Links With The Past: Leicester City Golden Jubilee Handbook

Despite its haphazard arrangement and verbose text, its pages contain much information about the Club’s first 50 years.

A ‘Brief History’ of the first half-century is complemented by photographs relating to the Club’s Leicester Fosse phase. These include seven pictures of Fosse pioneers, ‘who provided splendid service, both cheerfully and conscientiously’, nine portrait pictures of ‘a few old Fossils’ and photographs of the 1894 Fosse Sports Committee and the 1908 Fosse board of directors.

There are also three photographs of Leicester Fosse teams. The first is from 1890, when the team won its first trophy, the Leicestershire Senior Cup. The second is the 1896/97 squad and the third is the 1907/08 team, which won promotion to the old First Division for the first time in the Club’s history.

Features relating to the Leicester City phase include an illustrated article focussing on the Club’s directors and managers, which contains a tribute to manager Peter Hodge, who had died unexpectedly not long before the booklet was published.

There are photographs of the Leicester City teams which won the old Second Division title in 1925 and finished runners-up in the old First Division in 1929, together with pictures of 11 Leicester City international players.

The booklet also includes a photograph of the then current 1934/35 team (sadly to be relegated at the end of the Jubilee season), together with the Club’s complete FA Cup record culminating in City’s first-ever semi-final the previous season.

Every alternate page of the handbook is a full-page advert featuring a wide range of Leicester’s businesses. Included among them is the radio, music and record shop in Loseby Lane belonging to the Club’s new manager, Arthur Lochhead.