Links With The Past: Ernie Hine’s Canadian Tour Of 1931
He played in the Foxes side which came within a point of winning the league title in 1929. While at Filbert Street, he won six England caps, scoring four goals and represented the Football League five times. Ernie was selected for the FA tour of Canada in 1931.
His granddaughter, Rosemary Walker, has loaned the Club two mementoes from that tour, as John Hutchinson unearths more unseen treasures from the historic collections and archives. The lapel badge commemorating the tour has a central design which combines the English Rose and the Canadian Maple Leaf.
The booklet details the tour’s itinerary. A week was spent crossing the Atlantic on SS Duchess of Atholl, which arrived in Canada on 22 May. Over the next eight weeks, 17 games were played. These were in Montreal, Ontario, Toronto, Fort William, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Vancouver, Nanaimo, Victoria, Calgary and Hamilton.
Ernie’s neat handwriting records that all 17 games were won. The team scored 107 goals and conceded only 12. The booklet also lists the 18 players in the squad, which included Ernie’s Leicester City team-mate, the England international winger Len Barry. The ‘team attendant’ was Arsenal’s ex-player and future manager Tom Whittaker.