Unimaginable pressure: The story of Leicester City’s forgotten great escape
Say ‘Great Escape’ and everyone thinks of 2015. But there was another season when our predicament was similarly dire, and our recovery was equally miraculous.
Given the drama of what happened, it’s surprising it doesn’t have a bigger place in Leicester mythology. Let’s have a look in detail at what happened.
In late March 1959, with relegation all but confirmed, the Leicester Chronicle decided it was time go on the attack.
This was their front page:
What it said may ring a few bells with Leicester fans today:
“It’s almost certain that Leicester will go down to the Second Division again. What can be done to stop the rot? What can be done to improve on City’s sorry League record this year – won 0, drawn 1, lost 8?
The board have adopted a course best described as dithering. Some clubs insist on a policy of grooming their own youngsters. Others prefer to strengthen by buying experience in the form of skilled technicians. We have done neither of these things. As a result of that dithering, only a miracle can now save the club.
How many stones have been turned to find the right players? We need to spend boldly on on or two key men, rather than half a dozen who are second class.”
The Chronicle then named the guilty men:
One man they didn’t criticise was manager Matt Gillies. He had been in the job six months. But how long would he last?
One bookie was offering odds of 50-1 against us staying up as we headed for Burnden Park, Bolton on March 27th. This was the table:
Just like 2015, there were nine games to play, and with only two points for a win, the five point gap to safety was the equivalent of the seven point gap in 2015. We were dead and buried, and there was no King Richard to save us. Were there any useful omens at all? Well, it was Good Friday...
Portsmouth, our partners in misery at the bottom, threw in the towel from that point, losing all their remaining games. They didn't get back to the top flight for 30 years. Would the same have happened to us had we gone down? No Ice Kings? No Cup Finals in the 1960s? That's how much was riding on our relegation battle.
On that Good Friday afternoon, another defeat looked a certainty when Nat Lofthouse put Bolton 3-1 up after just half an hour. But in the second half, Ken Leek pulled one back, 'heading down in wonderful style from a corner'. Then Leicester were awarded a penalty for handball and we had the chance of a crucial equaliser.
Who would take responsibility? None of the forwards fancied it, so up stepped defender John Ogilvie, who hadn’t scored a single goal in his 83 games for City.
The pressure must have been unimaginable, but Ogilvie ran up and hit the ball so hard that it rebounded from the stanchion at the back of the net and landed at his feet. The game finished 3-3, and our run of defeats was over.
Elsewhere, Aston Villa took the lead at White Hart Lane but Spurs came back to win 3-2. That moved Spurs away from trouble, but cut Villa's cushion over Leicester from five points to four.
The next day, Easter Saturday, Leicester and Portsmouth met at Filbert Street. Only 15,000 turned up, understandable given our three month run without a victory. That day the dismal run was broken - City won 3-1, with another Ogilvie penalty added to goals from Ken Leek and Jimmy Walsh.
Villa were playing at Everton, and again they took the lead before throwing it away, losing 2-1. Now we had hope. The gap was just two points.
Easter Monday saw the reverse of the Good Friday fixtures. We drew 0-0 at home to Bolton, while Villa drew 1-1 at home to Spurs. It was 'as you were' with six games to play.
Then came the big one. Saturday April 4th at Villa Park.
On the morning of the match, the fight against relegation was placed in perspective. Jeff Hall, Birmingham's England international defender, had been battling polio.
News came through that morning that he had lost the battle. He was just 29.
Thousands of City fans were heading for the game. They would have heard the news either on the way to Villa Park or when they arrived at the ground, where the two sets of fans stood side by side for a minute's silence in tribute to one of the game's most respected figures.
When the action began, we got off to a great start. This description of Jimmy Walsh's opener makes it sound uncannily like Jamie Vardy's famous goal at West Brom in 2015:
“In the 10th minute, Leicester went one up, and Jimmy Walsh took the goal splendidly. He was chasing a ball that Dugdale reached first, but Walsh robbed him.
With Dugdale on the ground he went on, drawing Sims before placing a low shot into the corner of the net.”
Walsh’s goal, with the pre-roof Holte End as backdrop.
Midway through the second half, Walsh got another, and this was equally dramatic:
“When Willis snapped up a clearance he hared down the left, outstripping Aldis, then pulled back a cross worthy of Stanley Matthews.
Walsh thundered through and cannoned the ball into the net via the underside of the crossbar.”
Villa pulled one back, but we held on to win 2-1. It was one of the most important results in the history of the club. We had now taken six points from four games, though we were still in the drop zone as Villa's goal average was better than ours. Manchester City had also slipped right into trouble after an awful run. They were just one point better off.
Here's a blow-by-blow account of what happened next:
Saturday April 11th
Leicester City 1 West Ham 1. Tommy McDonald gave us the lead but John Bond got a late equaliser.
Fortunately, Villa contrived to lose from a winning position yet again, Preston coming back to win 4-2 at Deepdale. Our point meant we were finally out of the bottom two.
Saturday April 18th
Nottingham Forest 1 Leicester City 4. After victory at Villa Park, another magnificent away performance. The unbeaten run stretched to six with this fine win at the City Ground.
Goals from Jimmy Walsh, Ken Keyworth, Tommy McDonald, then a Bill Whare own goal, which was 'the last straw for the home fans, who streamed out of the ground in their hundreds'.
Villa got a point at home to Burnley, and Man City lost 2-1 at Blackburn so we climbed another place to 19th.
Monday April 20th
A great day without even playing. Some thought Forest had been taking it easy against us before their FA Cup Final against Luton, but that theory went out the window as they beat Villa 2-0.
That wasn’t the only good news. Man City lost again, 5-1 at West Ham:
Was the pressure off? Not when you saw our remaining fixtures. We had games against the top two in the League, Wolves and Manchester United, followed by a possible winner-takes-all decider at Maine Road in the last game. It was still all to play for.
Wednesday April 22nd
This was our game in hand, but no-one expected us to get anything at Molineux. Wolves needed a point for the title, and City players formed a guard of honour as they ran out.
The gesture was a little premature, with the title still to be confirmed. Perhaps, like at White Hart Lane in 1999, it was a ploy to put the opposition off their game. If so, it seemed to be working. In the first half, we actually played Wolves off the park.
In an extraordinary 15 minute spell, clever build up play gave Ken Keyworth a one-on-one with the keeper on four separate occasions. Somehow he contrived to miss all of them - hitting two shots wide, putting one onto the roof of the net, and then dallying too long with another chance, allowing a defender to get back and tackle. It was a bewildering passage of play. Had Wolves decided that Keyworth wasn't worth marking?
We were made to regret those missed chances. Wolves took over and ended up winning 3-0, as home fans rolled out their anthem ‘The Happy Wanderer’ once more (‘Valderee, Valderaa’). It was their third title in six years (and they haven’t won it since).
After the match, the Division One trophy was presented to Billy Wright by one of those men criticised by the Chronicle, our director Len Shipman, who was also a member of the Football League executive.
It had been quite a journey for both men. Billy Wright had guested for Leicester City during World War Two, just after Shipman had helped rescue the club in the wake of the scandal of 1940, when several members of the board had been suspended sine die after financial irregularities were uncovered by an FA inquiry.
Saturday April 25th
Leicester City v Manchester United, with 35,000 at Filbert Street. Our rivals Man City and Villa were playing each other, and as they couldn’t both win, we knew victory would mean safety. Ken Keyworth kept his place, but still couldn't do anything right in front of goal.
In the 19th minute, ‘Leek's centre reached him six yards from goal, with no-one near him. Amazingly, Keyworth fluffed the dream chance. Fortunately, Jimmy Walsh was wide awake, and before a defender could clear, he nipped in and scored’. Bobby Charlton was ‘giving examples of his electrifying power’, but couldn't beat Dave MacLaren.
Gordon Willis added a second, and United got only a late consolation. News arrived that Man City and Villa had drawn 0-0, but that no longer mattered. We were safe, and ‘police tried in vain to cope with hundreds of fans invading the pitch and mobbing the players’.
We’d stopped the rot, and a month after their front page splash, the Chronicle decided to take the credit. ‘We hope we don’t have to ginger them up again next year’, it said.
Wednesday April 29th
Would it be Man City or Villa that went down with Portsmouth? They were level on points, but Villa's goal average was slightly better. Leicester would have a central role in the drama. We went to Maine Road knowing that if we got a result, we’d be helping Villa, who were playing West Brom at The Hawthorns at the same time.
With a few minutes to go, Villa were 1-0 up, and we were 3-1 down at Maine Road. Man City needed another goal to send Villa down - no doubt some Leicester fans were hoping that would happen. But then late drama made goal average irrelevant. Ronnie Allen got an equaliser for Albion and Villa were down. Cue pandemonium at Maine Road - and at the Hawthorns, where 'the tumultuous cheering and extravagant embraces of the Albion players made it quite clear who the home side wanted to be relegated'.
The most remarkable thing about the evening was the conduct of Villa boss Joe Mercer. He'd been interviewed for the Leicester job in 1955, but lost out to Dave Halliday (the man who’d quit earlier this season, giving Matt Gillies his chance). After events at The Hawthorns, Leicester directors may have been thinking they'd dodged a bullet.
Mercer left the ground five minutes before the end of the game, with everything still to be decided. He had been invited to a special presentation for Billy Wright, who had just become the first player to win 100 England caps. He wasn't there when Albion equalised, nor in the dressing room after the match with his dejected players.
In the 1960s, of course, he led Man City through their greatest era of the 20th century - just as Gillies was taking us through those glory days that may not have happened at all had we not pulled off this dramatic escape.
The squad at the start of the 1958/59 season, before Halliday quit and Gillies took over.
What happened next:
Jeff Hall’s death was not the only tragedy in the run-in this season. Our chief scout and former boss Tom Bromilow died on a train between Birmingham and Nuneaton on his way back from watching possible targets in a match at Wrexham.
On April 3rd, this ad appeared in the Daily Express:
We received nearly 200 applications.
On June 3rd, Bert Johnson was announced as Bromilow’s successor. He made such an impression that he was soon promoted to a coaching role, from which he helped Gillies plot the tactical innovations that would transform the club’s fortunes.
