's quite the stat right there.

 

How bizarre?

[kushiro]

59 minutes ago, Izzy said:

That's quite the stat right there.

 

How bizarre?

 

The only other blank day in May is 29th. 

 

Fixtures in late May are pretty rare really - here's the full story for the last week of the month:

 

May 31st     1993 Play-off Final

May 30th     1994 Play-off Final

May 29th

May 28th

May 27th    1996 Play-off Final

May 26th    1947 penultimate League game (season extended due to the severe winter).

May 25th    1992 Play-off Final and 1963 Cup Final (this too delayed due to severe winter)    

 

That's it. 

 

We have played a few games in June  - especially 2019/20 of course (July too that year), plus the Anglo-Scottish Cup in 1972 and the final League game in 1947. 

Edited 28 May 2023 by kushiro