Leicester City's Forgotten Last Visit To PSV Eindhoven
Fifty-six years ago, on Wednesday 21 September, 1966, the two sides met in Eindhoven, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Dutch multinational conglomerate Philips, which was founded in Eindhoven in 1891.
PSV, which is an abbreviation of Philips Sports Verenigen, was established in 1913 as a team for the employees of Philips. As part of their anniversary celebrations, Philips wanted to arrange a friendly fixture against a top English side.
They chose Leicester City because of their recent record of being a successful First Division side, who had reached two FA Cup Finals and two League Cup Finals in the previous five years, winning the League Cup in 1964.
Leicester’s goalkeeper, Gordon Banks, a World Cup winner less than two months previously, was another attraction, as was City’s good record in friendly matches against top German sides.
The Foxes selected their recognised first team for the match, sandwiched between victories against Sunderland and Aston Villa, which placed them in fourth position in the old First Division.
An unusual feature of the match was that spectators were allowed in for free. Leicester arrived in Eindhoven only 25 minutes before kick-off. This was because their flight to Brussels, prior to their coach journey to Eindhoven, had been delayed by fog.
By half-time, the visitors were 2-0 ahead. Derek Dougan scored after 25 minutes and three minutes before the break, Mike Stringfellow cut a ball back to Jimmy Goodfellow who scored.
Leicester City’s football drew frequent applause from the crowd. In the second half, Banks made a string of fine saves as PSV fought back, and when Richie Norman handled a goal-bound shot, the Dutch side scored from the resulting penalty to make the score 2-1.
This goal encouraged PSV to continue attacking, but City recovered, and with two minutes to go, Stringfellow headed in a Goodfellow corner to make the score 3-1.
The Leicester City team was: Gordon Banks; Peter Rodrigues, Richie Norman; Bobby Roberts, John Sjoberg, Graham Cross; Jackie Sinclair, Jimmy Goodfellow, Derek Dougan, Davie Gibson and Mike Stringfellow. Paul Matthews was the substitute.