This About Sums It Up...

[Hammond Organ]

Originally posted by the Gruaniad

In April 2002, with 10 minutes to go and Leicester City a goal down to Manchester United in the match confirming Leicester City's relegation to the second division after six years of unprecedented top flight success, a familiar chant was struck up by the nub of hardcore fans pointedly standing in the lower tier of Filbert Street's Double Decker stand.

Stand Up If You Love Leicester is often treated with mild disdain by those who prefer to actually watch the game than bounce out of their seats every two minutes. Not this time, however. The prospect of demotion sent a Mexican wave rippling around the stadium and within 30 seconds every home fan was on their feet.

Tellingly, there was no such crie de cour during last Sunday's match at Stoke, the game that sent Leicester down to the third tier for the first time in their 124-year history. It's not because the fans have stopped loving Leicester City; more that there's nothing there to love anymore.

We all saw it coming. The tears shed by the fans caught by Sky's traditional end-of-season sweep of the ground were not borne of disbelief; they stemmed from hollow resignation. Years of financial mismanagement, kicked off by Peter Taylor's catastrophic transfer dealings during the post-O'Neill comedown - famously, £5.5m for Ade Akinbiyi, £1m for Trevor Benjamin - finally took their toll.

Manager after hapless manager arrived at the Walkers, accompanied each time by a fresh wave of uncommitted or ageing or just plain useless players, who dutifully clapped their hands at the stands as they traipsed off the pitch after yet another anodyne performance, caring nothing for what Leicester City was and should be, only about their next pay cheque.

The crowds still filed in, greeting each new season with optimism, but all too soon the realisation dawned that the cheers from the stands were for nothing - everything the club once embodied had been hollowed out from the inside, leaving only a desiccated blue and white husk.

The advent of the age of Milan briefly lifted the gloom - money, ambition, hope at last. Unfortunately, Mandaric's record at Portsmouth has been obscured by the fact that in stumbling across Harry Redknapp, he got lucky. At Leicester there was no such luck and after four failed quick fire managerial appointments, and it soon became clear that he had learnt nothing. Rob Kelly out, Nigel Worthington in for five games, Martin Allen for three, Gary Megson for nine, and then finally Ian Holloway, destined to be remembered as the man who terminated Leicester's membership of that elite strata of clubs never to play below the top two divisions.

Holloway talks a good game and is always quick with a quip and a BBC column, but this is a football club, not a comedy stage. What was needed was authority and tactical savvy, not winks and witticisms. The post-relegation interviews saw the usual apologetic platitudes trotted out, near offensive in their banality. Just watch: the players who can will leave as soon as possible, Holloway will be slung out on his ear and now even Mandaric is hinting at
wanting out.

Which leaves the fans, the only aspect of Leicester City Football Club that's still worth standing up for, propping up the whole sorry debacle once more. Every club likes to wax lyrical about the nature of its support but there was something tragically poignant about 31,000 supporters pouring down Filbert Way for the home match against Sheffield Wednesday that would have secured the club's status. The biggest crowd of the season anywhere in the Championship saw their side slump to a pitiful 3-1 defeat.

For a city like Leicester, stuck in the forgotten East Midlands, ignored by the media and treated as a suburb of Birmingham, the football club is the one avenue open to national consciousness. As O'Neill, Heskey, Izzet, Lennon et al hit their late-90s heights, they dragged the city's status and morale up with them. The process of rot and disintegration that followed, starting with Taylor and ending with Holloway, has sunk it deeper than ever before.

 

[western road]

One thing you certainly know the Mockery would'nt let a journalist write a composition like that let alone print it, well written well researched, sounds like a City supporter to.

Anderson eat you're heart out this IS journalism at its best

 

[Hammond Organ]

One thing you certainly know the Mockery would'nt let a journalist write a composition like that let alone print it, well written well researched, sounds like a City supporter to.

Anderson eat you're heart out this IS journalism at its best

Surpirsed to see it on a national paper website, and anyone among us could not have put it better.

 

[TornadoShaunUK]

Great article, really proves that football is more than just a game. Martin O'Neill was not only great for this club, but for the city as well.

 

[Macky]

One thing you certainly know the Mockery would'nt let a journalist write a composition like that let alone print it, well written well researched, sounds like a City supporter to.

Anderson eat you're heart out this IS journalism at its best

Well said western road, it's very rare to read proper journalism anywhere now days, that is an example of it.

 

[Graz]

I don't think there is anything in that anyone could disagree with.

Well written piece, does some up just most of us are feeling I think. I just hope that sometime soon we can get back to the Premiership in some way. But, got to concentrate on getting through 2 other divisions first now!

 

[fitz]

a great piece of journalism

 

[Hazzman]

That's my newspaper...

 

[Boy Genius]

That's my newspaper...

this was never in the Sport was it?

 

[Billyjof]

Can anyone tell me which reporter wrote this or send me the link?

 

[Hazzman]

this was never in the Sport was it?

Gazetta dello Sport?!?

 

[Boy Genius]

Can anyone tell me which reporter wrote this or send me the link?

Matt Bolton


this one?

 

[Boy Genius]

Gazetta dello Sport?!?

if its full of naked women and loads of chat line numbers then yes

 

[Billyjof]

Cheers BG!

 

[Boy Genius]

Cheers BG!

no worries....

 

[Innocent]

Surpirsed to see it on a national paper website, and anyone among us could not have put it better.

Such a shame the journo in question is illiterate.

Such a shame none of you noticed (where's Joe Fox when you need him? At least he can write good English)..........

But hey, what he said was fine.

And despite his major errors in my native language, I agree with the GCSE English (failed) passion.

 

[Dour]

It is a nice piece. But following the links to here, I do think Mr. Mandaric has more issues with his tie than with Holloway.

 

[Boy Genius]

It is a nice piece. But following the links to here, I do think Mr. Mandaric has more issues with his tie than with Holloway.

thats pure wank. and MM has been here more than 7 months.

 

[Dour]

thats pure wank.

Wouldn't go that far. OK, it's a bit fat, it's more suited to a wedding than football and it seems to be trying to exit stage right. But I've seen worse.

 

[Mystery benefactor]

Excellent Piece, couldn't have put it better myself. 5 years of tripe, summed up in 8 paragraphs.