The 205th edition of The FOX – The Leicester City Fanzine will be on sale before tonight’s game against West Brom…
Featuring: An interview with former City winger Matt Piper; Fully Programmed from December 1991; Fox Diary –with not too many victories in it; a Fanatical Frank portrait for you to frame; the History of Leicester City in 100 Objects; the impact of TV on the fixture list from the Foxes Trust; Favourite Shirts – Rewind to a young Filbert Fox; Foxed in the Head – on mascots, lampshades, Harold Wilson and fashion; Far East Foxes – Glen White is Our Man in Hong Kong; John Hutchinson on football’s recurring trends; your letters and Bentley’s Roof; Parting Shots, our favourite photos of the last month…
all for less than the price of a pint…
Matt Piper interview extract…
FOX: You are a Leicester lad, did you support City as a kid?
MP: Well, my Dad was from literally one street away from Highbury, so he brought me up as an Arsenal fan, but I did support Leicester as well. My favourite players were Ian Wright for Arsenal and Steve Corica for City. I really liked Corica, he was such a skilful player.
I bit later, when I was about 15 and in the City youth team the player I really used to look up to was Emile Heskey. He’d come through the youth ranks in the same way as I was trying to, and I ended up cleaning his boots for two years. Normally they try and get you to clean the boots of someone in your position and I was a striker then, not a winger. Except for the manager’s boots, that job is normally given to the goody two-shoes of the side.
FOX: How did you end up in the City Academy?
MP: Well, I started off at Nottingham Forest for six weeks. I played for Beaumont Town and a Forest scout came over to watch me and I was invited to join them.
For the first session I was sat in the car crying: “I don’t want to go to Forest!”
My Dad said: “Well, Leicester haven’t come in for you, so get on with it.”
They got me out of the car and I trained and did all right. After six weeks they offered me a place in the academy, but two days before I was due to sign it, I had a letter from Leicester City. David Nish invited me down to go and train at their academy. So that was close.
I played through every age group with City and then signed up to the youth team.
Everything had gone well for me until it was professional contract time and I had a meeting with Peter Taylor. He told me: “We think you are a good player and we’d like to keep you because we think we’d be able to sell you, but I don’t see you in our first team.”
Because I was a Leicester lad and wanted to stay there, I signed the contract, even though I was on half the money that Jordan Stewart was. Garry Parker was the reserve team manager at the time and he told me to sign it. He told me: “If Peter Taylor ever loses his job and they put me in charge, then I’d put you in the first team.”
And as it turned out, he was as good as his word.
——————————————————————-
You can now subscribe to The FOX – The Leicester City fanzine for the 2017/18 season…
You can either print and post the above subscriptions form or pay online via Paypal below.
Many thanks for your continued support.
thefoxfanzine blog 