This Leicester City shirt crest is nearly 100 years old. It was recently offered to the Club’s archive in the will of Jane Graham, who was the granddaughter of Harold Wadsworth. Wadsworth played as a left winger for Leicester City between 1924 and 1927 and was an ever-present in the side which won the Second Division title in 1925.
The crest was part of a larger archive bequeathed by Jane relating exclusively to Wadsworth’s time at Leicester City. Mystery surrounds this crest though. The initials ‘LC’ on the shirt crest stand for Leicester City which had been the Club’s name since 1919 when the old name Leicester Fosse was dropped.
However, although Leicester Fosse had sometimes worn a shirt crest in the 1890s featuring the Leicester Town coat of arms, Leicester City Football Club never wore any sort of badge on their shirts until 1948/49 when the first version of the Fox and Crop badge was introduced.
This is confirmed beyond doubt by trawling through photographs in the Club’s archives of Leicester City matches, together with team photographs and individual portrait photographs. Furthermore, this crest never appears on any official documents, letter heads, stationary or matchday programmes either.
Nor was it a crest from any other clubs Wadsworth played for, which were Tranmere Rovers, Everton, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Millwall. As far as we are aware, this crest may be unique as it is probably the only known example in existence.
Had it not been part of Wadsworth’s personal archive, there may have been some doubt that this was a Leicester City badge. However, its provenance is impeccable. It is a Leicester City badge. The question remains though, what is the story behind it?
