THE GOLDEN ERA

THE GOLDEN ERA

In my first blog that seems such a long time ago I talked about my introduction to football and the start of my long affair with Leicester City Football Club and after all these years I still look upon the late 1960’s as the golden era of football.

Every team seemed to have at least one star name in their line up and of course England were basking in the glory of being world champions after defeating West Germany 4 - 2 in the 1966 world cup final at Wembley stadium. And for Leicester supporters it was even sweeter because we had one of the winning team in our ranks, probably one of the greatest goalkeepers ever to grace the game Gordon Banks.

After being introduced to football from an early age in the late 1950’s by my Father who used to sit in the double decker stand (will that view ever be bettered) football became a massive part of my life, playing at school, playing in the street and everyone wanted to be the next Bobby Charlton, Geoff Hurst or in my case Bobby Moore, so England winning the world cup was amazing to happen in my lifetime.

I was fortunate to go to Wembley stadium on two occasions in 1963. On May 22^nd I was at Wembley to see the European cup final Benfica v AC Milan, for the record I was cheering for Milan because I used to admire their German full back Schnellinger , Milan won 2-1 and on 23^rd October  I was there again to see England v Rest of the World, a game that was to celebrate 100 years of the F.A. and on view that day were some of the greatest players the world has ever seen and I had the privilege of being in the 100,000 crowd to see them. I was 12 years old at the time and the school organized both trips to Wembley.

Playing for England that day were some of the stars who were in the 1966 world cup squad. Bobby Charlton, Moore, Greaves, Banks and Wilson and the world team included Denis Law, Eusabio, Schnellinger, Lev Yashin, Jim Baxter and the great Di Stefano. England won the game 2-1 with goals from Terry Paine and Jimmy Greaves and Denis Law replied for the world team.

I would travel to Filbert street whenever I could after my father died in March 1967. I had just left school and to travel to games wasn’t easy to do, I had to catch a Midland red bus from Polesworth that used to take us the scenic route to Leicester through Market Bosworth etc and going to games was an all-day affair. In 1967 I made it to a few games. On March 25^th I saw us lose to Tottenham 1-0 but when you look at their team it was full of star names. Jennings, Kinnear, Knowles, Mullery , England, Mackay, Robertson, Greaves, Gilzean, Venables and Saul.

I was there again in August to see us play Tottenham again on the opening day of the 1967-68 season, and this time they inflicted a 3-2 defeat on us with virtually the same side as before. I also made it to City v Chelsea on October 25^th which was an entertaining 2-2 draw. I remember Bobby Roberts scoring twice after we were 2-0 down, and Chelsea had stars galore in their side. Bonetti, Butler, Mcreadie, Hollins, Hinton, Harris, Cooke, Baldwin, Osgood, Houseman, Tambling.

On 23^rd December I also managed to see us play Manchester United. The last time I saw us play United was on November 13^th 1965 and we were hammered 5-0. This time it was an entertaining encounter finishing 2-2 with Sjoberg and Tewley scoring for City and Charlton and Law for United. I remember after the game standing outside Filbert Street waiting for a glimpse of the players before going home and in my programme I have the autographs of Peter Shilton and Willie Bell.

With no sky and no saturation of football on TV it was left to highlights on Match of the day to see the players we adored, Ken Wolstenhome ‘ magic!’ or listening to a radio unless you could make it  to a game.  A magical era of football was the 60's and I was privileged to be there

Leicester till I die