In Search Of A Football Fix
by David Bratton
Just over six years ago, I came to live in Thailand and chose Hua Hin as the destination. I wish I had done it years ago. Anyway, after settling in rather quickly I started looking to see if there was such a thing as a football team here. I had spotted a few people around town wearing a Hua Hin City shirt but try as I might I could not find a stadium in the town boundaries. It was like being in the Freemasons and any attempt of finding out more was met by a wall of silence. After being spoilt in the UK with my love of Manchester United (nearly 50 years) and Heart of Midlothian for the best part of 40, I was not going to give in on the search for this mysterious football club.
I am not sure exactly what happened next but I had joined the local search engine called The Hua Hin Forum - a local forum page with everything and anything going on within 30 kilometers of the town and hidden among the sub sectioned pages I found it. Someone was waxing lyrically about this club and giving details of an upcoming game. It came to pass that the reason I could not find a stadium in the town was because it was not in Hua Hin but Pranburi some 10 miles away.
The stadium - on an army base called Fort Thanarat - was as quaint a place as I had ever seen but I had to surrender my passport or driving licence at the heavily manned security gates and told I would get them back when I left the base. Sheepishly I made my way to the stadium some 5 kilometers within the base. It was lovely. There were posters of all the players all around and some food and drink stalls. I was in paradise. There was a merchandise stall selling shirts and scarves and stickers - but unfortunately there was nothing in the required size. It seems to be a common problem here but it was only a minor setback. I got my 50 baht ticket and entered the covered stand. It was like finding the Holy Grail.
I had no problem finding a suitable vantage point to watch the game and I met a few friendly looking faces - and farang faces at that. I started chatting to this man mountain of a guy and introduced myself. He said - my name is Neal Oliver and you can call me Big Boy. I remembered seeing his name on the Hua Hin Forum and it was him that had been commenting about Hua Hin City. It was the start of a great friendship. Neal and his family used to go to all the games - home and away. It was a breath of fresh air and I had indeed found what I had been looking for. They were a small town team playing in T2 Western Division but even though the club was not based in Hua Hin they started to attract pretty decent crowds – sometimes 5 or 6 hundred.
What has happened at the club over the last few years is quite incredible. We have been through the mill or should that be a mincer. We have seen 2 foreign owners come and go with the ruling body within the club taking a firm grip as soon as money is mentioned but that is only the start of the story. In 2014 Hua Hin City won the Western Division with a very decent team and we all thought it would be a springboard to greater things, but winning the Division does not guarantee promotion. Instead we were to compete what has been referred to a Champions League. The reason for it is that there are too many teams and not enough places in Division 1 to accommodate them so they have to cull the numbers. Unfortunately for Hua Hin City we had a nightmare start with a 5-1 mauling and a 4-0 drubbing and the misery culminated in Prachuap FC getting promoted on our ground. Surely things could not get much worse. But it did.
Failing in the 2014 Champions League ended with what was probably the worst atrocity I’d ever experienced in 50 years of watching football. In the final match, that Prachuap deservedly won, the Prachuap Chairman led the Prachuap supporters onto the pitch to attack the Hua Hin Players. At least one player ended up in hospital.
Hua Hin City took their punishment, and had a player banned for 12 months, were banned from their home stadium for a number of matches, a serious fine etc. Home matches had to be played at Tha Yang for a while. The aggressor, Prachuap, also received significant punishment, which included their Chairman being banned for life from football. He is still to serve his sentence. This is Thailand and I can only guess money talks.
Towards the end of our Champions League 2014 failure, 2 Farang faces started to appear at matches, walking on the pitch, like Michael Knighton did at Old Trafford many moons ago. So, Hua Hin city had new owners again. These guys were full of ambition, and guaranteed success in 2015. They promised players like the Thai League had never seen before.
True to their word, they brought over 3 Brazilians, 2 of whom were brilliant. The 3rd was sent packing after a few weeks. However, the rest of the team consisted mainly of average Thai midfielders. There was also an influx of coaching staff, which meant each player basically had his own personal trainer.
Off the pitch, the new owners were still talking with a lot of enthusiasm, claiming money was no object. They were talking of the new 40,000 all-seater stadium being built near the by-pass. In reality, we got a 3,000 capacity Meccano Kit built in the shape of a football stadium in Khao Takiab. With crowds of 150, this was more appropriate, but we soon realised the new owners were on a different planet. How lonely would 150 supporters be in a 40,000 seat stadium?
Results up to the mid-season break were pretty mediocre to say the least. Hua Hin were about 4th or 5th. The new owners axed most of the first team (excluding the Brazilians) and brought in a brand new squad. They didn’t perform any better.
Then the rumours started. Hua Hin City had bought Premier League TOT. Almost overnight, most of the coaching staff moved to Bangkok, along with some key players. The Hua Hin team became like headless chickens, and results died. Then we heard the money had gone – neither team was getting paid.
The new owners had claimed unlimited funds, the team had loads of sponsors, but we never did hear where the money went.
2016 was a survival season. This was due to the debt from the previous season’s unpaid wages the players were playing for minimum wage i.e. they could have earned more working in a 7-11. Living the dream of being a professional footballer!! Yeah right!!! Actually, a few weeks into the season, the club folded. Some of us actually attended a wake for the club. Then like a phoenix rising from the ashes, within 2 weeks the team was playing at Nonthaburi as if nothing had happened.
The club seemed to now be stuck in an abyss. In 2017, it got worse, the club changed hands and eventually relocated, I think, to a University in Bangkok called Rajapruk, where many of the club's players were university students and they played their home games at a supposedly purpose built stadium in Hua Hin called Takiab Stadium. Neal and I watched the build from Day 1 and our worst fears became reality.
Then, another new owner emerged, a local, French businessman wanted to resurrect the club and bring everything back to Hua Hin. He appointed Sebastien Roques as Head Coach who had a great knowledge of Thai Football from his time at JW Police and a Pattaya team that went bankrupt. Everything seemed to be going back to what Neal and I really wanted to see. Over time new players were recruited and as soon as all the deals were done the powers-that-be at the club could take no more. The club was stable for the rest of 2017.
In 2018, the powers that be felt their grip was being questioned. Things turned very nasty, very quickly. Call it what you want but we knew exactly what their objective was. They forced the Owner out and even tried to wring the last remaining baht out of him. He lost his businesses - a nightclub and a guest house in town and now he had lost his and our football club. It was heartbreaking. Sebastien soon followed but there were 4 foreign players still at the club on season long contracts. The powers-that-be wanted them gone and did everything they could to oust them all. They were subjected to all forms of abuse, non- payment of salaries for 3 months, petty thefts of their belongings, name calling and also a deliberate attempt to knock someone down with a motorbike. You name it they tried it.
Neal, along with his son, John and I had t-shirts made and a flag with the message ''Kick It Out'' on them as a protest to this mis-management of our club. Eventually the players took their case to the Thai FA and FIFA. Eventually they were reimbursed most of their salaries and were allowed to leave the club, something they had refused to do to add to their punishment, and they were able to find new clubs before the season restated. As soon as the last one left, so did we. They handled it as badly as they were running the actual football club. We had to find a new ‘’fix’’!!
Now, about a month before we decided that we had had enough I mentioned to Neal that I had thought of taking a run up to Ratchaburi. It was a 2 hour drive which is not ideal but we decided when we were all free from work commitments that we would go up and have look. The first game was against Bangkok Glass. It has changed our lives. I really did not know what to expect but it was brilliant. We gave ourselves plenty of time to drive up and soak up the atmosphere. It was just like being at an English League game. A beautiful modern stadium, spacious car park - which is free (don't get that in the UK), a brilliantly kitted out mega store and they had club shirts in all colours and all sizes up to 6XL - I was in dreamland and I had a bit of a spend up. I just could not stop myself. We went to the ticket office and purchased our match tickets (140 baht each. and I thought they had made a mistake - 4 quid to watch a game of T1 football surely it must be more than that. But No, it was right. Unbelievable!!!
We walked half way round the stadium to where the very vocal home supporters were congregated and took our seats. We were about 10 rows from the front on the half way line and about 6 rows behind the noisiest supporters I had heard in a long time. My ears are still ringing. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing out. The teams came out and this huge Ratchaburi Mitr Phol flag was unraveled. It covered everybody in our section of the ground and then the drums started. OMG I have never heard such a noise. My body was shaking and I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I was in heaven. I looked across and saw Neal and John. John was screaming something but I could not hear anything and Neal was just standing there open mouthed. He sat down but his mouth was still wide open. Incredible!!! They pulled the flag back so we could see the sky and I realised it was all real - not imaginary. Neal sat speechless for the next 2 hours.
Would the football team live up to this absolute frenzy? You bet it did. Football just like we used to see from the terraces in the UK. None stop up and at 'em style, with a never give up attitude played at 100 mph. It was everything that we had craved to see for the last 5 years in Thailand and we could not get enough of it. There was something magical about it. We looked around after the game had finished and everybody had huge smiles on their faces - except Neal who still had his mouth wide open. He was gobsmacked - well and truly. Then I heard something that I have never heard anywhere in the World - the Ratchaburi fans started singing and applauding Bangkok Glass and their supporters. This really is what football is all about. It was tremendous.
We made our way some ten minutes later to the exit and we had several Ratchaburi supporters wanting to shake our hands and thanking us for coming to see their team, only it wasn't just their team anymore it was ours as well. We were hooked. I could not wait to go back but we had to spread the gospel to our friends and family.
We started to take Neal's car and occasionally mine but we now hire a minibus to go to the home games and when we went to the Police Tero game in Bangkok we arranged transport with the club and so now we can get to the away games as well. It did not take long to spread the word. Neal, as he had done at Hua Hin City, set up a Facebook Page that we have called the Ratchaburi Mitr Phol - Hua Hin Dragons. We had t-shirts made up and a massive flag that we take to all the games and we even have our own car stickers now as well and to get things going on the minibus trips we have hot sausage rolls provided by Neal's son, John, who works at a local shop called Hua Hin Ham & Bacon on Soi 41.
In a very short space of time we have started to show that we are genuine supporters and we are widely recognised at the games both home and away. We have been interviewed by True4U at the FA Cup Semi Final and Neal was interviewed at the stadium by the Dragon Channel but Neal and I were astounded when the Club Chairperson Boonying asked to meet us after the game at Police Tero when she braved the teeming rain to come among the supporters to thank us for making the journey to support the team.
That game will live with me forever. Win and we could be safe in T1 and lose or draw and we could have a nightmare on our hands. We played very well and after Kang Soo Il had converted an early penalty to bring it to 1-1 both sides tried to win the game. With 5 minutes left the rain started and it was the heaviest rain I had ever seen. We continued to play like we had most of the season and with 15 seconds to go at the end of 3 minutes of added on time Kang Soo Il played a lovely ball into the path of Valskis and he slotted it home. It sent the away fans into raptures and I think I jumped around like an idiot for about 15 minutes after it. As a player if you are to score a goal at any time during the game it is surely best to do it with the last kick of the ball.
I think as a football supporter from the UK and coming to live in Thailand and living in a small town like Hua Hin it is very hard to compare the two in fact it is completely different.. The main difference is the actual number of people going to the games. It is a mega business in the UK attracting huge crowds (over 75,000 is normal at Old Trafford) where the quality of the football and the star status of the players is much higher. Here in Thailand, the game is controlled by a bunch of grumpy old men who have no actual interest in football and seem to just make a name for themselves by making strange decisions then changing it back to make it look like they have sorted out the big problem.
Then you have the Thai FA who restrict the numbers of foreigners each team can have - in the hope that more Thai players can step up to the plate - but as I have said the quality is just not there in numbers. At the start of last season I looked at the age of the Ratchaburi players and the first thing I said to Neal is that we need younger players. We had about 10 players over 30 years of age and another 5 or 6 that were 29 - the oldest being 37, so where are all the young players? I spoke to Sebastien Roques, the former Head Coach at Hua Hin, and he said that clubs prefer to select the older players of 25 and upwards. So what does that say about the young players from 16 to say 25? Are they not good enough and how do they become good enough if they are not given a chance? There does not seem to be a reserve league for them to compete in.
Ratchaburi Mitr Phol had a B team that played in T4, but it has now gone - I think, so we have a playing squad of over 30 players and only 14 or 15 of them get to play. Compare this to the Arsenal team that won the League many years ago who won the title with something like 17 first team players during the whole season. Something is not right but the worrying thing is nobody is interested in trying to fix it. The future of the game is with the young players but they are not coming through in sufficient numbers. I have watched a few of the National teams games and it is not that good to watch and you can see they have no real ambition to compete at a World level and are quite happy competing to be the best in Asia. These days, as I have walked away from Ratchaburi FC, I prefer to watch the younger national teams - the U-19 and U-23 sides as they are much more pleasing on the eye.
nb: This article was written before this week's announcement that Mitr Phol would be withdrawing their sponsorship from Ratchaburi at the end of the current season
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