The most prolific scorer the Football League has known, and second only to Arthur Chandler in City's aggregate scoring stakes, Arthur clearly gave early promise of feats to come despite Wolves' failure to sign him on professional forms. He made his senior debut, alongside his brother Jack and only five days after his 15th birthday, in a wartime Manchester United fixture at Anfield, and also turned out as a guest player for Middlesbrough, Brighton and Lincoln before military service in Germany and Palestine.

His introduction to League combat, however, was a slow process at the Hawthorns (4 goals in 24 apps; including one 60-minute stint as stand-in goalkeeper against Leicester in February 1948), and it wasn't until he reached Craven Cottage, and gunned Fulham into the First Division, that his reputation began to rise.

There was still much disquiet among City fans, though, when Arthur arrived as an instant, cheaper replacement for the well-liked Jack Lee; but the imminent event of the first of his sixteen Leicester hat-tricks and a first seasonal total of 28 goals rather smoothed his integration, and his smashing of Arthur Chandler's seasonal scoring record with 38 the following term duly conferred on him heroic status.

Arthur went one goal better in 1953, rifled home thirty in the 1954 promotion campaign, 23 more in the First Division, then was actually topped from the peak of the club's League goals chart for one season by Willie Gardiner's 34 (Arthur following with 29). The Second Division championship year of 1957 was a matter of numerous club records for City, so Arthur just had to help himself to one that would last; 44 strikes in an ever-present season. A haul of only (!) 20 counters back in the top flight was considered such a lapse from his standards that the club rather crazily allowed Arthur to slip away to Shrewsbury, there to continue his path towards a career total of 434 League goals from 619 games.

At the risk of representing the burly, lion-hearted inside-left as a merely statistical construct, it can be added that he scored in all four Divisions (50 in One; 232 in Two; 114 in Three and 38 in the basement, from which he lifted the Shrews at the first attempt), that he was the League's top individual scorer in both 1953 and 1957; and that he incidentally holds the City record for the most penalties converted (41 in League and Cup).

That he never added full England honours to his single appearances for each of the 'B' team and the Football League (both in 1956) was a clear injustice (his less prolific brother Jack won 6 caps); and that City will probably never again see a forward with quite such an appetite for hitting the back of the net in an inescapable inference. Nothing could dim the Leicester folk memory of 'The Gunner' rampaging through helplessly flailing defenders, bringing his thunderbolt left peg into lethal action, and giving the Goalkeeper's Union a collective backache. Arthur sadly passed away on December 19th 2002, aged 76.

Of the six City players to surpass the 100-goal mark for the club in peacetime football, Arthur Rowley achieved the feat quickest - his ton-up coming in the April 1953 hom game against Rotherham which represented his 122nd City appearance. Arthur Chandler took 140 games, Ernie Hine 185 starts, Gary Lineker 207 (7) outings, Derek Hines 259 matches and Arthur Lochhead 267 appearances.

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