Tomorrow’s game at Leicester is one I reckon we lose eight or nine times out of ten (it would definitely be nine if we were playing them at home!), so, especially at this time of the season, I think it represents something of a free hit for us – anything short of a real thrashing would be accepted without too much criticism from me.
After all, Leicester look like one of the strongest sides, if not the strongest, to be relegated from the Premier League in recent years (in fact, I still don’t quite get how and why they went down). That said, Coventry should have got at least a point there in the opening game of the season and being expected to win every week brings a pressure that some find very hard to live with.
Based on our two games so far though, it looks like a home banker. The draw at Elland Road remains a creditable result, but sides do not tend to avoid defeat after the sort of siege we faced in the second half that afternoon and, realistically, you have to think that we’d have to come through something like it, or worse, again to get anything from Leicester.
Here’s seven Leicester related questions and my advise is make the most of them, and the ones in the return game in December, because, one way or another, I don’t think we’ll be playing them next season.
60s. Starting off in non league football with a midlands team that’s ground name and nickname give a big clue as to what the town was once famous for, this wholehearted defender gave a decade’s service to Leicester. He is probably best remembered now for having one of the biggest days of his career wrecked by an early injury which reduced him to a virtual passenger as he played on for over eighty minutes in pre substitute times. When he moved on, it wasn’t too far to a historic ground that is still in use today where he stayed for a couple of seasons before finishing his playing days with non leaguers where one of football’s biggest showmen made a splash nearly fifty years ago by recruiting some very big names to the club for a short while before the inevitable financial problems took hold. Who am I describing?
70s. Described as a “cultured” footballer by Wikipedia, this Scottish defender played one hundred and twenty times in the league for Leicester, but the fact his appearances were spread over seven years rather tells the story that he was regarded more as first choice to fill in when one of the established players were unavailable than a regular starter for the senior team. Nevertheless, he appeared in a Cup Final and a Charity Shield, as well as picking up a Second Division winner’s medal before he dropped back into the second tier to represent what was then a big spending club at that level. The plan was to pair him at the back with someone who’d later play for City, but it never really got off the ground because in his eleventh match for his new club, he sustained a severed cartilage and, apart from a couple of games for a side on the other side of the world, he never played again. Ca you name him?
80s. Hardly the cleverest thing to do to an Australian criminal!
90s. Shadow Christmas card favourites?
00s. Rat made chairs unfit for Royal Navy initially (7,8)
10s. Adam Matthews, Paul Quinn, Tony Capaldi and Peter Whittingham – what is the link between these players in relation to one specific game against Leicester during this decade?
20s. This alliterative current Leicester player’s first senior appearance came in a 4-1 win over Exeter, his second in a 3-1 win over Villa and he scored his first senior goal at Accrington Stanley – all of this was done while playing for his former club. Internationally, his one full cap came in a losing cause in Budapest, can you name him?
Answers
60s. Len Chalmers began his playing days with Corby Town, nicknamed the Steelmen who play at Steel Park, before signing for Leicester in 1956. Chalmers was one of a rash of players around the mid to late fifties and early sixties who sustained injuries in FA Cup Finals that were partly responsible for the introduction of substitutes four years later – his was a badly gashed shin received very early on in the 1961 Final against double winners Spurs. Chalmers moved to Notts County in 1966 and then played briefly for Dunstable Town a little before the time when Barry Fry persuaded the likes of George Best and Jeff Astle to turn out for them in the early seventies.
70s. Malcolm Manley was a substitute in both the 1969 FA Cup Final and the 1971 Charity Shield for Leicester and received a medal as part of the squad that were Second Division Champions in 70/71. Two years later, he was signed by Portsmouth as a centreback partner for Paul Went, but he barely made it into double figures in appearances for the club before the injury which, apart from a couple of games for South Melbourne, ended his career at the age of just twenty three.
80s. Rob (Ned) Kelly – although nowhere near as good as the regular contributor who came up with Russell Osman (Rustle Oz man)!
90s. Mark Robins.
00s. Richard Stearman.
10s. That was the back four City ended up with in their heroic 2-1 win over Leicester at Cardiff City Stadium in March 2010 following Gabor Gyepes’ sending off and various injuries which meant we ended the game with only eight fit players.
20s. James Justin was part of the Luton team which was playing in League Two recently and his second first team appearance for them came in a 3-1 win over Villa in the EFL Cup. Justin, who’s been badly hi by injuries in recent seasons, won his only England cap in a 1-0 defeat by Hungary in 2022.