Three Goalkeepers and Seven Goals: Leicester City's Greatest Ever Match

By Mark Bishop

Three Goalkeepers and Seven Goals turns the clock back to 1982 for the most memorable match in Leicester City history - a quarter-final FA Cup tie with Shrewsbury Town that stands without parallel for twists and drama. Told through the eyes of fictional reporter Bob Johnson, the story brings to life that extraordinary game, as a capacity crowd wedged into the atmospheric Filbert Street witnesses Leicester stage a spectacular 5-2 comeback using three goalkeepers. Set in an era of macho newsrooms, Thatcher and the Falklands War, the book resurrects a remarkable period in British history. Hard-nosed newspaperman Johnson thinks he's seen it all, but his world is turned upside down as one of the lucky fans who witness Leicester's inspirational comeback, aided by a goal from a young Gary Lineker. Johnson's account captures the immense drama of this epic game before tragedy strikes. In Three Goalkeepers and Seven Goals, Mark Bishop skilfully weaves fact with fiction to honour a match that is part of Leicester City folklore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781801502283

Book preview

1

A WET, dark night in Leicester.

It was Monday. Nothing special.

It had been a typical weekend. Actually, it hadn’t.

It had just started out the usual way. And ended in the most dramatic, incredible and tragic of circumstances.

Bob Johnson was 6ft 2in. Not particularly tall but tall enough. He’d been the local football reporter in Leicester for 30 years. Thirty years. It would be 31 years on 16 November 1982.

Bob was a big heavy man.

He had worked in the cuttings library of the evening newspaper in Manchester when he left school at 16. Then after working in the basement with Old Ted, the newspaper librarian, for nearly six months helping to sort out all the different stories in the big metal filing cabinets, Bob had pleaded with the news editor to be given the chance to go and report on a story.

Bob was told to go to the local magistrates’ court the next day and come back with a decent story.

Something about a hairdresser who used the wrong bleach on a customer’s hair. The woman, in her 40s, wanted compensation. She claimed she had suffered some hair loss. And that her hair had been ‘ruined’ and she had also suffered minor scalp burns. She was a local actress. Not that well known. But well known enough. Her hair had been dyed several times before. But not at this particular hair salon. This was the first time she had come to ‘this awful place’.

She lived in a big posh house near Stockport. Her husband sold fancy, luxury used cars – a Jaguar V12 E-Type, a mint-condition Jensen Interceptor. Even a Ferrari had recently graced the showroom. That sort of thing.

The hairdressing salon was fined £2,000 – an absolute fortune at the time – and the salon owner said she couldn’t pay the fine and would close the salon in any case because a lot of customers were being too demanding. And anyway, how was she supposed to know that one of the colour bottles was being used for bleach? And anyway, how would ‘Miss Fancy Pants’ have known if it had been bleach because it could have been something she had put on her hair before she came into the salon.

However, the magistrates weren’t having any of it.

It was a load of nonsense really. But the news editor liked the story. Human interest. Page four. With a photo of the shop and the owner and the local actress.

Bob never looked back. The proudest moment of his life. Apart from marrying his school sweetheart Julie a year later, that is.

2

HE WAS now a reporter. He felt like Superman. Although Bob didn’t wear glasses like Clark Kent – but there were plenty of telephone boxes. He felt invincible.

He had joined the club.

Only 17. Now a junior reporter.

Notebook and pencil.

He was given shorthand lessons, a course on newspaper law and a ‘bit of a talk’ by the news editor on the do’s and don’ts of reporting. There weren’t many don’ts.

Now. It was 1982. Things were changing rapidly. The 80s were different from the 70s.

Different music, different fashions, different hair, different cars. This was the beginning of the era of new wave music. Ghetto blasters and Walkmans blared out hit tunes from bands such as ABC, Human League, Simple Minds and Duran Duran.

Shell suits and bubble perms would become a common sight as well as shoulder pads and power dressing in the office and the boardroom. People were starting to have more money in their pocket and package holidays to countries like Spain and Greece were starting to become the norm, not a luxury.

The shape and size of cars were changing. The Ford Escort and the Fiesta were top of the list along with Vauxhall’s Luton-built Cavalier. The Austin Metro was also a common sight. With petrol becoming increasingly expensive, it was the age of economy and practicality.

As for TVs – people were trading in their old black-and-white sets for colour ones. If not, then they could rent a colour TV or pay a bit more and buy it in monthly instalments. Things were becoming affordable to more people. And programmes like Dallas and Dynasty and Fame were high up on the popular list.

Star Wars was making box office records at the movies, while ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ was becoming a popular catchphrase in the workplace as Star Trek was a ‘must-watch’ TV programme.

Basic mobile phone ‘bricks’ existed to make or receive a call only and Alan Sugar’s Amstrads would be invented. People played Pac-Man and Asteroids on their TV.

In newsrooms, manual typewriters were getting lighter and the keys lighter as well. There were pagers now that bleeped when the newsroom wanted to contact a reporter out on the road. The reporter then had to find a phone box or find a phone to call in. Pdq.

Regional newspapers were now printing ‘football special editions’ on Saturday nights – so fans didn’t have to wait until Monday to read Saturday’s match report. Unless it was covered by a national newspaper and it would appear in a Sunday national.

So this was 1982. The Falklands War was looming. Margaret Thatcher was now in power. Privatising everything and smashing the unions and urging people to buy their own homes. Meanwhile, in football, the game was getting quicker and players’ wages were increasing. This was also to become the new age of sponsorship on shirts. A massive breakthrough for companies and football.

But, hooliganism would get a lot worse on the terraces and there would be Heysel and Hillsborough as well as the fire disaster at Bradford City’s stadium. This would be the beginning of the end for standing at football matches.

So Bob, the newspaper reporter dinosaur, and all those like him felt as if they were being left behind in a tidal wave of an ever-changing Britain.

But he was still deeply respected as ‘the Leicester football hack’. Both at the club and at the Evening Echo where he worked.

Bob had earned his stripes. He would be a major now if he was in the army. But in journalism, it was all about experience and how much experience you had.

Nothing else.

3

IT WAS 1982 and Jock Wallace was manager of Leicester City. The club had been transformed by this big, fearless Scot ever since he arrived at Filbert Street four years ago. Now there was a continual buzz in the city.

Bob had a Datsun 180B.

It spluttered into life as he turned the ignition on, pushed the clutch pedal down and engaged the long gear lever into first. There was more rust on the car than paintwork.

Bob had been promised a new company car so many times. But Mr Phil Tunnicliffe, the editor-in-chief, or ‘God’ to most, had gone back on his promise.

‘It would cause a bit of resentment to be honest with you, Bob,’ said Phil Tunnicliffe.

‘I know you are good mates with Andy Machin in advertising. But just because his lot have them, it doesn’t mean you can have one. There’s no other reporter on this paper who has a company car. Not even I’ve got one for f**k’s sake! Besides, why don’t you just buy yourself a decent motor?’

Bob had explained he didn’t get paid enough. Julie, his wife, worked in the housing department at Leicester City Council. They had three kids, all grown up, but still helped them out financially … especially as there were now grandchildren around too.

Bob said it didn’t matter. It was his mate Andy, the advertising manager, who had harped on about Bob getting a company car. Bob said he didn’t mind using the Datsun. It was his mistake buying the bloody thing in the first place, said Phil Tunnicliffe.

Tunnicliffe had a bit of a fearsome reputation. Not solely down to the fact he was editor-in-chief. For starters he was a big man. Around 6ft 5in. Weight: around 17 stone. He had always been a ‘tall bloke’. But people who ‘came from money’ seemed to ‘carry off height and weight’ to their advantage.

Tunnicliffe’s accent was pure Leicester. He had gone to Uppingham School but ‘didn’t like it that much’ and so had switched over to the grammar school in Market Harborough on Burnmill Road. (Now the Robert Smyth Academy.)

Tunnicliffe had a big laugh, was a big eater and talked loudly.

His family had been in the newspaper industry for generations.

He had a big farm near Tugby. Not that far from Bob’s village actually.

‘You must come over sometime, Bob. Bring the missus. And your family. Grandchildren. Whoever you like.’

Bob had been a couple of times. Maybe more than a couple. The farm was vast. So was the house. What did he need a place like this for? thought Bob.

His wife was small and friendly, and finely and expensively dressed. But quiet. Bob thought Tunnicliffe could stop a football match with his voice. It was probably why she seemed quiet in herself.

Then there was John Richardson. The news editor of the Evening Echo.

A decent enough bloke. A bit too conservative. A bit too cautious at times. Bob had understandably had a few run-ins with him over the years.

When Frank Worthington was at Leicester, he seemed to be in the headlines just about every other day. Wortho was a maverick, an entertainer. He was a brilliant player. A showman. Flamboyant. The fans loved him. He was a 70s man. The sideburns, the hair. And later a Mexican moustache. Not to mention his love of all things American – cowboy boots, cowboy hat and some American car.

It was a golden era at Leicester during the Jimmy Bloomfield era. (I went to the same school as Jimmy’s son, David, at what was then called Manor High School in Oadby.)

It was Bloomfield who introduced the all-white home kit.

Wortho would often drink at the White Hart pub in Billesdon at times, Billesdon being a small village just off the old A47. It was Bob’s village.

Frank lived out that way. Some really nice place. Goadby. Or was it Tugby? Maybe one of the Langtons. Bob forgot. This was what Bob was like at times. With his memory.

Bob struck up a decent rapport with Worthington. He got some nice bits of gossip. Stuff about the manager, who to be perfectly frank, no pun intended, was having a pretty torrid time in the hot seat despite his popularity as an old Leicester player. Stuff about some of the players. Stuff about the backroom staff. Just gossip. Nothing malicious or revealing.

But one night, Bob was in the White Hart and Frank had got talking. It was all coming to an end. Worthington had got himself into a bit of money trouble. Gambling debts. That sort of thing.

The Scot Frank McLintock, a former and much-liked Leicester player, had come in as the new manager and things were going to change. But no one would have foreseen what was going to happen. McLintock was to struggle badly and Leicester were eventually relegated.

Frank Worthington had told Bob he thought he was going to be transferred. He didn’t want to leave Filbert Street. But he owed a lot of money. Leicester would make a few bob selling him and Worthington would recoup a fair whack of it as well. Then he could pay off all his debts. That was the plan anyway.

4

HE HAD told Bob all this over a few lager and limes and bags of KP peanuts, which Bob liked a lot, as well as bags of smoky bacon and cheese and onion Golden Wonder crisps, in the White Hart one Saturday night. Just between the two of them like.

Bob wanted to run the story. Exclusive. It was dynamite.

But: John Richardson didn’t want to run the story.

‘What is said off the record stays off the record. That’s final, Bob. And you should know bloody better,’ said Richardson … in his dead-flat Derby accent. Richardson was from Heanor, Derbyshire. That’s where the new weekly free paper, the Leicester Trader, part of the new Trader Group based in Derby, was printed.

Just a coincidence, thought Bob. Bob had actually been approached to join the Trader Group by the owner, but Bob had turned him down – although reluctantly, because the money plus a nice brand-new company car had been tempting. Plus a monthly bonus. Bloody hell, thought Bob at the time. But Julie wouldn’t have had it anyway because she was never going to move house and have to make new friends all over again.

The Trader Group of newspapers had been started by Lionel Pickering, a former sports reporter. He was a pioneer of free newspapers in the UK. Pickering was from Ashbourne in Derbyshire. He had emigrated to Australia where he worked for the Sydney Sun and, on his return, he started his new newspaper business which was to span the Midlands.

Pickering went on to become a millionaire, later becoming chairman of Derby County, sinking a fortune into the club and overseeing the construction of the new stadium.

Bloody hell, thought Bob.

In the 1980s, there were Trader newspapers throughout the Midlands.

Back to the Frank Worthington story.

Bob said, ‘It was still said and it’s a bloody brilliant story. And Frank knows who I bloody well am, doesn’t he?’

Richardson: ‘I don’t care if the bloody Pope said it. I’m not running the story, Bob. You want to risk destroying our relationship with the club, do you? Because that’s what will happen if we go with this.’

Bob: ‘Someone else is going to get this very soon if we don’t run it. You think the nationals won’t pick it up? Why do you always want to be second not first, John? For f**k’s sake, what’s your problem?’

Richardson: ‘It’s not a question of being first or second. It’s about integrity and having the trust of the people we have to get along with – day bloody in and day bloody out.’

Bob: ‘What’s the point of getting an exclusive if we can’t run an exclusive? That’s what newspapers do, isn’t it? Get our own original stories. So when does it have to be an exclusive? When every other f**ker has run the story first?’

The voices had got loud. Two men. Trading verbal blows. A stand-off.