Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
CITY CAN FINALLY GET GOBI
THIS is how it was when you supported Leicester City...
Every promotion to the top flight was followed by joyless headlines declaring they were certainties for relegation and every good player they ever had was sure to leave.
The East Midlands club’s reinvention started 11 years ago this month when a Thailand-based consortium announced their intention to take over the Foxes.
Forty-five minutes into the new season they may have been having second thoughts as Leicester found themselves 3-0 down at Crystal Palace in the Championship.
Eleven years on, the Foxes are a Premier League force and, more than that, club ambassador Alan Birchenall reckons they are the world’s favourite football team.
In his 50-year association with Leicester, Birchenall (below) has seen everything from administration and League One to the greatest football story ever written.
The 5,000-1 Premier League triumph in 2015-16 was made possible by chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who tragically died in a helicopter crash in October, 2018.
Leicester have since put the FA Cup and Community Shield in their trophy cabinet.
Birchenall, who made 163 appearances for the Foxes between 1971 and 1977, said: “Ten or 11 years ago, if you were anywhere in the world and said you were from Leicester, people would scratch their heads and carry on doing what they were doing.
“Go anywhere in the world now and say you’re from Leicester and people’s faces light up. You could be in the Gobi Desert and people would say, ‘Oh yes, Leicester City’ and start a conversation.
“That’s all down to the kindness of one family and the CEO, Susan Whelan. We were devastated to lose the chairman and I believe that every football fan in this country and around the world who knows this club’s story has a soft spot for Leicester.”
Martin O’Neill ended Leicester’s 33-year wait for a trophy when he steered them to the League Cup in 1997. “We won the League Cup a couple of times (1997 and 2000),” said Birchenall, “but I never got the feeling it was permanent.
“This time it’s different.”