A star studded array of internationals turned out for the famous London-based Corinthians FC against Leicester Fosse at Walnut Street on Boxing Day afternoon 1899. Founded some 17 years earlier in 1882 by Nicholas Lane Jackson, Assistant Secretary of the Football Association, the Corinthian FC regularly toured both Britain and internationally and is credited with having popularized football around the world, having promoted sportsmanship and fair play, and having championed the ideals of amateurism. Given that the club’s constitution declared that it should “not compete for any challenge cup or any prize of any description” the team originally only played friendly matches. An exception was later made for the Sheriff of London Charity Shield, for which they competed nine times between 1898 and 1907 (winning three), before the match was replaced in the calendar by the FA Charity Shield. Famed for its ethos of “sportsmanship, fair play, [and] playing for the love of the game”., the so-called Corinthian Spirit. This spirit is best illustrated by their attitude to penalties; “As far as they were concerned, a gentleman would never commit a deliberate foul on an opponent. So, if a penalty was awarded against the Corinthians, their goalkeeper would stand aside, lean languidly on the goalpost and watch the ball being kicked into his own net. If the Corinthians themselves won a penalty, their captain took a short run-up and gave the ball a jolly good whack, chipping it over the crossbar.”
This was the fourth time that the Corinthians had included Leicester on their annual Christmas tour. Played in front of 3,000 spectators on heavy ground, the Fosse were 3-0 down a half-time and were further handicapped by a injury to Robinson reducing the home team to ten men for the remainder of the game. The Corinthians took advantage, eventually winning 7-1. The best centre-forward of the “nineties” , Gilbert Oswald Smith (aka G.O. or Jo), scored twice. According to his contemporaries he possessed an ‘uncommon instinct for knowing where the ball and his team mates were, which led them to saying, “He has eyes all round his shirt.” However, on the last Boxing Day of the nineteenth century ‘GO’ was outshone by winger Bertie Oswald Corbett, “noted for his pace and body swerve”, who scored four. Leicester’s consolation goal was netted by Wood,
Other notable Corinthian players include Andrew Watson: the first black player to play Association football at international level; C. B. Fry: sporting polymath “…probably the most variously gifted Englishman of any age;” R. C. Gosling: “the richest man who ever played football for England”, and Charles Bambridge who held the record for the most years as England’s top goalscorer.