Filbert Street Finds a Home on Filbert Way

Micky Bates’ remarkable model of Filbert Street circa 1977 has been moved from his Earl Shilton home to a tailor-made exhibition case at the King Power Stadium.

The model, which is sure to bring back a host of memories for any City fan, is temporarily situated in the  approach to the Keith Weller Lounge until the proposed club museum comes into being, when it will take pride of place.
For more information on Micky’s model visit: http://rebuildingfilbo.webs.com/

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FOX 172 – in the Shops Now…

FOX 172 – the November issue – is now in the shops…

This issue features: An interview with sixties City legend Davie Gibson; Panini 78 stickers; your essential small ads; Odd One Out; Fully Programmed from the Jock Wallace era; Fox Diary – the Sousa Story; the latest from the Foxes Trust; Tales From the Riverbank; Rewind to a meeting of goalkeeping greats; the Chris Lymn Column; The Keith Weller Scrapbook; Our Man in a Van; ‘Of Fossils & Foxes’ reviewed; your letters and Bentley’s Roof; and Fanatical Frank’s goes on a journey…

Extract from the Davie Gibson interview…

FOX: Do you keep in touch with any of your old City team mates?

DG: The only one I see regularly is Frank McLintock. I see Stringy when I go up to games.
Frank was the big brother I never had. If anyone kicked me, they only kicked me once because Frank looked after me.
I remember one Thursday lunchtime over a pint Frank tried to talk me into a game of golf, even though it was against club rules in the days leading up to a game.
“Matt would go mad.” I said. “Yes, but he won’t know will he?” says Frank.
He talked me round and we were striding down the long 15th at Rothley Park when we caught sight of Matt Gillies.
We both dived into the bushes on the railway embankment and were covered in scratches from the brambles.
We laid low for a while until he was out of sight. ‘Do you think he saw us?’ I asked Frank. ‘Well we could see him, so its possible.’ he said.
We sweated it out for a couple of days and nothing was said in training.
We played at Anfield on the Saturday and we were both in the team so we said to each other in the changing rooms before the game: ‘He didn’t see us, we got away with it.’
We beat Liverpool and Matt was delighted after the game, he went round every player looking them in the eye and saying: ‘Well played.’ Then he came to us two and said; ‘…And you pair were fantastic… perhaps you should play golf every Thursday?’ 

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Family Guy…

A lot of people have been in touch regarding my ‘Family Life’ article in this week’s Mercury…

..so here is the link for those of you who didn’t see it. It was a difficult piece to write, let me know if you agree or disagree with my sentiments.

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Football-passing-children-8211/article-2600591-detail/article.html

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To subscribe to The FOX for the 2010-11 season, get your Summer Special in the post right away, and claim your free limited edition print send a cheque for £14.00 to:

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Pete Runs the Rule over Leicester

Scorcher’s Sports Reporter ‘Pete’ visits Leicester City in 1975…

37 Years of Hurt…

Although Leicester beat Forest at the City Ground in September 2007, 3-2 in a League Cup tie, they haven’t beaten them in a League game away since January 1972…

The sides met on 22 January 1972: Forest took a first half lead through Ian Storey-Moore, who beat Peter Shilton with a volley.
Keith Weller equalised with a brillaint goal five minutes from time that saw him beat four Forest defenders before firing a shot past Jimmy Barron.
In the final minute of the game Alan Birchenall hit the winner with a shot that deflected off a defender on its way into the net.

Since then it has been an unrelentingly different story:

2007/2008
League Cup Nottingham Forest 2-3 Leicester City 18-09-2007
2004/2005
Second Tier Nottingham Forest 1-1 Leicester City 17-12-2004
2002/2003
Second Tier Nottingham Forest 2-2 Leicester City 26-10-2002
1998/1999
Premier Nottingham Forest 1-0 Leicester City 16-05-1999
1996/1997
Premier Nottingham Forest 0-0 Leicester City 07-09-1996
1994/1995
Premier Nottingham Forest 1-0 Leicester City 27-08-1994
1993/1994
Second Tier  Nottingham Forest 4-0 Leicester City 06-02-1994
1988/1989
League Cup Nottingham Forest 2-1 Leicester City 14-12-1988
1986/1987
Division 1   Nottingham Forest 2-1 Leicester City 22-03-1987
1985/1986
Division 1   Nottingham Forest 4-3 Leicester City 22-03-1986
1984/1985
Division 1  Nottingham Forest 2-1 Leicester City 25-11-1984
1983/1984
Division 1   Nottingham Forest 3-2 Leicester City 04-12-1983
1980/1981
Division 1   Nottingham Forest 5-0 Leicester City 20-09-1980
1977/1978
Division 1   Nottingham Forest 1-0 Leicester City 14-03-1978

The Magic of Keith Weller

Keith Weller, my childhood footballing superhero, died after a long battle with cancer five years ago this week.
Any City fan old enough to remember seeing him play will recall moments of magic when they hear his name, and also the buzz that went round Filbert Street whenever he recieved the ball.

All eyes on me…  study the faces in the crowd on the photo above and you can see the effect that Weller had on supporters, as he strolls over to take a corner.
We’ll never see his like again…

Photo: Neville Chadwick Photography.

website: http://www.chadwicksphoto.co.uk/

contact: info@chadwicksphoto.co.uk

Sunday dinner… Star Soccer… Hugh Johns…

From the ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’ column in The FOX No 163 – December 2008…

I only occasionally remember to watch ‘The Championship’ – the ITV highlights package on a Sunday morning.
To be honest I’m only interested in watching City’s goals, and now we are third tier our appearances are of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it briefness.
It’s a decent enough programme. There’s Matt Smith with his ever present stripey scarf in that knot that people who get the Next catalogue delivered know how to tie. He’ll be knocking round a football ground looking for an unusual angle. One minute reclined in the front row of seats behind the goal, the next annoying the kit man in the changing room.
It’s harmless enough.
It does its job.
It shows you all the goals from yesterday, regardless of weather, or precarious camera gantries as we go down the leagues.
But it doesn’t excite me. 

The other day an old mate of mine e-mailed me an mp3 file. It was entitled ‘star’.
When I played it I instantly recognised the blaring, barely in control, brass section of the ‘Star Soccer’ theme tune and I was transported back to a mid-70s Sunday afternoon at two o’clock.
The Sunday dinner that had taken my Mum hours to cook was wolfed down in two minutes, hardly touching the sides. Roast beef and Yorkshire puddings lay in my stomach barely chewed as I rushed to turn the old black and white TV on in time for that theme music at two.
That would be followed by a backdrop of one of the Midlands grounds… Molineux, the Baseball Ground, Filbert Street,  the Victoria Ground, St Andrews, Highfield Road  … and the rich baritone voice of commentator Hugh Johns would welcome you to the game.
The main featured game, however good or bad it was, ran for half an hour. Fifteen minutes for the first half, up to the first ad break, then another quarter of an hour for the second half up to the second ad break.
Part three brought fifteen minutes of the second game from another ITV region, each with their own version of Hugh Johns such as Granada (Gerald Sinstadt), Tyne Tees (Kenneth Wolstenholme) or London Weekend Television (Brian Moore).
Part Four saw highlights from a third game, which memory serves was often Anglia TV which meant either Norwich or Ipswich being described by Gerry Harrison; and then a round up of results and league tables read by Trevor East… and, believe it or not kids, that was it. Dozens of games went by every weekend without a TV camera being pointed at them. That’s why seeing your team on TV was so special. With perhaps only two or three appearances in a lean year the novelty never wore off.
But, truth be told, the Leicester games were just the icing on the cake, every week it was wonderful during a great time for the Midlands region.
Most of the clubs had a good spell and some great players during the time that Star Soccer ran, from 1968 to 1983.
City could boast Peter Shilton, Keith Weller and Frank Worthington; Birmingham had Trevor Francis and Bob Latchford, Wolves had Kenny Hibbit and John Richards; there was Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis at West Brom, Jimmy Greenhoff and Geoff Hurst were at Stoke; even Walsall had Alan Buckley.
Derby, Forest and Villa all won the league title during Star Soccer’s time and the League Cup hardly ever left the region with Stoke, Villa (twice), Forest (twice), and Wolves (twice) all lifting the three handled trophy.  
When ‘ATV’ became ‘Central’ on January 1st 1982 they carried on producing the ‘Star Soccer’ programme, but only until the end of the 1982-83 season when City 0-0 Burnley featured as the main game on the last ever show.
The start of the 1983-84 season saw the introduction of live televised League games, and things would never be the same again.
The ‘Central Match Live’ and Jimmy Greaves became the new thing and highlights packages were shoved aside.
Again, it sounds daft now, but we marvelled at those live matches, having been restricted to only three or four per YEAR outside of a World Cup tournament. But that led us down the path to where we are today – saturated live coverage of more games than you could ever want to see…
Hugh Johns, the voice of Midlands Football, sadly passed on in 2007. But for many, that rich tobacco baritone, was the comforting backdrop to many a Sunday afternoon…       

City’s appearances on ‘Star Soccer’ as the main featured game…

1968-69: City 1:3 Ipswich; City 1:1 Coventry City; City 0:2 West Brom; Chelsea 3:0 City; City 2:1 Manchester United; City 0:0 Liverpool (FA Cup quarter-final); City 0:0 Man City (FA Cup Final).

1969-70: City 3:1 Birmingham; City 1:2 Cardiff; City 1:0 Sunderland (FAC 3); City 0:2 Swindon; Birmingham 0:1 City.

1970-71: City 1:0 Luton Town; City 0:0 Hull City.

1971-72: City 1:0 Liverpool (Charity Shield); West Brom 0:1 City; Coventry City 1:1 City; City 2:0 West Ham United.

1972-73: City 2:1 West Ham United

1973-74: City 1:1 Liverpool; City 2:2 Leeds United; City 2:0 Burnley; City 3:0 Tottenham; City 1:0 Tottenham (FAC 3); City 3:3 Birmingham; City 3:0 Chelsea.

1974-75: City 0:1 Coventry City; City 1:0 Burnley; City 1:1 Stoke City.

1975-76: City 2:1 West Brom (Anglo-Scottish Cup); City 0-0 Ipswich Town; City 1:0 Manchester City; City 1:2 Manchester United (FAC 5).

1976-77: City 4:1 Arsenal; City 1:1 Manchester United; City 0:1 Aston Villa (FAC 3); City 1:0 Ipswich Town; Birmingham 1:1 City.

1977-78: City 1:5 Everton; Walsall 1:0 City (FAC 4).

1978-79: City 1:1 Cambridge United; City 1:1 Blackburn Rovers; City 2:1 Newcastle United; City 1:1 Stoke City.

1979-80: City 2:0 QPR; Notts County 0:1 City; City 1:0 Chelsea; City 2:1 Birmingham City; City 2:1 Charlton Athletic.

1980-81: City 2:0 Liverpool; West Brom 2:0 City (LC 2); Notts Forest 5:0 City; Aston Villa 2:0 City; City 2:4 Aston Villa.

1981-82: City 1:1 Crystal Palace; City 1:1 Watford; City 2:1 Derby County; City 0:2 Tottenham (FAC semi-final); City 1:4 Norwich City.

1982-83: City 2:0 Fulham; City 5:0 Wolves; City 0:0 Bolton Wanderers; City 0:0 Burnley.

If you would like me to e-mail the ‘Star Soccer’ theme tune to you then get in touch: garysilke@sky.com

First Trip to Filbert Street…

From The FOX No111 – January 2002 a series entitled ‘Filbert Street Memories’. This wonderful contribution was from Nigel Horsley…

Tuesday 8th of April 1958, a normal sort of day for your average ten year old. Got up at day break and rode up to the fence line to check there’d been no rustlers at work during the night. Even managed to out run a small war party of Sioux warriors on the way back to the ranch. Gravy and biscuits and a bit of branding before breaking in a couple of ponies…
All brought to an abrupt halt when Ma told me I’d been summoned to the lodge of the Elders. On arriving I was faced by “He Who Manages Squaws Who Make Stockings” (Uncle Cyril) who told me I was to join the Elders that afternoon to go to my first football match at a place called The Filbert Street. We passed round the pipe, this was strong medicine!
I knew something about football, I was a member of the primary school swarm; one of a team of fifty centre forwards whose purpose in life was to move around in a tight block relying on the shouted evidence of spotters who reckoned they had a good idea of the whereabouts of the ball. Some of the swarm had proper boots with leather studs you could nail in. I had a pair of Arthur Rowes with moulded studs (cutting edge at 27/6 from the Co-op). Peter, on the other hand, had black pumps and a snake belt to hold up inherited over large shorts. When we got off the playground and onto the pitch, Peter detached himself from the swarm imagining the white lines to be rail tracks and he became a little shunter. Probably still is for all I know!
On the way to The Filbert Street that afternoon, we travelled through strange places like Leicester Forest East (bandit country)! I sat in the back of the car sliding around on the cracked leather seat clutching onto the cord grab handle scouring the trees for outlaws. Walking from the car to this mystery place I had no idea what to expect beyond what I already knew about football; the zero zero ten formation so loved by primary school teachers in the nineteen fifties, the occasional shunter, the excruciating pain of being hit on the inside of the thigh by a misdirected punt from one of the swarm.
Over a moat and there it was, The Filbert Street, rising above the landscape; a medieval fortress, a magnet for the county’s noblemen, Earl Shilton, Count Esthorpe; West Indies fast bowlers Broughton Astley and Dunton Basset all gathering for a council of war.
Uncle Cyril had said we were upstairs in the double decker for the game, which meant little to me, though I considered it an interesting prospect, watching the game from the top of a bus. Into the fortress, up the stairs, twisting, turning, ever upwards, overtaken by Musketeers looking for Richelieu and ducking to avoid Basil Rathbone’s flashing blade as he was locked in mortal combat with Errol Flynn…
Then emerging into this amazing amphitheatre- this was no fortress, this was the Colosseum and I was Caesar. The noise, the pressing of expectant humanity, this was bliss. Bring on the Christians, bring on the centre forwards, put Peter to the sword. The Romans sang and a uniformed band played. Just before three o’clock one of the band detached himself from the others and lifted a post horn to his lips. The notes were lost in an amplification beyond imagination. “He Who Manages Squaws” put his hand on my shoulder. This was a rite of passage. Blue shirts, white knickers, the Gladiators. White shirts, black knickers, the Barbarians. Why was there only one centre forward? Why take turns to kick the ball? So fast, so strong, so uncompromising…..Brilliant!
I wasn’t aware that Leicester City were involved in a dogfight to remain in the First Division, nor that these Easter matches were critical to them staying there. And here they were, playing the Fancy Dans from Luton (fifth in the league). And here were Leicester, at half-time, losing 1-0 to a Gregory goal (the Luton centre forward). The day before, the reverse fixture at Kenilworth Road had resulted in a 2-1 win to the Hatters. So, the mood at Filbert Street was, at 3-45 that afternoon, as it has been so often since, sombre. Woodbines were passed round the trenches; Uncle Cyril crawled through mud and over duckboards to bring me Bovril. A whistle from Captain Black in the middle and off we went into no man’s land. Maclaren, Milburn, Ogilvie, Morris, King, Walker, Riley, Hines, Gardiner, Rowley and Hogg, all that was left of the swarm and facing defeat, facing relegation but fixing bayonets for one last push. And here were 32,480 of us, knitting socks and packing bully beef for the men at the front. On they pushed, bruised, bloodied, defiant. I have an image printed indelibly into my memory of a City defender clearing from his own goal line with an overhead kick as Luton were repelled yet again…
I don’t remember a single one of Leicester’s four second half goals, just the upsurge of noise, the corporate relief of turning round an impossible situation, of clawing a way back from the foot of the table and securing a place in the top flight…to finish the season one place above the drop zone; it did for me, it sure did. Since then, well, like the rest of you, ten percent elation, ninety percent the other! There have been many great times at Filbert Street for me- the 6-0 thrashing of Manchester United in 1961; Being one of 41,622 sardined into witnessing the 2-2 draw with Spurs in 1963, and, most recently, the culmination of everything Martin O’Neill strove for in the 5-2 defeat of Sunderland in March 2000.
Uncle Cyril died in 1975 but I’d like to think he was with me twenty years later when I took my own sons, Jack and Harry (then 9 and 6) on their first trip to Filbert Street. We sat upstairs in the double decker just behind the goal. We had to do that didn’t we? And we witnessed managerless City turn a two goal deficit into an amazing 3-2 win over Norwich. I’m sure I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw, through the mist, one daring spectator climbing in via a telegraph wire. I saw five swans fly over the ground and a nervous sixteen year old prepare to take over from the world’s number one keeper. Ken Leek played half a game in a schoolboy cap to help protect a head wound, Keith Weller donned white tights, Martin O’Neill exuded charisma and the tannoy announced Coventry’s relegation!
And when the doors finally close at Filbert Street where will the ghosts go? What happens to the decades of energy, the passion, all that hope, every false dawn and every realised dream, the theatre of mud, sweat and cheers? It is simple. When we’ve all gone, generations of new fans will travel to Freeman’s Wharf to cheer teams not yet born to heights not yet achieved or to depths not yet plumbed.
New ghosts, new screams, new sighs, fresh dreams.

Great Start Continues for City…

Leicester City 1:0 Barnsley

City overcame a stubborn Barnsley side at Filbert Way on Saturday afternoon, another goal from Matty Fryatt earning the three points.

New signing Paul Gallagher replaced the injured Steve Howard and Lloyd Dyer was in for Nicky Adams.
A tight and fairly uneventful first half unfolded. Dyer beat two defenders before sending a shot wide and Fryatt was denied by Tykes’ keeper Steele. At the other end Weale had one decent save to make from Deveaney but the sides went in at the break goalless.

There was a very moving tribute from Keith Weller’s family at half time when they made an appearance with Alan Birchenall, thanking the City supporters for their messages sent to Keith during his battle with cancer.

City emerged for the second half looking mor ebusiness-like and within eight minutes they were a goal up.
Wellens chipped a ball forward for Fryatt who plucked it out of the air with some brilliant control before firing it past Steele and into the net for his third goal of the season. Kasabian’s ‘I’m on Fire’ replaced the Fratellis ‘Chelsea Dagger’ as the apparently obligatory ‘goal celebration music’ to some very confused looks from those who like that sort of thing.
City almost stretched their lead soon after when a Hobbs header found the side-netting.
But Barnsley refused to lie down and racked up several chances. Most of their shots flew high over the bar, but a couple of efforts were two close for comfort.
Gallagher’s only real chance of th eafternoon saw him latch on to a ball from Wellens but his shot was tippe dover by Steele. N’Guessan also had Steele leaping across his goal to make another fine save.
There were a few nervous moments late on but Campbell-Ryce had a chance to equalised blocked.

This was a narrow victory for City, but the three points saw them in sixth place at the end of the day.

Leicester: Weale, Neilson, Brown, Hobbs, Berner, N’Guessan, Wellens, Oakley, Dyer (Adams 65), Fryatt (Dickov 87), Gallagher (King 81). Subs Not Used: Logan, Morrison, Tunchev, Gradel.
Barnsley: Steele, Hassell (Kozluk 22), Foster, Moore, El Haimour, Devaney (Hammill 72), De Silva, Hallfredsson, Campbell-Ryce, Hume (Macken 72), Gray. Subs Not Used: Preece, Odejayi, Butterfield, Potter.

Referee: Andy Penn (West Midlands). Attendance: 21,799.