Leicester City Official History

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Just 21 years after the establishment of The Football Association, at the Freemasons' Tavern on Great Queen Street in London, a bible class at the now-demolished Emanuel Chapel on New Park Street, Leicester, contemplated forming a new football club. Many of them had grown up together at the old Wyggeston School on Southgate Street. Reverend Lewellyn H Parsons and his bible class spoke of an exciting future for their fledgling club. The Fosse Way, the name of an old Roman thoroughfare that linked England’s South West with its North East, acted as their starting point for a name.The Club's founders formed a committee among themselves, paying nine pence each upon entry, and another nine pence to buy a football. Leicester Fosse’s first-ever match was staged on the first day of November in 1884 and it was held in front of a modest crowd on a private field off Fosse Road South, as the new club ran out 5-0 victors over Syston Fosse. The average age of their line-up was just 16 as braces from Arthur West and Hilton Johnson, as well as a solitary goal from Sam Dingley, secured victory. The notion of football being a spectator sport, though, was some distance away and the focus was primarily on participation and fitness.Between 1884 and 1887, their first regular venue was Victoria Park, but a move to the Belgrave Road Cycle and Cricket Ground was curtailed a year later when the Leicester Tigers Rugby Club outbid them in 1888.

Fosse were forced to return to Victoria Park but did find a home on Mill Lane, which today lies at the heart of the De Montfort University campus. The Club’s maiden season on Mill Lane included a first piece of silverware for the new club, which was nicknamed the Fossils or the Ancients in its early life. Fosse defeated Coalville in the Leicestershire County Cup final in Loughborough in 1890 and, during the following season, it was also introduced to the FA Cup for the first-ever time.

They still struggled to secure a full-time headquarters and, when residential houses were commissioned to be built on Mill Lane, a brief stint at the Grace Road Cricket Ground was considered to be their only alternative. In October of 1891, an opportunity arose to base the Club on Filbert Street at a venue which was then known to the public as the Walnut Street Ground. The Fossils’ first full season in the Midland League proved difficult and, despite attracting crowds of up to 4,000 spectators on Filbert Street, it would take them three years to fully settle.

By the time the 1893/94 campaign came about, the Club boasted a total of 19 professional footballers and finished second.Following months of lobbying, a major moment in the Club’s history arrived in 1894 as a AGM granted Fosse with enough votes to earn election to the recently-formed Division Two within the Football League pyramid.After wearing an iconic black strip with a sky-blue sash and long white trousers, by the time of their inaugural Football League fixture, they had switched to chocolate brown and blue halves before, in 1903, electing to wear the blue and white colours recognisable today.It was to take Leicester Fosse 14 years to earn promotion to the top division in the Football League as a side including ex-England centre-half Billy Bannister draw in crowds of nearly 13,000.... (lcfc off history)