We had this piece in The Special last weekend but some of you missed it and it might work as a blog, so here you are:’
Sometimes things happen in the world of football to transcend club rivalries, results or anything else. The death of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the owner and Chairman of Leicester City last Saturday evening in a horrific helicopter accident as he and four others left the King Power Stadium is one.
I’ll be honest I didn’t really take much notice of how Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha ran Leicester City or what he has done for that club and the community around it. However, it would appear he has been an entirely positive influence upon it. No-one can deny that Leicester’s incredible 2016 Premier League win wasn’t one of the greatest football achievements of all time, particularly in a game dominated by a small cartel of clubs propped up by oligarchs and petro-dollars. It was deserved, it was fantastic and it shook the world of football out of a trough of tedious predictability.
But it appears’ Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha had a lot more about him than being able to build a modest club from the East Midlands to the Champions of the Premier League. The manner in which he engaged with supporters, the community, managers and players has marked him out as a very special man.
I’ll be honest I have grown weary with football in latter years. Like many I’ve been worn down by the unhappiness of Newcastle United but looking around the game I’ve only seen stuff I just don’t like. I’ve grown suspicious at the motives of anyone who wants to own a football club. There’s a reason why as the experiences of Blackpool, Leeds, Charlton, Blackburn have demonstrated dramatically but looking at the Glazers at Man Utd, Kroenke at Arsenal, Gold/Sullivan/Brady at West Ham and probably loads more it would take too much space to list.
However, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha seemed to be different. Despite being from a different culture and tradition, Vichai embraced the community in which his football club is based and made practical and significant contributions becoming much-loved in the process. That was evident from the outpouring of affection from those around Leicester who’d grown to respect, value and admire the man.
At the risk of setting off my friends from Wearside and their desperate attempt to paint me as a Mag ghoul delighting in the death of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in order to score points off Mike Ashley, I will, as others have done, draw comparison between the two men. There are some people who can’t see the difference between scoring points and making them but as you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you’re wise enough to understand the nuance.
I’ve no interest in pretending things aren’t as they are. Like some of you’reading this now, my mobile phone crackled on Saturday and Sunday morning with less than generous comments on Mike Ashley and helicopters. This happens a 
lot in the modern world but in the case of Ashley I’ve stood and chatted to otherwise great blokes, warm family men and women ‘ at the match and afterwards who have expressed the wish for Ashley to be dead. Indeed, as nufc.com noted last Sunday, the words to the song ‘we’re having a party when Ashley sells the club’ have changed to ‘we’re having a party when Ashley f*****g dies’. It’s pretty rough stuff but Liverpool and Celtic fans sung it for years about Thatcher and Rangers fans have some pretty unpleasant ditties about Bobby Sands. I’ve heard good people talk idly about hiring a hit man to take him out. Now all of this stuff is the kind of wild talk that comes from people who are really upset at how something they care about deeply is being treated but it does happen amongst the safety of people who know each other well. I don’t expect to see a Go Fund Me page ‘Whack Ashley ‘ Donate Here’ any time soon.
But the fact is Mike Ashley is the polar opposite of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. The death of the Malaysian and the fine words and dedications made to him inevitably mean a mirror is held up to Ashley (and others) and his relationship with the Newcastle United community. I asked the rhetorical question via social media whilst making a link to a tribute to Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha if anyone would find anything good to say about Ashley and his time at United in similar circumstances. That was the cue for my fan club on Wearside to affect faux outrage with two of their most smacked-arse-face fan-led websites and podcasts attempting to lead a pile on by completely misrepresenting my point.
The comparisons between Ashley and Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha don’t score points and aren’t unpleasant. What they do is highlight the potential for good those who own football clubs have within their gift and how those with the same opportunity are squandering theirs. And Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha isn’t alone even in the Premier League with Brighton and Huddersfield benefitting from decent stewardship. I’d also point to Bob Murray at Sunderland who although unable to deliver sustainable success on the pitch did provide that club with a new stadium, training ground, established its previously excellent community foundation and made generous donations to local institutions from his private wealth. His legacy lives beyond many others who have run football clubs.
Ashley has done none of this. There are others who are similar to Ashley too but clearly my focus is him for obvious reasons. Doubtless if this was a Man Utd fanzine they would be writing similarly about the Glazers, who have moved that club way beyond its North Manchester-Salford, Irish immigrant working class roots but I’m sure (I’ve had the conversations, so I know I’m right) with West Ham fans who despair at the annihilation of their club’s culture with the move away from The Boleyn. It just goes on.
So, as the Leicester City community mourn a great adopted son, we curse our luck in having Mike Ashley about which no love or affection will be expressed in these parts.
That’s a bloody shame.
MICHAEL MARTIN ‘ FOLLOW MICHAEL ON @tfMichael1892
‘Recommended Reading: David Conn in The Guardian”Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was an unusual owner ‘ he understood fans‘and Henry Winter in The Times’Too few owners respect their clubs’ traditions ‘ Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha did.
Just an alternative view;
The laughable ‘minute’s silence’ at St James’ Park on Saturday, shouldn’t really surprise anyone, we get told who to remember and how to remember them so often, the whole fanny on is redundant.
Applauding the deceased is a hollow sentiment the ‘football family’ rolled out because they couldn’t guarantee hundreds of thousands of people would remain silent, to remember someone they never knew.
Applauding the deceased carries all the sincerity of a bedtime story from Delroy Grant.
Anyone passing away is sad, unfortunately fatal accidents are a day-to-day reality and death is the common mother of us all. The bank statement biopsy to decide who we do or do not remember leaves me cold.
Maybe we should put a stop to the incessant, inane drivel about dead strangers?
Our thoughts were never with the former owner of Leicester City, because our thoughts are never in one place. If all you’re thinking about is one person you’ve never met, you need to be on a register.
By and large, he was never really in our prayers. We’re a largely secular country and religious intolerance is one of the few things that really brings us together. Saying we will pray for him, is as meaningless as Tommy Robinson – putting a word in with Allah.
We talk so much shite in Britain, God probably ignores calls from the UK anyway.
Perhaps, we need to be nicer to people living in Britain, rather than saying nice things about the dead, to make ourselves look nice.
So rather than Theresa May talking a lot of shite about peace this Sunday, maybe she should stop selling billions of pounds worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia and arming terrorists?
Admittedly, this is idealistic pish from me. As it’s reliant on her giving up hope of another terrorist attack in Britain, that would enable her to consolidate her position, repeal the Human Rights Act and fuel the flames of Islamophobia to distract Britain from the economic depression that is in the post.
I read that the former owner of Leicester City was previously a humble shop owner from Thailand, who made ‘4 billion, primarily on the back of his relationship with the corrupt Thai government.
We are taught to respect wealth.
Yet, if he had come to Britain with ‘4 in his pocket and opened a shop in Leicester, we would have sprayed BREXIT MEANS BREXIT YER CUNT! on his shutters.
Of course I can empathise with the man. I want to leave Leicester as soon as the final whistle blows too.
I’ve given up hope of the media reflecting on such events with any thought whatsoever. Their reaction is so well drilled and unimaginative it operates like a reflex, to chime with our uber-competitive grief culture. They can’t even tell us the truth about who was on board without having to apologise. A strange stance from the media, at a time when Nazis bark fake-news at them every day. Telling the truth would be the logical response. Rather than presenting us with the news through a Walt Disney lens ‘ rich immigrants are great, poor immigrants are evil.
Britain enjoys praising the dead in the same way that psychopaths love attending funerals. It’s the one time we can really let our hair down and feel ‘ our work here is done. A death gives the rest of us the power to judge, but also the comfort that we cannot be let down by the deceased. They can play no part in the story we impose onto them. It’s why Britain loves animals.
But we don’t really care about the fatal accident last Saturday, in the same way that Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin didn’t really give a fuck about dogs.
It’s a desperate clamour to show the world we have some empathy. A bit like Tony Blair wearing a poppy, whilst spooning his granola out of Dr Kelly’s skull.
Of course, I understand why Jamie Vardy is using the fatal accident as an opportunity to show his human side. I would do the same if I was half lizard.
How do you make ‘4 billion in Thailand? I’ve no idea, but I’d imagine having the moral compass of a Congolese warlord, would be a good starting point.
Who am I to talk about moral compasses anyway? I see an advert about disease ridden children in Africa and feel the sudden urge to press 409, to watch a football manager not answer a question, for the seven hundredth time today.
In our defence, we don’t have the time to worry about the fortunes of all the other 8 billion people in the world.
We just aren’t socialised to really care as much as we say we do, about foreign strangers.
After all, a villain from the Far East falling from the sky in a burning helicopter, is the standard cum-shot in a James Bond movie. The bit where we are supposed to cheer. Sigh.
For those making the ‘contrast’ between him and Mike Ashley, they are incapable of joining the dots. They are the same person. Global sharks. It’s fine to disagree of course, but that’s you admitting your politics begin and end with which centre-forward Newcastle United do or don’t buy.
And if you’re a multi billionaire from a country ravaged by poverty and prostitution, buying Harry Maguire shouldn’t be celebrated.
The ‘football family’ should pay their respects by holding a one-minute silence for everyone who has died since that fatal accident. And we’d never have to hear from them, ever again.