This Leicester Life: From little hamsters to the Big Strong Leicester Boys
Beans and little sausages! It’s time for the most-requested interview so far in the This Leicester Life series and the first of the Big Strong Leicester Boys we’ll hear from… it’s Ric Flair.
DB: What’s your first memory of Leicester City?
RF: First game was October 1990. Swindon Town. Two all. I was seven. I'm the youngest of three sons, and I was never really into football at the age of 5 or 6. Both my brothers played when they were 10 and 13, and my dad ran a football team. I was not arsed. I was into things like Sylvanian Families, them little hamsters. I think my dad was a bit miffed. But then Italia 90 was on that summer and something switched with me. I was obsessed, watched every game. Obsessed over Lineker and Gazza.
Anyway, my old boy managed to get me to come to a Leicester game and we were in the Double Decker, top row of the top tier. I was still obsessed with Lineker so there was a danger I’d be a Spurs fan but thankfully, he moved on that summer and went to Japan.
Then from 91/92, from that summer onwards, we went to pretty much every game and what a first season to properly go with Brian Little coming in. Okay, it ended in heartache two years on the spin. But that was the start of it. From then, 2004/05 was the first year we weren't either in the picture for playoffs or in the Premier League or fighting relegation. It was absolutely wild.
DB: We started going around the same sort of time, early 90s. It’s hard to sum up just how bad we were in that period, isn’t it?
RF: I mean, even when we were good we were crap, weren't we and I mean that in the nicest possible sense. Getting to the fourth round of the FA Cup was a massive deal. When we beat Palace and Richard Smith scored, that was the first time we won a cup game in god knows how many years.
Back then, football was horribly scruffy and poverty stricken. But there was almost an innocence to it, wasn't there? It’s grubby as hell now, even though the surfaces we play on are nicer and it all looks cleaner and stuff, but actually the sport as a whole now is probably grubbier. But yeah, it was crap. It was awful.
DB: Do you think that sets the foundation for your expectations for the club because I've always been a born Leicester pessimist. I always think we're going to mess things up. And I get the feeling that you're pretty similar with that?
RF: Yeah, it's funny because I like to be positive. It doesn't take a lot for me to be positive if we've won a game. After we won at Bournemouth recently on that Tuesday night, I was so revved up, I couldn't get to bed because I was so relieved after two defeats. But it doesn't take a lot for the fears and pessimism to come back. By nature I always think we're gonna mess it up. Some people find that staggering because of what we have achieved but there's been plenty of times where we've done the hard yards before we've done any of the scandalous Premier League and FA Cup wins.
We just never allowed ourselves to believe it because we never did it. We won a few league cups, and that was it. As Harry wrote recently, we suit being an underdog or being written off. When we're actually expected to do something, that's when we can’t handle it, whether that’s whoever's running the club or whoever’s on the pitch. And I think that's fine in a way but it obviously isn't great when you're expected to achieve.
DB: So the O’Neill years - they were peak obsession years, early teenage years. You understand what’s going on and you’ve got nothing more important to do than just think and talk about Leicester City the entire time. Was that how it was for you?
RF: Bang on. The obsession with football came earlier than that but the O’Neill years are cemented in my brain when you felt we’d really arrived. We were in the Premier League and actually getting the scalps. Our record against the bigger clubs under O’Neill was pretty damn impressive eventually. I remember going to Old Trafford when Tony Cottee scored, we'd actually lost 3-0 away at Palace the week before, Bruce Dyer hat-trick. Me and my dad always bought tickets weeks in advance and I could tell he was wanting to check if he could get his money back. I was like, “No, no way, we’re going.”
And thankfully we did because what a memory that was. We were on the back row and behind us there were these exec boxes with kids in there giving it the big one and when we held on for the win I'll never forget turning around and my dad was giving these kids a load of stick - and they were crying. That may be a distorted memory but I always say that because it makes for a better story.
Those O’Neill years were phenomenal. We were used to going to Wembley by that stage but winning the major honours too. I think it truly sank in when we actually got into Europe and had those games against Atletico.
DB: You’ve mentioned Little and O'Neill. We’ve also had Ranieri. All those glory years were based on fairly direct football a lot of the time. Do you think the fanbase as a whole is ever going to adapt to modern football, or do you think we're always going to hark back to that as fans? Can Leicester be different?
RF: We've got to be different because football is ever evolving and moving away from that. Even crap teams and crap managers don't really play that stereotypical way any more. But you can see why an element of our fanbase pop back to that because it's raw and fast and honest, even if it's limited. I’m not necessarily saying it's the old guard but… yeah, it’s the old guard… They won't be used to this style of football. Even I find it difficult at times. I want a blend.
We're an unusual breed. We certainly don't represent a typical club that’s one of the 5 or 6 that have won it all in the domestic game in the last 20 years. We're up there with the best, but still how do you get a fanbase overnight to come to terms with deserving that success?
And you can easily pick us apart if you're an opposition fan when we're not doing well to say “God, who do they think they are?” We’ve done the same in the past to Forest and Leeds who haven't won anything for decades. But I still think there's a vast gap in our mentality. And I think that’s showing now, isn't it?
DB: So what about stuff on social media from opposition fans - does it get to you or do you rise above it?
RF: It does annoy me. It never used to but maybe I've got more invested in recent seasons, what with the BSLB podcast. It’s probably a bit of arrogance. It’s what we would do to Liverpool, Arsenal or Chelsea fans in the past and they'd be thinking, you know, do one. Now if you're an opposition fan, the lead we’ve frittered away. It shouldn't bother me, but yeah, it does.
DB: You mentioned about the podcast, which has exploded hasn’t it? What’s that been like, suddenly being a big part of a community like that, where people know who you are and want to hear what you’ve got to say?
RF: Obviously, I know the podcast is well-received, and I've got messages that have genuinely blown me away. I just find it all a little bit surreal. At the end of the day, I'm a very erratic, emotional sort of person when it comes to Leicester, as you will have seen with my posts on FoxesTalk over the last 20 odd years.
And I really don't know what's coming out of my mouth. I very rarely plan what I'm going to say because I would never do that very well. But it’s been amazing. Last season was the worst season in living history and the podcast was a godsend in that regard, because it gave me an outlet to vent with Jack, Jordan and Jake and then also feel like it was a way of being able to speak to the fans and try and take the piss out of it all.
DB: Last season, I found doing the website enormously helpful, and listening to the podcast as well. We could either vent or listen to someone else venting and you could be reassured that other people would feel the same way.
Sometimes in your life, you get out of the social side with football but recently, this site has started to feel like a little community. We’ve met up and we talk more outside of the games. Do you feel like you've achieved a similar thing through the podcast?
RF: I'm glad you said that because it raises the point about your life cycle as a football fan. I don't go to as many games now as I did in my teens and 20s because I've got young children and prior to that, I’d moved away. I only got to about 10 games a season during the Nigel Pearson years and then moved back to Leicestershire the year we won the Championship. But the periods where you really build that emotional connection with the club, it's not necessarily the club that’s making that happen, it's the fans.
It’s ultimately your experiences outside of the football and yeah, I feel with the podcast that if I'm dissecting it with the lads on the pod and with the fans on social media, it still means no less when we lose or no more when we win, but it’s a big thing to feel that connection with people.
That’s why I wouldn't want to give it up. If the podcast ran its course or moved in a different direction, I do think I would miss that. I feel like it’s reinvigorated me. We were doing well under Rodgers but something was just diluted a bit and I started to feel disengaged. There’s something so important about being involved with the collective, which is the fans.
DB: This brings us to the main question I wanted to ask you: how much time do you spend thinking about Leicester City? What percentage of your time?
RF: It would be probably be between 25 and 40% of my entire waking time. I don't think I should be afraid to say that, though, for how shocking that may sound because otherwise I wouldn't be telling the truth. It takes up a lot of my thoughts, but I try to use it as a coping mechanism. I try to use it for comfort.
When you catch yourself, when you start to consciously think about different things, I just start thinking about Leicester because that is an easy thing for me. It’s possibly an obsessive disorder of sorts, who knows? But it's easy to start the cycle of: right, what's happening, who's gonna play, there’s plenty to think about and in between thinking about family and work, it fills all those gaps really.
DB: With the Big Strong Leicester Boys, you've started to do bits around mental health issues, with Lamp and supporting charities. How much of that is part of the drive that you're feeling and the reinvigoration because you’re doing something good on top of talking about Leicester City?
RF: Absolutely. I certainly didn't go into the podcast thinking that we would be able to do that. In the first part, I was just honoured to be invited on to give my two penneth to the point where we were getting messages from people saying that the podcast is actually an outlet for them because they're down or they're really struggling with their mental health and the four of us rattling on is genuine light relief and they can resonate with what we’re saying. Absolutely amazing.
One message nearly brought me to tears because I’ve suffered a little bit myself on and off over the years so I can certainly identify with that. Quite quickly, we wanted to do something more but we’re conscious we’re four lads who don't really know what we're talking about. But if we can, just by being ourselves, try and help then obviously we were so keen to do that. The couple of live shows we've done and linking up with Liam Deacy who’s moved to Lamp has been great. He is amazing.
Doing that means more to me than actually following Leicester and being able to do the podcast. It’s an added bonus but I really, really love it and hope we can keep doing it because even if it helps one person, the solitary and desperate feeling of mental illness is obviously horrible. And if we can help anyone then brilliant because it can feel so lonely.
DB: Fantastic. Okay, so we’ve done the heavy stuff. Let’s end with a story. What’s the worst journey you’ve had to a football game?
RF: Preston away. Rob Kelly era. October time. Hadn’t planned the journey. Back in those days, young railcard in your early 20s, you’d just jump on the train. So me and my mate went off on the train and we got to somewhere between Stoke and Crewe and it turned into rail replacements.
We’d taken twelve cans with us and we were bollocking these tins down. We got on the leg between Crewe and Preston and it was a good hour on the bus. I was several tins deep. Toilet on there wasn’t working. There were a couple of lads behind us who were a bit younger so they weren’t boozing but they had this 3-litre bottle of Coke on them.
So my mate, thinking he was a genius, says I’ll buy that bottle of Coke off you for £20. They said yeah, go on then. He said: “But can you drink it first?” They spent the next half hour barrelling down this Coke. My mate had it for one reason and one reason only, to relieve himself into. He’s done that and then I needed a wee and didn’t have the same facility. I was desperate. I went down to the bus driver and he said there’s no way we’re stopping anywhere. I’m in bits. On the outskirts of Preston, never felt pain like it.
I’ve opened the emergency escape at some traffic lights, jumped out, went and had a widdle. He wouldn’t let me back on the bus so I’ve had to walk miles into the centre of Preston and met my mate, who found it highly amusing. I dread to think what those lads did because they had a long journey ahead of them and they’d had 3 litres of Coke.
We drew 0-0. Awful game. So yeah, that whole day was the pits.
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