Remembering City's First League Match At King Power Stadium
It was on Saturday 10 August 2002, the opening day of the new season, that City finally put Filbert Street firmly behind them and stepped out boldly at King Power Stadium, which was originally known as Walkers Stadium. It was not quite the first fixture to be played at the new venue as, a week earlier, a dress rehearsal had been staged in the guise of a pre-season friendly against Athletic Bilbao.
That game had seen Jordan Stewart enjoy the honour of becoming the first Fox to bulge the new nets and he was duly honoured by featuring on the front cover of the matchday magazine published for the Division One clash with Watford. Indeed, the small picture strip that was incorporated into the cover design also showed Stewart’s goal as well as Matt Elliott leading the Foxes out on that historic day.
City’s new-look magazine extended to 68 pages, incorporating a laminated cover, for just £2.50. Purchase that afternoon entitled the holder to claim a free bag of Walkers Crisps, while the content understandably included several pages recalling the clash with the Spanish visitors, with extensive photographic coverage and comments from manager Micky Adams.
A look at the rear cover also reveals an interesting pair of squad lists from almost 15 years ago. City’s list includes not only inaugural goal-scorer Stewart but also the man who netted the final goal at Filbert Street, Matthew Piper, who would actually miss the Watford game due to illness, and Brian Deane, the man who scored the first ever Premier League goal a decade earlier and who would make a significant mark on this fixture.
The Club also had a new home kit for the 2002/03 season, returning to an all-blue design and moving away from the large white collars which had become synonymous with City in the late 1990s.
The Watford squad that day contained Allan Nielsen, who had notched a Wembley winner for Tottenham Hotspur against City in 1999, and uncompromising defender Sean Dyche, well known today as the manager of Burnley, but who was actually making his Hornets’ debut that day.
As it turned out, it would fall to Deane to score not only the first, but also the second, league goal at the Walkers Stadium, heading home a Muzzy Izzet cross after 47 minutes before side-footing a James Scrowcroft pass into the net eight minutes later to make the points safe. Watford’s star performer that afternoon was actually a man who was not even listed in the programme: goalkeeper Alec Chamberlain did much to keep the scoreline respectable on an afternoon when the Foxes were not to be denied.
The local Leicester sports final, the Sports Mercury, featured Deane, tussling with Dyche, on its front cover that evening in an edition that was on offer at a special bargain price of just 10p to celebrate the historic day. Since then, the ground on Filbert Way has witnessed the Club lift the Premier League trophy, a sight nobody in the Blue Army thought possible, as well as UEFA Champions League football.