Paul Hayward: Leicester helicopter crash a tragic end to football fairy tale

Flowers are placed outside Leicester City Football Club after a helicopter crashed in flames. Photo / AP

COMMENT: A helicopter rising from the pitch to sweep a billionaire owner away from a game was a symbol of how far Leicester City have come. That aircraft ditching and exploding in an adjacent car park affirmed how fragile life and the good times are.

The crash alongside Leicester's King Power Stadium around 8.30pm on Saturday after the 1-1 draw with West Ham was a human tragedy, far more than a setback for a football club. It was life and death, not wins and losses. And the Leicester fans who filed to the ground to pay their respects to the club's Thai owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and four other victims needed no reminding that life cannot be predicted.

Witnesses to a miracle in May 2016, thousands came in October 2018 to observe the brutal opposite of civic joy. Many said they would always remember where they were, what they were doing, when news of the fireball reached them.

Many of Leicester's players and staff will certainly never forget. Kasper Schmeichel, the Premier League title-winning goalkeeper, was among those who ran towards the scene of the crash when routine post-match family time was broken by the bang of crunching metal.

"Thank you for making our dreams come true," read one inscription on a Leicester shirt. Another said: "God bless you and your family Vichai - grateful to you for all you have done for our club. Respect."

The universal theme was gratitude. If Chelsea and Manchester City have since snatched back power, here, on a day of loss, was another illustration of what it meant for Leicester to be champions of England.

One man wore a shirt with the words: "Journeymen, Misfits, Rejects, Champions."

If there was an abiding image of this sad Sunday, it was Leicester supporters approaching the shrine with flowers in one hand and the palm of a young son or daughter in the other. Mothers and fathers came with their children to lay bouquets, Leicester shirts from all eras, soft toy foxes, Buddhas, scarves and pictures in a concrete field of remembrance that was stretching towards the road as daylight faded.

Srivaddhanaprabha's final journey ended a few metres from the ground he bought eight years ago. To some Leicester fans, the owners' ability to soar and leave after games may have felt like evidence that their club had entered football's age of foreign tycoon owners. They liked him for the free beer and donuts but loved him for the English title win; they loved him for Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, N'Golo Kante and all the other heroes of an impossibly happy campaign.

The last time outsiders thronged to this stadium in such numbers was to acknowledge the miracle of that Premier League title win at 5000-1: a triumph that brought hope to the 87 clubs outside the notional top-five of Champions League regulars.

This beacon win for Claudio Ranieri's team was acclaimed across football as a victory for romance over logic, hope over reason.

Sometimes death can be so close. Football knows this, from many disasters down the years. But a billionaire's helicopter is not meant to rise, malfunction, plunge and explode in flames a kick of a ball from the stands. Dreams are not meant to end that way.