Thai Football Tales: A Beautiful Madness - Softcover

Riley, Matt

 
9781801504980: Thai Football Tales: A Beautiful Madness
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1801504989 ISBN 13: 9781801504980
Verlag: Pitch Publishing Ltd, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Matt Riley takes us on a fascinating and bizarre behind-the-scenes journey into the weird and wonderful world of Thai football.

Working as an English Media Officer in Thailand, Riley was given unique access, seldom granted to foreigners, to the country's most powerful clubs. Thai Football Tales: Beautiful Madness is a report on his time inside the Thai football bubble.

From spending the afternoon with Bryan Robson in the Manchester United team hotel, to persuading a player stopping off in Bangkok on the way to sign for an A League club to abandon his journey and play in Thailand, no two days were ever the same.

At a meeting in the northern city of Chiang Mai when helping a friend secure a coaching contract, the chairman Matt was negotiating with jumped into a cage to wrestle a tiger. And after interviewing the ‘King of Buriram’, Riley found his every move was being watched – and filmed!

Thai Football Tales is a jaw-dropping first-hand account of a Westerner's experiences in a unique and colorful footballing culture.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Matt Riley worked as a journalist in Thai football for many years, appearing regularly on the Fox Sports Central nightly show beamed across Asia, before returning to England as Lecturer in Business Management at the University of Exeter. Today he writes content for Fair Game Too UK as their Regional Media Manager. His two previous books are Kit and Caboodle: Football’s Shirt Stories and Her Game Too: A Manifesto for Change.

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Lost Connections: A Love Letter to Thai Football

THAI FOOTBALL is maddening. Breweries and
media giants control several clubs, fixing up fixtures
where they essentially play themselves, while staccato
matches of foul play and time-wasting tomfoolery
are overseen by barely competent officials swivelling
fearful eyes to powerful shadows in the VIP boxes.
Dark money and franchise clubs on wheels roll across
the kingdom, leaving forgotten fans to forlornly fall
back into the welcoming arms of the English Premier
League. It seems a saddening spiral of diminishing
returns. And yet. And yet. There is something about
Thai football that infects your blood.
I grew up in the ‘Democratic Republic’ (always run
for cover when a country uses the word ‘democratic’
in its title) of Malawi. The former British colony was
allegedly ruled over by the eccentric Doctor Hastings
Banda. I say allegedly because, officially born in 1898
– although even by his own admission this was a guess –
it was whispered (it was never a wise policy to say it out
loud) that the remarkably sprightly flyswatter-waving
murderous dictator was a lookalike. But, looking back
on our life in this barely functioning but beautiful
country, there is a contradictory magnetic pull that the
head repels but the heart embraces.
This leads me nicely to Thai football. Since
returning to England I’ve been building bridges with
my local club, Exeter City, using the same networking
and leveraging skills that eventually opened Thai
football doors. As a lecturer in Business Management
at Exeter University I cunningly adapted the course to
include the Grecians as a case study and visited the club
with my students. Officially it was to give them insight
into their forthcoming exam, but I was on a scouting
mission of my own. As a fan-owned club, they exist on
financial fumes, so I could see plenty of opportunities
to help them and develop new revenue streams. This
came to nought.
I then contacted the chairman. Over an amenable
breakfast in the city centre, I laid out my business
strategy. The ideas were well received but they also
came to nought. I even offered my services to fill the
vacancy of matchday programme editor as a foot in the
door, but the trend continued. I came to realise that, in
English football, arriviste intruders will be forced out
by the weight of history. Whatever I can offer, someone
else whose whole family heritage has been steeped
in the club’s history can do with more authority. In
Thailand I was often in a job application cohort of one
and, even if other westerners were looking to compete,
I had the twin unique selling points of being time-rich
and cheap (often free).
I enjoy standing on the Big Bank terrace at St
James Park with my friends and often wonder what
it is that stops me from enjoying it more (apart from
the quality of football that’s sometimes on display)
and why I am often scanning around the stadium to
catch the chairman’s eye or see a process in need of my
input. Without Thai football, I would not have briefly
lifted the stage curtain and seen the mechanics of
what went on behind. I would not have the confidence
to know how to do the jobs my terrace friends feel
awe towards.
Don’t get me wrong. My time working in Thai
football was financially ruinous and, at my ripe old
age, I shouldn’t be contemplating another financial
meltdown. I have a sensible job and responsibilities.
But there is something about the beautiful madness of
football in general (and Thai football in particular) that
makes people feel, quite simply, more alive. Securing
an interview with a former AIA CEO in Bangkok’s
business district I expected to be squeezed into the
amenable Dutchman’s busy schedule before being
briskly shown the door. Instead, a man whose day
was taken up with loss adjustment and asset allocation
became animated and emotional about the game he
loved. His company was a big sponsor of Thai football
at the time and he ended the (far longer than I had
expected) meeting with a commitment to sponsor
Thai League Football, the website I was working for
at the time.
We met for lunch a few weeks later. Here I was
with the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company eating
an Italian meal under the Asok BTS train station. He
told me how he was being nudged out of the company
with a three-year, full-salary package golden parachute
if he didn’t work for anyone else. At the time, I was
bringing in precisely zero to the family coffers. And
yet, the feeling I got was that he wished he was
doing my job. That’s the drug right there. For all the
financial sacrifices and time away from the family, I
was building my dream, not following it. I always knew
that it wouldn’t last and we would have to come home
one day, which gave each surreal experience an extra
potency. In my mind, I imagined during each bizarre
experience that this would be my last day in Thailand
so that, when that day came, I had taken in every little
detail of the time before and stored them away in my
mental filing cabinet.
Would I throw in my stable and sensible career to
pursue a highly speculative and insecure position if I
had my time again? Was I right to avoid the oceans of
money to be made as an unlicensed agent of ill repute?
It’s a yes from me. For my wife and bank manager, well,
that’s a different story.

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Verlag
Pitch Publishing Ltd
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1801504989
ISBN 13 
9781801504980
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
220
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Verantwortliche Person
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