Matt Gillies

Gillies played for R.A.F. Weeton, Bolton Wanderers and Leicester City, making a total of 248 appearances in the Football League.

Leicester City

Gillies took a brief break from football after finishing his playing career at Leicester in the summer of 1955, but returned to the club less than a year later to become part of the club's coaching staff under Dave Halliday in April 1956, before being made the club's manager on 1 November 1958. In 1959, Gillies signed then-unknown 22-year-old goalkeeper Gordon Banks from Chesterfield for £7,000. He also signed club stalwarts Dave Gibson, Mike Stringfellow, Lenny Glover and Derek Dougan. He was known as a fine nurturer and scout of young talent, bringing along Peter Shilton, Frank McLintock, Graham Cross and David Nish from the club's reserves. Gillies took over the Foxes on 8 November 1958 as they sat bottom of the First Division and amidst fan unrest after his predecessor Dave Halliday had recently sold star striker Arthur Rowley to Shrewsbury Town. He brought in Bert Johnson as his assistant and head scout and the pair would embark in arguably the most successful period in the club's history. Gillies managed to keep Leicester up in his first season, but could only manage the signings of Albert Cheesebrough and Gordon Banks (originally signed as back-up) in the summer of 1959, as the majority of his transfer bids were rebuffed, while scouting missions to watch the young Huddersfield Town striker Denis Law saw him give an unimpressive performance on two separate occasions and Leicester again struggled at the beginning of the season. However, an injury…

Despite his Leicester side often falling at the final hurdle and thus the relative lack of honours, Gillies was regarded as being ahead of his time in terms of his tactical ability, and was held in high regard by the likes of Matt Busby and particularly Bill Shankly. Shankly once said of Gillies' side: "There's only one team to beware of and that's Leicester City." Shankly watched Gillies' Leicester side, while Liverpool were still in the Second Division and was greatly influenced by his tactics. Gillies and Johnson were one of the first managerial teams in England to experiment with practicing set pieces in training and his switching of Frank McLintock at right-half and Graham Cross at inside-right mid-game, proved revolutionary. Gillies saying it "confused opposition" as opposition players would often be asked to mark "our [Leicester's] number eight, so they thought Cross was their man, when McLintock had replaced him" as "players hadn't got beyond thinking about numbers then." Shankly later copied this trick as his Liverpool side were promoted to the First Division and went on to win First Division titles.

As a player

Leicester City

Football League Second Division: 1953–54

As a manager

Leicester City

Football League Cup: 1963–64; runner-up: 1964–65 FA Cup runner-up: 1960–61, 1962–63