Two weeks ago, Nottingham Forest of League One were beating Leicester City of the Championship in a League Cup encounter. With an upset on the cards, the game was abruptly halted when Leicester player Clive Clarke collapsed with a heart attack.
With no thought to their own strong position in the game, Nottingham Forest agreed without hesitation that the game should be abandoned. That showed a real sporting compassion from Nottingham Forest recognizing that some things come before football results.
So tonight Leicester City returned to Nottingham to replay the match and the second part of this football "sporting" match took place with Leicester not wanting to take advantage of Nottingham Forest's generosity in the first game, Leicester allowed the Nottingham Forest goalkeeper to walk unchallenged up the pitch in the first minute to score and put the score back to 1-0 to Forest, as it was when the first games was abandoned.
When the name of football gets constantly dragged through the mud, when ITV are showing Champions League footballers (particularly the Portuguese side Porto tonight) diving, acting and spoiling a great game, the footballers and the fans of Leicester and Nottingham Forest deserve great praise.
2 comments:
Quite agree ! Well done Leicester City - not words I thought I'd ever say - true sportsmanship and congratulations on your win.
Don't forget Nich the Forest 'gift' of two late goals to City thanks to more great tactical bungling by Colin Calderwood - and in a local derby too - grrr !
I got this news, with a video, from an Italian on-line newspaper, and I must sadly admit that such fair play is completely unbelievable for Italian football. I simply hope that such a fair playing lasts for a long time (at least!) into English football - in spite of business issues - no Cup can honour those players and those teams as the agreement they have reached and applied.
Mauro - Milan (Italy)
Post a Comment