Poppy Shirts: When LCFC Began A National Tradition

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Poppy Shirts: When LCFC Began A National Tradition

As we prepare for Tuesday's Remembrance Fixture against Middlesbrough, we turn the clock back to 2003, when Leicester City began a beloved national tradition.

2025-11-03T14:00+00:00

Marcus Bent in action during the landmark fixture against Blackburn on Filbert Way.

by Sam Stevens

Published

03 Nov, 2025

Poppy Shirts: When LCFC Began A National Tradition

As we prepare for Tuesday's Remembrance Fixture against Middlesbrough, we turn the clock back to 2003, when Leicester City began a beloved national tradition.

Sam Stevens

2025-11-03T14:00+00:00

Poppy Shirts: When LCFC Began A National Tradition

As we prepare for Tuesday's Remembrance Fixture against Middlesbrough, we turn the clock back to 2003, when Leicester City began a beloved national tradition.

Sam Stevens

2025-11-03T14:00+00:00

Poppy Shirts: When LCFC Began A National Tradition

As we prepare for Tuesday's Remembrance Fixture against Middlesbrough, we turn the clock back to 2003, when Leicester City began a beloved national tradition.

Sam Stevens

2025-11-03T14:00+00:00

Poppy Shirts: When LCFC Began A National Tradition

As we prepare for Tuesday's Remembrance Fixture against Middlesbrough, we turn the clock back to 2003, when Leicester City began a beloved national tradition.

Sam Stevens

2025-11-03T14:00+00:00

For that match, against Blackburn Rovers on 2 November, 2003, in the Premier League, we wore embroidered poppies on our shirts to mark Remembrance. Rovers agreed to do the same. At that time, no club had done this, it wasn’t a norm. It wasn’t even a recognised gesture in English football.

But what Leicester did that day was noticed. The Premier League were so impressed they formally contacted every club to share the initiative, while Buckingham Palace was also informed of the Club’s activity.

A week later, Manchester City followed suit in their own Remembrance fixture, coincidentally against the Foxes, and from that point the gesture spread across the Premier League and then the EFL. Today, it is universal, we see it every season. It is embedded in the sport’s calendar. But it started here in Leicester, 22 years ago this week.

The exact shirt which Les Ferdinand wore in November 2003.

The shirt featured here was worn that afternoon by Foxes striker Les Ferdinand – an iconic name in Premier League history – and is now preserved in the Club’s historic collections.

The game was broadcast live to troops around the world with almost 31,000 supporters inside Filbert Way. Leicester won 2-0, with goals from Marcus Bent and Steve Howey, while afterwards the shirts were held back and raffled to raise money for the Royal British Legion – another element that also remains a nationwide practice today.

It is rare that one football shirt genuinely starts a movement. A simple embroidered poppy stitched onto royal blue became the start of a national tradition, now part of footballing culture every November across the country. A shirt that began here, at Leicester City, and a shirt that helped shape the game’s annual act of Remembrance ever since.

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