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Coldplay,
Leicester City and a long walk
on the beach
THE
CUNNING FOX - LEICESTER CITY WEBZINE - 06.07.2008
Leicester City will next season play in League 1, 3rd tier
league football, for the first time in their history. Nottingham
Forest, Leeds, Wolves, Birmingham, Aston Villa, Sheff W, Derby
and Sheff U among others have experienced this as well
But what
will the future bring. I am 44 years of age and has been a
Leicester City supporter since 1972. Things have gone a bit up
and down for the club. It's strange really, everytime when we
feel that things are "fantastic" like it was under Jimmy
Bloomfield in the 70's and Martin O'Neill in the late 90's, the
club stumbles and must rebuild.
I am a music fan as well, and with a new MP3 player and Coldplay
in my ears, it makes things easier. Their songs are great and
you feel that life is great, walkig along the beach with my dog,
great weather and a fantastic horizon. Maybe Leicester City
could be like that some day ?
My wife says that, can you please get those silly thoughts out
of your mind, you can't do anything with Leicester City. Why
can't you just be a normal supporter and follow the football for
the fun of it. But she doesn't understand, this is passion and
obsession maybe.
To be passionate, travel to England three or four times a year
to watch your favourite football team, you must be crazy. Maybe
I am crazy, yes I know I am Leicester City crazy.
Of course it would have been much more fun to be up in the
Premier League, but now it is League 1, and we have to be
realistic. It will be a massive fight for the young squad of
players and the new manager. I just hope for the sake of it that
the Leicester City chairman doesn't believe he can sell all the
best players, replace them with free transfers and hope for an
instant promotion. That is not a good plan and you will be
punished.
The summer hasn't shown any changes in that way and Leicester
City fans must wake up and soon understand that it can be a
heavy task to get back up.
I read all the Mercury columns, The Fox fanzine and all there is
to read about Leicester City. It surprises me how short term all
people are. We all know how Leicester City's good teams always
have been produced, so why do you all believe that throwing out
11 players will bring a good team, it will not and that's why
the current situation at the club frightens.
When Jimmy Bloomfield took over Leicester in 1971, they had just
experienced a great promotion and he got a team full of spirit.
But Bloomfield knew that he needed new players to keep City in
the division. He signed Birchenall, Weller and Sammels for a
total of £ 300 000. Today that would have been signings worth
maybe £ 5 to £ 7 million. They were all experienced players at
the top level and did fantastic for the club.
The next season, David Nish left for a record transfer fee of £
250 000 to Derby, but the money was used for Dennis Rofe and
Frank Worthington. Two other great signings that became "icons"
at Filbert Street. Bloomfield seldom failed in his transfer
decissions.
By the time Bloomfield left in the summer of 1977 he had just
two players left from the team he took over in 1971. Steve
Whitworth was still there, so was Alan Woollett. The rest of the
squad from 1971 was gone. But the team left over to Frank
McLintock was a good one. Mr McLintock ruined everything with
bad transfer decissions and little patience.
City had two good managers in both Jock Wallace and Gordon
Milne, both able to bring City back to the best party during the
80's. City also experienced a bit of success under Brian Little,
but it wasn't before a certain Martin O'Neill came to the club
that we could really talk about success.
City became a role modell for smaller clubs, but we all know
that Martin O'Neill build a team on some very vital key players
such as Emile Heskey, Muzzy izzet, Neil Lennon, Steve Guppy,
Matt Elliott, Gerry Taggart, Robbie Savage and Frank Sinclair.
All of them fantastic signings for Leicester City, except Heskey
who came up through the youth ranks at the club. The rest was
down to great work in the transfer market.
Peter Taylor, Micky Adams, Craig Levein all had the potential of
becoming good managers at Leicester, but bad decissions in the
transfers market, and some strange ideas of non footballing
matters such as were players lived and what age they were, was
taken into consideration and limited the signings of new
players.
I must say that Micky Adams had quality, but he also failed for
impatience and a high rotation of players. I believe the squad
Craig Levein took over from Adams was good enough to get a
promotion, but instead of building on it, Levein decided to tear
it apart, and his knowledge of English football made City a
weaker team under his time.
Rob Kelly just tried to work with what he got and managed in a
way to keep City floating, but he also stopped progress with a
massive rotation in the team and playing players out of
position.
Kelly must be admired for the way he transformed Pat Kisnorbo
into a very good central defender after being played on the
flank by Craig Levein.
So with the history in place, listening to Coldplay and see the
great horizon from the beach, I believe that we all have the
formula for success at Leicester City. Build on the best you've
got, sign quality and be patient. The rest will not work, and so
far this summer I'm affraid that I haven't seen what it takes to
get forward. Hopefully Nigel Pearson will prove me wrong and of
course I hope he will.
TCF !
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