ON THIS DAY

After managing unfashionable 5000-1 outsiders Leicester City to the Premier League title in 2015/16 you would have thought that Claudio Ranieri would have had a job at Leicester for life – but he was sacked just 9 months later! Apart from leading Leicester to the title he had increased expectations at the King Power Stadium and in February 2017 with defending champions Leicester hovering just above the relegation area and with no league win or even league goal since December pressure on him grew. On February 23rd, just two weeks after the City owners had offered him their ‘ unwavering support’ and despite club vice-chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha (some Scrabble score there) describing him as ‘the most successful Leicester City manager of all time’, Ranieri was sacked. The decision was widely condemned with Gary Lineker describing it as ‘ inexplicable, unforgivable and gut-wrenchingly sad ’. Rumours were rife that Ranieri had ‘lost’ the dressing room and that certainly looked the case when the same players won their first six matches for new manager Craig Shakespeare – a winning run they didn’t even manage in the title-winning season. Leicester finished safely in a mid-table position and they were ordinary again!

Football often seems like a TV soap opera but on February 23rd 1983 the two did seem to merge into one. It was a big night at Old Trafford where Manchester United entertained Arsenal in a League Cup semi-final with Wembley just 90 minutes away. It was also a big night for Manchester’s TV soap opera – Coronation Street – which attracted its biggest viewership of the year for an episode which was another north v south encounter. How would Deirdre Barlow (Anne Kirkbride) sort out her tangled love-life? Would she choose the northerner – her husband Ken – or the Cockney boyfriend – Mike Baldwin? One of the biggest cheers of the night at Old Trafford came when it was announced that she had chosen Ken. That was 1-0 to the north which became 2-0 when Manchester United won through to the Wembley final. All was well north of the Watford Gap!

Just five months before England met West Germany in the World Cup final the two countries met in a friendly at Wembley. Manager Alf Ramsey obviously had a good idea what his best team was as nine of the players who were to become World Cup winners were in the starting line-up in that match, Geoff Hurst winning his first cap. The two players who started in the match on this day in 1966 who didn't play in July were Keith Newton and Norman Hunter who were replaced in the World Cup final team by Ray Wilson and Martin Peters. Nobby Stiles scored the only goal of the match, the only goal he scored in his England career.