[Football] An Irrational Hatred of Leicester City

[Thunder Bolt]

Exactly! The destroyed football by doing what no other teams have ever done and was not punished at all for…oh wait.

The thread heading says ‘hate’ but much of the thread betrays envy. They have won the PL (and since then the FA Cup) on the FIELD, not in the boardroom.

I don’t hate them but dislike them. Envious? No, I prefer my club’s business to be honest and above board.

 

[RandyWanger]

Cheated their way into the league. Tinpot fans, goal music and clackers. Nothing to like.

 

[Hampster Gull]

Impressive club and team

 

[DJ NOBO]

How can anyone not approve of a smaller club toppling the money teams?
They’ve proved anything is possible, and we should take note.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

How can anyone not approve of a smaller club toppling the money teams?
They’ve proved anything is possible, and we should take note.

The problem being that Leicester got into that position by cheating the system to get a free new ground and then once they had done that, cheated their way into the PL by ignoring FFP. One day, if they go down, they will most likely be taken to court by the FL and I hope they are demoted at least another league.

 

[foxedup]

The problem being that Leicester got into that position by cheating the system to get a free new ground and then once they had done that, cheated their way into the PL by ignoring FFP. One day, if they go down, they will most likely be taken to court by the FL and I hope they are demoted at least another league.

If people want to hate Leicester, that's fine. But if you are going to do so, I'd rather you did so based on the truth and NOT what The Sun told. you. I'll start at the top...

"cheating the system to get a free new ground"

We didn't cheat any system, when we got relegated just after building the ground it clearly wasn't part of the plan and we tried to cut our cloth accordingly, we sold £15m worth of talent (huge money at the time) and accepted offers and pretty much anyone else who people offered money for (Izzet turned down a £6m move to Middlesborough as he didn't want to move north).

It was going to be a struggle financially, ITV Digital going splat and not paying us several million we'd have been due was also a huge part of the problem. Money we were counting on was no longer there. When it looked like we were really struggling we agreed with every single creditor to defer payments, reduce payments and extend timescales on all the debt, they all agreed to it.... except one.

Remember Eric Hall the agent, who happened to be the agent of one Dennis Wise. A player we sacked that summer for breaking the jaw of Calum Davidson in a card game. We owed him money for a few transfers and he REFUSED to negotiate terms and issued a winding up order in the courts, that winding up order meant we had three choices. 1) Pay him all the money (he was also suing us with wise for wrongful dismissal.. we didn't have the money), 2) fold the club completely and basically end Leicester as we knew it, or 3) go into administration, to save the club. We chose the latter option.

The administrators took over and the people who had owned the club, never had anything to do with it again (why would they purposely lose control of the club?). The administrators decided, because of our position in the table at the time, that it was in the best interests of the creditors that we got promoted. They listened to offers (Izzet again) but said there would be no fire sale, as promotion got the creditors more money back in the long term.

There had been about 30 clubs go into admin before us, we did nothing different to them. The only difference was the fact we somehow managed to get promoted playing a load of free transfers (a minor miracle). Even the points deduction would have made zero difference if it existed, because we got promoted by a greater points margin.

Now the ground... we didn't get a free ground. If you don't pay your mortgage, who owns the house? You or the bank? The bank do, and that's what happened with us. control went to the bank and they charged horrific rental for the next 10-15 years or so, which saw us fall down to league one. It was killing us until Pearson took over and assembled an amazing team on a shoe string.

The new owners bought the ground back from the bank when they took over https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/21628873.

"Eric Hall, was the creditor responsible for the club going into administration." The Times

"cheated their way into the PL by ignoring FFP"

When the new owners took over FFP didn't exist, it hadn't even been discussed. They were free to purchase whoever they want and spend whatever they wanted. Yes they spent big money to get promoted, but it's a bit of a piss take to introduce FFP and say it starts in 3/4 years when we've just spent a huge sum of money on players, on good wages with 4/5 year contracts.

Sadly the players turned out to mostly be utter shit, and it was impossible to get rid of them. Under Pearson we tried to cut out cloth, selling what we could and not spending huge amounts. There was a marketing deal done, that some in the press argued was iffy. Frankly, I don't know... I doesn't look great. But the league looked at it and said nothing, in fact their disagreement with us was regarding bonuses, young team costs and the like. eg. By getting promotion, about £10m worth of bonus payments became due to players, which ramped the losses up. We argued they shouldn't count.



"One day, if they go down, they will most likely be taken to court by the FL and I hope they are demoted at least another league"
Highly unlikely considering we settled with them. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/feb/21/leicester-settlement-football-league-ffp

The EFL and Leicester announced the £3.1m settlement in identical statements, which gave little detail about the issues considered. The statements made clear that: “In reaching the settlement, the EFL acknowledges that the club did not make any deliberate attempt to infringe the rules or to deceive and that the dispute arose out of genuine differences of interpretation of the rules between the parties.”


So hate away, but do so with some more facts.

 

[foxedup]

How did you find Leicester as a place? You go to some towns for football and think this looks interesting I’d like to come back one day and have a proper look around, I didn’t really get that feeling with Leicester. It reminded me a lot of Wolverhampton, sort of functional but non-descript.

Sadly, most of our history got bulldozed in the 60's. It's a disgrace that still annoys locals to this day really, the mayor is trying his best (despite being a knob) to restore what's left of it and it's definitely getting much much better. I've seen old pictures and you'd think the place was Chester with the stunning architecture that was there... all of it ignored and flattened for horrible square concrete boxes.

 

[sparkie]

If people want to hate Leicester, that's fine. But if you are going to do so, I'd rather you did so based on the truth and NOT what The Sun told. you. I'll start at the top...

"cheating the system to get a free new ground"

We didn't cheat any system, when we got relegated just after building the ground it clearly wasn't part of the plan and we tried to cut our cloth accordingly, we sold £15m worth of talent (huge money at the time) and accepted offers and pretty much anyone else who people offered money for (Izzet turned down a £6m move to Middlesborough as he didn't want to move north).

It was going to be a struggle financially, ITV Digital going splat and not paying us several million we'd have been due was also a huge part of the problem. Money we were counting on was no longer there. When it looked like we were really struggling we agreed with every single creditor to defer payments, reduce payments and extend timescales on all the debt, they all agreed to it.... except one.

Remember Eric Hall the agent, who happened to be the agent of one Dennis Wise. A player we sacked that summer for breaking the jaw of Calum Davidson in a card game. We owed him money for a few transfers and he REFUSED to negotiate terms and issued a winding up order in the courts, that winding up order meant we had three choices. 1) Pay him all the money (he was also suing us with wise for wrongful dismissal.. we didn't have the money), 2) fold the club completely and basically end Leicester as we knew it, or 3) go into administration, to save the club. We chose the latter option.

The administrators took over and the people who had owned the club, never had anything to do with it again (why would they purposely lose control of the club?). The administrators decided, because of our position in the table at the time, that it was in the best interests of the creditors that we got promoted. They listened to offers (Izzet again) but said there would be no fire sale, as promotion got the creditors more money back in the long term.

There had been about 30 clubs go into admin before us, we did nothing different to them. The only difference was the fact we somehow managed to get promoted playing a load of free transfers (a minor miracle). Even the points deduction would have made zero difference if it existed, because we got promoted by a greater points margin.

Now the ground... we didn't get a free ground. If you don't pay your mortgage, who owns the house? You or the bank? The bank do, and that's what happened with us. control went to the bank and they charged horrific rental for the next 10-15 years or so, which saw us fall down to league one. It was killing us until Pearson took over and assembled an amazing team on a shoe string.

The new owners bought the ground back from the bank when they took over https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/21628873.

"Eric Hall, was the creditor responsible for the club going into administration." The Times

"cheated their way into the PL by ignoring FFP"

When the new owners took over FFP didn't exist, it hadn't even been discussed. They were free to purchase whoever they want and spend whatever they wanted. Yes they spent big money to get promoted, but it's a bit of a piss take to introduce FFP and say it starts in 3/4 years when we've just spent a huge sum of money on players, on good wages with 4/5 year contracts.

Sadly the players turned out to mostly be utter shit, and it was impossible to get rid of them. Under Pearson we tried to cut out cloth, selling what we could and not spending huge amounts. There was a marketing deal done, that some in the press argued was iffy. Frankly, I don't know... I doesn't look great. But the league looked at it and said nothing, in fact their disagreement with us was regarding bonuses, young team costs and the like. eg. By getting promotion, about £10m worth of bonus payments became due to players, which ramped the losses up. We argued they shouldn't count.



"One day, if they go down, they will most likely be taken to court by the FL and I hope they are demoted at least another league"
Highly unlikely considering we settled with them. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/feb/21/leicester-settlement-football-league-ffp

The EFL and Leicester announced the £3.1m settlement in identical statements, which gave little detail about the issues considered. The statements made clear that: “In reaching the settlement, the EFL acknowledges that the club did not make any deliberate attempt to infringe the rules or to deceive and that the dispute arose out of genuine differences of interpretation of the rules between the parties.”


So hate away, but do so with some more facts.

Good stuff. I always believed you got the ground for free. Glad you've put the record straight. I lived in Leicester for a while almost 30 years ago. Quite liked it actually. Really liked a pub called The Globe.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

If people want to hate Leicester, that's fine. But if you are going to do so, I'd rather you did so based on the truth and NOT what The Sun told. you. I'll start at the top...

"cheating the system to get a free new ground"

We didn't cheat any system, when we got relegated just after building the ground it clearly wasn't part of the plan and we tried to cut our cloth accordingly, we sold £15m worth of talent (huge money at the time) and accepted offers and pretty much anyone else who people offered money for (Izzet turned down a £6m move to Middlesborough as he didn't want to move north).

It was going to be a struggle financially, ITV Digital going splat and not paying us several million we'd have been due was also a huge part of the problem. Money we were counting on was no longer there. When it looked like we were really struggling we agreed with every single creditor to defer payments, reduce payments and extend timescales on all the debt, they all agreed to it.... except one.

Remember Eric Hall the agent, who happened to be the agent of one Dennis Wise. A player we sacked that summer for breaking the jaw of Calum Davidson in a card game. We owed him money for a few transfers and he REFUSED to negotiate terms and issued a winding up order in the courts, that winding up order meant we had three choices. 1) Pay him all the money (he was also suing us with wise for wrongful dismissal.. we didn't have the money), 2) fold the club completely and basically end Leicester as we knew it, or 3) go into administration, to save the club. We chose the latter option.

The administrators took over and the people who had owned the club, never had anything to do with it again (why would they purposely lose control of the club?). The administrators decided, because of our position in the table at the time, that it was in the best interests of the creditors that we got promoted. They listened to offers (Izzet again) but said there would be no fire sale, as promotion got the creditors more money back in the long term.

There had been about 30 clubs go into admin before us, we did nothing different to them. The only difference was the fact we somehow managed to get promoted playing a load of free transfers (a minor miracle). Even the points deduction would have made zero difference if it existed, because we got promoted by a greater points margin.

Now the ground... we didn't get a free ground. If you don't pay your mortgage, who owns the house? You or the bank? The bank do, and that's what happened with us. control went to the bank and they charged horrific rental for the next 10-15 years or so, which saw us fall down to league one. It was killing us until Pearson took over and assembled an amazing team on a shoe string.

The new owners bought the ground back from the bank when they took over https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/21628873.

"Eric Hall, was the creditor responsible for the club going into administration." The Times

"cheated their way into the PL by ignoring FFP"

When the new owners took over FFP didn't exist, it hadn't even been discussed. They were free to purchase whoever they want and spend whatever they wanted. Yes they spent big money to get promoted, but it's a bit of a piss take to introduce FFP and say it starts in 3/4 years when we've just spent a huge sum of money on players, on good wages with 4/5 year contracts.

Sadly the players turned out to mostly be utter shit, and it was impossible to get rid of them. Under Pearson we tried to cut out cloth, selling what we could and not spending huge amounts. There was a marketing deal done, that some in the press argued was iffy. Frankly, I don't know... I doesn't look great. But the league looked at it and said nothing, in fact their disagreement with us was regarding bonuses, young team costs and the like. eg. By getting promotion, about £10m worth of bonus payments became due to players, which ramped the losses up. We argued they shouldn't count.



"One day, if they go down, they will most likely be taken to court by the FL and I hope they are demoted at least another league"
Highly unlikely considering we settled with them. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/feb/21/leicester-settlement-football-league-ffp

The EFL and Leicester announced the £3.1m settlement in identical statements, which gave little detail about the issues considered. The statements made clear that: “In reaching the settlement, the EFL acknowledges that the club did not make any deliberate attempt to infringe the rules or to deceive and that the dispute arose out of genuine differences of interpretation of the rules between the parties.”


So hate away, but do so with some more facts.

Great reply and thanks for correcting my misconceptions. Perhaps and with the caveat that it all holds true, I will think more kindly of your club now. Still can't stand Vardy though, great player who always seems to score against us.

 

[Surf's Up]

Linda? or Deborah? She was the exception to the rules perhaps.

 

[PeterT]

Sadly, most of our history got bulldozed in the 60's. It's a disgrace that still annoys locals to this day really, the mayor is trying his best (despite being a knob) to restore what's left of it and it's definitely getting much much better. I've seen old pictures and you'd think the place was Chester with the stunning architecture that was there... all of it ignored and flattened for horrible square concrete boxes.

That is tragic. I was actually born in Coventry though moved from there when I was 4, it was the Florence of the North, one of Britain’s 4 great Medieval cities (others being London, Norwich and Bristol) but sadly got bombed and rebuilt like Crawley. There are still amazing buildings left if you know where to find them, but the overall impression is pretty ghastly I’m afraid.

 

[foxedup]

Good stuff. I always believed you got the ground for free. Glad you've put the record straight. I lived in Leicester for a while almost 30 years ago. Quite liked it actually. Really liked a pub called The Globe.

A myth perpetuated by a few newspapers and a few sets of fans I'm afraid.

Will local companies have lost out, yes our course. But the club did everything within it's power to attempt to fix the problem, as it meant the then owners losing control of the club if they didn't. The idea we just shut down and opened up again with zero impact is bonkers.

The new owners have done a huge amount to but back into Leicestershire, millions donated to build a Childrens hospital amongst other things and have done a lot to rebuild burnt bridges.

 

[foxedup]

That is tragic. I was actually born in Coventry though moved from there when I was 4, it was the Florence of the North, one of Britain’s 4 great Medieval cities (others being London, Norwich and Bristol) but sadly got bombed and rebuilt like Crawley. There are still amazing buildings left if you know where to find them, but the overall impression is pretty ghastly I’m afraid.

They are attempting to rebuild around the old city now, we've just got the go ahead for a huge revamp of the train station. They are trying to link the old parts of the city back up with the canals (cut off by the horrific 60's ring roads). In another 10 years it might be really really nice, they've done so much already. The nice areas are really on the other side of the city that you'd probably never see on a match day to be honest, quick visitors for the football face going through some of the worst parts now, ha.

 

[foxedup]

Great reply and thanks for correcting my misconceptions. Perhaps and with the caveat that it all holds true, I will think more kindly of your club now. Still can't stand Vardy though, great player who always seems to score against us.

It's not just you mate, 95% of the football world think exactly the same. The red top papers at the time were absolute scum in their reporting of what went on, The Times reported it correctly and it's all still on the net thankfully, so it can all be checked out.

Then you had managers like Warnock, who bad mouthed us for an entire season, funnily enough because his team were 3rd and he wanted promotion. Lie after lie about us and nobody ever seemed interested in correcting it, just reporting what he said.

I'm not saying the club wasn't at fault in any way, they were. It shouldn't have happened, but there were certainly a lot of things going on that really didn't help us when we were trying to do the right thing.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Talk about first world problems. FFS.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It's not just you mate, 95% of the football world think exactly the same. The red top papers at the time were absolute scum in their reporting of what went on, The Times reported it correctly and it's all still on the net thankfully, so it can all be checked out.

Then you had managers like Warnock, who bad mouthed us for an entire season, funnily enough because his team were 3rd and he wanted promotion. Lie after lie about us and nobody ever seemed interested in correcting it, just reporting what he said.

I'm not saying the club wasn't at fault in any way, they were. It shouldn't have happened, but there were certainly a lot of things going on that really didn't help us when we were trying to do the right thing.

I had a perfectly decent time up there watching The Albion during the brief Leicester Adams tenure and thought your EPL win was tremendous. Total respect for your owner and also the way the club has a decent show of the whole local community inside now, after having been conspicuously white at one point. Keeping the fragile Vardy in the groove can't be easy, and he matches Dixie Dean for service to one club versus country.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

They are attempting to rebuild around the old city now, we've just got the go ahead for a huge revamp of the train station. They are trying to link the old parts of the city back up with the canals (cut off by the horrific 60's ring roads). In another 10 years it might be really really nice, they've done so much already. The nice areas are really on the other side of the city that you'd probably never see on a match day to be honest, quick visitors for the football face going through some of the worst parts now, ha.

I briefly lived in Leicester (for 3months) about 5years ago when I had a summer job in Anstey. I was quite fond of the slightly random mix of architecture in the centre, albeit I should add the proviso that I am quite weird.

Would probably have moved there permanently if not for the misfortune (more for him than me) of my manager falling seriously ill around the time I was applying for graduate jobs, which meant I ended up working in Croydon. There's somewhere that needs building again from scratch.

I was quite fond of the (from memory) Swan and Rushes near the hospital, if only because it had a space suit in the porch and had an interior far more green than any room should be.

 

[Braggfan]

Exactly! The destroyed football by doing what no other teams have ever done and was not punished at all for…oh wait.

The thread heading says ‘hate’ but much of the thread betrays envy. They have won the PL (and since then the FA Cup) on the FIELD, not in the boardroom.

To start with I think the argument that other teams do it, so they're not doing anything wrong is completely flawed. It's an apologist's or bury your head in the sand argument. Lots of people complain about the state of football, and there are plenty of reasons to do so, Leciester's scenario being one of them.

In terms of 'envy', that's just laughable. I'm sure that if you asked any fan of a lower league team that have gone into administration, if their anger at how elite footabll is run is actually misplaced envy, that you would be lucky to get away with a volley of abuse and not a punch.

 

[Durlston]

There was a thread on here, years ago, "admiring" a "fit" female Leicester supporter, complete with photos.

Phoebe Walton, the one juggling her tits while shouting out homophobic comments.

Would smash her back doors in for the Seagulls!

 

[DJ NOBO]

The problem being that Leicester got into that position by cheating the system to get a free new ground and then once they had done that, cheated their way into the PL by ignoring FFP. One day, if they go down, they will most likely be taken to court by the FL and I hope they are demoted at least another league.

Still prefer them to City or Newcastle!
Fair points though.
All that bad stuff has got rather brushed aside in the “romance” of their title win