The last week must have been one of the busiest of my life! I had a golf day, I was on Sky, I went to Wembley and then there was Leicester’s second leg on Sunday. In the end the “Walshy’s Unbeaten Travel Bus” didn’t go to Watford, unfortunately the turnaround between matches was too quick. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise as it means that my travel bus is still undefeated! I travelled down with Victoria and her son Ollie who I met through my match day travel bus. I am only just beginning to be able to talk about what happened on Sunday against Watford. When we got the penalty I couldn’t bring myself to watch, I turned my back to the goal and felt a massive sense of disappointment when I didn’t hear a roar from the Leicester supporters. I turned back around to Watford’s goal and watched what then unfolded. You couldn’t have scripted that, I’ve never seen anything like it! You can’t blame Knockaert for missing the penalty, it could have happened to anyone. It was a crazy end to a tough game.

I have to say before I move on to more football; being sat in the Leicester crowd away at Watford was fantastic. The atmosphere amongst the fans was unbeatable, they are a different league to any others and it’s brilliant! I’m going to try to go to more away games next year so I can be part of it.

When you look back at the season, overall it has been brilliant, we still finished 6^th above both Nottingham Forest and Derby. It’s been a rollercoaster ride with a few big dips, we scrapped into the play-offs and gave it our best shot. It’ll be a tough loss for the team to get over, but I’m ready for next season. We’ve got some great young players who will certainly learn and get better; there are a lot of positives.

The owners have got a lot of decisions to make about how much money they want to put into the club for players and who they feel confident will deliver success. Who stays, who goes? Only time will tell. Personally I think its key that Kasper Schmeichel stays at the club; there is a lot of speculation about our top players leaving, but those staying at LCFC is the main priority. In regards to new players, I think it’s important that we look at what went wrong this season and fill in our weaknesses with new players and get the balance of strong players right on the pitch. If we can do this we might even make automatic next season. I also think that the key will be to act quickly and not leave action until the end of June when most out of contract players have already found new clubs. This means being sure about who is taking the club forward even sooner and then deciding if there is any budget at all for transfers or if the money for wages is enough to get a squad capable of getting out of this league. Don’t forget as well, that scraping into the Premier League is just a recipe for doing a QPR or Reading, so squad development will also be absolutely crucial.

Although I would love to see us going up at the end of next season, I don’t want to predict anything until I’ve seen exactly what the Leicester squad will look like. I know that people are already predicted play-offs at the end of next season, but I think it’s a bit too soon to be guessing. Anything could happen to our squad over the summer months and the dust has got to settle from our play-off exit.

On a lighter note, the K Kong Events Annual Golf Day was a great success. The Bulls Head, Countesthorpe was the winning team. It was Conrad Logan playing, what a great golfer! We’ve had some great feedback about the day and we supported my chosen charity, Wishes 4 Kids. It was also great to see Gerry Taggart, Muzzy Izzet, Ian Marshall and Matt Elliot. We’ve got another golf day planned for late September; hopefully it will be as good as the last.

A couple of final bits to mention. Firstly, I am going to continue with this blog over the summer months and if I get any bits of gossip I will pass them on unless I get sworn to secrecy! I have such a lot of other projects coming up, they are all worth a mention. I have been told that my blog is now being viewed an average 7000 times, which is staggering, so if there are any sponsors interested out there, get in touch!

Honestly, not a sponsorship push, but massive thanks to Pilot in Leicester who are, in my opinion, now the best quality outfitter in town and their prices are so much better than their local competition so I am adding my own recommendation to their product and service which are excellent. Well done lads, keep up the good work!

Walshy

TIMBER!!!!!!!!

Last Saturday, LCFC smashed their way past arch rivals Forest. The trees fell down one by one and Leicester stole the last play-off place. The God’s were definitely in our favour with the other result’s that came on that day, and just as I said, it was most certainly an “edge of your seat” game. It’s by far the best I have seen Leicester play all season and it made for a match that will go down in history, and I was there to witness it. The fans were awesome, and I was pumped with adrenalin for the whole match. What a remarkable match and a fantastic way to end a frustrating season. At least I got one prediction right as those who read my blog last week will now remember!

Where are the doubters now? One thing’s for sure, the result against Forest brought everyone out to support the lads against Watford on Thursday. I haven’t seen the King Power Stadium that full in a long time and the spirits were certainly high. It was a must win and yet again Leicester pulled it out the bag when they needed to. Nugent has to be my man of the match, purely for his winning goal! Ideally I would have liked to see a two goal cushion in readiness for Sunday, but I’ll take our 1-0. Sunday’s second-leg is going to be tough but our confidence is high, and Watford’s low, and if the fans can show the support they did on Thursday I think we can storm through to Wembley. How fitting would it be in a season that promised so much and wavered in the middle to then end on such a high. The dream is still very much alive!

This week has been massive for me; I’ve darting about all over the place and keeping very busy. On Friday I held a charity golf day, which was a great success, and to add to that I was still running on a high from Leicester’s big win the night before! Today I’m off to Wembley to work at the Man City vs. Wigan final. A very tasty weekend for me!

Sunday I’m off to Watford on my unbeatable travel bus that I have organised for the fans. I can’t wait; I know it’ll be a brilliant atmosphere on the way; and hopefully and even better one on the way back! I want to wish huge amounts of good luck to everyone at LCFC for Sunday’s match, come on, and let’s get to Wembley!

Bus Travel Sunday Watford:
Get on Walshys Unbeaten Bus including a big breakfast (no match tickets) £32 LIMITED SPACES BOOK EARLY
Meeting for breakfast at 8.30am @ Whetstone Golf Club will leave at
9.30am to travel to Watford FC.
The K Kong office is keeping me busy as usual. We are now getting underway with all the final preparations for our Alexander O’Neal, Reminisce tour, 1^st June. If you want any more details on this please see, www.kkongevents.co.uk

Well, it’s here – that all important last game of the official season and what a game it will be against our local rivals up at the City Ground.

Let me say first that all other matches will not matter a jot unless we get a win and it’s as simple as that. The team and the manager will be tested and it is time for them to stand up and be counted. It will be a day for keeping the nerves under control and for each and every one of them to enjoy the challenge. This is what they became professional footballers to do, to play under pressure and show that they have what it takes to be heroes on the day. Thoughts cannot be allowed to drift to what might or might not be happening at Bolton or Palace, these matches are an irrelevance until the 90 minutes are up and the players turn to the fans to see if it is celebration time as they walk towards them when the final whistle goes.

In my career with City, there were many heartaches, many gut wrenching moments of agony as we fell just short yet again. Big games turned on elements of skill as well as dodgy refereeing decisions and more than our fair share of bad luck. But we always gave everything. Nothing was left on the pitch and no one thought that they could have put that bit more effort into the cause than they did. Leicester City never did things the easy way and that won’t change today. But I do expect a performance to deliver on the fans expectations from not that long ago when we were flying high. It might look like a long shot, but football often throws up days like today and we are still in this thing until 5pm when somebody tells me it’s all over.

My predictions have been on the iffy side all season, but I cannot finish without one last go at getting them right. These are todays all important results as I see them:-

Palace 1 Peterboro 1

Bolton 1 Blackpool 2

Forest 0 City 2

We will make the play – offs and start planning for a semi final against Watford. A win over two legs will take us to Wembley and it’s down to just 90 minutes against Brighton who I predict will overcome Palace in the other semi.

That’s when the celebrations will really begin! Come on you Foxes! We never quit!

Walshy

I will start with the cliché – “the table doesn’t lie” after 45 games and the play-offs are now looking a long shot. After a long season of ups and downs, we are now relying on results elsewhere today to leave us with a last match finale against Forest. I have to say that it is now an outside chance only of reaching the play-offs and it is more likely that we will be dishing out the same gutted feeling to Forest that I woke up with today!

I have been saying all season that the club needed strong characters in amongst the technical abilities and last night was another example of what seems to be missing. We played well enough in the first half, but two goals were scored against us, and we never responded with the fire and desire the Manager would have expected. I know the second goal from Chalobah was a wonder goal, and one was pulled back by Harry Kane, but I think we all knew another just wasn’t going to come and the season is likely to end with a whimper and not a bang!

I am not sure what will happen next at the Club, but I will be sitting watching Sky Sports and Jeff Stelling as the results come through and I have never been so keen to see Blackburn and Cardiff get 3 points today!

A final comment about last night is a fantastic well done to The Birch for another amazing effort with his annual charity run!

A night to forget for me was last Friday as I had a tooth out followed by a car accident (not my fault of course) but still feeling it. I will be there at Forest no matter what! Just hope our play-off chances are still alive.

I took part in a Q&A with Matt Elliott last Saturday night and relived some of our memories of playoffs. We both agreed that if we could have one wish it would be for us to beat Forest at Wembley this season – that would be bigger than me scoring the winner v Derby… Well not quite.

I’ve got such a busy schedule over the upcoming months with K Kong Events. Our Annual Golf day is on the 10^th of May and now fully booked and I would like to wish all the teams well. Reminisce featuring Alexander O’Neil is on the 1^st of June at the Leicester o2 academy, tickets are selling fast so make sure you get on kkongevents.com and book soon.

We’ve only got 10 tables left for our Cash fighter night “The Business” featuring fighter between 14-16 stone! It will be action packed night and certainly not one to be missed!

Also Dance 4 the Stars is a dance competition to be held on Sunday the 8^th of September 2013 at the Maher Centre in Leicester for the ages of between 10-16 years. This is an all day event aimed at showcasing the extraordinary talent of young dance groups from across the East Midlands. We have now confirmed ex-Eastenders stars Natalie Cassidy and Ricky Groves and a mystery celebrity to act as judges.

One last thing I’m running a travel bus for the Forest game. Will be doing a breakfast before the game and theres 9 seats left now. £26.50 not including match tickets. To book email steve@legendsuk.com

Between the matches against Birmingham and Bolton, Leicester City managed to concede two penalties in about four minutes! I thought that all was lost when Bolton scored their first goal through a dodgy penalty against Wes Morgan, but how wrong was I? For the first time in a long time, City looked strong, determined and focused.

Going into the Bolton game I was concerned that the result against Birmingham was going to have a big effect on the teams’ confidence. It was a game of bad luck and wrong timing, and I feel for Nugent. It’s the first time I’ve seen him make a mistake all season. I thought that Andy King showed us just how good he is and that forward is his strongest position. It was a tough game for both Nugent and Wood, what I would have given to see them on the same form they were in before Christmas!

Despite a really tough run, the team managed to bring it back, and with style against Bolton. It’s the best form I have seen from the lads in a long time. Not only was there some brilliant football, but spirits were not dampened when Bolton scored two goals. Not only did we get a win, but three great goals; a brilliant penalty from Wood, a cracking goal from Dyer just minutes after and then an absolute belter from Schlupp. Not once did the squad look as if it was cracking under the pressure! It was a great way to spend a Tuesday evening!

The season is now back in our own hands again and the games against Palace, Watford and Forest are just what we need –there are no easy games against anyone and points earned against these three will protect our play-off position. The last match against Forest will be an absolute belter and the coach booking to Wembley is back on again!!

Going back to the match against Birmingham, I had the pleasure of meeting up with big Gerry Taggart and Tony Cottee. It was great to see them back at the club that they served so well and it great to chat about our memories from the club.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of going to Wembley as I was working for the Wigan vs Millwall game. I got to work alongside Ray Clemence, Alan Kennedy, Phil Neal, Luther Blisset and Alan Mcleary. We were working in Hospitality and spent the day mingling with the guests in the Gold Club. From the football I then headed to the Barbocoa, Jamie Oliver’s restaurant next to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London which was a pretty good way to end the weekend.

K Kong is keeping busy with its up and coming events. We have a charity golf day on 10^th May, and there are still some spots left if anyone is interested? We also have our Alexander O’Neal Reminisce Tour coming up. It’s at Leicester’s O2 Academy, 1^st June. If anyone would like any more information about these events, you can find it at: www.kkongevents.co.uk

On a finishing note, I would like to wish Nigel Pearson and the lads all the best for their next few matches! I really hope that they can continue on Tuesday night’s form!

This week has been one of “so near, yet so far” with two wins being turned into two draws in the dying minutes of both games.

Last Saturday saw City travel to Brighton’s Amex Stadium, and let three points slip just three minutes before the final whistle. If only we could have held on a win would have been absolutely priceless! As usual the Blue Army was out in force, we sold all our away tickets and there was a full 2000 fans in Brighton! We looked like a much more determined team, and I think the result was down to having an unlucky last few minutes rather than a poor performance. It was encouraging to see Leicester play like they did and hopefully they can keep this up and scrape a play-off finish.

Then, last night the same again. We created so many chances to put the game to bed but leading 2-1 against Birmingham a last minute penalty threw another two points away. I thought our luck had changed when Birmingham gave us an own goal, and then when Jeff Schlupp put us back in the lead. But a penalty given away by Nugent was put away to give us only the one point. If the season fizzles out we will look at the last few games and say we deserved so much better, but the table won’t lie and the players will need to look in the mirror and ask themselves some serious questions.

Only four fixtures now remain until the end of the season and they are all going be tough! We’ve got a huge fight on our hands and I hope the team are up for it. Only time will tell. I would like to think that we can at least win our home games and maybe get a point from the match against Crystal Palace who are having a wobble of their own. We need to get ourselves into a position so that the last match against Forest is just a table place battle. Nigel Pearson knows exactly what he needs to do and failure at this point is not an option as the pressure mounts.

There seems to be a battle for automatic promotion going on as well. Cardiff has started to stutter over the line and Hull are looking really strong at the moment. Cardiff have a huge goal difference on their side. At the start of the year my tips for promotion were Wolves and Blackburn, but how wrong was I? They are both in a relegation dogfight. I can’t deny this has been an interesting season with a lot of surprises!

I think the owners deserve a few good results for backing the club over the last few years, and of course so do the fans that follow LCFC from week to week. It would be nice for us to once again to be even more proud of being a City supporter!

Last week K Kong Events had its “Evening with Joe Calzaghe”. I know I mentioned it in last week’s blog, but the night was such a success, I’m still on a high from it! Joes such a good, down to earth bloke; and what a legend! He did a great job of entertaining everybody and all our VIP guests really enjoyed spending some time with him after the show. Joe told us that it was the best event he had been to, what a great comment! I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who supported the night and to everyone who was involved in making it happen! There was a lot hard work that went into the night and it clearly paid off! It was such a great opportunity to host an event with the legend himself in Leicester, and I’m grateful that I was involved.

My next event is a golf day 10th May at Forest Hill. There are still a couple of teams available if anyone is interested? If you would like more information you can email us at: info@kkongevents.co.uk.

I think the most exciting event coming up is the Alexander O’Neal tour, on the1^st June. He is being supported by Jazzie B and Heatwave and the gig is taking place at Leicester’s O2 Academy. The tickets are now on sale and you can get more information from the website. www.kkongevents.co.uk

Finally, a big thank you to Veejay Patel for the invite to a fantastic marquee event to celebrate his 50^th birthday last Saturday night.  Veejay has represented his Latimer Ward in Leicester for 17 years and he deserved his celebration. Great night Veejay!

Walshy

Well City fans, players and staff, our whole season looks to be coming to a very anticlimactic end. Unless we can dig deep and scramble to get some results in these last few matches, its looks as though we may not make it to the play-offs after all. I haven’t cancelled the Wembley coach just yet, but the odds seem stacked against us now as we have a tough few final matches. And, there remains a cloud over Nigel Pearson’s head. The owners must be in shock at the fact that we just can’t find a win from anywhere. The gaffer said after the Barnsley match that he would be wielding an axe ready for the next game, and it will be a big test of his abilities to get something out of the trip to the Amex stadium this afternoon.

In a situation like this you need a team of strong characters that pull through and get results through sheer determination, and quite frankly LCFC are not showing these qualities. But having said this I’m still behind them and will support them to the end. I will support Nigel Pearson’s managerial skills and really hope he can pull this around. Surely a season that started so well and showed so much promise can’t just be thrown away! LCFC need to play every game like it’s a Cup Final and look for results. Even getting a scrappy 1-0 win to install some confidence into the players and fans would do for me at this point.

Every person I speak to at the moment has got huge doubts about LCFC and everyone seems bewildered by what has happened. But, we are still in a good position in the league table and I’m not going to give up hope until the maths says we can’t make it to the play-off’s.

Everyone on the pitch needs to show their quality and stand up and fight. If this doesn’t happen we are doomed to miss out. Even if we don’t get into the play-off’s, I at least want to see the team fight so we can end the season with some respect from the oh so faithful City fans who follow LCFC home and away. A sold out Brighton match tells me that they still believe!

On a more positive note, K Kong Events had its “An Evening with Joe Calzaghe” last night. What a spectacular show! Joe’s a top class bloke, and it was a great and well supported night. We managed to sell 400 tickets so the atmosphere on the night was brilliant.

Also, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who came to mine and Muzzy Izzet’s Soccer School over the last few weeks. It was a great success and we had 40 kids on each course we ran. We also had a visit from Andy King, which the kids really enjoyed.

Lastly, I want to wish the very best of luck to everyone at Leicester City. I really hope we can prove to everyone that we can do this!

Keep the faith!!

I’ve made the mistake of writing my blog this week immediately after the game against Millwall and to say I am disappointed is a massive understatement. If I had a cat at home I would have chased it all round the garden trying to give my left foot some frustrated exercise!

Even though we played well, and at times Millwall looked ready for the taking, it was a massive setback to lose Wes Morgan so soon in the game. The only two positives after that were playing with plenty of effort with 10 men for 87 minutes and still making chances to score. However, in the cold light of day when I look at the league table it is still a big disappointment. We are looking like a team determined to avoid the pressures of play-off games and Nigel Pearson will be having nightmares about where the next win is coming from.

Readers of my blog over the last few weeks will know that it is still all in our hands. The fixture list throws up a run in that means we have to turn round our season very, very quickly and there will be no excuses to offer if it doesn’t happen. After such a positive first half and beyond of this season, being in a position of not making the play-offs at least is simply unthinkable. The players have the biggest part to play, and whichever 11 step out onto the pitch they have to earn the right (and their wages!) to be hero worshipped by the best set of fans in this league. I can tell them from long experience that you don’t get many chances to play at Wembley in your career and letting that opportunity slip is simply not an option. Every bit of blood, sweat and tears are a must in these last few games and if they do that, they will have earned the right to wear the shirt with pride. No player should be left thinking “if only” I had done a bit more, tackled a bit harder or left a bit of effort in the dressing room and not on the pitch in the next game up at Barnsley. This will not be an easy game, but it’s not meant to be in this league and there is no doubt that our 11 players will be better man for man than our opponents so we need to make sure we really want a result!

Now I’ve got that off my chest a quick thanks to all involved with our Future Foxes academy week and after clearing all the snow, a great week followed. The feedback was fantastic and if anyone wants to come to our Easter camp at Lutterworth, please get in touch.

Finally, the Calzaghe night is also nearly here, so don’t miss an opportunity to come and listen to Britain’s only undefeated world champion! A few tickets are left, so don’t regret missing another fantastic KKong Events night.

Leicester City Football Club, best goal difference in the league. And at this rate we are going to need it to get ourselves into the play-offs. Our last match against Derby didn’t go quite to plan, despite Schlupp’s brilliant goal. I have said all along that I believe we can get promoted this season, and I stand by what I said even though when I look at the fixture list we have got ourselves into a fairly serious situation. We have to focus on the positives, one of those being we must have the best set of fans in the league!

I am confident that after our two week break we can come back in fighting form and make the most of the last few games of the season. In fact the next two against Millwall and Barnsley really are “must win” games because after that 5 of the 6 games are against teams’ right in the mix with us in the play-off positions. Can you believe that Watford, Palace, Forest, Brighton and Bolton all come at the tough business end of the season. It does mean that our future is entirely in our own hands and I won’t even think about not getting a play-off place. In fact, I am so sure I have now booked a 52 seater bus with Steve Akiens Travel in readiness for the play-offs. Get ready for booking with me!

Nigel Pearson must be pretty frustrated at the moment and the pressure he’s under must be getting really heavy. All the bad press won’t help the situation either. But, I’m a believer that he is a good manager I’m sure that he will be doing everything in his power to regain the good form shown by LCFC earlier on in the season. I’m certain that Nigel is the man for job.

There have been a lot of people asking me the same question recently, “What’s going wrong?” And I think the answer is simple. We have a squad full of technically great players but a lot of them need to learn how to dig deep and throw themselves into the game, there’s no nastiness and we should show more drive. I would say that Lloyd Dyer is an exception to this generalisation and his presence on the pitch against Derby was phenomenal.

The two weeks off for the squad since the Derby game gives them a good chance to re-group before the tough run ahead of us. And I’ve got to mention again LCFC’s last fixture of the season, Forest away. It’s going to be one of those “edge of your seat” types of games and there is no doubt that we will need to get a result there before getting across the line.

I wish the best of luck to everyone at LCFC, we are going to need it. And more importantly we are going to need some serious support from all the fans!

Finally, please keep watching my tweets about the KKong Events coming up, it won’t be long until our Calzaghe night and the memorabilia on offer is simply amazing!

Today is one of those days that you wake up with a bit more of a buzz than usual and then it slowly dawns on you why – a game against Derby County!

All the traumas of the week are beginning to wear off. The disappointment of a defeat last Saturday and the heartache of a late, late equaliser conceded in mid-week against Cardiff and now behind us and we have got to now just look ahead and find plenty of positives about the nine league games we have left this season.

I said in my last blog that Dave Jones has turned his Sheffield Wednesday team into a unit very difficult to beat and so it proved. The Foxes still have a good chance of an automatic place, but it won’t get given to us on a plate and we need to start and roll our sleeves up for a scrap. We are by far the best technical team in the league but sometimes it’s not enough. Nigel Pearson and his team put the result and last weekend’s press talk rubbish behind them and were within seconds of a fantastic win at Cardiff in mid-week. This shows that we have got what it takes and the players have got to show that self-belief in every game from now until a fantastic last game against Forest on the 4th May!

Today’s game against Derby will be a great way to start a run of wins and as you know I love the playoffs for so many reasons, but it really is back to the old cliché’ of taking each game as it comes, and what better than a live game on Sky to get this kicked off. Anthony Knockaert is missing the game for personal reasons but Konchesky and De Laetare back available and we are taking a strong unit up to Pride Park. We need to keep Derby’s Jamie Ward quiet and not give him space in the boxwhere he seems to arrive just at the right time with that small frame of his!

I’m also a bit surprised to see that we don’t have any home 3pm Saturday fixtures left as the final one against Watford has been brought forward to Friday night. I’ve had a good look at the fixtures left and I see good results all over the place for us leading up to that last game against Forest. I predict that we will still be in with a shout of automatic promotion right up to then, and starting today with three points will set it up nicely.

If it has to be a trip to Wembley, I’m sure a WalshyBus will be there if we do it. We need to get behind our players and our club for the final games and I wish them all the best of luck.