Some people hanker for the old days when footballers earned a decent wage and stayed with a club for life. Days when the manager tipped his hat to the chairman when he drove his roller into the private parking space at the ground. No more.

Witness Leicester's much sought after manager, Martin O'Neill, who this week was visiting the city's financial institutions with two Leicester directors in their effort to get back on to the club's board. O'Neill, a chief critic of chief executive Barrie Pierpoint has accompanied former chairman Sir Rodney Walker and club chairman John Elsom at several shareholding meetings. The club fear that O'Neill will leave if Pierpoint remains and are campaigning to have the shareholders throw him and three other directors out of the club. An unusual role reversal given football chairmen's proclivity to publicly support their managers before sacking them three days later.