NEW!! Why Gordon McQueen Made Me Love Thai Football All The More by Phil Williams: 2020

Why Gordon McQueen Made Me Love Thai football All The More

by Phil Williams

I was something of an autograph hunter in my early teenage years, so I’d like to begin in Manchester if I may. It’s a grey and chilly November afternoon at Old Trafford and United are playing at home to Stoke City. I’m stood on the car-park and I’ve just spotted Gordon McQueen, our Scottish international centre-half, getting out of his motor. Unfortunately, so have a hundred other grubby little urchins, clutching cheap biros and one of those autograph books with coloured blank pages (remember them?) The more organised kids have cut photos of ‘our Gordon’ from the pages of Shoot! Magazine and glued them lovingly into proper scrapbooks.

Gordon looks slightly bemused as he’s surrounded by dozens of adolescents in flared jeans and bovver boots, all demanding a signature. He quickly weighs up the scene - “right you lot, form a nice orderly queue. I’m signing 50 and that’s it”. I looked at the long line of kids in front of me. I wasn’t even in the first 75. Realizing the situation was hopeless, I stuck my autograph book into a tatty rucksack, stuffed my hands in my pockets and slunk away muttering unfavourable things about Scottish football.

When I think about the things I love about Thai football, I recall that Gordon McQueen incident from over 40 years ago, because Thai football is the complete opposite. The accessibility that you have to your club’s star players never fails to give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Earlier in the season, Samut Prakan played at Port FC. I was sat in the away end with half an hour to kick off, when in walked Jaroensak Winggorn, our wizard of the wing and arguably most valuable asset. He’s recently banged in a couple of goals for the Thailand national team as well; the boy is hot property. I immediately leap from my seat and with smartphone in camera mode, ask him if we could have a selfie together. He’s only too happy to oblige so I milk the opportunity even further by conducting an impromptu interview. “Are you injured, Pee Te (his nickname)? How long will you be out for? Do you fancy us to win today?

And then I notice he’s almost visibly shaking as if he’s never had a farang in a Samut Prakan replica shirt invade his personal space in such a bold and forward manner. His answers are short and delivered in low, nervous tones but the ordeal is soon over. I thank him for his time and I genuinely mean it.

Last season, our Brazilian striker, Ibson Melo, was every Samut Prakan supporter’s favourite. Ibson had accepted my friend request on Facebook but I was just one of several thousand already on his friends list. Yet every time I sent him a private message simply to say something stupid like ‘great goal last night, Ibson’, he would reply instantly with ‘thank you bro. Thank you so much for your support’. His responses were always heartfelt regardless of how much drivel I spouted.

I can’t express how much that stuff means to a supporter.

About mid-way through the season, when he had accumulated enough yellow cards to merit a ban, Ibson went one better. As he made his way to his seat in the VIP section of the main stand, he spotted me, did a brisk about-turn and came over for a chat. He actually came over to me!

Now, I know what many of you will be thinking. Aren’t we comparing apples to oranges? English premier league stars to Thai league players? Scottish internationals on Old Trafford car parks to Brazilian C-graders in Samut Prakan? I get that. But they are still our heroes. They’re still the guys we cheer on from the stands and pay good money to see. They may not have home cinemas, full-size football pitches in the back garden, and a Lamborghini for each day of the week. They don’t clamber off team buses clutching Louis Vuitton sponge bags, they don’t have Daily Mail photographers hiding behind bushes waiting for them to rub suntan oil into a busty wag. But they are still our heroes.

It’s not just the Thai league footballers either. Everyone involved with the game seems to have time for you. I was coming out of an early season home match and bumped into the then Bangkok United manager, Mano Polking, who was down at the SAT Stadium on a spying mission (his team was scheduled to play Samut Prakan the following week). He recognised me vaguely from our interactions on Twitter so I politely asked him for a selfie. He put his hand on my shoulder and with camera lens poised, I clicked the button and realised I had left the 10-second timer on. As the seconds counted down agonizingly slow, I cringed with embarrassment, but Mano saw the funny side and just laughed it off.

What would Gordon McQueen have done? I’ll tell you what he would’ve done. He’d have probably said something along the lines of “Och aye, fuck that” stormed off, and left a young boy in tears.