Outside90’s David Vutuopal continues our look at how unpredictability defined the 1962-63 English top-flight season.
Besides Everton, Tottenham and Burnley, there emerged a fourth contender for the League Championship in 1963. Leicester City had been promoted in 1957 and would spend 12 years straight in the First Division, in fact they would spend 24 out of 30 seasons between 1957 and 1987 at the highest level. Gordon Banks, who would play for England (and win the World Cup while a Foxes player), was between the posts. Ahead of him were such players as Colin Appleton, Frank McLintock and Graham Cross, along with Dave Gibson, Ken Keyworth, Jimmy Walsh and Mike Stringfellow. Their nearest regional rivals were Nottingham Forest, while to the west, the West Midlands had the full gamut of their major clubs in Wolves, West Bromwich Albion, Aston Villa and Birmingham City in the First Division at the time.
READ MORE: The big freeze and the last time Leicester City were title contenders (Part 1)
Before the big freeze wiped out League action for two to three months, Everton led the table with Tottenham and Burnley behind them and Leicester in fourth place. The Toffees travelled to Filbert Street in February 1963 – at which point many clubs had not resumed their seasons – and lost 3-1. It was to be one of only six defeats they suffered that season, but it would be part of a run of form that saw Leicester surge into serious contention for the title. As Everton suffered further losses to Arsenal and Sheffield United, Tottenham and the Foxes took advantage, while Burnley was rocked by the departure of one of their biggest stars in Northern Ireland international midfielder Jimmy McIlroy, to Stoke City.
The month of April 1963, in which fixture congestion played a major part, was to prove decisive. Everton played nine games that month and did not lose a single one of them, thus regaining the advantage as Tottenham and Leicester were to stutter. To illustrate the point, the Spurs and Liverpool played each other twice in the space of three days and shared 16 goals between them – the Merseysiders winning 5-2 at Anfield and Tottenham winning 7-2 at White Hart Lane to end Liverpool’s steady climb up the League. It came down to Everton facing the North Londoners on April 20, prevailing 1-0 and then wrapping up the League Championship – the club’s first post-war success – on May 11 with a 4-1 win over Fulham. Prior to that Tottenham had a theoretical chance of winning it, but a 1-0 loss at Manchester City (who would be relegated that year) extinguished any hope and they finished second. Leicester completed their season with four straight losses, while Burnley would overhaul them to finish fourth.
Everton had prevailed to confirm their re-emergence as a pre-eminent power in English football, while Bill Shankly’s Liverpool would re-enter the winners’ circle the following year. Besides that, this was to be the season in which Leicester came the closest they did for 53 years to winning a League Championship.
The season saw Tottenham become the first English side to win a European trophy, by beating Atletico Madrid 5-1 in the Cup-Winners’ Cup Final – this at a time when Spanish clubs, and not just Real Madrid, were considered to be formidable. Matt Gillies’ Leicester City would reach the FA Cup Final, where they were beaten by a Manchester United side whose rebuilding process would deliver in the coming years.
More ominous events were taking place in the Second Division. Stoke City, under Tony Waddington, had signed McIlroy and had Stanley Matthews who was still playing at the age of 48. They would win the Second Division championship ahead of Tommy Docherty’s Chelsea, who were to emerge as a force over the next few years. These two edged out Sunderland, for whom the prolific centre-forward Brian Clough had been injured on Boxing Day, his playing career was never to recover bar a brief attempt at a comeback. The end of his time on the pitch would be followed by the start of a glittering managerial run, however. Meanwhile, Don Revie had taken charge at Leeds United two years previous. The rest, they say, was history…
