Leicester Fosse & The First World War: Shirley Hubbard
Billy Mills lost his foot and Tommy Codd lost an eye. Syd Owen, Fred Osborn, Fred Mortimer and Norman Whitfield were also wounded.
After the war, five pre-war Fosse players were given contracts at the newly re-formed Leicester City.
Four of these were George Douglas, who scored the first ever goal for newly-named club, Jimmy Harrold, Sam Currie and Norman Whitfield.
The fifth player to re-sign was Shirley Hubbard, who scored in Leicester City's first away win. In 2010, Shirley’s great-niece, Viv Beeby, visited the Club.
She told us: "Until I was four, we lived in a flat above a greengrocer’s shop near Upperton Road. All my family were Leicester fans. Shirley was my mother’s uncle.
"Her father, Ernest, was Shirley’s brother. My grandmother, Clara, who worked in a teashop for market workers on London Road called Winn’s, met Ernest when she was in her late 20s.
"She was very religious, prim and proper. Ernest wasn’t! They lived in Warwick Street off Tudor Road."
The 1901 census reveals 16-year-old Shirley, described as a shoe finisher, was living with his parents and his eight brothers, including 22-year-old Ernest, at 57 Western Road in Leicester.
Viv told us that soon after this, Shirley left the boot and shoe trade to join the Leicestershire Regiment.
He played army football in England in Kent and Leicestershire and, when the regiment was posted to India, in Poona (Pune), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai).
Viv went on to say: “The army and sport were good for Shirley. My mother told us that Leicester Fosse brought him out of the army when they signed him in 1907."
Shirley was a regular in the 1908 Fosse side that won promotion to the old First Division. The Club’s minutes book shows that he appeared in the first-ever Leicester side to play in the top division.
Unfortunately, the team was relegated after just one season. In the 1911 Census, Shirley was living with his wife of two years and his infant son at 52 Lambert Road in Leicester.
His occupation is listed as ‘Professional Footballer’. In 1913, after playing nearly 150 games for Leicester Fosse, Shirley joined Darlington. When war broke out, he was playing for South Shields.
In November 1914, Shirley enlisted in the recently formed 5th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment. He landed in France in February 1915.
Three months later, the Battalion became part of the 138th Brigade in the 46th (North Midlands) Division.
On 30/31 July 1915, the Division saw action at Hooge, (when the German Army used liquid fire) and on 13 October 1915, in the attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt.
In December 1915, Shirley was back in England, presumably on leave. In December, meanwhile, Shirley played a match for Bloxwich Strollers.
Bizarrely, his regiment was posted to Egypt in January 1916, only to be recalled almost immediately to France, where it remained for the rest of the war.
On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, on July 1 1916, the Division was involved in a diversionary attack at Gommecourt.
Shirley was then back in England in December 1916 when he played four games for Leicester Fosse in the Midland section of the Wartime Football League.
In February 1917, he played for Birmingham City against Leicester Fosse in the Midland section of the Wartime Football League.
Back in France in 1917, Shirley’s Division was involved in operations at Ancre and Gommecourt on the Somme and in the German retreat to the Hindenburg line.
In 1918, the Division saw further action in the various phases of battles of the Hindenburg Line (the battles of St Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir and Cambrai) and in the final advance into Picardy at the end of the war (the battles of Selle and Sambre).
There has been some confusion concerning Shirley’s whereabouts in October 1918.
Viv showed me an account from the record of the 1/5th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment, which mentions a Corporal Shirley Hubbard starring in a 5-1 victory in a game against a team of French soldiers at Fresnoy-le-Grand which took place behind the lines towards the end of October.
Between October 12 and December 28 1918, Shirley was in Leicester making 13 appearances for Leicester Fosse. He is referred to in the Leicester Daily Mercury match reports as Sergeant Shirley Hubbard.
The demobilisation of Shirley’s Division began in January 1919 and was largely completed by June. That month, King George V visited Leicester as a prelude to City status being granted to the town.
A month later, Leicester Fosse was wound up, to be replaced by Leicester City Football Club, whose new name reflected the town of Leicester’s newly-elevated status.
Although Shirley signed for Leicester City in time for the Club’s first post-war season, he only played three games, scoring one goal. He remained on the local sporting scene though.
At various times in the 1920s and 1930s he was involved with football in Ashby and Loughborough, he wrote a column for the local press and he had a coaching spell at Leicester City before the Second World War.
Shirley died at his home at Houghton on the Hill in February 1962, four days after his 77th birthday.
On the site of the old Western Front, where Shirley saw action, there are memorials to the 46th Division. These are at Vermelles, the Hohenzollern Redoubt and near the Hindenburg Line close to Bellenglise.