Saturday 17th January 1970
Leicester City 0-2 Swindon Town
Division Two
Swindon’s first ever visit to Filbert Street was an occasion that would live long in the memory. An accomplished all-round team performance was enough to hoist Town back into the Divsion Two promotion race.
It was also a personal triumph for centre-forward Arthur Horsfield. He answered recent critics with both goals that took him level with Peter Noble as top goalscorer.
Swindon took the lead as early as the 8th minute. Having already forced three corners Joe Butler slid a low through pass to Horsfield who swivelled and smacked a low right-footed strike past the advancing Peter Shilton.
The visitors continued to dominate with Don Rogers in brilliant form at outside-left.
Leicester suffered a couple of setbacks when firstly, in the 16th minute, Graham Cross made a hash of a good opportunity. He’d received a pass from Rodney Fern with the Town defence at sixes and sevens, but was denied by an alert Peter Downsborough.
Five minutes later, Welsh international full-back, Peter Rodrigues was forced to retire because of an ankle injury and in the 32nd minute Len Glover had an effort ruled out for offside.
The second half saw Swindon under sustained pressure. Had Town conceded during this onslaught many felt that Leicester would go on and win comfortably. Thankfully, however, they didn’t.
The closest City came was when Fern’s 53rd minute strike beat Downsborough but was disallowed because of an offside infringement involving another player. A lucky let-off for Town indeed and the home side were left cursing their luck.
Swindon continued to soak up everything thrown at them and bide their time.
Eventually, with City tiring, a good cross-field ball from Roger Smart fed Rogers and, despite an attempt by full-back Alan Woollett to haul him back by his arm, Don swept past him amd centred beautifully for Horsfield to tap home number two with Shilton already committed.
From this point on Leicester were a beaten team, and they knew it. Town came close to extending their lead on a few occasions.
This was, without doubt, one of the finest performances of the season.
This was Town’s 6th league match unbeaten in a run that would last 14 games. The Town colours were finally lowered at Norwich on the 30th March in a 1-0 reverse.
City: P.Shilton, P.Rodrigues (Brown), A.Woollett, R.Roberts, J.Sjoberg, G.Cross, J.Farrington, R.Fern, D.Tearse, D.Nish, L.Glover.
Town: P.Downsborough, R.Thomas, J.Trollope, J.Butler, F.Burrows, S.Harland, J.Smith, R.Smart, A.Horsfield, P.Noble (D.Heath), D.Rogers.
Join Vital Swindon!
It’s easy to register , simply click the link and enjoy getting involved (you can even win prizes!)
Message Board To visit the message board, click here. Get involved
This website is your website and we are looking for people to help run the site. Do you go to most of the games and have an opinion? Why not write a match report? Perhaps you are a budding journalist or even just someone who is very opinionated? Well why not join our team? If this interests you please contact Vital Swindon.
wait while paul dickov gets at ya..watch your ankles lads.