Queen Victoria, Adolf Hitler and the dog that saved Manchester United: When Leicester Fosse won at Newton Heath
This season, we’re looking back at past away victories throughout Leicester City’s history against each of our 19 Premier League opponents this season. We’re also finding out a little bit about what life was like at the time.
In 1901, Leicester Fosse made the trip north to face Newton Heath with the Manchester club in dire financial trouble but we’re going to start begin 42 years earlier - and end 49 years later.
This story starts in three consecutive years during the reign of Queen Victoria.
In 1869, when a rugby league club called Broughton FC started playing at a sports ground just north of Manchester city centre.
In 1870, when a baby was born to the Atter family in Stamford and they named him James.
In 1871, when a baby was born to the McClure family in Upper Broughton close to that new rugby league venue and they named him Joseph.
We will follow each to their conclusion.
Leicester City’s own beginnings, of course, didn’t arrive until 1884, when Leicester Fosse competed for the first time on a field just off Fosse Road South. Early days were spent in competition with local sides like the Syston Fosse team they defeated 5-0 in that first game. But football soon grew into something wider and more organised, and Leicester Fosse joined the Midland League in 1891.
Leicester Fosse’s first ever star player was that baby born in Stamford in 1870. Men would stride up and down the streets with sandwich boards hung around their necks proclaiming “Mr Atter will play”. He was responsible for so many of the club’s firsts, including the first Fosse goal at Filbert Street, and partially responsible even for Leicester joining the Midland League, given that he also served on the club’s committee.
Leicester Fosse’s first Midland League away win came on 5th December 1891, at Wednesbury Old Athletic - and Jimmy Atter was, of course, one of the goalscorers.
The Leicester Daily Post’s report on Fosse’s victory says:
“At a moment when followers of Leicester Fosse were most despairing of seeing their favourites make a bold bid for high honours in the Midland League competition, our crack players at the Association game have come out of their shell in a most remarkable manner.
They were pitted on Saturday against Wednesbury Old Athletic, who at present yield pride of place in the statistics only to the Burton Wanderers, and, to the astonishment of most folks, succeeded in accomplishing a most meritorious victory.”
They weren’t the only Leicester Fosse side playing on 5th December 1891. That day’s Football News paper reported on “something approaching a scene” in Wellingborough during a game between Wellingborough Grammar School and Leicester Fosse Rovers, Leicester Fosse’s reserve side.
The culprit was the Fosse Rovers captain, William Davis, who also played in the Fosse first team’s first ever game, first FA Cup game and first Midland League game. Davis was ordered off the field after accusing the referee of cheating. Refusing to go, Davis was supported by his team-mates and the game was stopped - resulting in his being reported to the Football Association.
With away games came away days, supporters beginning to travel to watch their team on the road. More accurately, they travelled by rail.
In February 1894, Fosse played at Long Eaton Rangers. It would be one of their final Midland League trips before being admitted to the Football League later that year.
“Much interest was centred in this match this afternoon on the Recreation Ground, Long Eaton, and as a special train was run from Leicester with a considerable following, a very good gate was the result. Leicester won the toss, having a cheer as they turned their backs to the town and sun.”
Fosse won 2-0, an own goal opening the scoring and resulting in more loud cheers from the Leicester supporters.
The same year saw the completion of construction of Leicester’s current main line railway station.
As the clock ticked down on the 1800s, conflict and change were coming to Victorian England.
Our three storylines start to merge with three more events in three consecutive years across the turn of the century.
In October 1899, war was declared between the British Empire and the Boers in southern Africa. The Second Boer War would rage for three years. Its legacy would live on among football supporters with the battle on the steep banks of Spion Kop giving its name to terraces across Britain, including at Arsenal’s home ground of the time, Liverpool and Leicester, the only club to retain the word ‘Kop’ when moving to a new stadium.
Among those in the Leicestershire Regiment during the Second Boer War was Jimmy Atter, who would serve as a Lieutenant, while one of those who led the British forces was Lord Frederick Roberts, who arrived to take charge in January 1900 and handed over command to Lord Horatio Kitchener in December.
Lord Frederick Roberts
This was also the year that, back in Broughton on the outskirts of Manchester, at the venue that had first seen sport in 1869 with Broughton playing rugby league there, the Manchester Jewish Cricket Club took up residence.
On 22nd January 1901, after 63 years, 7 months and 2 days as monarch, Queen Victoria died.
Virtually all sport in Britain was put on hold for two weeks as the country entered a period of mourning. One of the fixtures postponed was Leicester Fosse’s visit to a Manchester club called Newton Heath.
Loss of gate receipts was a huge blow to Newton Heath, a club in grave financial trouble at the time. Things were so bad that their fans were raising the money for the players to travel to away games by train from Manchester Victoria. Between 27th February and 2nd March 1901, a grand bazaar was held at the St James’s Hall on Oxford Street in Manchester, now the site of the St James Buildings.
Club captain Harry Stafford’s St Bernard dog, named Major, was paraded around the bazaar with a collection box round its neck and contributors to the cause included Manchester City Football Club, in those days based in the south-east of the city at the Hyde Road Stadium.
This dog would help save Newton Heath Football Club, but not through the contributions collected at the bazaar. Implausibly, Major escaped the bazaar and wandered into a nearby pub, after which he was bought from the pub’s owner by the brewery’s managing director John H. Davies for his daughter.
Subsequently seeing an advertisement published by Harry Stafford about his lost dog, the two men met and Davies ended up making a financial contribution to Newton Heath that would help them see out the season.
In those days, Newton Heath played at Bank Street in Clayton. The road is still there, where you can now find the National Cycling Centre - close to the Etihad Stadium.
Aerial view of the National Cycling Centre, Manchester
On 20th March 1901, when Leicester Fosse came to Bank Street for their rearranged game against Newton Heath, Major’s escape and the brewer’s intervention had not yet borne fruit and thoughts of finance were still foremost.
The Manchester Evening News report on the game stated:
“The weather was bitterly cold, and at the attendance was, consequently, on the small side.
The postponement of the game will mean a loss of at least £90 to the Newton Heath club, as on the date originally fixed Leicester Fosse were playing a far better game than they have been doing lately.”
In these less partisan times, the arrival of impressive football clubs from other towns and cities was seen as good reason to head down to watch from the sidelines. And although Fosse had won 3 of 5 games in December 1900 including a 1-0 win over Woolwich Arsenal and a 2-0 win over Barnsley on Christmas Day, they had since endured 11 without a win. As a consequence, the crowd numbered just 2,000.
The Manchester Evening News reported:
“Aided by the wind the Newton Heath men had nearly all the play for some time, but their shooting was poor, and Daw was seldom troubled.
The play continued to take place a very short distance from the Leicester goal, and after the game had been in progress 20 minutes, Fisher struck the crossbar with a screw shot, and the ball glanced into the net.
After this the game opened out more, but the play for the most part was of an uninteresting character.”
After half time, “play again opened very tamely and neither side exerted themselves to any extent”.
“Swift took a long shot at goal, and the ball striking the uprights rebounded on to the crossbar, and then came into play, but the referee held the opinion that it had crossed the goal line and the game was equalised.
After this the home forwards put a little more dash into their play, but the Leicester men kept well in hand.”
Fosse quickly turned the game from 1-1 to 3-1 through Allsopp and Connichan with goals separated by just a minute. Newton Heath pulled a goal back but Fosse won 3-2.
Elsewhere in the paper that day was a short article titled: “Our War Fund - A special appeal to all readers of the Evening News”
There were two new contributions to add to the £16,036, 4s and 1d already raised. Employees of Mr Samuel Yates, seed merchant, gave £2 and 3s, while “a man with a conscience” donated 1s 6d.
The Boer War also helps to give a picture of what Manchester looked like in 1901, because in October Lord Roberts, who had earlier that year been part of Queen Victoria’s funeral procession, visited the city to unveil her statue and distribute medals to Boer War veterans.
A showman named A.D. Roberts filmed the visit.
Roberts also shot footage of ordinary people in the centre of Manchester and played it at St James’s Hall, the venue where Newton Heath held their grand bazaar.
We move now eight years forward from the centre of Manchester to the centre of Leicester. On 1st July 1909, a grand memorial to those who died in the Boer War was unveiled by Lord Francis Wallace Grenfell (a name which now evokes just one image, and it was indeed he after whom the road on which the fallen tower was situated was named).
The memorial planning committee’s first choice for the unveiling had been Lord Roberts, who was unavailable. The memorial is still there today, situated outside City Hall at the scene of several Leicester City trophy celebrations down the years.
The sculptor was Joseph Crosland McClure, born in 1871 in Broughton, Manchester. Crosland McClure had moved to Leicester in 1905 to teach at the Leicester School of Art. He lived on Fosse Road South, yards from where Leicester Fosse had played their first game a couple of decades earlier.
By September 1910, however, he had left the city. The Leicester Daily Post reported that:
“Mr Crosland McClure, the designer of the Leicester War Memorial, has relinquished his connection with the Leicester Art School, and gone to London where, it is understood, he will take up work in connection with an important commission.”
His replacement, Joseph Herbert Morcom, sculpted the Liberty Statue still seen by thousands of Leicester fans trooping over the River Soar before and after every home game.
1910 was also the year the club formerly known as Newton Heath, by then Manchester United, moved to Old Trafford. Their fortunes revived following further troubles in 1902 which led to their new guise, United built and built.
In 1938, they began renting a sports ground in the suburb of Broughton which had previously been home to rugby league and cricket clubs. It was called The Cliff, it would eventually become famous as the training ground of one of the world’s greatest football clubs and is still owned and used by the club today for community football projects.
But United had only been at The Cliff for a year before another war arrived.
The Cliff, Manchester
Buried deep among the endless consequences of the Second World War was a report in the West Sussex Gazette on 21st November 1940. The headline is attention-grabbing, pure clickbait long before the term existed:
“I do not blame the driver: I blame Adolf Hitler” was a statement made by an injured man which was read at an inquest on Saturday. Joseph Crosland McClure (69), formerly a well known sculptor, of Riverway, Ewell, was knocked down by a car in Ruxley Lane, Ewell, during the black-out on February 2 last. Mr P Glendower Owen stated that Mr McClure had lived with him for six years. He believed he had a sister, but he had not been able to trace her.
Dr W.D. Brown, of the Epsom County Hospital, stated that an operation was performed on a fractured leg, but the patient made poor progress and showed little desire to get better. He would not try to walk, and was at length transferred to the Ewell Park annex. His condition did not improve, and he died on November 13. Mr Owen remarked that Mr McClure complained that he would not walk at the hospital because they would not give him a stick. The Sister said they wanted him to walk without a stick, but he had not walked without one for years owing to a deformity to a toe.
Dr E Gardner, pathologist, said that elderly people with a fractured leg were notoriously difficult to persuade to walk. It was much easier to get them to move about if they were not told they had broken a limb. Mr Owen said that deceased was quite aware that he had broken a limb as, having been a sculptor, he prided himself upon his knowledge of the human body. Dr Gardner said the patient died from septic pneumonia due to pressure sores following a long confinement in bed.
Gerald Cloudesley Cook, Meadway, Esher, said that he was driving along Ruxley Lane when deceased stepped over a pile of snow at the side of the road and walked into the front of his car. Witness took him to a doctor and then to hospital. The Coroner recorded a verdict of “Death by misadventure”.
Mr McClure was formerly an art teacher at the Manchester and Leicester Schools of Art. After the South African War he executed a number of memorials including one at Leicester. His last commission was a statue of King George V, at Delhi, at the time of His Majesty’s coronation.”
One month later, on 22nd December 1940, a German bombing raid on Trafford Park damaged one of the stands at Old Trafford and a game against Stockport had to be postponed. Four months later, even worse damage from a bombing raid saw United have to play at Maine Road for eight years.
Manchester United returned to Old Trafford for the first home game of the 1949/50 season. Their 3-0 victory over Bolton included a goal from Jack Rowley, brother of Leicester’s goalscoring great Arthur.
Leicester’s first great of all didn’t see out the season. On 17th February 1950, Jimmy Atter passed away at the age of 79 at his home in Melton Mowbray. The Melton Mowbray Times and Vale of Belvoir Gazette called him a “renowned sportsman” and “the Fosse’s star winger of the 1890 period”.
