Football is a funny old game

I've been a football supporter for years. I started following 'my club' when I first moved over to England when I was a young whipper snapper of 12 years. Unfortunately for me my first game to go and see of 'proper football' as we had rubbish teams in Northern Ireland.... was Leicester City. Why my parents couldn't have moved to Manchester, Liverpool or London is beyond me!.

Either which way I became a LCFC fan and will be ever more. Over the years the club has had up's and downs. When I first watched them the dreaded threat of relegation loomed to the lower leagues was on the cards and it was only a thrilling game against Oxford that saved us.

After twenty odd years of following the team (blimey I should get a medal) we are almost back to the same position of perilously close to relegation obscurity again. Strange how things have come full circle. Hopefully we will do enough to survive but maybe Rudyard Kipling, that famous of all Leicester fans, summed it up best with his poem 'IF'. I believe these were the original words:

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on Ollie,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance and make them sorry,

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,Or being lied about, don’t read the tabs

Or being hated, don’t listen to rivals

And yet don’t look too good, nor feel too fab.

If you can dream – and not make success your master;

If you can think – and not make intellect your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd still support Leicester all the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you have spoken Twisted by the press to make traps for hoots,

Or watch the games you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build’em up with worn out boots:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one shot at goal

And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your aching soul;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve our club long after the unfaithful have gone

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says - Carry on!If you can sing with crowds and keep your chin up

And at the Walkers keep the common touch,If neither foes nor loving friends can console you,When Leicester are not up to much;

If you can fill each forgiving match day With 90 minutes worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Leicester fan my son.