Dramatic Promotions & Near Misses: Womack & Bowers Flip The Second Division Upside Down
In the 1930s, Great Britain was on its knees and, like the rest of the world, every aspect of life suffered.
Unemployment was at 20 per cent, the value of British exports halved and industrial areas were plunged into poverty.
The form of Leicester City, reconstituted from Leicester Fosse in 1919, offered little in the way of respite for any fan looking to escape the general gloom.
Yes, they began the decade in the top flight, but what followed were four nail-biting seasons of avoiding the drop by the skin of their teeth.
Finally, in May 1935 City succumbed to their fate and were relegated to the Second Division of English Football. It was their first return in 10 years.
Then came the 1935/36 season and record goalscorer Arthur Chandler left for life at Notts County earlier that summer, and the Club were hit with money troubles.
A shortage of change meant that any new signings, although vital for a promotion push, were near enough inconceivable.
With an aging squad and little money, fans and members alike had very little to complain about when manager Arthur Lochhead guided City to a sixth-place Second Division finish.
City drifted into the 1936/37 season with low expectations, for little had changed to inspire any resurgence. The only notable business was the return of Chandler in a coaching role.
A 5-0 win over Bradford Park Avenue in the second match of the season might have raised the pulses of fans, but shortly after the downward turn resumed and was furthered by the departure of Lochhead.
His resignation, apparently, was the result of a boardroom split. On 10 October, manager-less City slumped into the relegation zone - bottom but one, with only six points from the first 10 games.
A fall to the Third Division of English football was unprecedented, never encountered by the Foxes before. But then came the revival.
It was in October 1936 that the shackles came off and the season took an unexpected new course.
The board appointed Frank Womack, a former Birmingham City captain turned tactician, and this proved to be an inspired decision.
Womack had successfully taken Grimsby Town from the Second Division to the First Division and, most importantly, kept them there.
His experience and guile was warmly welcomed, but any thought of emulating that feat would have been far from fans’ minds. For City, in 21st place, it was all about survival.
Womack’s time at Leicester started with two key signings. Firstly, former England international Jack Bowers put pen to paper in November.
His fee was a Club-record £7,500, an eye-watering sum for cash-strapped City, but as a First Division top scorer in former seasons, he was risk worth taking.
Bowers had six years of footballing wisdom under his belt at Derby County before he came to Filbert Street.
By 1934, he’d been the First Division’s top scorer in three of the four previous seasons, and, despite a serious knee injury, he’d notched 12 goals for the Rams at the start of the 1936/37 season.
But by no means did he make his move to Leicester with the idea of slowing down. Instead, he adapted immediately and continued his impressive record, scoring on his debut on 21 November.
Come the turn of the year, he’d scored 13 goals in his first eight games for City, and was galvanising a push up the table.
He coupled with new signing and winger Eric Stubbs, who arrived from Nottingham Forest, to form an electrifying attack.
Think the Stringfellow and Gibson; the Guppy and Heskey; the Mahrez and Vardy of their time. The impact was immediate.
Despite some exhilarating form, including six emphatic wins in a row recorded at the end of November, the season was seven months old before Leicester barged into the promotion slots.
At the start of February 1937, they climbed into the top two. A real testament to just how far behind the race they’d been prior to the appointment of Womack.
If City couldn’t maintain this extraordinary pace, no one could have blamed them. But the wins kept coming in February, and they came thick and fast.
Bowers netted consistently, the backline of Frame, Sharman, Grosvenor, and Jones held remarkably, and Leicester only dropped one point against West Ham United in a total of five games in the month.
Our biggest win came here too, with a 7-1 victory over Doncaster Rovers. If February was a time of highs for City, the month of March brought a blip.
Weeks of tirelessly rampaging up the ranks had seemingly taken their toll, and one win, two draws and two losses over the period wasn’t exactly title-winning form.
For all of City’s woes, promotion rivals Blackpool had worries of their own. Their form had petered out somewhat too, and Leicester remained in second place throughout.
With the season in its final throes, and City sitting pretty, expectations for promotion solidified. A championship medal, however, seemed slightly out of reach.
Blackpool had led the pack for much of the season, beating Leicester twice in their reign at the top, and didn’t look to be moving.
Indeed, the seaside team inflicted City's biggest defeat of the entire campaign, with a 6-2 hammering on their home turf.
Fans were increasingly hopeful that Leicester would be celebrating promotion come May, but the title itself seemed out of reach.
And yet, a staggered end to the season for Blackpool and four successive wins for City in April took them tantalisingly close to lifting some silverware.
Their fate, however, was not left in their hands. A win for Blackpool on their final day of the season would have been enough to shrug off the challenge from Leicester.
But a shock draw to relegation-bound Doncaster didn’t allow them such breathing room.
Instead Leicester, playing a week later, knew that two points - the amount awarded for a win in England until 1981 - against Tottenham Hotspur would be enough to pip Blackpool to the post.
It was a fixture that had, earlier in the season, ended in a 4-2 defeat.
This time, the result was pretty much turned on its head: City thumped Spurs 4-1 at home, with Bowers capping off his fine season with another brace.
Jubilant fans surged on to the Filbert Street pitch and engulfed the team in celebrations. Pandemonium.
From the arrival of Womack in October to the end of the season, City won 22 matches and lost just four. It was, of course, a team effort, but the impact of Bowers can’t be overstated.
In just 27 league outings, he netted a total of 33 goals. And, despite joining four months into the season, he finished as the league’s top-scorer.
The staggering revival of Leicester City in the 1936/37 season shows how the compelling uncertainty of football has always been written into the Club’s DNA.
From relegation candidates in October to top-of-the-table come May - it is still, to this day, one of City’s most unlikely title wins.