The accident
Kasper Schmeichel waved goodbye to Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha as he prepared to board the helicopter on the centre circle of the King Power pitch. Schmeichel had members of his family over from Denmark for the game and was giving them an impromptu tour of the stadium. Watching the helicopter take off from the pitch was a regular spectacle.
Schmeichel knew something was wrong almost immediately. The helicopter started to spin, something a later investigation put down to a pin coming loose in the tail rotor control mechanism that caused the aircraft to lurch right, and left experienced pilot Eric Swaffer with little means of controlling its direction. The goalkeeper ran down the tunnel to urge the emergency services to be contacted and sprinted off with a security guard to the crash site. There was nothing he could do.
Kevin Marsh, Steve Quartermain, Michael Hinton and Mike Hooper were the first police officers at the scene. They suffered burns after entering the burning wreckage to try and help victims, and were officially recognised by the club for their bravery.
It quickly became clear that there would be no survivors. Vichai, two other members of his staff, Kaveporn Punpare and Nusara Suknamai, pilot Swaffer and his partner Izabela Roza Lechowicz were all killed in the crash. Swaffer was later hailed for his presence of mind as he managed to steer the helicopter away from the stadium to an area in the car park on the south-east corner of the King Power. With hundreds of staff, corporate guests and media still inside the ground, Swaffer’s actions potentially saved many more lives.
We are all guilty of resorting too easily to hyperbole when discussing football’s storylines. We speak of darkest days, longest nights and impossible highs, the strength of that opinion reflecting football’s role as effective escapism. But occasionally, devastatingly, football cannot escape. Vichai was the architect of English football’s greatest underdog triumph, building a club that achieved far beyond anyone’s grandest dream. He was also a tragic part of Leicester City’s worst day, when nothing could ever be the same again.
The reaction
The flowers began to appear early in the morning on 28 October. Leicester City had arranged for them to be placed at the far end of the North Stand, protected by the wall that juts out to mark the entrance of the club’s official store. They would eventually stretch across the entire length of that stand, bouquets and bunches interspersed with flags, replica shirts representing clubs far outside Leicester and messages of condolence and thanks. One note, attached to a white bouquet, had been written by a child: “Thinking of you all”.
Three things stood out when witnessing supporters attending this temporary memorial. The first was the haunting hush around the stadium. The sight of fans outside any ground is usually the cue for excitement or beery nervous energy. On those first few days, nobody dared speak. Supporters were in tears as they paid their respects but each desired a moment of privacy as if struggling to take in what had happened until they saw the thousands of tributes before them.
Just as striking was how neatly the tributes had been arranged. That may sound a little odd, virtually meaningless perhaps, but this was not simply a mass of colourful flowers and shirts. Stewards were on hand to assist with the process, but every object was placed deliberately and had a few inches of space around it. It created a conspicuous sense of individual gestures given their own space to exist but forming part of a greater whole.
Finally, it was moving to see how many people of Leicester came to the stadium not to leave a physical representation of their respect but simply to take in the vast number of tributes that had been left by others. The lasting legacy of Vichai’s ownership would come later, but here was an immediate mark of the man. They came not just to offer their own love, but to appreciate the extent to which that love was shared by so many others outside the bubble of the football club.
But then we should have expected nothing less. Wealthy club owners do not have to deliberately reach out and connect with their local communities. Their wealth is a connector in itself: you buy players, achieve results and supporters sing about how brilliant you are.
Vichai really was different; it is not simply a mawkish platitude to say so. He saw his mission as reinforcing the connection between Leicester City, Leicester and Leicester’s population, whether or not they were match-going fans or even supporters of the club.
He gave away scarves, food, beer and free away travel to supporters. He threw parties for children at Leicester’s Royal Infirmary and donated £1m to the hospital. He made a similar donation to the university’s medical department and doubled it when providing funds for a new children’s hospital. When the family of young Leicester fan Ellis Page were raising money to fund research into a cure for their son’s rare chromosome disorder, Vichai gave them almost half of their £100,000 target. Footballers often talk about having a convivial relationship with their ultimate paymaster; at Leicester they were genuine friends with the owner.
“Vichai was not just a chairman of the club but a benefactor of the community,” says talkSPORT football editor – and Leicester City supporter – Jason Bourne. Bourne pulled strings at work to be at Leicester’s first home game after the crash. He says that he will never forget the official walk from city centre to the stadium. Fifty thousand attended in the pouring rain, many of whom did not have tickets but simply wanted to connect with their fellow fans. “That’s the testament to how much the fans loved him,” he says.
The recovery
Football never stops. Leicester knew immediately that the best way to honour Vichai’s memory was to continue his work, but that is far easier said than done when your club has been broken in two and there is no instruction manual for how to react.
At Leicester’s next home game, Vichai’s son Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha greeted supporters before the match, thanking them for their support. He laid wreaths on the pitch before kick-off and was understandably emotional during the two-minute silence. He sat in the stands, next to an empty seat where his father would usually be. By any measure, it was a remarkable display of emotional courage.
Top taking over from his father (confirmed as a permanent appointment in August 2019) was the obvious succession, but hardly an easy one. The emotional turmoil of attending your place of work when it was the location of your father’s death is incredibly grim. The Srivaddhanaprabha family would have been forgiven for never wanting to set foot inside the King Power again – too many powerful, wrenching memories. Even if they stayed on as owners, they could have become absent.
And yet Top, at the age of just 34, vowed to take on that mantle. “These developments were all part of my father’s dream for Leicester City,” he said at the time of his appointment. “It’s a dream that belongs to all of us now and it will be my honour to lead the club as we pursue that dream together.”
And how. In February 2019, Leicester City were eight points above the Premier League’s bottom three (and 21 points behind the top four), having taken one point from their previous six matches. The club made the decision to sack Claude Puel and then pursue then-Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers. His appointment was a significant coup for a club in the bottom half.
Rodgers’ tenure has not been without disappointment; Leicester twice fell out of the top four late in the season. But then that regret reflects the rapidly increased expectations that Rodgers has established. Taking the club to fifth twice represented Leicester’s first consecutive top-six finishes since 1929; he also led the club to their first ever FA Cup victory.
That progress has been platformed by Leicester’s impressive recruitment. The owners have allowed Rodgers to spend over £200m on transfer fees alone during his time at the club, offset by the sales of Harry Maguire and Ben Chilwell for a combined £120m. But Leicester no longer feel a pressure to sell; summer 2021 was the first since winning the Premier League title that they have not sold a player for more than £30m.
Off the pitch, Leicester’s plans were no less grand. Six months after Vichai’s passing, work began on a new £100m training centre that is now open and is, according to many inside the game, one of the most impressive complexes in world football. This week, the club unveiled plans to upgrade the King Power that includes the purchase of the former EON site near the stadium. The promotional video – narrated by Gary Lineker – talks of “transforming Leicester’s day and night economy” and construction will create 1,000 new jobs per year.
Leicester’s title victory was one-off. It hardwired the richest clubs in England to ensure that it could never be repeated. But it also opened doors for Leicester City and its community. One astonishing season need never exist in isolation; it can mark the start of a new era, an era only made possible by one man.
The legacy
One of the great tragedies of life is that the legacy a person leaves only ever becomes transparent after they pass away. Leicester – the club, the supporters, the city – never let Vichai forget how appreciated he was, but it is deeply sad that he was not able to witness the progress of Leicester from shock title winner to sustained top-four challenger.
But there are physical testimonials to Vichai’s impact in Leicester. In the south east corner of the stadium, where the helicopter crashed, Leicester City opened a memorial garden that will prolong the memory of the lives lost in October 2018. It contains two plant animals – the elephant (national animal of Thailand) and a fox – and a brass version of Vichai’s beloved dog.
The plants in the plot grow in soil created by the composted remains of the floral tributes that were left around the stadium in the aftermath of the tragedy. Supporters are invited to place flowers in his memory that are collected and used to further enrich the nutrients of the soil. It is hard to envisage a more fitting idea.
At Leicester’s children’s hospital, who were so grateful for Vichai’s generosity, the Children’s Intensive Care Unit has been named after Vichai and the same is true of the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Leicester Royal Infirmary.
But Vichai’s legacy is a movable feast. It lies in every child whose life is saved on the ward that he kickstarted the funding for. It will continue when Leicester’s stadium plans continue the city’s growth as an expansion hub that can belie financial projections in this country. It also sits at the heart of Leicester City’s continual push to be better. When Rodgers gathered his team together before the FA Cup final in May, he spoke at length about feeling Vichai’s presence on the training ground and the late chairman’s pervading influence as motivation for on-pitch performance.
“We all think our clubs are special and they are, but I look at what’s been achieved since the owners’ arrival and it’s nothing short of astonishing,” says Bourne. “Trophies, a training ground, development of the women’s team, expansion of the stadium, gifts to hospitals and charities. It’s a privilege to follow this club.”
On Wednesday, the three-year anniversary of Vichai’s death, Leicester City host Brighton in the EFL Cup at the King Power. At various points during the evening, their favourite chant will start up, probably in the corner of the South Stand next to the away supporters before spreading around the ground. “Vichai had a dream,” is its first line. With him, and after him, that dream came true.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3nrPHFI
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