Links With The Past: A Promotion Dinner & Concert
On 2 May, 1925 City, captained by Johnny Duncan, secured the second tier title on the last day of the season with a 4-0 victory at Filbert Street over Stockport County.
Six days later, at 6:30pm on Friday 8 May, 1925, the Club held a dinner at the Assembly Rooms in Leicester. The slightly damaged menu for the evening reveals that the food on offer consisted of mock turtle soup, salmon with hollandaise sauce, veal cutlet with tomato sauce, chicken in casserole, forequarter of lamb, new potatoes., macedoine cream, apricot charlotte pudding, cheese, strawberry ice cream and coffee.
After the meal, Montague Rice, the chairman of the Club, proposed a toast to the King and the Royal Family. Then the President of the Football League, John McKenna, presented the Championship Shield and medals to the players and to the head trainer, Dave Gardner.
This was followed by Charles Sutcliffe presenting a medal to Peter Hodge, the secretary and manager of the Club. Sutcliffe was a lawyer and an administrator at the Football League who for many years devised the league’s fixture list.
Further toasts were then proposed to the Football League, to Leicester City Football Club and to the chairman. However, the evening didn’t end there. After the meal, the assembled diners went to De Montfort Hall for a concert.
The programme for the concert reveals that the trophy and medals were presented to the recipients for a second time that evening.
It also records that the Hamoril Concert Party and the City of Leicester Working Men’s Club and Institute Prize Band provided the music and that the proceeds from the concert were to go to the Leicester Royal infirmary.