TWIH: Filbert Street's Record Crowd

Eighty five years ago this week, on  Saturday 18th February 1928,  events at Filbert Street prompted the  Leicester Mercury  to publish an ‘Extra Special’ edition which carried the front page headline: “Amazing scenes at Leicester Cup tie. Crowd rushes gate to Directors’ Stand. Many people faint. Mounted police called.”

The occasion referred to was Leicester City’s Fifth Round FA Cup-tie against Tottenham Hotspur earlier that afternoon which had attracted the biggest home crowd in the whole of the Club’s history. 47,298 fans were inside Filbert Street. Thousands more were locked outside.

Leicester City were having a great season. When the match was played, they were third in the old First Division, a position which was maintained until the end of the season. The City side contained five players who were picked for England between 1927 and 1929. These were Reg Osborne, Sid Bishop (England’s captain), Ernie Hine, Len Barry and Hughie Adcock. Also in the side were Scottish international Johnny Duncan, club record goalscorer Arthur Chandler (pictured above) and club legends Adam Black and Arthur Lochhead. It was a formidable line up and hopes were high for a victory over a struggling Tottenham Hotspur side which was to be relegated that season.

There were 15,000 people in the ground three hours before kick-off.  Forty five minutes before kick-off there was an estimated 45,000 inside with another 8,000 outside trying to get in. Many people in the cheaper parts of the ground fainted. Ambulance men had to be summoned. Mounted police were used to turn the crowds away, but they lost control. At 2.15, the entrance to the Directors’ Box was rushed by the surging crowd. The entrance was broken down and hundreds of fans gained free admission.

The police were powerless. About two hundred men and boys climbed up telegraph poles outside the ground in Filbert Street and actually jumped off them down on to the roof of the stand.

There is a photograph in Reception at King Power Stadium. It was taken on this momentous afternoon. The camera man was positioned in the corner between the Filbert Street Stand and the Popular Side, opposite the Main Stand. In those days most of the Popular Side was uncovered. The photograph clearly shows the densely packed terraces in front of the houses in Burnmoor Street. Other fans are sitting or lying on top of the small portion of roofing that covered the Filbert Street end of the Popular Side terracing. Two fans are seen climbing up a telegraph pole in Burnmoor Street with a view to emulating the fan in the picture who is sliding down the telegraph pole wire. His intention was to drop into the packed crowd standing below him.

Meanwhile other fans were climbing over the walls into the ground. Ticket touts were busy in the Leicester hotels with 3/6d tickets (17 ½p) going for £1/10/0d (£1.50p). It was reported that the police acted with a considerable amount of tact.

There were some interesting little details included in the ‘Leicester Mercury’ report which help us to recreate that afternoon.

Leicester’s England international Sid Bishop, who was a Londoner, was spotted at lunchtime unrecognised on the platform of a packed Midland (London Road)  Station waiting for his wife to come up from the capital by train.

Ten special trains, carrying thousands of Spurs fans, arrived in quick succession at the Midland Station.  Another three arrived at the Great Central Station.

The Spurs team did not arrive at the Midland station until 2pm only an hour before the kick-off.

A ‘well known but unnamed Leicester man’ told the reporter he had sold his ticket because he had had lumbago. For giving up his ticket, this gentleman was ‘regarded as a phenomenon’.

Two girls were seen trying to establish a place on the terraces. They were carrying a large stool, and  had brought with them a meal of oranges, tea and whiskey.

A spectator on the roof of a house in Grasmere Street fell off bringing the guttering with him. He was taken to the infirmary with injured legs.

Elsewhere it was reported that the ‘City of Leicester Club and Institute Silver Prize Band’ did much to relieve the tedium of waiting, as did the London supporters with their singing accompanied by banjulele. ‘One London laddie even bought a live cockerel’, said one report.

When the dust settled, it was reported that the game had drawn record receipts of £4702/10/6, that this was even more than was taken from the 60,000 crowd at Highbury that same afternoon in the FA Cup match between Arsenal and Aston Villa and that the official attendance was 47,298. How accurate this figure was bearing in mind the mayhem that occurred that afternoon is anybody’s guess.

For the record, Leicester City lost the game 3-0. One of the Spurs scorers that day was Eugene O’Callaghan, a Welsh international who later played for Leicester City in the mid 1930s.

However, the main significance of that Saturday afternoon eighty five years ago this week was that an estimated 56 000 fans turned up at Filbert Street that afternoon with a record 47,298 actually making it into the ground. It is a record that will never be beaten.