The Club recently acquired a unique and valuable collection of football memorabilia which belonged to Leicester City’s Wales full-back Dai Jones, who signed from Clapton Orient in May 1933.
David ‘Dai’ Owen Jones played a total of 238 league and cup games and 54 wartime regional games for Leicester City before he signed for Mansfield Town in 1947. Two years later, he became player-manager at Hinckley Athletic.
The Dai Jones collection includes this model of a Welsh Dragon. It is made of silver, with a tail made of horn. The inscription on the base of the dragon reads: ‘Football Association of Wales. International Champions 1933 and 1934. Presented to Mr. D.O. Jones’.
‘International Champions’ on the inscription refers to the Home Championship. This was an annual international tournament played between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland between 1883 and 1984. Among other occasions, Wales won this tournament in both 1932/33 and 1933/34.
Dai Jones was presented with this Welsh dragon because he won the first two of his total of seven Wales caps in the 1933/34 tournament, when he played against Northern Ireland in Belfast and England in Newcastle. Dai’s future Leicester City team-mates Tommy Mills and Eugene O’Callaghan were in the same Wales sides on both occasions.
