It is a much more difficult task to come up with a list of Leicester City’s ten greatest ever defenders than it is for goalkeepers not least because there are more to choose from. That is not going to stop us. I started by identifying 50 possible names to go into our top ten which was further whittled down to about 15. Today, the top two.
2. Steve Walsh was a central figure for the club in the eventful years of his stay (1986-2000) in which he made a total of 449 appearances (many as captain), the seventh highest of any Foxes player. He made around 40 per cent of his 369 City league appearances in the top-flight of English football. Steve was a tough, uncompromising, sometimes naïve, sometimes violent but never less than a fully committed member of the Leicester team. He is noted for the excessive number of red cards received (including one in 1986 when he received an 11-match ban for breaking the jaw of Shrewsbury striker David Geddis).
Walsh was often missing through injury himself, and often played when not fully fit. In the 1993/4 play-off final against Derby, for instance, Walsh turned out as a makeshift, and probably around 50 per cent fit, striker playing only his second game back after six months out. Memorably, his two goals brought Premier League football to Filbert Street for the first time. Including Steve in this list of top defenders is somewhat misleading in that Brian Little tended to use him as a centre forward, and his scoring record – 62 goals in 449 games – is a reflection of this. Some of his goals were scored as a centre half, most memorably his injury time equaliser in an epic 3-3 draw with Arsenal in 1997.
1. As great a figure Steve Walsh is in the history of Leicester City, he is beaten to the top spot by a much less well-known player. ‘Legend’ is an over-used word in football lexicon, but the description surely applies to Adam Black who played 557 times as a full back for the club between 1920 and 1935. I think his career justifies a position at the top of our list. In his 16 seasons with City after manager Peter Hodge brought him down south from Scotland, Adam amassed 528 league appearances, a club record. Of slight build and statute, he was a tough tackler and brave too, as befits someone who was a decorated First World War soldier.
Black was a virtually ever-present in a Foxes team whose ten-year stay in the top-flight between 1926 and 1935 recorded a third-place finish in 1928 and one better the following year, the most successful spell in the club’s history prior to 2016. Black retired at the end of the 1934-5 season with Leicester relegated back to the Second Division. He then bought a newsagent’s shop on Wilberforce Road which he ran for over 30 years. Truly a great servant of the club.
On Friday, the full list and honourable mentions are published.