This Fox Was Truly Loved

[kushiro]

No list of Leicester City greats can be restricted to players only. Some of the most adored figures in the history of the club have made their contributions behind the scenes - Craig Shakespeare, Alan Birchenall, Vichai. You can no doubt think of more.

 

No-one at the club has ever been held in greater affection than Bill Fox.

 

So why have you never heard of him?

 

It's time his tale were told.

 

William Henry Fox was blind. But that didn't stop him becoming a key man at the club between the wars. No-one called him a 'physio' back then, but that's what he was. His genius was in his hands.

 

100 years ago this week, as we prepared for an FA Cup quarter-final at Cardiff, the Western Mail encountered Bill at our base in Penarth on the South Wales coast:

 

"Fox is the club's masseur. He lost his sight in the Boer War, and in recent years has taken a very keen interest in the Leicester club. The directors and players swear by him, and when I saw him massaging keeper Godderidge in the Penarth Baths, he seemed to be quite as proficient as a man in possession of all his faculties. He has a particularly impressive appearance'.

 

 

'Though Fox has never seen a ball kicked, he can tell by an extraordinary sense of hearing how the game is going, and seems to know exactly what is happening on the field. 'That's a good shot', he will exclaim, and when the whistle is blown he will shout 'Free kick!' or 'Offside' and is seldom wrong'.

 

Bill served in the Seaforth Highlanders as a signaller in the Boer War. It was thought that the 'dazzling heliograph' contributed to the loss of his sight. When the British garrisons were besieged in Kimberley, Mafeking and Ladysmith, with telegraph lines cut, the only means of contact with the outside world was via light-beam communication, heliograph in the daytime, Aldis lamps at night. 

 

After the Boer War, Bill came to Leicester, working for the corporation laying the new electric tramlines, then taking employment at the Gas Works on Aylestone Road. 

 

When his sight failed, he turned to massage, and offered his services to the club that was still called Leicester Fosse. At first he was a volunteer, but after World War One, the players had come to depend on him so much that the newly named 'Leicester City' took him on as a regular member of the backroom staff.

 

Many times he accomplished remarkable feats of restoring players to fitness on the eve of a match, and they would declare that somehow, his hands had a power to heal that others did not.

 

'His sense of direction was uncanny', said the Evening Mail, 'and when he went on the field to assist an injured player only those who knew of his affliction realised that the man who ran so unerringly across the grass was sightless'. In the summer months, Fox provided the same services to Leicestershire County Cricket Club, and County legend George Geary would rely on him to get him in tune for Test Matches.

 

Away from work, he was known for his skill at ten-pin bowling. 'He can swing the ball at the pins with uncanny accuracy', Johnny Duncan said 'We tell him the number he has knocked down and he then proceeds to disturb the rest of the pins'.  Boxing was another of his passions - he would sit ringside and 'could tell you what had been going on between the two men who were so keen on knocking the wind out of each other'.

 

Here he is in 1930 at Filbert Street, showing off his penalty taking skills:

 

The caption read 'Leicester City find a penalty expert. Bill Fox, the club's blind masseur, is adept at scoring from the penalty spot, even when the goalkeeper is about. Here he is seen demonstrating to the boys how the trick is done'.

 

In 1934 Bill fell ill, and spent several months in the Royal Infirmary. He received regular visits from Leicester players, who would read him the sports reports from the newspapers. He had to undergo two serious operations, and then doctors told him he needed a blood transfusion. The players were only too keen to put their names forward, and in the end it was full back Willie Frame who was chosen.

 

Bill finally left hospital in March 1935 and returned to his home at 55 Winifred Street, just behind the Infirmary.  But the story was to have a tragic end. The following day, his wife Laura  found him slumped on his bed with wounds to his throat.  He was rushed back to the Infirmary but died a few minutes later.

 

The coroner's report recorded a verdict of 'suicide while of unsound mind', and confirmed that a razor blade had been found by his side. 'One cannot be surprised at his mind breaking down under the strain', it added.

 

Mr L.H. Burridge, club chairman, said 'Bill was very devoted to the boys, and them to him. His loveable personality endeared him to everyone he came in contact with'.

 

At the funeral, his coffin was carried by seven current City players and former captain Johnny Duncan:

 

 

 

The club was in a desperate state. We were bottom of Division One with nine games to play - exactly the same situation as 2015 when Richard III was reburied in the cathedral. On March 28th 1935, three days after Bill Fox was laid to rest at Saffron Lane cemetery, Tottenham arrived at Filbert Street.  Lose this and it was surely all over. But as if in tribute to their beloved friend, the players tore into the opposition and handed Spurs a 6-0 thrashing. 'Every man jack in the Leicester forward line was working like a Trojan', said the Daily Herald, 'playing the right kind of pass and generally going though the Tottenham defence like a chef's knife through a succulent ham'.

 

Those two points took us off the bottom of the table, but still a long way from safety. Two days later Liverpool came to Filbert Street and were beaten 3-1. The headline in the Evening Mail was 'Four Points in Three Days - Who Said Relegation?'

 

A week after that we went to Elland Road and won 2-0, leaving us just a point from safety. It was a startling reversal of fortunes. Had the players got together and said 'Let's do it for Bill?' 

 

Sadly, there was no great escape.  We failed to win any of our last six games and our fate was sealed.

Relegated after ten years in the top flight, the club's first Golden Age was over. In those closing weeks of the season, two City greats played their last game for the club - Arthur Chandler, and Adam Black. And with Bill's welcoming smile and healing hands no longer around, it was truly the end of an era.

 

 

 

Having imagined the players being inspired by Bill's memory immediately after the funeral, we might also wonder whether a decade later, when the club decided to put a badge on the shirt for the first time, they were commemorating not only the traditional symbol of Leicestershire, but also the name of the man who had found his way into the hearts of everyone connected with the club.

 

 

 

Edited 5 March by kushiro

[joachim1965]

Once a fox always a fox.

[Grebfromgrebland]

What an inspiring and sad story. 

[Spudulike]

Can't imagine our current squad tearing into the opposition in tribute to a beloved friend. 

[Wolfox]

What a lovely story…. Thoroughly enjoyed that 

 

Most clubs have Mavis the tea lady,  but we had Bill the blind masseur !

[kushiro]

After Bill died, a match was held at Filbert Street to raise money for his widow, Laura.  It was a unique game - 'the boxers' v Leicester police. Bill had been a great fan of boxing, and their team included Len Wickwar, whose popularity in the 1930s wasn't far off Tony Sibson's in the 1980s. This was how they lined up:

 

 

 

Unfortunately, they weren't as good with their feet as they were with their fists, and they were outplayed by the well-drilled police XI. But they did have help from the referee - Arthur Chandler - who kept awarding them dubious penalties, and then allowing them to retake when they missed. 

 

Despite Channy's interventions, the police won 6-3 - here they are receiving a special cup prepared for the occasion:

 

 

Here's a shot of the man in everybody's thoughts that day. Taken in 1929, Bill on the left talking to South African goalkeeper Aubrey Mandy in the tunnel at Filbert Street:

 

 

Mandy himself was an interesting figure - have a look at his entry in Of Fossils And Foxes. No doubt Bill told him about his experiences in the Boer War. 

 

 

Edited 5 March by kushiro