I couldn’t stop crying …they’re like my family
DANNY SIMPSON ON LEAVING LEICESTER, THE CLUB WHERE MIRACLES WERE MADE AND MOURNING TOOK PLACE
‘We were living in that bubble. We felt nobody could beat us’
In PuBLiC, Danny simpson kept his emotions in check but once alone he could not help the tears from falling.
He had just played his last game for Leicester, on the final day against Chelsea, and as he bade farewell to staff and surroundings the memories ran through his mind.
‘it was very emotional,’ he says. ‘inside i was welling up but i don’t really like to cry in front of people. then privately...’
Moving on is a fact of football life, yet the bond simpson feels for Leicester after five years has a special quality. it was the place where miracles were made and where mourning took place.
simpson will address those twin events of pride and pain in due course but first he talks about his future. At 32, with a Premier League winner’s medal, simpson is a free agent and he is weighing up potential destinations. Celtic are in negotiations with his representatives and there are a few options in england.
‘i’d love to go back to the King Power to play against the lads,’ he says. ‘ At the same time i wouldn’t rule out anything abroad, a new experience.’
simpson has already spent time in Dubai with K3 Performance, training alongside the likes of Daniel James and Josh King, and has this week been in Greece with Mykonos Performance, another centre for elite athletes looking to maintain sharpness.
‘Getting away is good for your mind,’ he says. ‘it is making sure i’m ready for day one with a new team. it was a bit unusual seeing the Leicester boys go back on July 1. they are like family. i was Facetiming them while they were in evian and the fitness coaches sent me sessions to do. i’m still close to them.’
strong relationships are forged when shared experiences have been as seismic as those at Leicester. there was the great escape, the 5,000-1 title triumph, an improbable Champions League run, and then disaster.
At that dreadful moment last october when the helicopter carrying chairman Vichai srivaddhanaprabha and four others crashed outside the King Power, simpson was with a group at the team hotel.
‘it just didn’t seem real,’ he reflects. ‘news filtered through but we still believed it wasn’t anything to do with him. it was devastating. He was like everyone’s dad, one of the most generous, kindest people i’ve met.
‘even through the odd incident early in my Leicester career he always supported me. He believed good people go through tough times. some owners might wash their hands. that wasn’t Vichai.’
it isn’t his son Aiyawatt — known as ‘top’ — either. Cloaked in grief, top has steered the club on in a manner becoming of his father, including taking the team on a post-season trip to Monaco.
‘it was a few days to spend together bonding,’ simpson says. ‘top understood from his dad how important that is.
‘it’s a completely different kind of headspace, people come out of their shell. i’ll never forget the day a few years ago shinji (okazaki) from nowhere grabbed the mic and was dancing and singing on stage. it was a Japanese song, so we just clapped!’
that was at the start of the glorious 2015-16 campaign. top has aspirations to take the club back there and in February he replaced Claude Puel with Brendan Rodgers.
‘i don’t need to say too much, because what you’ve seen on the pitch with the same players has shown it was probably the right thing to do,’ simpson says. ‘i’m pretty sure this season will show that even more.
‘Brendan is the perfect fit for Leicester. He has high demands for time-keeping and the way you conduct yourself.’
With Rodgers enjoying a full pre-season and new signings in the building, simpson believes Leicester can gatecrash europe again.
‘i know those players and the manager — they’ll be disappointed if they don’t get top six,’ he says. ‘As Leicester have proved before, anything is possible.’
simpson came through Manchester united’s academy but it was at Leicester where he won the Premier League. He made 30 appearances that term and was instrumental in a miserly defence.
‘sometimes you forget,’ he says. ‘You’re going about your day-today life, and people remind you. the longer it goes on the more we’ll realise how big an achievement it was. At the time we were living in that bubble. We felt nobody could beat us.’
simpson thanks Claudio Ranieri for teaching him ‘a lot defensively and tactically’ and he has a pragmatic take on where things unravelled for the italian.
‘You go through such a spectacular thing and overnight things change,’ he says. ‘Pre-season we were in LA and new players were coming in. But are they the players that fit what we’d just built?
‘We were going from saturday games to flying to Copenhagen, Bruges, seville. i spoke to Ryan Giggs and he said when united first started playing in europe it took them a few years to get used to the routine. there were a lot of factors and unfortunately they changed the manager.’
the manner of Ranieri’s exit prompted a particularly stinging review from Jamie Carragher. He accused Leicester players of downing tools and jokingly equated simpson to a snake. simpson gave as good as he got, reminding Carragher he never won the Premier League, and the pair can laugh now. ‘i’ve met him a number of times since and it’s all good,’ says simpson, who at the time held talks to appear on sky’s Monday Night Football. ‘one day we’ll go back there and i’ll take my medal!’