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jonthefox

The "do they mean us?" thread

By jonthefox, in Leicester City Forum

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talking_goldfish

talking_goldfish

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Good piece on us by an Aussie Leicester fan here:

 

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/living-the-leicester-city-dream-in-the-english-premier-league-20160126-gmdz9a.html

 

 

Living the Leicester City dream in the English Premier League
 

Leicester City?

 

Leicester Bleedin' City?

 

How?! Why?!

 

As an expat in London, if you loved football it was expected you'd support a glamour club. It was a badge of honour, then, that I was about the only Leicester fan anyone knew, let alone an Australian one.

 

Of course as a Leicester fan, you don't usually breathe the same air as the big clubs. And if you're holding hopes for the Champions League, you're usually also holding a Playstation controller.

 

But now, after an often harrowing journey, this little club from the East Midlands is top of the toughest competition in humankind's most popular pastime. In late January! Many are calling it the biggest feelgood story in the Premier League's 24-year history. And they're not even Leicester fans.

 

After what we've been through - financial disaster, a decade in the wilderness, massive heartbreak on the road back - this is true believers stuff of the barely believable kind, the type that shows why you stick with a club forever. Thank the gods for capricious football. Life could be pretty tepid without it.

 

When the question of this Australian's allegiance arose in those London days, my proud response would sometimes bring laughter, sometimes pity, but always incredulity.

 

For extra fun, I invented explanations. "The first boatload of convicts were from Leicester!" "Gary Lineker was born in Wagga!" "Leicester and Australia are just such spiritually similar places!" For want of obvious alternatives, these were usually believed.

 

The truth had come in Las Vegas, coincidentally at the Premier League's dawn in 1992, when I shared a backpackers' room with a certified Leicester loony. He'd cajole himself (and myself) awake each day by chanting "Blue army, Blue army". He'd sing about a certain alopecia sufferer who played for the Foxes ("He's got no hair, But we don't care, Kevin, Kevin Russell").

 

Chris Stanley was his name, but to me he was a backpacking version of St Paul. His passion was something I'd not seen in Australian sport. That fleeting encounter marked me forever.

 

What he didn't mention was my new club had several distinctions, all of them bad. They'd never won the top league, had made an unrivalled FOUR FA Cup final appearances without winning one, and were second-worst at bouncing between the top two divisions (Hello Birmingham City!)

 

At first I merely followed Leicester's scores. But in 1998 I moved to London.

 

Nothing prepares you for your first English football match: the noise, the passion, the intimacy, the singing and the wit of the terraces. Leicester often served some pretty drab fare, but they were soon enmeshed in me. I learnt to love and, slightly disingenuously, to hate (neighbours Nottingham Forest and Derby, of course). Our fans were great fun, but moreover, I learnt how football engages like no other sport, its low scoring allowing such sudden plot twists and unlikely comebacks. To savour the elation of triumph you must risk gut-wrenching disasters, and I'll insist Leicester's had more than the average of both. For whatever reason, this is a club that pulls you through some rare emotional extremes.

 

I'd landed in what then seemed our golden era, under managing genius Martin O'Neill. For four years Leicester were premier league top 10. We made the Cup our own! Not the FA one, but the more aptly dowdy League Cup, making three finals and winning two. I was at Wembley for one of them – a 2-1 epic, through two headed goals, against mighty, erm, Tranmere Rovers.

 

Then O'Neill left England, and so did I, and in the wee hours in Sydney I'd listen as my club collapsed, proving again what finely balanced things clubs are. Disastrously, relegation coincided with the building of our new stadium. Financial calamity and administration ensued. Though we reappeared in the premier league in 2003-04, we were sick. We went back down and stayed there, even dropping to the third tier for the first time in 2008.

 

It was some, but not much, consolation during these bleak years that my sacred 2am devotions saw me named "Australia's biggest Leicester fan" in their match-day program, thanks to my covering an Ashes tour with a bemused BBC Leicester man. They even ran a photo of Chris and me from Las Vegas! Sure, I'd appeared in print media thousands of times before, but this was special.

 

Mercifully League One lasted just a season, but our efforts to climb out of the Championship – in two promotion play-off semi-finals in particular - were so cruel and unusual they could be shown on a loop in A Clockwork Orange. In one, Yann Kermorgant chose the end of a penalty shoot-out in Cardiff to show Gallic flair by chipping the keeper. The latter caught the ball like a balloon, and we were gone.

 

Worse came two years later when Anthony Knockaert had a 97th-minute penalty chance against Watford to break a 2-2 aggregate deadlock and put us into the final. In 17 piss-taking seconds, the keeper saved the shot, and the rebound, the ball sped down the other end and Watford scored. The horror.

 

Finally, with Thai billionaire owners and a pacey squad assembled by manager Nigel Pearson, Leicester easily won the Championship in 2013-14. We resumed Premier League life proudly, including a stunning 5-3 defeat of Manchester United, and then again it all crumbled. In the "easier" games we dropped our bundle, plunged to the bottom, and stayed there for 24 weeks. Oblivion loomed again, until another remarkable twist. Late winners against West Ham and West Brom sparked a closing streak of seven wins in nine. We didn't just survive. We finished 14th.

 

Again calamity struck, this time on a team holiday in Thailand, when three young players were sacked after a sex worker scandal. One of them was Pearson's son, James, and soon the manager who'd kept us up clashed with our embarrassed Thai owners, and was on his way.

 

The pundits predicted we'd go back down, especially when Claudio Ranieri, 63 and recently sacked by Greece, was hastily made manager.

 

But now, 23 games into the season Leicester are a game clear, with far bigger spenders below them. Ranieri has been a popular, nurturing marvel, the antithesis of boorish Pearson. Yes our early draw was favourable, but still we assuredly built confidence for the tougher days. Players who'd taken time to adjust have blossomed, most notably bargain buys Riyad Mahrez and record-setter Jamie Vardy. Others like N'golo Kante, Wes Morgan and keeper Kasper Schmeichel have also shone.

 

Every so often, a time in your life occurs that you can recognise for what it is. So it's worth saying again: Leicester City will start February atop the English Premier League. It can't last. Or maybe it can. In a way that doesn't matter.

 

The "Ranieriera" might not be a stretch of Mediterranean coastline, but considering the waters we've traversed, it's a beautiful place to be.

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mazarron fox

mazarron fox

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What a great article, your club, my club our club, true supporters through thick and thin that make the highs so good. I started watching City in the late 60s as a ten year old sat on the wall in front of the cop at 12 30 when the turnstiles opened queing all night for cup tickets. Yes this teams in our blood for life. These days I live in Spain and can only get back for a couple of matches and do the corporate thing with my lads. I was at the first match of the season and last Saturdays against Stoke and my team are giving us all something to remember and be proud.

It never lasts long term it never does but what a journey what a team what a club and what great fans.

LCFC for life and everything that goes with supporting this great club

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davieG

davieG

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Leicester City NEWS: Robert Huth admits reality of Premier League dream too scary to think about

By Mercury_Sport  |  Posted: January 27, 2016

By James Sharpe

12235243-large.jpg
 

Robert Huth has struck up a close friendship with Christian Fuchs

 

Robert Huth admits Leicester City are refusing to give themselves a target of what they want to achieve as they might find the reality too scary.

City head into February top of the Premier League in a battle with Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham for the title.

Claudio Ranieri's men also hold a 10-point cushion over fifth-placed Manchester United as they look to secure a Champions League spot.

Such a lofty perch is a far cry from the relegation-threatened side Huth joined on loan from Stoke last January, with the club in search of a near miracle to avoid falling back into the Championship.

 

City won seven of their last nine games to secure their unlikely survival and have since become only the third side in top-flight history to be top of the table at Christmas, 12 months after being bottom.

The omens are on City's side too. The team that has topped the Premier League at the start of February going on to lift the title in each of the last 11 seasons.

"The main aim was to stay in the league when I first came," said Huth, who joined the club permanently in the summer.

"We did that and, at the start of the season, we would have taken the same amount of points again.

"We had that already after 21 games. It's a tough one because we haven't really got a goal in terms of points or position, so it's difficult for us to realise what position we're actually in.

"Maybe putting a total on it would tie us up a bit more and make us scared. It's a cliché, but it's only about the next game. We're not looking five or 10 games ahead, it's just the one."

Huth has forged an imperious partnership with City captain Wes Morgan at the heart of the club's defence.

Leicester have kept four clean sheets in their last five games and have let in just six goals in their last 11 league outings.

"It's the whole team really," said Huth. "You don't win a game with two centre backs.

"It's very much a team effort and that's what we are –we're a team. We help each other out.

"It's not a secret but it's a reason for why we're doing well."

That bond is typified in the friendship between Huth and City left-back Fuchs. The two are close mates and get on so well, they even posted a video of them firing footballs at each other.

"There are six or seven players here that speak German," he said. "There's a natural connection when that happens but Christian is a really nice guy and a really funny bloke and I get on with him really well."

Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Leicester-City-NEWS-Robert-Huth-admits-reality/story-28616248-detail/story.html#ixzz3yScumLvz 

Follow us: @@leicester_Merc on Twitter | leicestermercury on Facebook

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Captain...

Captain...

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Posted

Leicester City NEWS: Robert Huth admits reality of Premier League dream too scary to think about

By Mercury_Sport  |  Posted: January 27, 2016

By James Sharpe

12235243-large.jpg
 

Robert Huth has struck up a close friendship with Christian Fuchs

 

Robert Huth admits Leicester City are refusing to give themselves a target of what they want to achieve as they might find the reality too scary.

City head into February top of the Premier League in a battle with Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham for the title.

Claudio Ranieri's men also hold a 10-point cushion over fifth-placed Manchester United as they look to secure a Champions League spot.

Such a lofty perch is a far cry from the relegation-threatened side Huth joined on loan from Stoke last January, with the club in search of a near miracle to avoid falling back into the Championship.

 

City won seven of their last nine games to secure their unlikely survival and have since become only the third side in top-flight history to be top of the table at Christmas, 12 months after being bottom.

The omens are on City's side too. The team that has topped the Premier League at the start of February going on to lift the title in each of the last 11 seasons.

"The main aim was to stay in the league when I first came," said Huth, who joined the club permanently in the summer.

"We did that and, at the start of the season, we would have taken the same amount of points again.

"We had that already after 21 games. It's a tough one because we haven't really got a goal in terms of points or position, so it's difficult for us to realise what position we're actually in.

"Maybe putting a total on it would tie us up a bit more and make us scared. It's a cliché, but it's only about the next game. We're not looking five or 10 games ahead, it's just the one."

Huth has forged an imperious partnership with City captain Wes Morgan at the heart of the club's defence.

Leicester have kept four clean sheets in their last five games and have let in just six goals in their last 11 league outings.

"It's the whole team really," said Huth. "You don't win a game with two centre backs.

"It's very much a team effort and that's what we are –we're a team. We help each other out.

"It's not a secret but it's a reason for why we're doing well."

That bond is typified in the friendship between Huth and City left-back Fuchs. The two are close mates and get on so well, they even posted a video of them firing footballs at each other.

"There are six or seven players here that speak German," he said. "There's a natural connection when that happens but Christian is a really nice guy and a really funny bloke and I get on with him really well."

Read more: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Leicester-City-NEWS-Robert-Huth-admits-reality/story-28616248-detail/story.html#ixzz3yScumLvz 

Follow us: @@leicester_Merc on Twitter | leicestermercury on Facebook

 

 

 

Who else speaks German? Schlupp, Inler, Okazaki was at Mainz?

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Captain...

Captain...

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Apparently Schwarzer speaks it too.

 

Good call he spent 2 years playing in Germany, Dresden and Kaiserslauten.

 

Kasper and Was are possible, although neither have played in Germany.

 

Inler is from a German  speaking part of Switzerland.

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Captain...

Captain...

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De Laet will speak either Flemish being from Antwerp. French is typically the taught language in schools there.

 

Flemish is close to Dutch which is close to  German, but it is a bit of a stretch unless he has studied German, seeing he has been in England since he was a teenager it seems unlikely.

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ealingfox

ealingfox

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If Schlupp is like he is on the pitch off it, you could see him struggling to tell people his name in German one minute and then engaging in a philosophical discussion complete with compound nouns and a mixture of cases in German the next.

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My Nads

My Nads

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If Schlupp is like he is on the pitch off it, you could see him struggling to tell people his name in German one minute and then engaging in a philosophical discussion complete with compound nouns and a mixture of cases in German the next.

So just before he's about to play a nice cross into the box, his minds switches to quantum theory or something? It all makes sense now! lol

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