Norman Plummer

Who was Norman Plummer?

Norman Leanord Plummer was a Royal Air Force officer and English footballer. During World War 2, Norman served with the RAF, serving in the Far East and in Europe as a navigator in the Lancaster bombers. He was one of the British servicemen that liberated the Belsen concentration camp in 1945. After the war he signed professional forms with Leicester City FC. He established himself as a regular in the Leicester side at first as centre-forward, but eventually centre-half. He became captain of the side during the 1948/49 season, under John Duncan, and led Leicester to their first cup final appearance, defeating the legendary Portsmouth side of that season 3-1 in the semi-final at Highbury. On 30 April 1949, Norman achieved his childhood dream of captaining Leicester City in their first ever FA Cup Final appearance at Wembley against Wolverhampton Wanderers, led by the great Billy Wright in front of a capacity 100,000 crowd. Leicester were the underdogs against a strong Wolves side, and eventually lost 3-1, but questionable refereeing decisions ultimately cost Leicester the game. Mal Griffiths had what was later proved to be a perfectly legitimate equalising goal disallowed for offside when Wolves were leading 2-1. After several more seasons at Leicester, Norman eventually moved onto Mansfield Town, and finally ended his career at Kettering Town in the early 1960s. Once he'd retired from football he ran the family shop on East Park Road, Leicester for many years until he retired. During his retirement he was a well known member of the RAFA and a regular at Glen Gorse Golf Club. He died on 25 October 1999, after a battle with cancer. He left behind his wife of 50 years Peggy, 3 children Sharon, Adrian and Nigel and 5 grandchildren Leanne, Ashley, Daniel, Justine and Roseanna.