There came a point, mid-Friday, where Jack Dudley’s words rang horribly true, like a spiteful conscience.

“Y’am mad, Gonby!” he’d said at The Fox that previous Tuesday, as I rapped the pack for him to cut. “Absolutely bloomin’ barmy.”

I turned up a jack. “We’ll get in.”

“No yer woe,” he’d replied as I pegged my two points. Corny Slice and I were on our way to winning by a street but Jack seemed determined to at least win the argument. Now, as I finished elaborating my sixth disguise of the day, I felt as though he’d all but succeeded. I looked at Rex Bush, who gave a dry smile beneath his false moustache and saluted. We stowed the costume chest under the sinks and left the public convenience with haste.

“Can we move along please, ladies and gentlemen?” called Rex as we approached the queue. “There’s nothing to see here.”

“There’s a football match to see,” said one of the assembled, a rickety old dame with spectacles.

“Not for another two days, there isn’t,” I said, in officious tones, “Now please vacate the area. You are causing a disturbance.”

“But there’s only five of us!”

And that, in a nutshell, was the problem. The Filbert Street ground had capacity for only four spectators, and as a supporter of the visiting team you had no chance of being there before a capacity crowd had formed at the turnstile. Our only hope was to trick at least sixty percent of those assembled into leaving, even for a minute, and then taking their places in the queue.

Rex said I made a fetching bride, but it was three days since my last shave and police helmets don’t make the most realistic padding

Five different ruses had already failed: sandwich boards offering free cakes and sausages at the local bakers’ and butchers’ shops; firemen needing access to the hydrant; peaky blinders on an extortion racket (we’d actually made ninepence off that, but returned it guiltily once it was clear they were still not moving); phantoms (the old girl with glasses asked Rex if he could pass a message on to her Albert, who had passed away some years before); and a married couple seeking help saving their baby drowning in the nearby Soar (Rex said I made a fetching bride, but it was three days since my last shave and police helmets don’t make the most realistic padding). It wasn’t clear whether they had seen through our rozzer disguises or whether they considered themselves above the law, but either way they weren’t budging now, either. A fat pipe-smoker suggested I blow my whistle for help and, with resigned looks at each other, Rex and I headed back down Filbert Street for our final rummage into the costume chest.

On the way to our makeshift dressing room we spotted Harold Sweep pulling a very tall contraption behind his bicycle. “What yer got there, Chimdy?” I asked him.

“Something I’ve been working on. I’m calling it ‘Proculorama’”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see, Gonby. By which I mean: you really will see!”

A bit cryptic, that, from Chimdy but I asked no further questions as Rex and I were keen to get into our next costumes – albeit with rather bleak views on our chances of success. If the people queuing were regulars they would smell something fishy when they didn’t recognize us, but it was also unusual for players – however keen – to queue up with the public twenty-four hours before a match. As it turned out neither of these two issues came up. One of the younger assembled took exception to the kits we were wearing.

“The blue is wrong! And I don’t like the collar!”

“The blue is wrong! And I don’t like the collar!” he said, pointing at our jerseys.

“That’s right!” said Four-Eyes, “They wear white collars these days! Imposters! Imposters!”

The game was up, and they only thing to be said for it was that we didn’t have to run away from them because they still wouldn’t budge from their places in the queue.

Around the corner, we saw Chimdy atop his construction. “Nearly ready, Gonby!” he called, and as we had little else to do, I suggested we acquire some bottles of ale from a nearby outdoor, and wait to see what he was up to.

It was worth our while. The tower that he’d been pulling behind his bicycle carried a mirror positioned at a forty-five degree angle to the floor, which reflected the game onto the mirror on an identical tower, which reflected the image down to a third mirror at ground level from which the game could be viewed. We could see the pitch perfectly (albeit in mirror-image), and congratulated Chimdy heartily on his plan. Chimdy was excited about the project, taking out his sketch books and showing me plans for further development of the Proculorama, which included placing a succession of advertising boards in front of the mirror at half time, charging companies for the exposure. He also envisaged reflecting the images into pubs so that patrons could sup and smoke while enjoying the game, and even sending the images between cities.

“The only consideration is cost,” he said, drawing deeply on his bottle of Everard’s and lighting up a Capstan, “The mirrors have not come cheap. If you could chip in for the cost that would be very helpful.”

In principle we were agreeable, but between four (Corny Slice had helped him out with the donkey work) it would be very steep. “I’m sure some of Leicester supporters would enjoy watching the game, too,” I suggested, and for the next few hours Rex and I canvassed locals to the wonders of the Proculorama. By two o’clock the next day, Chimdy had been fully reimbursed thanks to a 2d-per-head surcharge and I was laughing smugly at Jack Dudley’s words of discouragement. After three minutes, however, a wayward strike by Dicky Baugh smashed the first mirror and, while players first covered their heads and then spent ten minutes retrieving shards of glass from the pitch, the four of us made our getaways with an angry mob at our heels (Rex and I grabbing onto a tower each as Corny and Chimdy pedalled furiously).

□ □ □ □ □

Though not out of pocket, Chimdy took the matter badly. He rebuked himself over the coming weeks for not investing in thicker glass (“another ha’penny per head would have done it!” he seethed over and over) and filled his notebooks with improved designs while everybody else enjoyed a game of crib or dominoes, or a relaxing cigarette. Such designs would prove superfluous. At the end of the season, Leicester informed the Football League of their intentions to make Filbert Street an all-seater venue, thereby reducing the capacity from four to two. Chairman William McGregor wrote a terse letter describing their plans as “intolerably silly”, and urging them to increase, rather than reduce, the ground’s capacity. Seeing the commercial viability of such a proposition, Leicester constructed a new main stand to the west and raised banks around the rest of the ground, and thus ingress to matches ceased to be a problem in the years to come.