Leicester’s ultimate top ten players ever: Goalkeepers No. 2, 1

1.  Few, I suspect, would argue against the choice of Gordon Banks as Leicester’s best ever goalkeeper. Signed from Chesterfield in 1959 for the princely sum of £7,000, Banks made 356 appearances for the Foxes conceding only 529 goals before leaving in 1967 for Stoke City. His goals conceded per game ratio is not the best but unlike most of the keepers on this list he played all his league games for Leicester in the top-flight. It is safe to say that Banks is the only Leicester City player who won the World Cup when still playing for City. Indeed, he made 37 of his 73 England caps representing the Filbert Street club.

Banks was a member of the Matt Gillies side of the 1960s who came close to winning the double in the 1962/63 season and played in two League and two FA Cup finals with only one winner’s medal to show for it (a League Cup Final victory over Stoke City in 1964). Probably his greatest match in a Leicester shirt was in the FA Cup semi-final against Bill Shankly’s Liverpool played at Hillsborough in April 1963. City took an early undeserved lead and for the rest of the match the Reds laid siege on their opponent’s goal. Chance after chance was repelled by Banks who single-handedly kept the Blues in the contest eventually winning through to a final against Manchester United.

Gordon left Leicester under a bit of a cloud. The board, not for the first time, did not cover themselves in glory. Banks had never been paid particularly well and had been, along with several other players including wing half Frank McLintock, involved in a damaging pay dispute with the club. Unlike McLintock, though, the Foxes’ keeper remained loyal never asking for a transfer. In 1967, he was told by the club that they wanted to move him on.