An old Leicester fan tries to explain what this means

[St. Louis Fox]

This is my first post on Foxes Talk, though I have followed the forum for ages. I apologize for the prolixity of what follows. I live in the USA and I I have been trying to explain to my American friends why this season is so extraordinary. Older LCFC fans may (or may not!) enjoy this:

 

If some of my American (and perhaps some of my British) friends find my obsession with the Mighty Foxes (aka Leicester City FC) puzzlingly wearisome, here's a short explanation.

 

I have followed the Foxes, off and on, since I was a young lad, and my father took me (somewhat grudgingly, and after much nagging on my part -- he was a rugger man) to watch them play in the last game of the 1968 season... a meaningless nil - nil draw with Stoke City. But I was hooked.

 

I didn't much like Leicester as a place. Still, It was where I grew up. Sent away to school at the age of thirteen (to a Northern school where rugger was fetishized), I found myself surrounded by "chaps" who, if they had any interest in football, veered towards Leeds Utd, Manchester City, or Newcastle. Confessing to supporting an unfashionable East Midlands team was a bit like outing oneself as a lover of Proust or Wilde, when everyone else was reading Nevil Shute or (for the intellectuals) Tolkien.

 

Following "Citeh" in the 1970s and early 80s was pretty grim. I had formed an alliance with three other devotees, and we would meet on the terraces at Filbert Street (Leicester's dowdy, but atmospheric ground) on Saturday afternoons (Spion Kop, Pen 3) to sing and chant for a team which (briefly) had a hint of 70s glam-rock pizzaz. But they never actually won anything.

 

It was an extremely violent period in English football. I recall being chased through the backstreets of various English cities: Luton, Coventry, Manchester, Sheffield (an afternoon which ended up in the Royal Infirmary for one of my friends), Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby. The worst was visiting London, where a trip to Stamford Bridge (Chelsea) or Highbury (Arsenal) or (worst of all) The Den (Millwall) was essentially a life-threatening experience. Knowing that all Leicester fans would be heading home via St. Pancras station, London hooligans would wait to ambush us on the Circle Line... but we were never sure at which tube station we'd be surprised.

 

The era is summed up for me in a song which used to be chanted in the Leicester Kop (from My Fair Lady):

Hand Grenade and a walking stick,
Piece of lead and a building brick,
One Forest Fan to Kick....
... now wouldn't it be lovely?

 

Well, no not really. But that's written with hindsight.At the time,I loved it. Not a participant (I'm a physical coward), but a testosterone-fuelled teenager, nevertheless, I think I was more into the voyeurism of 70's football culture. Indeed, my musical tastes were neither skinhead nor suedhead, but retro-hippy / proggish. ELP and King Crimson rather than ska or (though I secretly admired them) Slade. But Slade were from Birmingham (or was it Wolverhampton?). The only rock band who were out for LCFC were Family... who I still think are magical.

 

I was pleased to leave Leicester when I was eighteen, to spend the next ten years living in London. But I had (and still have) strong family ties to the area. And I always warm to the sound of an East Midlands accent -- an accent that was drummed out of me as a child. Whenever Leicester were playing in London, I usually managed to to watch them. But I was a bit older and wiser now. Football was an opiate of the working classes (hah!). In the ghastly 80s, surely, the future lay in Marxism and Structuralism? What did Althusser, Barthes, or Derrida have to say about Leicester's crappy league performances (though kudos to Karl Miller. at UCL, with whom I used to talk (Scottish) football). I had learned a new language and football didn't really form part of the lexicon.

 

And yet... wherever I found myself (Scotland (twice), Ireland, the South Coast of England, and now the USA) I always, on a Sunday morning, turned through whatever Sunday paper was available. How had Citeh done? A dismal loss, or a draw was the usual outcome.

 

So... football is tribal. English football perfectly represents (I'd argue) Benedict Anderson's notion of Imagined Communities with the emphasis on "imagined." There haven't been many really good books on football (though there are exceptions: Brian Glanville's (now unread) masterpiece: "The Rise of Gerry Logan," Tim Parks's "A Season with Verona," and, of course, David Peace's superb "The Damned United" and "Red or Dead" (in which Leicester have an unlikely starring role)). As for Nick Hornby...he's an Arsenal supporter.

 

But... this season....

 

At the start of this (2015-16) football (soccer) season, the English bookies, William Hill, were offering odds of 5,000-1 against LCFC winning the premiership. Now with 7 games to go, they sit on top of the Premier league, 5 points ahead of Tottenham Hotspur ("Spurs" a North London side). In the early 1960s Spurs were a power in the land. They haven't won much since. Leicester, by contrast, have never won anything of significance in their 134 year history.

 

Here are some bets you can place (legally in the UK, but not, apparently, in the US) with William Hill at odds of 5,000-1:

 

• Elvis is found alive.
• Yeti or Loch Ness Monster is proven to exist.
• Christmas is the warmest day of the year in England.
• Kanye West and Kim Kardashian name their next child Sinner.
• Kim Kardashian becomes the U.S. president in 2020.
• Barack Obama plays cricket for England after he leaves Oval Office.

 

When I was a teenager, standing on the Kop at Filbert Street, I used to wonder at the middle-aged guys around me who were so passionate about a game played by lads who were twenty or thirty years younger than they were. "But you're past it," I used to think. That was the arrogance of youth. Now, I understand things better. Our lives (as we get older) tend not to have too much which is magical about them. We are not (necessarily) disappointed. But we love a story.. a fairy tale... and this past thirty odd weeks has been a fairy tale, what ever the final outcome.

 

Go (as we say in America) Foxes!

 

 

[Sionnach gorm]

How's that for a fan!

Well you should have been here last week...everyone was measuring their willy about who was the biggest Leicester fanatic. I'd say you may have put some of them to shame.

Thanks for the story, it was very interesting.

[UpTheLeagueFox]

You're such a plastic!!!!

 

(Only kidding, nice piece bud)

[Bob Weasel Fox]

Great write up buddy

Up the Foxes

Come on we can do this

[Cadno'r Cymoedd]

This is my first post on Foxes Talk, though I have followed the forum for ages. I apologize for the prolixity of what follows. I live in the USA and I I have been trying to explain to my American friends why this season is so extraordinary. Older LCFC fans may (or may not!) enjoy this:

If some of my American (and perhaps some of my British) friends find my obsession with the Mighty Foxes (aka Leicester City FC) puzzlingly wearisome, here's a short explanation.

I have followed the Foxes, off and on, since I was a young lad, and my father took me (somewhat grudgingly, and after much nagging on my part -- he was a rugger man) to watch them play in the last game of the 1968 season... a meaningless nil - nil draw with Stoke City. But I was hooked.

I didn't much like Leicester as a place. Still, It was where I grew up. Sent away to school at the age of thirteen (to a Northern school where rugger was fetishized), I found myself surrounded by "chaps" who, if they had any interest in football, veered towards Leeds Utd, Manchester City, or Newcastle. Confessing to supporting an unfashionable East Midlands team was a bit like outing oneself as a lover of Proust or Wilde, when everyone else was reading Nevil Shute or (for the intellectuals) Tolkien.

Following "Citeh" in the 1970s and early 80s was pretty grim. I had formed an alliance with three other devotees, and we would meet on the terraces at Filbert Street (Leicester's dowdy, but atmospheric ground) on Saturday afternoons (Spion Kop, Pen 3) to sing and chant for a team which (briefly) had a hint of 70s glam-rock pizzaz. But they never actually won anything.

It was an extremely violent period in English football. I recall being chased through the backstreets of various English cities: Luton, Coventry, Manchester, Sheffield (an afternoon which ended up in the Royal Infirmary for one of my friends), Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby. The worst was visiting London, where a trip to Stamford Bridge (Chelsea) or Highbury (Arsenal) or (worst of all) The Den (Millwall) was essentially a life-threatening experience. Knowing that all Leicester fans would be heading home via St. Pancras station, London hooligans would wait to ambush us on the Circle Line... but we were never sure at which tube station we'd be surprised.

The era is summed up for me in a song which used to be chanted in the Leicester Kop (from My Fair Lady):

Hand Grenade and a walking stick,

Piece of lead and a building brick,

One Forest Fan to Kick....

... now wouldn't it be lovely?

Well, no not really. But that's written with hindsight.At the time,I loved it. Not a participant (I'm a physical coward), but a testosterone-fuelled teenager, nevertheless, I think I was more into the voyeurism of 70's football culture. Indeed, my musical tastes were neither skinhead nor suedhead, but retro-hippy / proggish. ELP and King Crimson rather than ska or (though I secretly admired them) Slade. But Slade were from Birmingham (or was it Wolverhampton?). The only rock band who were out for LCFC were Family... who I still think are magical.

I was pleased to leave Leicester when I was eighteen, to spend the next ten years living in London. But I had (and still have) strong family ties to the area. And I always warm to the sound of an East Midlands accent -- an accent that was drummed out of me as a child. Whenever Leicester were playing in London, I usually managed to to watch them. But I was a bit older and wiser now. Football was an opiate of the working classes (hah!). In the ghastly 80s, surely, the future lay in Marxism and Structuralism? What did Althusser, Barthes, or Derrida have to say about Leicester's crappy league performances (though kudos to Karl Miller. at UCL, with whom I used to talk (Scottish) football). I had learned a new language and football didn't really form part of the lexicon.

And yet... wherever I found myself (Scotland (twice), Ireland, the South Coast of England, and now the USA) I always, on a Sunday morning, turned through whatever Sunday paper was available. How had Citeh done? A dismal loss, or a draw was the usual outcome.

So... football is tribal. English football perfectly represents (I'd argue) Benedict Anderson's notion of Imagined Communities with the emphasis on "imagined." There haven't been many really good books on football (though there are exceptions: Brian Glanville's (now unread) masterpiece: "The Rise of Gerry Logan," Tim Parks's "A Season with Verona," and, of course, David Peace's superb "The Damned United" and "Red or Dead" (in which Leicester have an unlikely starring role)). As for Nick Hornby...he's an Arsenal supporter.

But... this season....

At the start of this (2015-16) football (soccer) season, the English bookies, William Hill, were offering odds of 5,000-1 against LCFC winning the premiership. Now with 7 games to go, they sit on top of the Premier league, 5 points ahead of Tottenham Hotspur ("Spurs" a North London side). In the early 1960s Spurs were a power in the land. They haven't won much since. Leicester, by contrast, have never won anything of significance in their 134 year history.

Here are some bets you can place (legally in the UK, but not, apparently, in the US) with William Hill at odds of 5,000-1:

• Elvis is found alive.

• Yeti or Loch Ness Monster is proven to exist.

• Christmas is the warmest day of the year in England.

• Kanye West and Kim Kardashian name their next child Sinner.

• Kim Kardashian becomes the U.S. president in 2020.

• Barack Obama plays cricket for England after he leaves Oval Office.

When I was a teenager, standing on the Kop at Filbert Street, I used to wonder at the middle-aged guys around me who were so passionate about a game played by lads who were twenty or thirty years younger than they were. "But you're past it," I used to think. That was the arrogance of youth. Now, I understand things better. Our lives (as we get older) tend not to have too much which is magical about them. We are not (necessarily) disappointed. But we love a story.. a fairy tale... and this past thirty odd weeks has been a fairy tale, what ever the final outcome.

Go (as we say in America) Foxes!

Excellent evocative post. You should send it to the Grauniad to get it published.

[Ron Combo]

Well, that brought it all back, smashing piece, thank you.

The nascent levels of violence back in the 70s - being chased at Coventry, Leeds, outside White Hart Lane, Hammers' fans (do I remember right?) infiltrating the Spion Kop and it all kicking off, "you're going home in a f***ing ambulance" a constant backdrop, Newcastle fans throwing cups of piss over St John's Ambulance workers, taking the train to Sheffield being shepherded by the police there and back in an atmosphere of complete fear and loathing.

Happy days.

And of course it was the decade that fashion forgot, flares the size of elephant ears, dreadful mullets everywhere, shit beer and watching Frankie Wortho grandstanding during the warm-up.

"He's here, he's there, he's every-f***ingwhere, Stevie Earle, Stevie Earle!!"

Blimey, I really am old.

[leicesterlad1989]

A+

[BrummieFOX]

Really enjoyed that.

[FoxFossil]

Brilliant piece.

From a similar era..Went as a City fan to all away games; Man Utd, Liverpool, Spurs and only place I ever got thumped was at Leeds, whilst a copper watched. Vowed to never give LU a penny of my money even though I live in Yorkshire, and I never have. Fav chant. We all hate Leeds and Leeds and Leeds....

[Wolfox]

I really enjoyed that... Thank you very much for taking the time to pull together an excellent summary of your long association with our beloved Leicester team... It's was wonderfully written and put me there with you running away from London hooligans!

I'm 43 and I look next to me in SK4 at my 13 year old son and 14 year old daughter and think they've had this too early in their lives as citeh supporters, what a moment to live through and made sweeter by having experiencing the bore draws and crushing defeats..

As you say, whatever the outcome, what a fairytale moment to follow our team :-)

[Gerard]

 Confessing to supporting an unfashionable East Midlands team was a bit like outing oneself as a lover of Proust or Wilde, when everyone else was reading Nevil Shute or (for the intellectuals) Tolkien.

 

To my shame this bit was lost on me, I guess your better education paid off. 

 

I've only heard of Oscar Wilde from that lot and love some of his quotes so I would have picked him. 

[BoyJones]

Excellent post.

Interesting your first match was the nil nil with Stoke, because I went to that game. It sticks in my memory, not the actual game, but the fact that Stoke were desperate for a point to stay up and Leicester basically gave it to them. (unfortunately when the roles were reversed in 2008, we got the draw but needed a win)

My dad was working at the city at the time and told me at the time definitely an old pals act from Leicester to keep stoke up. I forget who went down instead. We were lower mid table obscurity from memory.

[weller54]

Is Elvis dead then??

[whoareyaaa]

Is Elvis dead then??

 

last I heard he was playing for Kingstonian F.C...

[Midwest]

This is my first post on Foxes Talk, though I have followed the forum for ages. I apologize for the prolixity of what follows. I live in the USA...

 

Good read. My first post too! I'm going to be in St Louis for the Leicester v Southampton game on Sun April 3. It will be a 7.30am KO there so not many bars will be open.

 

Can you recommend anywhere to watch it? A quick search turns up the Amsterdam Tavern as the main place to watch games in St Louis (http://amsterdamtavern.com/). This will do but is there anywhere else that is likely to be open and showing the game? Thanks.

[The Blur]

Great piece, I have loved every second of this season but I do have two minimal regrets, firstly being that I live in London and can't get to games much ( I have only went to Spurs in the cup and Arsenal away this season) and secondly that due to my nomadic nature, I never had a season ticket or someone to go with until recently so I do feel I can't ever fully appreciate this season much as some supporters on here. Thanks for capturing what I have missed eloquently and this have made me feel pleased not only for the players and management or for football but also for older supporters who deserve this. 

[mikael2]

This is my first post on Foxes Talk, though I have followed the forum for ages. I apologize for the prolixity of what follows. I live in the USA and I I have been trying to explain to my American friends why this season is so extraordinary. Older LCFC fans may (or may not!) enjoy this:

If some of my American (and perhaps some of my British) friends find my obsession with the Mighty Foxes (aka Leicester City FC) puzzlingly wearisome, here's a short explanation.

I have followed the Foxes, off and on, since I was a young lad, and my father took me (somewhat grudgingly, and after much nagging on my part -- he was a rugger man) to watch them play in the last game of the 1968 season... a meaningless nil - nil draw with Stoke City. But I was hooked.

I didn't much like Leicester as a place. Still, It was where I grew up. Sent away to school at the age of thirteen (to a Northern school where rugger was fetishized), I found myself surrounded by "chaps" who, if they had any interest in football, veered towards Leeds Utd, Manchester City, or Newcastle. Confessing to supporting an unfashionable East Midlands team was a bit like outing oneself as a lover of Proust or Wilde, when everyone else was reading Nevil Shute or (for the intellectuals) Tolkien.

Following "Citeh" in the 1970s and early 80s was pretty grim. I had formed an alliance with three other devotees, and we would meet on the terraces at Filbert Street (Leicester's dowdy, but atmospheric ground) on Saturday afternoons (Spion Kop, Pen 3) to sing and chant for a team which (briefly) had a hint of 70s glam-rock pizzaz. But they never actually won anything.

It was an extremely violent period in English football. I recall being chased through the backstreets of various English cities: Luton, Coventry, Manchester, Sheffield (an afternoon which ended up in the Royal Infirmary for one of my friends), Birmingham, Nottingham, Derby. The worst was visiting London, where a trip to Stamford Bridge (Chelsea) or Highbury (Arsenal) or (worst of all) The Den (Millwall) was essentially a life-threatening experience. Knowing that all Leicester fans would be heading home via St. Pancras station, London hooligans would wait to ambush us on the Circle Line... but we were never sure at which tube station we'd be surprised.

The era is summed up for me in a song which used to be chanted in the Leicester Kop (from My Fair Lady):

Hand Grenade and a walking stick,

Piece of lead and a building brick,

One Forest Fan to Kick....

... now wouldn't it be lovely?

Well, no not really. But that's written with hindsight.At the time,I loved it. Not a participant (I'm a physical coward), but a testosterone-fuelled teenager, nevertheless, I think I was more into the voyeurism of 70's football culture. Indeed, my musical tastes were neither skinhead nor suedhead, but retro-hippy / proggish. ELP and King Crimson rather than ska or (though I secretly admired them) Slade. But Slade were from Birmingham (or was it Wolverhampton?). The only rock band who were out for LCFC were Family... who I still think are magical.

I was pleased to leave Leicester when I was eighteen, to spend the next ten years living in London. But I had (and still have) strong family ties to the area. And I always warm to the sound of an East Midlands accent -- an accent that was drummed out of me as a child. Whenever Leicester were playing in London, I usually managed to to watch them. But I was a bit older and wiser now. Football was an opiate of the working classes (hah!). In the ghastly 80s, surely, the future lay in Marxism and Structuralism? What did Althusser, Barthes, or Derrida have to say about Leicester's crappy league performances (though kudos to Karl Miller. at UCL, with whom I used to talk (Scottish) football). I had learned a new language and football didn't really form part of the lexicon.

And yet... wherever I found myself (Scotland (twice), Ireland, the South Coast of England, and now the USA) I always, on a Sunday morning, turned through whatever Sunday paper was available. How had Citeh done? A dismal loss, or a draw was the usual outcome.

So... football is tribal. English football perfectly represents (I'd argue) Benedict Anderson's notion of Imagined Communities with the emphasis on "imagined." There haven't been many really good books on football (though there are exceptions: Brian Glanville's (now unread) masterpiece: "The Rise of Gerry Logan," Tim Parks's "A Season with Verona," and, of course, David Peace's superb "The Damned United" and "Red or Dead" (in which Leicester have an unlikely starring role)). As for Nick Hornby...he's an Arsenal supporter.

But... this season....

At the start of this (2015-16) football (soccer) season, the English bookies, William Hill, were offering odds of 5,000-1 against LCFC winning the premiership. Now with 7 games to go, they sit on top of the Premier league, 5 points ahead of Tottenham Hotspur ("Spurs" a North London side). In the early 1960s Spurs were a power in the land. They haven't won much since. Leicester, by contrast, have never won anything of significance in their 134 year history.

Here are some bets you can place (legally in the UK, but not, apparently, in the US) with William Hill at odds of 5,000-1:

• Elvis is found alive.

• Yeti or Loch Ness Monster is proven to exist.

• Christmas is the warmest day of the year in England.

• Kanye West and Kim Kardashian name their next child Sinner.

• Kim Kardashian becomes the U.S. president in 2020.

• Barack Obama plays cricket for England after he leaves Oval Office.

When I was a teenager, standing on the Kop at Filbert Street, I used to wonder at the middle-aged guys around me who were so passionate about a game played by lads who were twenty or thirty years younger than they were. "But you're past it," I used to think. That was the arrogance of youth. Now, I understand things better. Our lives (as we get older) tend not to have too much which is magical about them. We are not (necessarily) disappointed. But we love a story.. a fairy tale... and this past thirty odd weeks has been a fairy tale, what ever the final outcome.

Go (as we say in America) Foxes!

Very, very good writen. Especially the part of the violent seventies.

[fuchsntf]

Put me approx, 10yrs before and it would fit perfectly.

Its great that even winklies like us can afford to dream, and hope.

The kop, Skeggy 'meetings' with forest and Coventry fans.

I played Rugby at a high level, but any postponed game, with fellow clubmates

would mean a crazy dash, no matter where either we were , or where city were playing.

Before playing days, those end of 60s and start of the 70s,

were filbert street kop and away game bliss.

Enticing your 1st girlfriends to go, trying to explain the offside rule or getting subtilly the

clasps of a bra to undo, seemed the only thing that mattered.Cosy that winning the league

was just a dream not a nervous addrenelin pannicking rush of worry, where bras have

no longer that same exciting rush.

Then that later period of being away, or living in a totally different part of the globe,

suddenly in the middle of nowhere, picking up on another Leicester accent, then

boring our partners to death , as two fanatics debate over their beloved city moments.

[St. Louis Fox]

Good read. My first post too! I'm going to be in St Louis for the Leicester v Southampton game on Sun April 3. It will be a 7.30am KO there so not many bars will be open.

 

Can you recommend anywhere to watch it? A quick search turns up the Amsterdam Tavern as the main place to watch games in St Louis (http://amsterdamtavern.com/). This will do but is there anywhere else that is likely to be open and showing the game? Thanks.

 The Amsterdam Tavern on Morganford Road, just south of Tower Grove Park in St. Louis is definitely the place to go! They guarantee to show every EPL game. There's usually three or four of us City fans there. A great selection of beers (even at 7.30AM) and you can order a massive breakfast from the place next door (they even bring it round to the bar for you!). Funnily enough there's quite a few Saints fans in St. Louis. Place is usually mobbed by Chelsea / Arsenal and a very vocal contingent of (American) Spurs fans. But it's a nice atmosphere. See you there!

[Midwest]

 The Amsterdam Tavern on Morganford Road, just south of Tower Grove Park in St. Louis is definitely the place to go! They guarantee to show every EPL game. There's usually three or four of us City fans there. A great selection of beers (even at 7.30AM) and you can order a massive breakfast from the place next door (they even bring it round to the bar for you!). Funnily enough there's quite a few Saints fans in St. Louis. Place is usually mobbed by Chelsea / Arsenal and a very vocal contingent of (American) Spurs fans. But it's a nice atmosphere. See you there!

 

Confession. I am actually a Saints fan. One who has been reading this board for the last few months. Never saw the need to register/post but because I am actually going to be in St Louis that weekend it had to be asked on your post... 

 

Think my fav thread was about how you lot are getting hassled now for being glory-supporters. When you tell someone you are a Leicester fan you are now met with distrust until you prove you are a real one. Funny. Think it would be the same if Saints 'did a Leicester'. We sort of have in the last couple of years but obviously not to the ridiculous extent that you have.

 

Leicester v Saints is a strange one for me. First and foremost I want Saints to win (sorry - but you know how it is). However - if there was ever a game that I don't mind losing quite as much it is this one. This has kind-of changed a bit by virtue of us winning our last 2 games to now have a dogs' of Top 4 / Top 6 but if us losing means you win the title then fair play for getting the 3 points.

 

Good luck. The majority of fans are hoping you hang in there and don't blow it. It's been great seeing the media squirm as you refuse to politely disappear like they want you to. 

 

I'm out on a late one the night before but if there will probably be some Leicester & Saints fans there then I'll try and make it there for a 7.30am session. 'see you there'. 

[The Guvnor]

Well, that brought it all back, smashing piece, thank you.

The nascent levels of violence back in the 70s - being chased at Coventry, Leeds, outside White Hart Lane, Hammers' fans (do I remember right?) infiltrating the Spion Kop and it all kicking off, "you're going home in a f***ing ambulance" a constant backdrop, Newcastle fans throwing cups of piss over St John's Ambulance workers, taking the train to Sheffield being shepherded by the police there and back in an atmosphere of complete fear and loathing.

Happy days.

And of course it was the decade that fashion forgot, flares the size of elephant ears, dreadful mullets everywhere, shit beer and watching Frankie Wortho grandstanding during the warm-up.

"He's here, he's there, he's every-f***ingwhere, Stevie Earle, Stevie Earle!!"

Blimey, I really am old.

 

Ha the good old day's remember that one well, and i'll throw this one in as well

 Bertie Mee said to Bill Shankly, 'Have you heard of the North Bank Highbury?' Shanks said 'No I don't think so' 'But I've heard of the Leicester Boot Boy's'

[St. Louis Fox]

Confession. I am actually a Saints fan. One who has been reading this board for the last few months. Never saw the need to register/post but because I am actually going to be in St Louis that weekend it had to be asked on your post... 

 

Think my fav thread was about how you lot are getting hassled now for being glory-supporters. When you tell someone you are a Leicester fan you are now met with distrust until you prove you are a real one. Funny. Think it would be the same if Saints 'did a Leicester'. We sort of have in the last couple of years but obviously not to the ridiculous extent that you have.

 

Leicester v Saints is a strange one for me. First and foremost I want Saints to win (sorry - but you know how it is). However - if there was ever a game that I don't mind losing quite as much it is this one. This has kind-of changed a bit by virtue of us winning our last 2 games to now have a dogs' of Top 4 / Top 6 but if us losing means you win the title then fair play for getting the 3 points.

 

Good luck. The majority of fans are hoping you hang in there and don't blow it. It's been great seeing the media squirm as you refuse to politely disappear like they want you to. 

 

I'm out on a late one the night before but if there will probably be some Leicester & Saints fans there then I'll try and make it there for a 7.30am session. 'see you there'. 

Used to live in Southampton, and rather liked the old Dell and watching Le God. See you at the Amsterdam Tavern... If we win, I'll buy you a beer...

[St. Louis Fox]

Well, that brought it all back, smashing piece, thank you.

The nascent levels of violence back in the 70s - being chased at Coventry, Leeds, outside White Hart Lane, Hammers' fans (do I remember right?) infiltrating the Spion Kop and it all kicking off, "you're going home in a f***ing ambulance" a constant backdrop, Newcastle fans throwing cups of piss over St John's Ambulance workers, taking the train to Sheffield being shepherded by the police there and back in an atmosphere of complete fear and loathing.

Happy days.

And of course it was the decade that fashion forgot, flares the size of elephant ears, dreadful mullets everywhere, shit beer and watching Frankie Wortho grandstanding during the warm-up.

"He's here, he's there, he's every-f***ingwhere, Stevie Earle, Stevie Earle!!"

Blimey, I really am old.

 

Not as old as me, mate. In my day it was "He's here, he's there, he's every-f***ingwhere, Rodney Fern, Rodney Fern!!"

[Vlad the Fox]

Excellent post.

Interesting your first match was the nil nil with Stoke, because I went to that game. It sticks in my memory, not the actual game, but the fact that Stoke were desperate for a point to stay up and Leicester basically gave it to them. (unfortunately when the roles were reversed in 2008, we got the draw but needed a win)

My dad was working at the city at the time and told me at the time definitely an old pals act from Leicester to keep stoke up. I forget who went down instead. We were lower mid table obscurity from memory.

I can remember my mum saying Banks let one in against forest once to keep them up. She was livid. Apparently it was a regular thing as clubs wanted the local fixtures, less travelling and cost etc.

[dmm27]

Enjoyed reading it. Great.