Gerry on cloud nine after Leicester success
Even though he’s a journalist, it was hard for Gerry Hand to find a word for how he felt on Monday night after it became clear that Leicester City would be crowned League Champions in England this season, the first time in the club’s 132-year history.
He settled on “euphoric” . For the Slane man, who has been following the Foxes for almost 50 years, this season has been “all of the words you can think of – incredible, amazing ….”
“The only thing I can compare it to is the day my son was born,” he says.
“Seeing him for the first time is similar – this is the first time this has happened as well.”
His son, Cillian, wouldn’t have any problems with his saying that either, as he is also a devoted Leicester fan, spurning the chance to follow the bigger clubs when Leicester went down to League One some years back.
“My wife had even come around to hoping they’d win – but I think that’s because she wants to see Gary Lineker in his boxers!”
Lineker, a former Leicester player, had said he’ll present 'Match of the Day' in his boxer shorts if the team won the Premier League.
Gerry Hand first started supporting Leicester in 1969, when they were in the FA Cup final, because two young lads from Leicester, Eamon and Barry Lynch, attended school in Slane at the time, and he was friendly with them.
“A local man had emigrated to England in the 1950s, and built up a business in Leicester,” Gerry explains. “His wife died a young woman, and he sent the two lads over to their aunt in Slane.”
Later, in the 1980s, when he found himself unemployed, Gerry decided to take himself off to Leicester to live, such was his devotion to the team.
“I said I might as well be unemployed there as here, and try and get to see the matches.”
He picked up work setting up stalls around Leicester, where Barry Lineker, father of Gerry, ran a fruit and veg stall at the market next to him. He then got work at a warehouse, where trucks were travelling across the country, and he was able to get to City’s away matches too, hitching a lift on whatever route was pertinent.
When he came home to Ireland, he didn’t know what to do with himself between 12 noon and 5pm on Saturdays.
Later, when he appeared on quiz show ‘Know Your Sport’ on RTE, presenter George Hamilton described him as “Ireland’s only Leicester City supporter” on each appearance.
“After the final, they handed me 49 letters from people saying they also supported Leicester City, and that I wasn’t the only one.”
Out of that grew an informal supporters group, which has been less organised in recent years than previous, but will now surely regroup.
Leicester City has gone from being almost relegated a year ago, to topping the points table in the League this year. Tottenham Hotspurs needed to beat Chelsea on Monday night to keep the race alive, but drew 2-2 after being 2-0 up at half time, adding to the drama.
“In Meath, supporters have always been conditioned to think every year that they could be in with some sort of a genuine chance of winning an All-Ireland . In Leicester, we were conditioned that we were never going to win anything!” he laughs.
He says that he had a feeling they could do it this year, after the Tottenham away game in mid-January, and he was at the Swansea game, where he thought they’d do it, and the weekend’s Manchester United match at Old Trafford.
“I was on radio last week, and I predicted they would draw with Man Utd, and that Tottenham would draw with Chelsea. I must be a mystic! I was going to go to the Everton game, but now that the title’s decided, I’ll happily watch the cup presentation on TV.”