Leicester City In 100 Players: Arthur Chandler
When Leicester City manager Peter Hodge signed 27-year-old Chandler in June 1923, the centre-forward had only scored a career total of 18 goals for Third Division South Queens Park Rangers. Few would have predicted that, playing until the age of 39, he would become City’s all-time record goalscorer.
In his first two seasons at Filbert Street, Arthur scored 62 league and cup goals, helping the Club to the Second Division title in 1925. He spent the next 10 years in the top flight, netting 154 goals in the first five seasons back in the old First Division, including the 34 strikes he registered in the 1928/29 campaign when City finished runners-up in the race for the First Division title.
Chandler’s final tally of 273 goals in 419 matches included 16 hat-tricks and one double hat-trick, which was scored in the famous ‘Six Swans’ match when Leicester defeated Portsmouth 10-0 in October 1928.
He also scored 33 goals in 16 matches on the FA Tour of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia in 1929.
Chandler never won an England cap, despite scoring in all three of his England trials. For one of these trial games, he had driven from Leicester City’s training base in Skegness to the trial venue in Sheffield on the morning of the match, broke down, arrived shortly before kick-off and still scored!
The Club’s archives reveal that when he scored twice in the first five minutes in a match against Sunderland, the selectors arrived late, missed his goals and then Chandler was carried off injured seven minutes after their arrival.
He then scored five goals against Aston Villa in his next game, another five against West Bromwich Albion a month later and he still wasn’t picked for England. He did, however, represent the Football League against the Scottish League in 1928 in a match at Filbert Street.
His shirt crest from that game is on display, along with his South Africa tour cap, in the reception area at King Power Stadium.
In June 1935, Arthur left Filbert Street for a brief spell at Notts County, played as 12th man for Leicestershire County Cricket Club in 1937, and served on the backroom staff in various capacities at Filbert Street until he retired, aged 73, in 1969. He was awarded a testimonial match in 1961.
Arthur died in June 1984, aged 88.