The Second Greatest Season Ever

[Kushiro2]

Match 22
Friday December 26th 1924
Port Vale v Leicester City

Heading for the Recreation Ground in Hanley that day would have been a nine year old Port Vale fan called Stanley Matthews. He lived a mile from the ground and he probably ran the whole distance. Running, along with kicking a football, was his great love.

He was already building a reputation as an athlete. Every year he entered the annual Boys' 100 Yards Handicap, held at the Victoria Ground, home of Stoke. The very first time he entered, aged just six, he came first (with a 45 yard start over the eldest boys). As he got older, and that head-start shortened, he would win it three more times.

Stanley's hero was Port Vale centre half Bob Connelly, who had been marking Arthur Chandler in the game at Filbert Street on Christmas Day. Their personal duel had finished fairly even. Chandler put Leicester ahead early on, but after that, Connelly kept him quiet (while Johnny Duncan ran riot).

Duncan's double hat-trick took him above Channy at the top of the Division Two goalscorers list. It is not clear who was supposed to be marking him that day, but we have a pretty good idea. For this return game, Tom Cooper was restored to the Vale defence for just his second appearance, in place of Jack Braddock. With that change, Vale's defence was considerably tightened up.

This is the place Leicester visited that day:



It looks like an industrial wasteland because that's exactly what it was - 'squalid ugliness on a scale so vast it became sublime', as writer Arnold Bennett put it. Bennett's works, which include wonderfully authentic portrayals of football matches around the turn of the century, somehow made the Potteries romantic.

In the photo you can see the Recreation Ground, scene of today's game, at the bottom, in the very centre of Hanley. On the left is the Cobridge Athletic ground, from where the club had recently moved. And the arrow at the top is the site of their present home, Vale Park, back in Burslem where the club were born. Arnold Bennett's home was very close to the Cobridge ground, on Waterloo Road, the main route from Hanley to Burslem which you can see stretching up the left hand side of the picture.

The Leicester team had a very early start that Boxing Day morning, stopping in Derby on the way to have breakfast. And in those less partisan days, there would have been a fair few Stoke fans heading for the game too, curious to see the team they'd be facing in the FA Cup two weeks later.

The first chance of the game fell to the home side. Alf Strange, future England star, 'sent in a magnificent shot that rebounded from the crossbar'. Then Leicester's Billy Newton let fly from distance and saw his shot strike the bar at the other end.

It was at this point that the main characters of the previous day took centre stage once again. Johnny Duncan was fouled in the Vale area and Leicester were awarded a penalty. Duncan it was who stepped up to face Tom Fern. Did the keeper adopt his 'putting off' attitude? We don't know - but he did manage to outwit the Leicester captain, whose shot was saved as Fern dived to his right.



Then just before the break, 'Fern was loudly applauded (and deserved it) for a maginificent save, again from Duncan, fisting the ball over the bar with his arm extended'. According to the Leicester Mail, 'for several seconds the crowd were dumb with amazement before they broke out in cheers and applause'.

After 45 minutes it was still goalless. The few Leicester supporters in the crowd would have been persecuting themselves with typical football supporter logic - 'Why didn't we save a couple of those Christmas goals for today?'

During the half-time break, one of the main exit gates was pushed open and dozens of people rushed through to add to the already huge holiday crowd, though from reports it's unclear whether the gates were forced or if it was a safety measure of some kind.

Three minutes into the second half we finally took the lead, Chandler scoring with what the Mercury called 'an overhead kick'. This is unlikely to have been a bicycle kick of the Klaus Fischer / Shinji Okazaki variety, more likely Channy hooked the ball over his head while facing away from goal, as he would do so many times later in his career.

Vale's response to going behind was very different from 24 hours earlier, and they were on top for much of the second half. Strange again came close, this time hitting the post, and then seeing a shot beat Godderidge but hit a defender. The pressure paid off fifteen minutes from time when Harry Hooper failed to clear and centre forward Wilf Kirkham rushed in to score the equaliser.

We knew we needed the points, and we stepped up our game in search of a winner. Adcock got away on the right and was closing in on goal before a cynical challenge stopped him in his tracks. From the free kick, George Carr got in a header which flew past Fern for a priceless goal.

2-1 was the final score, and we had four points out of four with two thirds of this hectic holiday programme completed.

Just how vital Carr's winner was the players realised when they heard the other results. All three teams above us had won:



With none of the teams immediately below us winning, a gap opened up between the top four and the rest:



It was turning into a gripping promotion battle, with four outstanding teams chasing two slots (just like 2023/24). And the excitement would go up yet another notch the following day, when Manchester United arrived at Filbert Street.

 

[Kushiro2]

No sniggering please - this is the Mercury reporter's description of the penalty incident at Port Vale:

 

[Kushiro2]

Match 23
Saturday December 27th 1924
Leicester City v Manchester United

Supporters in Leicester that morning faced a dilemma. The team were on the crest of a wave, and Manchester United were in town. But across the country a storm was raging, and with half of Filbert Street uncovered, many wondered if they really wanted to spend 90 minutes exposed to gale-force winds and driving rain.

At Everton, a huge tarpaulin was caught by the wind and slammed into a goalpost, breaking it in half. The game kicked off ten minutes late to allow for emergency repairs:



At Leicester the club flag, flying proudly over the Filbert Street end, flapped so forcefully against its supporting pole that it snapped it in two. The pieces narrowly missed people queueing at the turnstiles, 'falling into the open space behind the refreshment bar'.

Many thousands who had been planning to see the game decided to stay home - and they would regret the decision. After our seven goal bonanza on Christmas Day, no-one imagined we'd put in an even better performance against United. But that's what happened.

Let's review the action with the help of two of the great sports journals of the day.

First, Kernel in the Football Post, who described the games's key moments in that evening's paper:



After 19 minutes, City deservedly took the lead, and it was a brilliant effort by Chandler. Taking a pass near midfield, the centre-forward dashed away on his own and not only beat both backs but also eluded the keeper as he came out before placing the ball in the net. The crowd went nearly frantic for quite five minutes.

The second half opened in sensational fashion. Adcock beat Grimwood and centred nicely across the goal. Chandler first tried to convert it but the ball struck a defender and rebounded to Duncan, who dashed up and put it in the net, the visitors appealing vainly for offside.

With fifteen minutes to go, Chandler, seizing onto the ball from a throw-in, tried a shot from 25 yards. It hit Silcock's leg and found its way into the net.

As for United's response, Kernel told us that: The extent to which the Manchester side were subjugated may be gathered from the fact that while in the first half keeper Godderidge had very little to contend with, in the second he didn't have a single shot to stop.

'Jacques' of the Athletic News had time to reflect on what he'd seen before writing his commentary for Monday's paper:



Leicester City are not likely to achieve a greater performance than this, and I say it with full knowledge of Duncan's six successive goals against Port Vale. In this match they completely conquered the worst conditions imaginable in mud and water, a driving wind and rain.

Though losing the toss, they played such magnificent football that Manchester United, powerful side though they have proved themselves to be, were never able to do much more than desperately and vainly defend their goal.

Despite the awful conditions, the Leicester men were quick on the ball, rapid and accurate in their passing, and from first to last the Manchester United half-back line was an utterly beaten force. So much did the home side by their dash and combined skill dominate affairs that the home backs had an easy task, while their custodian was a mere spectator.

The crowd who braved the anger of the elements saw as fine an exhibition of football as they are ever likely to see, when we take into consideration the difficult conditions.

On this form, the City are a great team, and while the forwards played splendidly, individually and as a combined force, one must not forget that they owed much to the half-back line.

Chandler led the line with his dash and ability. Duncan was a great craftsman, and it was noticeable that the wings had a great understanding with the wing half-backs. Even in the mud, they worked the triangular scheme with such success that Mann and Greenwood, the opposing wing half-backs, could make nothing of them.

The Leicester Mail reporter singled out our wingers: Adcock and Wadsworth appeared to revel in the mud. They fell and rolled in it, but they were up and after the ball again in a wonderful manner. Once Wadsworth was charged over the line and had to dig mud from under his sleeve and out of his eyes, whilst United's Frank Mann, who has the misfortune to be bald, ceased to have that appearance long before the match was over.

Leaders Derby faced the same conditions at Hull, where 'the storm reached its height during the game and players sank to their ankles in mud'. Most of the play was 'purely farcical', but the referee allowed the game to run its course. It finished 1-1. At Stamford Bridge, Chelsea stretched their unbeaten run to 16 with a 3-0 win over bottom club Coventry. That left the table like this:



Our three goals took us level with Derby as top scorers in Division Two. The table also reveals the contrast between the leading pair. United's strength was their defence - at least it was until they arrived at Filbert Street.

We were now playing the best football of any side in the division, and in those more egalitarian days, it's fair to say that the only sides in the whole Football League playing at a higher level were West Brom and Huddersfield, breaking clear at the top of Division One, with early pace-setters Notts County and Birmingham falling back.

Here are the men responsible - our strongest line-up that season, first selected at Derby in early December and pretty much unchanged for the rest of the season:



These men were becoming household names, getting rave reviews week after week, their exploits capturing the imagination of football lovers all over the country.

But still we were only fourth. Chelsea didn't have our style but kept grinding out results, while the top two had been unchanged for over three months. As we looked forward to 1925 we knew we had a real scrap on our hands if we were to win out in this brutal promotion race.

 

[Kushiro2]

A little extra for Peaky Blinders fans.

That keeper you can see on the photo from Goodison Park is Dan Tremelling:



The series was based in Small Heath, of course - the area of the city in which Birmingham played (and still do). Tremelling was the only player from the club ever mentioned in the series (and it looks like he's borrowed Arthur Shelby's cap). He was a bit of a legend though. His penalty save on the last day of the previous season stopped Cardiff City winning the League (and gave Huddersfield the first of their hat-trick of titles).

 

[Kushiro2]

Match 24
Saturday January 3rd
Middlesbrough v Leicester City

On New Year's Day, Manchester United played their game in hand, and after their hammering at Filbert Street they got back on track with a 1-0 win over Chelsea at Old Trafford. That brought the Londoners' long unbeaten run to an end, and left the table like this as we headed north:



For our inside left George Carr it was a homecoming. He was brought up on Teesside and started his career at nearby South Bank. He was from a footballing family and his elder brother Jack was in the Middlesbrough team that day at outside right. A third brother, Billie, was also in the Boro' squad. Here they all are in a contemporary cartoon:



Middlesbrough brought in the wonderfully named 'Billy Kick' to their forward line. At least that's what readers of the Leicester Mail were told. Unfortunately it was a typo - the player's real name was the rather less memorable Billy Hick.

Leicester's holiday results were the best of all the 88 clubs in the Football League, and we started this game in the same vein. After just two minutes, Chandler picked up the ball near the halfway line and beat a man before setting up Duncan, who shot low past keeper Jack Clough.

Boro's hopes weren't helped when centre half Maurice Webster was injured and spent the rest of the game hobbling on the wing, with the rest of the line-up having to be reshaped.

We pressed for a second, with Hugh Adcock in great form - 'the best outside right we've seen at Ayresome this season', said a local reporter. On 30 minutes, Adcock 'beat his man cleverly and passed to Duncan, who lodged it at Chandler's feet, the centre-forward beating Clough with a lovely drive to register Leicester's 50th goal of the season'.

We were then reduced to ten men, Adcock going off for lengthy treatment, and this led to Boro's best spell of the game. They were awarded a penalty when Pat Carrigan fouled Jack Carr, and it was Billy Hick who made it 2-1 at half time.

With Adcock back on it took us just four minutes of the second half to restore the two goal advantage, Duncan heading in a centre from Harry Wadsworth. Boro' rarely threatened after that, and with seven minutes to go came a special moment for local boy George Carr. He picked up the ball outside the box, beat one man then rounded the keeper to make it 4-1. Adcock then added another just before the whistle.

If second half efforts from Bamber and Chandler had gone in instead of hitting the bar and post we'd have repeated our Christmas Day haul of seven, but we were quite satisfied with 5-1.

Channy's goal meant he had now scored in sixteen of our last 18 games - a truly remarkable run. Here's that sequence in detail:



It's actually the most consistent run of scoring in the club's history. Let's do a comparison. If, for simplicity, we look at twenty game sequences instead of 18, then Channy was now on a run of scoring in 17 out of 20 (adding in the following two games). Jamie Vardy's best sequence is 13 out of 20 - a period that includes his record eleven in a row The closest anyone has ever come to matching Channy was Arthur Rowley, who twice managed to score in 16 out of 20 in the 1950s.

Rowley scored more total goals in those spells, but the key here is consistency. As influential writer Ivan Sharpe put it in this week's Athletic News, commenting on Channy's form: 'the regular scorer, the man who can score the odd goal in the hour of need, is a far greater force than the forward who scores as many goals in hat-tricks, on days when success is of smaller value'.

Sharpe ended the article by tipping Channy for an England call-up. The squad for a trial game was due to be announced a few days later.

What else happned that day? As so often recently, our supporters' joy on finding out our own score was tempered by news of rivals' results. They all had home fixtures, and they all won - United 2-0 v Stoke, Derby 6-1 v Portsmouth (with a Fairclough hat-trick) and Chelsea 4-1 v Oldham (with a hat-trick from Harold Miller). We had won four in a row with an aggregate score of 17-2, we were unbeaten in seven, but the table showed that we were exactly where we were at the start of that run - chasing the top three.

How did supporters find out results back then? In the Mercury that week were two articles that showed us how things were, and how things would soon be.

The first report was on scenes at Leicester railway stations of people desperate to get the latest news from the Ashes series in Australia:

Every morning, a train from the suburbs steams in, and out rush these old fellows with a sprightliness that would put a schoolboy to shame. They come at a trot up the platform and reach the street, breathless no doubt, but anxious not to miss a copy of the Mercury racing special, containing the very latest from the Test match.



The other report was on plans for a new transmitter at nearby Daventry, which meant Leicester would finally have proper radio coverage. It would allow owners of cheap crystal sets to pick up BBC broadcasts. Up to now wireless buffs had needed expensive equipment to pick up the signals from distant transmitters, and there were very few in the city tuning in.



Before the end of the decade the first live sports broadcasts would begin - the start of a story that took us through Sports Report, Final Score, Ceefax, Five Live and Sky Sports News before everything changed with instant online results.

But 100 years ago we got everything from the newspapers. For the next week, those papers would be full of previews of the big day the following Saturday. It was FA Cup time.

 

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View attachment 7732

Match 24
Saturday January 3rd
Middlesbrough v Leicester City

On New Year's Day, Manchester United played their game in hand, and after their hammering at Filbert Street they got back on track with a 1-0 win over Chelsea at Old Trafford. That brought the Londoners' long unbeaten run to an end, and left the table like this as we headed north:

View attachment 7733

For our inside left George Carr it was a homecoming. He was brought up on Teesside and started his career at nearby South Bank. He was from a footballing family and his elder brother Jack was in the Middlesbrough team that day at outside right. A third brother, Billie, was also in the Boro' squad. Here they all are in a contemporary cartoon:

View attachment 7734

Middlesbrough brought in the wonderfully named 'Billy Kick' to their forward line. At least that's what readers of the Leicester Mail were told. Unfortunately it was a typo - the player's real name was the rather less memorable Billy Hick.

Leicester's holiday results were the best of all the 88 clubs in the Football League, and we started the game in the same vein. After just two minutes, Chandler picked up the ball near the halfway line and beat a man before setting up Duncan, who shot low past keeper Jack Clough.

Boro's hopes weren't helped when centre half Maurice Webster was injured and spent the rest of the game hobbling on the wing, with the rest of the line-up having to be reshaped.

We pressed for a second, with Hugh Adcock in great form - 'the best outside right we've seen at Ayresome this season', said a local reporter. On 30 minutes, Adcock 'beat his man cleverly and passed to Duncan, who lodged it at Chandler's feet, the centre-forward beating Clough with a lovely drive to register Leicester's 50th goal of the season'.

We were then reduced to ten men, Adcock going off for lengthy treatment, and this led to Boro's best spell of the game. They were awarded a penalty when Pat Carrigan fouled Jack Carr, and it was Billy Hick who made it 2-1 at half time.

With Adcock back on it took us just four minutes of the second half to restore the two goal advantage, Duncan heading in a centre from Harry Wadsworth. Boro' rarely threatened after that, and with seven minutes to go came a special moment for local boy George Carr. He picked up the ball outside the box, beat one man then rounded the keeper to make it 4-1. Adcock then added another just before the whistle.

If second half efforts from Bamber and Chandler had gone in instead of hitting the bar and post we'd have repeated our Christmas Day haul of seven, but we were quite satisfied with 5-1.

Channy's goal meant he had now scored in sixteen of our last 18 games - a truly remarkable run. Here's that sequence in detail:

View attachment 7735

It's actually the most consistent run of scoring in the club's history. Let's do a comparison. If, for simplicity, we look at twenty game sequences instead of 18, then Channy was now on a run of scoring in 17 out of 20 (adding in the following two games). Jamie Vardy's best sequence is 13 out of 20 - a period that includes his record eleven in a row The closest anyone has ever come to matching Channy was Arthur Rowley, who twice managed to score in 16 out of 20 in the 1950s.

Rowley scored more total goals in those spells, but the key here is consistency. As influential writer Ivan Sharpe put it in this week's Athletic News, commenting on Channy's form: 'the regular scorer, the man who can score the odd goal in the hour of need, is a far greater force than the forward who scores as many goals in hat-tricks, on days when success is of smaller value'.

Sharpe ended the article by tipping Channy for an England call-up. The squad for a trial game was due to be announced a few days later.

What else happned that day? As so often recently, our supporters' joy on finding out our own score was tempered by news of rivals' results. They all had home fixtures, and they all won - United 2-0 v Stoke, Derby 6-1 v Portsmouth (with a Fairclough hat-trick) and Chelsea 4-1 v Oldham (with a hat-trick from Harold Miller). We had won four in a row with an aggregate score of 17-2, we were unbeaten in seven, but the table showed that we were exactly where we were at the start of that run - chasing the top three.

How did supporters find out results back then? In the Mercury that week were two articles that showed us how things were, an how things would soon be.

The first report was on scenes at Leicester railway stations of people desperate to get the latest news from the Ashes series in Australia:

Every morning, a train from the suburbs steams in, and out rush these old fellows with a sprightliness that would put a schoolboy to shame. They come at a trot up the platform and reach the street, breathless no doubt, but anxious not to miss a copy of the Mercury racing special, containing the very latest from the Test match.

View attachment 7736

The other report was on plans for a new transmitter at nearby Daventry, which meant Leicester would finally have proper radio coverage. It would allow owners of cheap crystal sets to pick up BBC broadcasts. Up to now wireless buffs had needed expensive equipment to pick up the signals from distant transmitters, and there were very few in the city tuning in.

View attachment 7737

Before the end of the decade the first live sports thank-you verymuch broadcasts would begin - the start of a story that took us through Sports Report, Final Score, Ceefax, Five Live and Sky Sports News before everything changed with instant online results.

But 100 years ago we got everything from the newspapers. For the next week, those papers would be full of previews of the big day the following Saturday. It was FA Cup time.

Thank-you very much

 

[Kushiro2]

So 'Billy Kick' didn't really exist.

How about Billy Kikhard? He was a pal of Jem Crushem.

An old cartoon from the Leicester Chronicle:

 

[Kushiro2]

This was one of those days when, as mentioned above, people were rushing to find out news of the Ashes series. It was day three of the second Test at the MCG, with England looking to square the series. After Australia were bowled out for exactly 600 in their first innings, Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe batted all day to finish on 283 for 0 at the close. There was no rush - this was a Timeless Test, and the match was still in progess the following Saturday.

To complete the sporting action that day, the All Blacks, who you'll recall hammered Leicester Tigers in October, played the last match of their UK tour against England at Twickenham. They won 17-11 - and that made it 28 wins out of 28 on the tour. The team has gone down in history as The Invincibles. They certainly left a mark on Leicester. The Tigers adopted the 'New Zealand formation' this season - seven forwards and eight backs.

The star of the All Blacks team was George Nepia, the Maori full back, who played in every single game on the tour. Ten years later he was offered a huge amount of money to come to London to play for the Streatham and Mitcham Rugby League side:

 

[Kushiro2]

FA Cup First Round
Saturday January 10th 1925
Leicester City v Stoke

There was no doubt about it. From the end of World War 1 until the mid-1960s, the FA Cup was the most coveted prize in English football - perhaps the whole of English sport. The Wembley final was the climax of course, but there was something extra special about this stage, when not just two but 64 teams were involved, all kicking off at the same time on a Saturday afternoon, with Cup fever spreading to every corner of the country.

Cynics in Leicester would have said it's a good job the First Round was such fun, because we'd never made it much beyond that. This was the sorry tale of Leicester's FA Cup progress compared to our East Midlands rivals:



A home tie with Stoke - a team lying ten places below us in Division Two - seemed like a chance to start a run. Our visitors wouldn't be lacking confidence though - they were the only side who'd beaten us at Filbert Street this season.

There were no second string line-ups for cup games in those days, of course. Quite the opposite. Clubs would often leave a player out of a League game to make sure he was fit for the Cup. So the Leicester Chronicle knew when they published this picture of our strongest XI that these would be the players turning out:



(That's the photo you can see reproduced in high quality further up the page).

The pitch was 'under the influence of both frost and sun, with a precarious foothold', and in the first half, Stoke adapted better to the conditions. Contemporary match reports suggest that had xG existed back then, it would have been somthing like Leicester 0.1, Stoke 1.5 at half time. Twice they had one-on-ones with Bert Godderidge, but Harry Sellars and Frank Watkin both contrived to put their efforts wide of the post. They had two other good chances that our keeper had to be at his best to keep out.

At the other end, we were struggling to break through - apart from one moment of genius when Johnny Duncan made something out or nothing:

From a clearance by Adam Black, he picked up the ball and zig-zagged his way down the field, going past full backs Milne and McGrory, before sending a drive past Bob Dixon.

That was the Daily News, and this was the Mercury describing the same moment:

Duncan lunging forward, ball at his feet, getting past opponents in his own shuffling way - not too fast, but very sure - makes a rare pictire for the football crowd. When finally he shuffled past McGrory he was not to be hurried in his shooting, and Dixon seemed the more puzzled the longer Duncan dallied. He was just making sure in his own way.



That's Duncan's goal, with the rays of the setting sun coming over the old Spion Kop roof and lighting up the Popular Side.

This was the scene beneath that roof a moment later:



Amazing, isn't it, to see those faces from 100 years ago. Some of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers in there perhaps.

With Duncan's goal we were 1-0 up at the break, despite having played our least convincing 45 minutes for several weeks.

After that it was a completely different game. We rediscovered our fluency and were on the attack for most of the second half. Here's how Kernel in the Football Post described the key moments:

On 68 minutes, A long pass up the centre saw Chandler get on the move, and when Milne miskicked, the centre forward dashed through on his own and although challenged by Dixon, Chandler recovered possession and placed the ball into an empty net.

So Channy's incredible run continued. He had now scored in seventeen of our last nineteen games.

After 83 minutes the Royal Blues put the issue beyond doubt. Chandler robbed McClure and swung the ball over to Adcock who after taking it in his stride middled it with excellent judgment for Duncan to head through.

3-0 it finished.

Unconnected to the Cup, a small piece of football history was made that day. The FA had recently sanctioned trials of changes to the offside law, and at Elland Road in a game between West Riding and Staffordshire, the first experiment was undertaken. Lines were drawn across the pitch 40 yards from each goal, and players could only be offside within those areas. To avoid confusion, the halfway line was marked only inside the centre circle. Feedback was mixed, and there would soon be another experiment, with a different tweak of the rules. This one would be more successful.

On Monday, two other pieces of news emerged from FA headquarters in Russell Square. For Leicester, there was both good news and bad. First, Arthur Chandler was chosen for an England trial game. No outfield Leicester player had ever been capped, but the selectors couldn't ignore Channy's form. He would be playing centre forward for 'The North' against 'The South' in the trial at Stamford Bridge on January 19th.

The other news was the draw for the Second Round of the Cup, and we could hardly have been given a tougher tie - away to Newcastle United. They were the holders, and were currently on a great run in the League, challenging for the title. The only time we had ever made the Quarter-Finals, in 1910, our run had ended in a 3-0 defeat at St James Park.

What was notable about the rest of the draw was that none of our promotion rivals were in the hat. They had all been knocked out on Saturday:

Derby County 0 Bradford City 1
The Wednesday 2 Manchester United 0
Birmingham 2 Chelsea 0

The result at the Baseball Ground was a real upset, but as the Football Post argued: It was perhaps the best for Derby bearing in mind the club's chances of securing promotion to the First Division, where on form they rightly belong. There are few teams capable of securing two objects together, and no-one has more reason to know that than Derby, who would have been Second Division champions last season if they hadn't had seventy-five percent of the stamina knocked out of them at the crucial period by having to meet Newcastle United four times in the Second Round of the Cup.

This was a cartoon from the same paper:



The caption reads: "Keep the other hoss up and you're alright". (Derby County's attempt to drive two steeds early met with disaster. But they hope to keep going all right with one).

Many Leicester fans would've been thinking along similar lines. 'We're fourth in the table, and the three above us are all out. What's the point in ruining our chances with a cup run?'

Would those thoughts enter the minds of the players? We would soon have a conclusive answer to that question, and in fact, the way we dealt with the attempt to 'drive two steeds' would be the most extraordinary feature of this whole season.

 

[Kushiro2]

League Match No. 25
Saturday January 17th 1925
Stoke v Leicester City

Seven days after we beat them in the FA Cup we faced Stoke again - this time in the League at the Victoria Ground. This aerial shot shows how the place looked in the 1920s. It's not great quality but it's value lies in the rare view of the old oval shape with a running track, which you can just about make out.



That was the track on which Stanley Matthews won all those handicap races mentioned above. It was removed in 1930, just before Stanley joined Stoke, and the ground took on its standard rectangular shape.

The star of this week's show is a woman called Daisy Bates. She too had run on that track, with great distinction. She was also the best female footballer in England. She played for Stoke, who had won the Ladiies FA Cup in 1922, then won a European tournament in Barcelona.

Here's that Cup winning team, with Daisy sitting to the left of the guy with the trophy:



Five days before Leicester turned up at the Victoria Ground, Daisy got married - to Stoke goalkeeper Bob Dixon. Where, or whether they spent a honeymoon is unclear, but Dixon reported for work as normal on Saturday - and he would be the game's central character.

We started the game in confident style, and took the lead after twenty minutes. Johnny Duncan moved out to the wing and played a pass to Hugh Adcock, who had moved inside. His shot was partially saved by Dixon but Adcock followed up to shoot home.

Dixon then made a 'phenomenal' save from Chandler's shot, which was 'traveling low with great pace, away from the keeper and inside the post. It looked a matter of physical impossibility to keep it out but Dixon flung himself full length. It was a save of the spectacular variety which delights the crowd'. And no doubt Daisy too.

Like last week, we led 1-0 at the break.

In the second half we were completely on top, but Dixon made a string of saves to keep Stoke in the contest. Chandler was through on goal twice but shot wide with the first chance and then hit a tame effort straight at the keeper. Then with just three minutes to go, we paid for all those missed chances, Frank Watkin heading in 'after a goalmouth scrimmage'.

1-1 it finished, and for just the third time in the last twenty games, Chandler failed to find the net.

'Leicester threw their chances away' was the headline in the Sentinel. 'They were an exceptionally good side, but were thwarted by two factors - the hopeless finishing by the forwards and a marvelous display of goalkeeping by Dixon. The Athletic News had this verdict: Stoke were just a hard-kicking, dashing set of individual rushers, whereas the visitors moved in precise, polished fashion, their swift, thrustful attacks always boding danger, with Adcock outstanding on the right wing.

Elsewhere, Derby had a comfortable 2-0 home win over Fulham, but Chelsea lost 2-1 at The Wednesday and the big shock of the day came at Highfield Road. Coventry had gone three months without a win and were four points adrift at the bottom, but they beat leaders Manchester United 1-0. All that meant Derby leapfrogged United again, and we were still in fourth place:



On Monday came Arthur Chandler's England trial, playing for 'The North' against 'The South' at Stamford Bridge. His side lost 3-1, but he did score. The description of the goal brings to mind a Leicester legend of the 21st century:

He slipped down in the goalmouth, sat on the ball in doing so, then got up and scooped the ball into the net.

A 'stupid goal', one reporter called it, and his overall performance didn't impress the critics. 'He failed completely to hold the line together' was the verdict of the Daily Herald.

The teams for the final trial were due to be announced two weeks later. We had two big games to face before that - Coventry in the League, and Newcastle in the Cup.

 

[Kushiro2]

This was the cartoon in the Footbal Post today:




The Post was based in Nottingham and covered all the East Midlands clubs. You can see them all here on the masthead:



Our Leicester gent is behind the Magpie (Notts County) and the Forest figure (a Robin Hood link?). The guy at the front with his dog plays some kind of master of ceremonies role and is not representing a particular club.

After much fruitless endeavour I have failed to discover why we are represented by the gent in a top hat (it goes back to the Fosse era as you can see here



Any ideas?