Alf Pallett, who owned the Cascelloid factories in Leicester and Coalville, and Len Shipman, a haulage businessman, both served on Leicester City’s Board of Directors between 1939 and 1979. They each also had two spells as Chairman of the Board: Pallett from 1940-48, and from 1967-70, and Shipman from 1949-56, and from 1970-73. In addition, Shipman was the Football League President from 1966-74.
In 1949, Shipman gave his fellow director Pallett this faux leather-bound photographic memento of the Club’s epic run to its first-ever FA Cup Final.
The beautifully produced album contains 89 original photographs. The pictures include training at Skegness and elsewhere, pre-match preparations, action shots of the games themselves, Leicester City fans, the civic celebrations after the final and much more besides. Many of them have never been published.
Each picture is meticulously captioned in very neat white handwritten capital letters which show up clearly on the brown pages. The example illustrated here shows injured Leicester City star Don Revie listening to the radio broadcast of the match from his hospital bed at the Leicester Royal Infirmary.
This unique album has been loaned to the Club by Pallett’s 90-year-old son Tony, who, along with his son, daughter-in-law and three grandsons, were guests of the Club at a match earlier this season.