Links With The Past: Duncan’s Double Hat-Trick Match Ball

After Kelechi Iheanacho's brilliant hat-trick for Leicester City on Sunday, Club Historian John Hutchinson's latest Links With The Past feature focuses on when Johnny Duncan scored six goals in a single game.

2021-03-15T16:34:00.000Z

by John Hutchinson

Published

15 Mar, 2021

Links With The Past: Duncan’s Double Hat-Trick Match Ball

After Kelechi Iheanacho's brilliant hat-trick for Leicester City on Sunday, Club Historian John Hutchinson's latest Links With The Past feature focuses on when Johnny Duncan scored six goals in a single game.

John Hutchinson

2021-03-15T16:34:00.000Z

Links With The Past: Duncan’s Double Hat-Trick Match Ball

After Kelechi Iheanacho's brilliant hat-trick for Leicester City on Sunday, Club Historian John Hutchinson's latest Links With The Past feature focuses on when Johnny Duncan scored six goals in a single game.

John Hutchinson

2021-03-15T16:34:00.000Z

Links With The Past: Duncan’s Double Hat-Trick Match Ball

After Kelechi Iheanacho's brilliant hat-trick for Leicester City on Sunday, Club Historian John Hutchinson's latest Links With The Past feature focuses on when Johnny Duncan scored six goals in a single game.

John Hutchinson

2021-03-15T16:34:00.000Z

Links With The Past: Duncan’s Double Hat-Trick Match Ball

After Kelechi Iheanacho's brilliant hat-trick for Leicester City on Sunday, Club Historian John Hutchinson's latest Links With The Past feature focuses on when Johnny Duncan scored six goals in a single game.

John Hutchinson

2021-03-15T16:34:00.000Z

Just over 96 years ago, a crowd of nearly 23,000 at Filbert Street witnessed one of the most remarkable feats in City’s long history. Skipper Duncan scored six consecutive goals in the 7-0 defeat of Port Vale.

The match ball has been generously loaned to the Club by Johnny’s daughter, Jenny Blackhurst. It is currently on display in the reception area at King Power Stadium.

After the game, the ball was painted blue and white. An inscription painted onto the ball in gold lettering records that it was: “Presented to J. Duncan for scoring six consecutive goals. Dec 25th 1924.” The names of the Leicester team are also painted onto the ball.

Four years later, Johnny’s team-mate Arthur Chandler also scored six goals in the famous ‘six swans match’, but Jenny remembers that her father always maintained that, because Channy’s goals were not consecutive, his achievement was not as notable!

In the game against Port Vale, Chandler opened the scoring in the 19th minute. Duncan scored his first goal in the 33rd minute and his second three minutes later. His next three goals came in the 56th, 61st and 63rd minutes and he scored his sixth two minutes from the end.

The next day, the eye-catching headline on the front page of the Leicester Mercury proclaimed: “World Football Record Equalled.”

City went on to become Second Division champions that season. The result started a run of 13 wins and two draws in the next 15 matches. Under Duncan’s captaincy, they then took the old First Division by storm, finishing third in 1928 and second in 1929.

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