Willie Cunningham - Leicester City's First-Ever World Cup Star

With more players hoping to add to the 21 Leicester City stars to feature at a FIFA World Cup this summer, Club Historian John Hutchinson looks back to the very first – Northern Ireland’s Willie Cunningham.

2026-06-13T09:00+01:00

by John Hutchinson

Published

11 Hours 7 Mins Ago

Willie Cunningham - Leicester City's First-Ever World Cup Star

With more players hoping to add to the 21 Leicester City stars to feature at a FIFA World Cup this summer, Club Historian John Hutchinson looks back to the very first – Northern Ireland’s Willie Cunningham.

John Hutchinson

2026-06-13T09:00+01:00

Willie Cunningham - Leicester City's First-Ever World Cup Star

With more players hoping to add to the 21 Leicester City stars to feature at a FIFA World Cup this summer, Club Historian John Hutchinson looks back to the very first – Northern Ireland’s Willie Cunningham.

John Hutchinson

2026-06-13T09:00+01:00

Willie Cunningham - Leicester City's First-Ever World Cup Star

With more players hoping to add to the 21 Leicester City stars to feature at a FIFA World Cup this summer, Club Historian John Hutchinson looks back to the very first – Northern Ireland’s Willie Cunningham.

John Hutchinson

2026-06-13T09:00+01:00

Willie Cunningham - Leicester City's First-Ever World Cup Star

With more players hoping to add to the 21 Leicester City stars to feature at a FIFA World Cup this summer, Club Historian John Hutchinson looks back to the very first – Northern Ireland’s Willie Cunningham.

John Hutchinson

2026-06-13T09:00+01:00

Cunningham was a stylish full-back who played for us between 1954 and 1960. The 23 caps he won while at Filbert Street made him, at that time, the most capped player in the Club’s history, later to be replaced by Kasper Schmeichel (88 for Denmark). In 1958, Cunningham became our first player to appear at the World Cup.

In addition, he was the only Irishman to be offered the post of Scotland’s manager and Sir Alex Ferguson is on record of saying that Cunningham helped to shape his career and that he was eternally grateful to him.

Norman Bullock signed Cunningham for Leicester from St. Mirren for a reported fee of £4,750 in November 1954. He played in the last 15 games of the season but couldn’t prevent his new club from being relegated.

He was an invaluable player the following campaign, playing in both full-back positions, but he lost his place to Stan Milburn and John Ogilvie in the record-breaking season of 56/57 when we won the old Second Division title.

Even so, he played in all six of Northern Ireland’s internationals that season, appearing alongside great players like Harry Gregg, Danny Blanchflower, Billy Bingham and Jimmy McIlroy.

Back in the side for the 57/58 season, with Leicester back in the top flight, Cunningham’s performances in both full-back positions were rewarded by selection for the Northern Ireland team, which had qualified for the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.

He played in all three group matches, against West Germany, Czechoslovakia and Argentina, in the play-off against Czechoslovakia and in the quarter-final, where his team was defeated by eventual finalists France. Oddly, Cunningham played at centre-half throughout, instead of at full-back.

Back in Leicester, Cunningham once again filled both full-back positions but he was being challenged for a place in the side: at right-back by Len Chalmers and at left-back by Joe Baillie and a young Richie Norman.

After another 20 top flight appearances in 59/60, Cunningham transferred to Dunfermline Athletic, winning the Scottish FA Cup in 1961. He also competed in the European Cup Winners’ Cup and the European Fairs Cup for Dunfermline.

As Dunfermline’s manager, he took his side to the 1965 Scottish FA Cup final, before selling his star winger Jackie Sinclair to his old club Leicester City. After spells as manger of Falkirk and St. Mirren, Cunningham turned down the Scotland manager post in 1971. He sadly died, aged 77, in 2007.

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