Unearthing Sep Smith’s England Cap

Another unseen treasure from our historic collection, this valuable England cap was awarded to Sep Smith after his appearance for the national side against Northern Ireland in Belfast on 19 October, 1935.

2026-01-28T13:00+00:00

by John Hutchinson

Published

28 Jan, 2026

Unearthing Sep Smith’s England Cap

Another unseen treasure from our historic collection, this valuable England cap was awarded to Sep Smith after his appearance for the national side against Northern Ireland in Belfast on 19 October, 1935.

John Hutchinson

2026-01-28T13:00+00:00

Unearthing Sep Smith’s England Cap

Another unseen treasure from our historic collection, this valuable England cap was awarded to Sep Smith after his appearance for the national side against Northern Ireland in Belfast on 19 October, 1935.

John Hutchinson

2026-01-28T13:00+00:00

Unearthing Sep Smith’s England Cap

Another unseen treasure from our historic collection, this valuable England cap was awarded to Sep Smith after his appearance for the national side against Northern Ireland in Belfast on 19 October, 1935.

John Hutchinson

2026-01-28T13:00+00:00

Unearthing Sep Smith’s England Cap

Another unseen treasure from our historic collection, this valuable England cap was awarded to Sep Smith after his appearance for the national side against Northern Ireland in Belfast on 19 October, 1935.

John Hutchinson

2026-01-28T13:00+00:00

It was loaned to the Club by his granddaughter Lynda Symcox, along with his schoolboy international cap. This was Sep’s only England cap, although eight weeks earlier he had been a travelling reserve for England against Scotland in an unofficial international match at Hampden Park, to celebrate King George V’s Silver Jubilee.

During this game, Sep had been allowed to come on as a second-half substitute for an injured player. This was highly unusual at the time as the use of substitutes wasn’t officially sanctioned in league matches for another 30 years.

Sep was the sixth City player in nine years to be selected for England. The other five (Sid Bishop, Reg Osborne, Ernie Hine, Len Barry and Hugh Adcock) had won their caps when Leicester were one of the best sides in England. When Sep became an international though, City had just been relegated to the Second Division.

The week before his England debut, Sep, whose brother Jack had played for England in 1932, was the travelling reserve for the English Football League side against the Irish league so his selection for England came as no surprise. Many had expected him to play for England two years earlier when he was the subject of near British record transfer bids of £10,000, which Leicester refused.

Sep's cap, won in 1935, is on loan to the Club.

The Leicester Mercury’s reporter, Simon Dee, under the headline ‘Smith’s Honour Brings Special Distinction to Leicester City’ wrote: "The ease and perfection with which Sep can manipulate the ball has evidently captured the imagination of critics all over the country and a well-known national writer today sums it up pretty well with the sentence: ‘The inclusion of Sep Smith will please everybody’."

Sep and the rest of the England team travelled from Liverpool to Belfast during the Wednesday night before the match on the Saturday. They were based 30 miles outside Belfast in ‘a delightful spot with an excellent golf course’.

On the day of the match, at Belfast’s Windsor Park, a strong gale was blowing. England emerged as 3-1 victors. The national press reported that Sep, playing at right-half, ‘was the best of the middle men’. However, it was a widely held view that ‘the gale imposed conditions which hardly formed a fair test’.

As Sep recalled many years later, when he was in his nineties: ‘The 60-mph wind spoiled that match. Still, it was something to have played against such a great player as Peter Doherty who was one of the greatest players of his era’.

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