Andy King knows a cocktail of emotions awaits on Saturday at the King Power Stadium and that his first trip to Leicester, the club that shaped him, as an opposition player is guaranteed to evoke memories. “It is going to be strange,” says the Bristol City midfielder, who this summer assumed a player-coach role. “It will be emotional. I had a lot of happiness in that ground, some sadness as well; Vichai’s helicopter [crash] was at that stadium and that guy changed my life. I’m looking forward to going out on to the pitch and in my mind, for a split second, reliving all of those amazing memories that made me who I am. Maybe I’ll go back out there and have a moment with myself after the game.”
King’s 16-year association with Leicester, which began in digs on Aylestone Road after impressing on trial as a 15-year-old during February half-term and culminated with him lifting the Premier League trophy, came to an abrupt end in July 2020. Coronavirus restrictions denied him the opportunity to say farewell to the familiar faces who helped him on his journey. “The advice was like ‘travel if absolutely necessary’, wasn’t it? So as much as I wanted to go back, me going back to say bye to the people behind the scenes – those who worked in the kitchen at the training ground for 10 years or the stadium staff – it was not essential.” This weekend though, he stresses, will not be akin to a testimonial. “It is not a sort of parade for me to go back to Leicester. I want Bristol City to win.”
King lived the highs and lows of Leicester’s rise from League One to mixing it with Europe’s elite, via the pain of Yann Kermorgant’s penalty miss, the agony of “Deeney day” and, of course, the unthinkable in 2016. He scored on the day Leicester lifted the trophy, when the 5,000-1 fairytale came to fruition. Leicester beat Everton 3-1, with Jamie Vardy – at whose house in Melton Mowbray the players had gathered on the evening their triumph had become official – scoring twice. Andrea Bocelli performed Nessun Dorma before the trophy lift. “Still when I hear that tune, I think of that magical day,” says King, 35 next month. “I have a photo with the man‑of‑the-match award, my medal around my neck and the Premier League trophy in my right hand … what more could you want from one day?”
Then came Leicester’s first foray into the Champions League. “I was a ballboy at Chelsea and I used to wave the flag in the middle of the pitch – the ‘ball’ around the centre circle – to the Champions League music. You’d have to get there early because they would teach you how to take the peg out of the ground, pick up the flag and wave it … To get released by Chelsea and go to Leicester and a few years later be walking out to the music, through the big [branded] arch they put up and watching kids wave the flag, it was like: ‘That was me 13, 14 years ago.’”
In his early days at Leicester, King says, scholars could not leave the training ground until all the jobs were ticked off: filling ice buckets, sweeping the changing rooms and collecting balls. He remembers cleaning the boots of Trevor Peake, the academy coach, and then Stephen Hughes, the midfielder. “You’d get Christmas tips, one hundred quid or something and be absolutely buzzing,” he says, laughing. “The lads who moved from home [to join Leicester] were all in one house so 15 or 16 of us would walk to training. I loved every minute of it.”
King was at Wembley when Leicester won the FA Cup in 2021 and went with his wife, Camilla, to their home defeat against Liverpool towards the end of last season. Vardy, Marc Albrighton and Wilfred Ndidi are among the friends and former teammates who will be behind enemy lines come kick-off on Saturday. It will also be the first time Bristol City’s captain, Matty James, manager, Nigel Pearson, and head of medical, Dave Rennie, return to Leicester’s stadium in a work capacity. “It is going to be weird going back into the tunnel, going left rather than right, wearing red rather than blue,” King says.
Is he looking forward to seeing anyone in particular? “Birch,” King replies, alluding to Alan Birchenall, the popular ambassador widely viewed as the voice of the club. “He’s had some health issues and I’m really looking forward to spending time with him as time with him is always special. But I’m going there with a red shirt and robin on my chest and that is not lost on me because I’ve been that guy in the stand, travelling to away games.”
When King signed for Bristol City two years ago it was little known that he grew up supporting the club. His dad, John, is from Chipping Sodbury, 13 miles north‑east of the city and his parents regularly attend City games. There is a great photo of King, in a gold commemorative kit from the 2000 Auto Windscreens Shield final at Wembley, sinking into the sofa next to his late grandfather, Jon. He remembers his elder brother, Dave, crying at the then Millennium Stadium after defeat in the Second Division playoff final by Brighton in 2004 and watching Dean Windass dent City’s hopes of reaching the Premier League while on a family holiday in Egypt in 2008. Another game – with a happy ending – sticks in the memory.
“Brentford away [in 2003], we won 2-1, Leroy Lita scored twice and everyone piled down to the bottom of the stand to celebrate. My first live game was Liverpool in the FA Cup, 1994. Tinns [Brian Tinnion, now City’s technical director] scored in the replay … I’ve not actually spoken to him about it. Bruce Grobbelaar was in goal – my brother had a real thing about his jelly legs.”
King, who played under his childhood heroes Steven Gerrard at Rangers and Frank Lampard at Derby, and spent time on loan at Swansea and Huddersfield, says: “My brother would always support who I play for. Ten years ago if Leicester played City, I think he’d want Leicester to win … I think.”
So while Leicester will always be ingrained, Bristol City also shaped him. “My brother came to uni at UWE [the University of the West of England]here just so he could get a season ticket at Ashton Gate. Whenever I had a spare weekend, it was always Bristol City. Because my dad and brother were into it, and I followed what they were doing, we had the same sort of emotional rollercoaster as everyone else. That is why coming back here just put a fire back in my belly that I had been lacking since I left Leicester. Looking back, maybe I didn’t deal with the end of that as well as I should have.”
He has kept his boots from the Everton game and a Champions League ball as another memento. For now, they are safely stowed. “It will only be a matter of time until Marley wants to start getting the ball out and kick it around,” he says of his elder daughter, who is two and a half. Piper, born last year, will also be among the family looking on at his old stomping ground. “My kids never got to see me play for Leicester … it will be nice for them to see the stadium where I made a name for myself.”
