Foxes Flashback - Jack Lee
Wed 4 Nov 2020
Jack Lee (born 4 November, 1920)
Only two cricketers have taken a wicket with the first ball of their only county championship match, and Leicester City’s International footballer was the second of these. He also achieved what is probably a unique double, for he played centre forward for England in just one international, against Northern Ireland at Windsor Park in October 1950. He played in a forward line which included Sir Stanley Matthews and Sir Tom Finney and headed the second goal in a 4-1 victory, only to be replaced in the next match by Jackie Milburn and was never to play for England again.
Born in Sileby, he played for that club in the North Leicestershire Cricket League before the war and also Quorn Methodists who played in the Senior League, from whom Leicester City signed him. In all he played 231 ‘senior’ football matches for Leicester City, Derby County and Coventry City and scored 136 goals. The cricketing link remained to the end of his footballing career, when he was signed to play for Coventry by caretaker manager, Charlie Elliott, the future test umpire.
Early on in his footballing career he injured his right knee and had external and internal cartilages removed from it. This injury started to become a problem whilst he was at Derby and caused his retirement in 1955.
Jack’s game for Leicestershire in 1947 came ‘out of the blue’. In those days Leicestershire had only 12 players on the staff and there were no amateurs of the required standard to call on regularly. This meant that there were no second XI matches and the club and ground side that played a handful of games were a random selection. Jack played in a couple of particularly random club and ground games in 1947 in which he bowled one over and scored 13 in his only innings.
Maybe his selection was a little more prosaic. He was a fit sportsman who would be available for a mid week game in Cardiff, and at 6 feet tall, and weighing in at 13 stone, he looked like a fast medium bowler with plenty of stamina. Even if he did not score many runs or take many wickets he would not let them down in the field (in fact he ended up taking two catches), as well as that first ball wicket, caught by Les Berry.
He was selected for the next match, at home to Middlesex, but he pulled out because of problems with his knee. He never played for the county again but played a handful of club and ground games each year until he left City, and scored plenty of runs, including an unbeaten 81 against Market Harborough and District. He also continued to turn out for Sileby.
When injury forced his retirement from professional football, he eventually became groundsmen at Lawrence Sherriff school in Rugby where he spent 18 years until his retirement in 1984. He died on 12th January 1995, aged 74. After his death, a fan wrote to the ‘Leicester Mercury’ and described him as a ‘great sportsman, and wonderful value at £15 a week.’
