Johnny Duncan's Christmas World Record

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Johnny Duncan's Christmas World Record

One-hundred years ago today, on Christmas Day 1924, a Filbert Street crowd of nearly 23,000 witnessed skipper Johnny Duncan score six consecutive goals in the 7-0 defeat of Port Vale.

2024-12-25T09:00+00:00

by John Hutchinson

Published

25 Dec, 2024

Johnny Duncan's Christmas World Record

One-hundred years ago today, on Christmas Day 1924, a Filbert Street crowd of nearly 23,000 witnessed skipper Johnny Duncan score six consecutive goals in the 7-0 defeat of Port Vale.

John Hutchinson

2024-12-25T09:00+00:00

Johnny Duncan's Christmas World Record

One-hundred years ago today, on Christmas Day 1924, a Filbert Street crowd of nearly 23,000 witnessed skipper Johnny Duncan score six consecutive goals in the 7-0 defeat of Port Vale.

John Hutchinson

2024-12-25T09:00+00:00

Johnny Duncan's Christmas World Record

One-hundred years ago today, on Christmas Day 1924, a Filbert Street crowd of nearly 23,000 witnessed skipper Johnny Duncan score six consecutive goals in the 7-0 defeat of Port Vale.

John Hutchinson

2024-12-25T09:00+00:00

Johnny Duncan's Christmas World Record

One-hundred years ago today, on Christmas Day 1924, a Filbert Street crowd of nearly 23,000 witnessed skipper Johnny Duncan score six consecutive goals in the 7-0 defeat of Port Vale.

John Hutchinson

2024-12-25T09:00+00:00

The matchball from this remarkable achievement has been generously loaned to the Club by Johnny’s daughter, Jenny Blackhurst. It is currently on display in King Power Stadium’s reception area, alongside Johnny’s Scotland international cap.

Faded gold lettering on the ball states: ‘Presented to J. Duncan for scoring six consecutive goals. Dec 25th 1924’. It lists Leicester’s team that day. Johnny’s team-mate, Arthur Chandler, also scored six goals in the famous six swans match in 1928, but Jenny remembers that her father always pointed out that, because Channy’s goals weren’t consecutive, his achievement wasn’t as notable!

Very unusually for those days, Duncan’s six-goal achievement was the main front page headline of the Leicester Mercury the next day. The eye-catching headline proclaimed: ‘WORLD FOOTBALL RECORD EQUALED’.

The account of the match was glowing. It explained: ‘In a remarkable game, City equaled their feat against Wolverhampton two seasons ago by recording a victory of seven clear goals. The opposition was by no means negligible. Certainly the goals were obtained against a first-class goalkeeper (Fern). Records of all sorts might have been broken had Fern been in less excellent form. Duncan’s feat is without equal in the history of the Leicester club and has never been eclipsed in the annals of the league, although the extraordinary extent of his success was only rendered possible by the combined skill and incisiveness of his colleagues’.

The report goes onto describe how, with the wind and the sun behind them, Leicester were soon ‘determining the game’. Arthur Chandler opened the scoring with a low drive after 19 minutes following a lovely pass from George Carr. Despite the bad pitch and greasy ball causing a few ‘miscalculations’, City played the more ‘methodical and finished football’.

Duncan scored his first goal in the 33rd minute. Hugh Adcock crossed the ball from the wing, Harold Wadsworth lobbed it back and Duncan placed it ‘with fine force and direction into the back of the net’. Three minutes later, he scored his second, following a pass from Adcock. A ‘wonderful save from Fern’ prevented Johnny completing his hat-trick before half-time.

In the second half, Duncan netted his next three goals in seven minutes. In the 56th minute, he was unmarked in the penalty area, received a free-kick, and pivoted to give Fern no chance with a left foot shot. Five minutes later he scored again. ‘Wadsworth was able to flash across a low centre, Fern pushed the ball out, but Duncan found himself with enough shooting space to make a goal a certainty’. He got another two minutes later, created by a pass from Adcock.

Leicester’s seventh goal, and Duncan’s sixth, came two minutes from the end ‘as a result of a quick move on the right by Newton and Adcock, Duncan accepting the winger’s fine pass with decisive effect’.

The Leicester Mercury report noted that Port Vale had been dazzled by the variety of Leicester’s game. It concluded: ‘Duncan, because of his exceptional shooting, which could easily have brought him more than six goals, shone above the rest’.

Leicester went on to become Second Division champions that season. This tremendous Christmas Day result started a run of 13 wins and two draws in the next 15 matches which took them to the top of the table.

Under Duncan’s captaincy they then took the old First Division by storm, finishing third in 1928 and missing out on the League title by one point in 1929.

The dawn of this golden era was Duncan’s feat of scoring six goals on that Christmas Day, 100 years ago.

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