Providing a list of the best strikers is a little easier than doing so for midfielders or defenders in the sense that they can be judged according to how many goals they have scored. That’s not the whole picture of course, but a forward who doesn’t convert chances is unlikely to survive for long. Leicester City have had some great strikers over the years. Today, number 7.
Frank Worthington played 239 times for Leicester between 1972 and 1977, scoring 78 goals. His goalscoring record with the Foxes wasn’t as good as some other players on our list (although not at all bad at a goal every three games) but he more than made up for this by the overall quality of his play. He remains, I think, the most skilful Leicester player I have ever seen in over 50 years of watching City. Ian Greaves, a manager Worthington played for at Huddersfield and Bolton, described him, not inaccurately, as the ‘the working man’s George Best’. A YouTube video of some of his goals barely does him justice. Frank played for England on eight occasions. I agree with his claim that had he signed for a more fashionable club (as he almost did before failing a medical at Liverpool) he would have won more international caps.
Frank’s arrival at Filbert Street is well documented. After starring for Huddersfield Town, he was about to sign for Bill Shankly’s great Liverpool side but failed a medical (his blood pressure was high). The Merseysider’s loss was Leicester’s gain as Jimmy Bloomfield swooped in to sign him for £100,000. Worthington, joining a year after Keith Weller, Jon Sammels and Alan Birchenall, was the final part of the jigsaw creating Bloomfield’s ‘entertainers’ team. With a taste for fashion, an obsession with Elvis and a playboy lifestyle, Frank was the epitome of the Bloomfield era. His autobiography, provocatively titled One Hump or Two, is a great read. He was, it should be added, as dedicated to his football as he was to his off-field activities.
Frank played for Leicester for five full, glorious but frustrating, seasons in which the team promised so much but ultimately delivered no trophies or even a high-enough league place for European qualification. Bloomfield resigned at the end of the 1976/7 season despite the Foxes finishing in 11th place. The appointment of Frank McLintock as Bloomfield’s successor was disastrous, the club relegated way before the end of the season.
Worthington had gone by then. Much to McLintock’s horror, the club decided to sell their number 9 early on in the 1977/8 season. According to an autobiography byMcLintock and a biography of Alan Birchenall, it is true that Frank wanted to leave and the club, fed up with dealing with the striker’s financial problems, did not stand in his way. The full details are in my book on Leicester City.
In retrospect, letting him go was probably a mistake. Worthington was only 29 at the time and played at the top level – for Bolton, Birmingham, Leeds and Sunderland – for another seven years, scoring a hat full of goals. In total, Frank played well into his forties, in 22 consecutive seasons, amassing 757 league appearances and scoring 234 goals. He died in March 2021 at the age of 72.
More on Wednesday.